The galley, where all the cooking was done, lived forward, and though it must have been painful for Smith to fall on the slippery steel deck on the way aft with the joint for the evening meal, it was still more annoying for seven officers with healthy appetites to discover that their leg of mutton, together with its dish, had flopped gracefully overboard and had sunk to the bottom of the harbour. On one occasion the dish of bacon for breakfast came to grief; whereupon Smith, trusting that nobody was looking, gathered up what remained on the deck, and replaced it in the dish with his fingers. But the eagle eye of the first lieutenant was upon him, and there was trouble.
Besides being the food-carrier to and from the galley, Smith acted as the wine steward in Watkins's absence, was supposed to clean and wash up the table silver and crockery, and to keep a watchful eye upon the table-napkins and tablecloths. It was unfortunate that he poured the sherry into a decanter half-full of port; but he was forgiven, for the mixture, under the guise of 'madeira,' was offered to, and accepted as a quid pro quo by, unsuspecting dockyard employees who had provided the first lieutenant with—well, certain things which he required for the ship. Smith was not pardoned for losing the upper half of an expensive silver-plated entrée-dish, for breaking or losing in ten days no fewer than seventeen tumblers, four plates, two cups, and a butter-dish, or for using the best damask table-napkins as dishcloths or for boot-polishing, for all those articles had to be accounted for. Wooten was also extremely annoyed one Sunday morning when, on going the rounds, he discovered the hairbrushes and celluloid dickey of the culprit, together with one toothbrush, a shirt, six raw and juicy chops done up in newspaper, some emery-paper, knife-powder, and three loaves of wardroom bread, nestling side by side in the same cupboard. No! Harry Smith, though undoubtedly a feature of the ship, and a source of abundant and animated conversation, was not an acquisition.
'Let's get rid of the blighter!' some one suggested.
They tried to, but the only substitute available was a callow, pimply faced youth who, before the war, had been a railway porter.
'Lord!' laughed the skipper, 'if he comes we sha'n't have any crockery at all at the end of a fortnight.'
And so Smith remained.
Augustus Black was a medical student at one of the London hospitals who had volunteered his services on the outbreak of war. The powers that be had accepted his offer, enrolled him in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a surgeon-probationer, provided him with the sum of twenty pounds wherewith to purchase the necessary uniform, and presently desired him to repair forthwith to his duties on board H.M.S. Mariner.
The ship's company as a whole were disgustingly healthy; but Black attended to their minor ailments, cuts, and contusions, packed them off to the depot ship or hospital if they became really ill, held what he vulgarly called 'belly musters' once a month or oftener, and gave them lectures on first-aid and personal hygiene. In the ordinary piping times of peace a destroyer carries nothing but a medical chest containing the simpler remedies, together with bandages, splints, tourniquets, and dressings. She has no doctor, and if a man is hurt or becomes ill he is given first-aid or relief by one of his shipmates, and is sent to the depot ship or hospital for treatment as soon as possible. In war, however, when any ship may conceivably be in action at any moment, and when twenty-four hours or more may elapse before wounded men can see a medical officer, valuable lives may be saved if injuries are properly attended to and dressed on the spot. That was why Black and many others like him had been sent to destroyers.
In addition to his other duties, he acted as wine-caterer for the mess, and, since there was no cabin available, slept on a settee in the wardroom, and shaved, bathed, dressed, and kept his clothes and other belongings in the sub-lieutenant's cabin, or wherever else he could find room. His existence must have had its drawbacks and inconveniences; but, being adaptable, he did not seem to mind them, for he was an excellent messmate, always cheerful, and was not in the least addicted to sea-sickness.
Bonar, the R.N.R. 'snotty,' slept in a hammock in the tiny flat outside the officers' cabins, and where he kept his possessions was always something of a mystery. He had been at sea in the mercantile marine before the war, and, in spite of his youth, was a most useful member of society. He helped the sub with his charts, assisted Wooten with his official correspondence, wrote up the fair log, and justified his existence in many other ways.