But after the raids, when the inhabitants emerged from their burrows, the small boys and girls collected splinters and sold them as mementoes. The trade was very brisk, and prices sometimes ran high. Bomb fragments—and one could not help suspecting that many of these were manufactured at home in the quiet intervals—commanded fabulous sums. I still treasure a fleeting vision of a British army captain in khaki, flourishing five-franc notes, pursuing a sky-blue poilu down the street in the midst of an air raid. The Frenchman hugged to his bosom the dangerous remains of an aeroplane bomb, a wicked-looking affair painted bright yellow, and filled with some devilish compound guaranteed to kill or to cure. The Englishman wanted it badly, and, being the faster of the two, eventually overtook his quarry, and obtained the relic for fifteen francs. What he did with it I cannot say. One can hardly think that it was received with gratitude by his loving parents, or that it occupied the niche of honour in the hall of his rich but nervous aunt.
But whatever we may have said about bombing attacks at sea, air raids on a town are not the least bit amusing until afterwards. The whistle of a descending bomb is the most uncanny and unpleasant sound it is possible to imagine, far and away nastier than the howling and screeching of a passing shell. Moreover, in an air raid on a town the visitors can hardly fail to hit some one or something, and it may possibly be us.
III.
'The Secretary of the Admiralty announces that an action took place yesterday afternoon between British and German destroyers. The enemy suffered considerable damage, and were forced to retire. Our casualties were insignificant.'—Daily Press.
It is rather galling to find one of the most eventful and crowded hours of one's existence disposed of in four lines of cold print, not even the name of a ship mentioned!
It made the ship's company of the Mariner feel very small and insignificant, and the puffed-up, proud sort of feeling they had when they came out of their first real action oozed from them like gas from a punctured Zeppelin.
Sailors are peculiar animals. They long to frustrate and confound the Hun—that goes without saying; but, having done their best in this direction, they are equally desirous that their friends and relations shall be aware of the fact. Most of the men expected at least to see the Mariner's name in the newspapers. A good many of them, though they would not have admitted it, would have been highly flattered had their likenesses appeared in the Morning Mirror. 'A naval hero who has been doing his bit' would have sounded well as a superscription, though perhaps a trifle fulsome; while further photographs of the 'naval hero's' wife and family, his father and mother, the schoolmaster who had taught him, and the public-house which he sometimes patronised, would also have been suitable to the occasion. But unfortunately the newspapers took no notice of the affair; and, since the censorship of naval news was strict, they probably never even realised that such a ship as the Mariner existed. It was a pity, for, from the point of view of the men and their friends, anything and everything which appeared in the Press must, of necessity, be a fact. If a man went home and said he had been in an action which had never publicly been announced, it was possible that his immediate neighbours might believe what he said. It was more than probable, however, that 50 per cent. of outsiders would treat his story cum grano salis, and think that he had exaggerated. Corroborative evidence is always useful.
To Pincher Martin the recollection of his first action at sea is still a vague and shadowy impression of mingled fact and fancy. He had kept the forenoon watch, and on going below at noon had consumed his usual midday meal with great relish. Then, with a satisfied feeling of repletion, he stretched himself at full length on a hard and very uncomfortable mess-stool, and went off to sleep. He was not the only one; but he had kept the middle watch, so there was some excuse for him.
Towards three o'clock he was suddenly brought back to his senses by the prolonged and irritating jangle of an electric alarm-bell. 'Gawd!' he murmured, sitting up with a start, and rubbing his sleepy eyes; 'wot's the buzz now?'
He was not long in finding out, for at that same moment Petty Officer Casey put his head down the hatch. 'Below there!' he howled cheerfully. 'Tumble up! Enemy in sight! General Quarters!'