"That you, Pember? Follow the next ahead and steer small." The Commander had spoken, the white gleam from his scarf showing for a moment in the reflected compass light.
"Next ahead and steer small, sir." He leaned forward and watched the blue-white fan of phosphorus that meant the stern-wave of the next ship. Low voices spoke beside him, and the telegraphs whirred round and reply-gongs tinkled. Half, or perhaps a quarter, of his brain noticed these things, but they were instantly pigeon-holed and forgotten. He was at his job, and his job was to hold his course on the next ahead. Without an order, nothing but death would cause him to let his attention wander from his business. He heard the sub-lieutenant a few feet distant crooning in a mournful voice—
"How many miles to Babylon?"
"Three score and ten."
The back of his brain seized the words and turned them over and over. Babylon was in the Bible—he wasn't sure where it was on the map though. How much was three score and ten? Three twenties were sixty, and—"Action Stations"—Babylon slid into a pigeon-hole, and he relaxed for a second from his rigid concentration on the next ahead. He straightened up, stretching his long gaunt body, and a suspicion of a smile lit his face. Then he resumed his peering, puckered attitude, oblivious to everything but that phosphorescent glow ahead. The glow broadened and brightened, and he felt the quiver beneath his feet that told of a speed that contractors of three years ago would have gaped at. A vivid flash of yellow light lit up the next ahead and showed her bridge and funnels with startling clearness against the sky. By the same flash he saw another big destroyer on the bow crossing the line from starboard to port. His own bow gun fired at the instant the detonations of the first shots reached him, and in the midst of the tearing reports of a round dozen of high-velocity guns, by some miracle of concentration, he heard a helm order from the white scarf six feet away. The little fifteen-inch wheel whirled under his hand, and with a complaining quiver and roll the destroyer swung after her leader to port. In the light of a continually increasing number of gun-flashes he saw the next ahead running "Yard-arm to Yard-arm" with a long German destroyer, each slamming shell into the other at furious speed. He gave a side-glance to starboard to look for his opposite number on the enemy line—and then came one of those incidents which show that the Navy trains men into the same mental groove, whether officers or coxswains.
The enemy destroyer was just turning up to show her port broadside. She was carrying "Hard-over" helm, and her wheel could hardly reverse in the time that would be necessary if——. The coxswain anticipated the order he knew would come—anticipated it to the extent of a mere fraction of port-helm and a savage grip of the wheel. The order came in a voice that no amount of gun-fire could prevent the coxswain from hearing just then. "Hard-a-port! Ram her, coxswain!" The enemy saw and tried to meet the charge bow-on. There was no room between them for that, and he knew it. His guns did his best for him, but a man intent on his job takes a lot of killing at short range. Two shells hit and burst below the bridge, and the third—the coxswain swung round the binnacle, gripping the rim with his left hand. His right hand still held the wheel, and spun it through a full turn of starboard helm. The stiffened razor-edge bow took the enemy at the break of the poop, and went clean through before crushing back to the fore bulkhead. At the impact the shattered coxswain slipped forward on the deck and died with a smashing, splintering noise in his ears—the tribute of war to an artist whose work was done.
AN "ANNUAL."
A grey drizzly morning, with yellow fog to seaward and every prospect of a really wet day. At each side of the black basin gates stood a little group of men, the majority "Dockyard mateys" of the rigger's party. A few wore the insignia of higher rank—bowler hats and watch-chains. The bowler hats conferred together in low voices, while the rank and file conferred not at all, but stared solemnly out at the wall of mist that cut the visibility in the harbour down to a bare four hundred yards.
Round the corner of the rigger's store two uniformed figures appeared walking briskly towards the basin entrance. Both wore overcoats. The shorter man was grey where the hair showed beneath his gold-peaked cap, while the pale face and "washed-out" look of the younger man indicated that the hospital ship which took him away from Gallipoli had done so none too soon.