THROUGH AN ADMIRALTY
WINDOW.
The room was exactly the same as any room in any Government building, except that the Naval observer would have at once noticed one fact—that the furniture was of the unchanging Admiralty pattern. The roll-top desk, the chairs, and even the lamp-shades, would have been to him familiar friends. They were certainly familiar to the Post-Captain who sat at the desk. Captain Henry Ranson had been a noted Commander before his retirement—a man of whom many tales, both true and apocryphal, still circulated when Senior Officers of the Fleet forgathered at the lunch intervals of Courts-Martial and Inquiries. He had little opportunity in his present War appointment to display any of the characteristics on which his Sagas had been based, for neither seamanship, daring, or, well—Independent Initiative, were quite in keeping with the routine of an Admiralty Office.
To-day he was feeling the claustrophobia of London more acutely than usual. The sun was shining through the big window across the room, and he wanted to rise and look out at the blue sky and white cloud-tufts that he knew to be showing over the buildings across the Horse Guards Parade. His desk gave him no view through the window—he knew the weakness of his powers of concentration on his eternal paper work too well to have allowed himself such a distraction; but as the door opened to admit his clerk—a firm and earnest civilian with the zeal of monastic officialdom shining through his spectacles—he rose abruptly and moved out into the sunlight glare.
"Yes, Collins? What is it?"
"A small matter, sir, which is not quite in order. If you will glance through this you will no doubt agree with me."
The Captain took the sheets from the clerk's outstretched hand and moved a little away from the glaring light to read.
Sir,—I have the honour to bring to your notice the conduct of Skipper A. P. Marsh, of the Admiralty tug Annie Laurie, on the 22nd-23rd November 1917, and I beg to recommend him for decoration in view of the following facts:—
On November 21st, 1917, the steamer Makalaka, homeward bound with corn, was shelled by a U-boat when near the Irish coast. The enemy was dealt with by a patrol in the vicinity, but the Makalaka, proceeding east at full speed in accordance with instructions, was thrown out of her reckoning by a damaged compass, and found herself at dusk on a lee shore off the Galway coast, with her shaft broken (a result of shell damage which had not been realised to be serious at the time it was incurred). Skipper Marsh, seeing her flares from his patrol to seaward, most gallantly closed her and took her in tow in a rising N.W. gale. In view of the probability of the attempt to tow failing, the crew of the Makalaka were taken aboard the tug, but the towing was continued through a full gale lasting twenty-four hours until the ship was out of danger.—I have the honour to be, sir, &c.