stoker that was in the fore stokehold when the bridge was pushed back an’ carried away that funnel. They ducked into their resp’rators, stuck to their posts a’ kept the fans goin’ till the fumes was all cleared away. Nothin’ else would have saved the foremost boiler—an’ wi’ it the ship herself—blowin’ up right then an’ there. Same way, gettin’ on the jump in backin’ up Number 3 bulkhead—the one that was holding back the whole North Sea—was all that kept it from bulgin’ in an’ floodin’ right back into the stokeholds. It was the chief art’ficer engineer that took on that job, an’ it was him, too, that stopped up the gaps left by the knocking down o’ the first and second funnels.
“Even after it at last seemed like we was goin’ to keep her from sinkin’ or blowin’ up, things still looked so bad to the captain that he ditched the box o’ secret books for fear o’ their fallin’ into the hands o’ the Hun. As we’d have been more hindrance than help to the Fleet, he did not try to rejoin the flotilla, but turned west an’ headed for the coast o’ England on the chance of makin’ the nearest base while she still hung together. All night she went slap-bangin’ along, wi’ the engines shakin’ out a few more rev’lushuns just as fast as it seemed the bulkhead was shored strong enough to stand the push o’ the sea.
“Mornin’ found her still goin’, but what a sight she was! My first good look at what was left o’ her give me the same kind o’ a shock I got the first
time I had a peep at my mug in a glass after havin’ small-pox in Singapore. She wasn’t a ship at all, any more’n my face was a face. She was just a mess, that’s all, an’ clinkin’ an’ clankin’ an’ wheezin’ and sneezin’ an’ yawin’ all over the sea. An’ the sea was empty all the way roun’, wi’ no ship in sight to pass us a tow-line or pick us up if she chucked in her hand an’ went down.
“We had our hands so full keepin’ her afloat an’ under weigh, that it wasn’t till four in the afternoon—more’n sixteen hours after we rammed the Hun cru’ser—that we found time to bury our dead. It was like gettin’ a turribl’ load off your chest when we dropped ’em over in their hammocks wi’ a fire-bar stitched in alongside ’em to take ’em down. Nothin’ is so depressin’ to a sailor as bein’ shipmates wi’ a mate that ain’t a mate no longer. Even the ol’ Firebran’ ’peared to ride easier an’ more b’oyant after the buryin’ was over, as if she knowed the worst o’ her sorrer was left behind.
“Luck took a turn against us again just after dark, for the wind shifted six or seven points an’ started blowin’ strong from dead ahead. We had to alter course some to ease off the bang o’ the seas a bit, an’ fin’ly the speed had to be slowed even slower’n before to keep the bulkhead from being driv’ in. But she weathered it, by Gawd she did, an’ next mornin’ the goin’ was easier. We made the Tyne at noon. It was just a heap o’ ol’ scrap-iron so far as the eye could see, that they let into
the Middle Dock the next day, but it was scrap-iron that had come all the way from Jutland under its own steam, an’ wi’ no help from no one save what was left o’ the lads as once manned a ’stroyer called the Firebran’.
“It hadn’t taken long to reduce her from a ’stroyer to scrap-iron, an’ it didn’t seem like it took much longer—time goes fast on home leave—to turn that scrap-iron back into a ’stroyer again. The ol’ Firebran’s got many a good kick in her yet, so they say, an’ I’d ask for nothin’ better’n to be finishin’ the war in her.”
I thanked Melton for his yarn, bade him good night, and was about to start picking my way to my cabin to turn in, when I sensed rather than saw that there was something further he wanted to say, perhaps some final tribute to his officers and mates of the Firebrand, I thought. There was a shuffling of sea-booted feet on the steel deck, a nervous pulling off and on of woollen mittens, and it was out.
“I just wanted to say, sir,” he said, “that I likes the Yankee Jackies very much; ’specially their candy an’ chewin’ gum. I was just wonderin’ if that last stick you give me was all——”