To the officers, "paying off" presented a somewhat different aspect. Working, eating, drinking, and playing together for the space of two years, inevitably thrown into each other's society owing to the limits of the ward- and gun-rooms, they cannot but form deep attachments for each other. Only those men who have served a commission afloat can thoroughly realize the meaning of the term "band of brothers".
And now, with the paying off of the ship, they would be scattered. True, they were going home, but the fact remained that some would "go on the beach" for the last time. Officers still in their prime would have to be compulsorily retired to rot ashore, because a conference in America has agreed that there is no longer any necessity for Britannia to rule the waves. For similar reasons junior officers, on the threshold of what had promised to be a long and honourable career, were being politely invited to resign their commissions, the invitation being backed by a hint that if they did not they would be ultimately "fired" as being surplus to the revised establishment.
Amongst the latter was Acting Sub-lieutenant Peter Corbold, a tall, broad-shouldered youth of nineteen or twenty. The only son of a country clergyman, Peter had been maintained at Dartmouth at a sacrifice that had played havoc with his father's meagre stipend; but, by dint of the strictest economy, the latter had seen his son through the earlier stages of his naval career, until Peter was in a measure self-supporting.
Studious by nature and conscientious in carrying out his duties, Peter Corbold not only passed the successive examinations required by the Admiralty during his midshipman days, but gained high praise in his captain's reports. In due course, he obtained acting rank of sub-lieutenant and was expecting to be confirmed as such when there came a bombshell in the form of an official memorandum on the reduction of personnel.
It was not a pleasing prospect. Its nearness became painfully apparent as the Baffin approached her home port. In other circumstances, Peter might have looked ahead and fancied himself in command of a destroyer, a light cruiser, or even a battleship, gliding between those chequered circular forts that rise like gigantic inverted buckets from the floor of the anchorage of Spithead. Now that dream was shattered. There remained but the prospect of "the beach", with a meagre gratuity as a sorry solace for his compulsory abandonment of a naval career.
A deeply-laden Thames barge, beating up on a weather-going tide against a stiff sou'westerly breeze, attracted his attention. Sailing-craft of all sorts and sizes had a fascination for him, and this bluff-browed craft, with her dull-red sprit-mainsail and topsail straining in the wind, made a striking picture as the foam-flecked waves swept completely over her battened-down hatches. The only visible member of her crew was a tubby, blue-jerseyed man, wearing a billycock hat, who stood with legs planted firmly apart at the wheel, happy in the knowledge that the "brass-bound blighters" on the cruiser would have to alter helm—not he.
"Hello, old son!" exclaimed a voice, as a hand descended heavily on Peter's shoulder. "How would that job suit?... Hang it all, man; sorry, I didn't mean that. I forgot."
The speaker was Sub-lieutenant Havelock de Vere Cavendish, a high-spirited youth, who answered readily enough to such affectionate names as "Weeds", "Tawny", "Straight-cut", "Woodbine", or any other term that bore any resemblance to the various brands of tobacco.
Cavendish was nearly twelve months senior to Peter Corbold. In height he was a full two inches shorter, and lacked the breadth of shoulder and massive limbs of his chum. Peter's features were dark, and might be described as ruffled; Cavendish's were fair and rounded. Peter was essentially a thinker; the other was a man of action, with an impulsive temperament. In short, they had little or nothing in common, as far as build, appearance, and characteristics went, but they were close chums.
"Nothing to apologize for, old son," rejoined Peter. "There's no such luck for me—even to the extent of becoming the master of a barge. There's nothin' doin' afloat for a has-been naval bloke nowadays. There are far too many Mercantile Marine fellows on the beach looking for jobs as it is."