"By Jove! it's Christmas Eve, and I'm Orderly Dog till eight o'clock," thought Derek. "What with this wretched demobilization business and officers clearing out almost every day my turn comes once every five days. Well, here goes!"
Jumping out of bed Daventry dressed for the occasion, his garb consisting of a pair of flannel trousers drawn on over his pyjamas, a sweater, sea-boots, trench-coat, muffler, and cap—the last three items served to camouflage the rest for the work immediately in hand, that of being present on réveillé.
Making his way across the parade-ground the Orderly Officer entered the main building. Already the corridors were resounding to the shrill notes of the Orderly Sergeant's whistle and his strident shouts of "Show a leg, everybody!"
Derek had to visit personally twenty-five rooms and satisfy himself that their occupants were really awake. The sentries, too, had to be visited, and their early morning parade attended. These functions completed, Derek was at liberty to return to his quarters and attend to his toilet at his leisure, happy in the knowledge that his twenty-four-hour trick of "Orderly Dog" was nearing completion.
The spirit of Yule-tide was in the air. For days past officers and men had been going off on eleven days' leave, while those who remained were entering into the prospect of a happy Christmas with the utmost zeal.
In the officers' quarters the mess-room was transformed with brightly-coloured bunting, the walls being hung with flags, while the ceiling was almost hidden by chains and festoons of coloured paper. In the men's building each room entered into healthy rivalry with the others, and some of the decorations showed that a great amount of patience and artistic prowess had been employed to transform the usually Spartan-like quarters into bowers of evergreens.
Breakfast over and the eight-o'clock parade dismissed, Derek was relieved of his duties as Orderly Officer, but he quickly found that, even during armistice-time and Christmas week, there is always something cropping up for an officer to tackle.
At six o'clock the last liberty-boat had left, and the depot, sadly depleted, settled down to spend the eve of Christmas in strange surroundings. Derek was about to write some letters when a telephone message came through stating that a motor-boat had just arrived from Stourborough and asking what was to be done with her.
"Sticky sort of day for a half-decked boat to make a hundred-miles run," thought Derek, as he donned sea-boots and oilskins, for as senior officer on the station (there were only seven not on Christmas leave) he had to receive the new arrival and see that she was made secure for the night.
It was both blowing and raining. Pitch dark, too, except for the gleam of the Low Light. The tide was at half flood, and making strongly. Grinding against the pier was the motor-boat, manned by half a dozen hands in oilskins and sou'westers.