Oweth to Cooke his port and his presaunce.
Wherbye it cometh past disputison[[16]]
Cookes over alle men have dominion,
Which follow them as schippe her gouvernail[[17]]
Enoff of wordes—beginneth heere my tale:—
A FLIGHT OF FACT
Most of this tale actually happened during the War about the year 1916 or 1917 but it was much funnier as I heard it told by an English Naval officer than it is as I have written it from memory. It shows, what one always believed was true, that there is nothing that cannot happen in the Navy.
H. M. S. Gardenia (we will take her name from the Herbaceous Border which belonged to the sloops, though she was a destroyer by profession) came quietly back to her berth some time after midnight, and disturbed half a dozen of her sisters as she settled down. They all talked about it next morning, especially Phlox and Stephanotis, her left- and right-hand neighbours in the big basin on the east coast of England, that was crowded with destroyers.
But the soul of the Gardenia—Lieutenant-in-Command H. R. Duckett—was lifted far above insults. What he had done during his last trip had been well done. Vastly more important—Gardenia was in for a boiler-clean—which meant four days’ leave for her commanding officer.
“Where did you get that fender from, you dock-yard burglar?” Stephanotis clamoured over his rail, for Gardenia was wearing a large coir-matting fender, evidently fresh from store, over her rail. It creaked with newness. “You common thief of the beach, where did you find that new fender?”