“Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string admiral,” he said, yawning. “Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?”
As a preparation for naval manœuvres these councils seemed inadequate. I followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the big lumber-ship’s side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that No. 267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels—soft, for they gave as I touched them.
“More prima facie evidence. You runs a rope fore an’ aft, an’ you erects perpendick-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane hoops, thus ’avin’ as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o’ command, up they go like a pair of concertinas, an’ consequently collapses equally ’andy when requisite. Comin’ aft we shall doubtless overtake the Dawlish bathin’-machine proprietor fittin’ on her bustle.”
Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group at the stern.
“None of us who ain’t built that way can be destroyers, but we can look as near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a Thorneycroft boat, which we are not, comes out in a pretty bulge, totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on the other ’and, Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn, and A-frite—Red Fleet dee-stroyers, with ’oom we hope to consort later on terms o’ perfect equality—are Thorneycrofts, an’ carry that Grecian bend which we are now adjustin’ to our arriere-pensée—as the French would put it—by means of painted canvas an’ iron rods bent as requisite. Between you an’ me an’ Frankie, we are the Gnome, now in the Fleet Reserve at Pompey—Portsmouth, I should say.”
“The first sea will carry it all away,” said Moorshed, leaning gloomily outboard, “but it will do for the present.”
“We’ve a lot of prima facie evidence about us,” Mr. Pyecroft went on. “A first-class torpedo boat sits lower in the water than a destroyer. Hence we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas wash-streak to represent extra freeboard; at the same time paddin’ out the cover of the forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder, an’ variously fakin’ up the bows of ’er. As you might say, we’ve took thought an’ added a cubic to our stature. It’s our len’th that sugars us. A ’undred an’ forty feet, which is our len’th into two ’undred and ten, which is about the Gnome’s, leaves seventy feet over, which we haven’t got.”
“Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?” I asked.
“In spots, you might say—yes; though we all contributed to make up deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin’ for further Navy after what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity.”
“What the dickens are we going to do?”