“I belong to Blue Fleet, Sir. I command Number Two Six Seven,” said Moorshed, and Captain Planke was dumb. “Have you such a thing as a frame-plan of the Cryptic aboard?” He spoke with winning politeness as he opened a small and neatly folded paper.
“I have, sir.” The little man’s face was working with passion.
“Ah! Then I shall be able to show you precisely where you were torpedoed last night in”—he consulted the paper with one finely arched eyebrow—“in nine places. And since the Devolution is, I understand, a sister ship”—he bowed slightly toward Caplain Malan—“the same plan——”
I had followed the clear precision of each word with a dumb amazement which seemed to leave my mind abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan’s eye turn from Moorshed and seek that of the Cryptic’s commander. And he telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: “My dear friend and brother officer, I know Panke; you know Panke; we know Panke—good little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke will make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things straight, unless you who are a man of tact and discernment——”
“Carry on.” The Commander’s order supplied the unspoken word. The cruiser boiled about her business around us; watch and watch officers together, up to the limit of noise permissible. I saw Captain Malan turn to his senior.
“Come to my cabin!” said Panke gratingly, and led the way. Pyecroft and I stayed still.
“It’s all right,” said Pyecroft. “They daren’t leave us loose aboard for one revolution,” and I knew that he had seen what I had seen.
“You, too!” said Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the sentry between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since that Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from curiosity, I winked at him. We entered the chintz-adorned, photo-speckled, brass-fendered, tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with a ruler, was demonstrating before the frame-plan of H.M.S. Cryptic.
“—making nine stencils in all of my initials G.M.,” I heard him say. “Further, you will find attached to your rudder, and you, too, Sir”—he bowed to Captain Malan yet again—“one fourteen-inch Mark IV practice torpedo, as issued to first-class torpedo-boats, properly buoyed. I have sent full particulars by telegraph to the umpires, and have requested them to judge on the facts as they—appear.” He nodded through the large window to the stencilled Devolution awink with brass work in the morning sun, and ceased.
Captain Panke faced us. I remembered that this was only play, and caught myself wondering with what keener agony comes the real defeat.