The engineering again was not very stiff, for since it is obviously a subject for specialization, only a fairly wide general knowledge was required of us.
I will not enlarge further on a theme which, although of such vital importance to us Snotties, will probably be of little interest to the general public. The written exams. which succeeded the oral occupied four days, and then there remained only to await the results.
From various unofficial sources we soon learned the names of those who had qualified in four subjects—but the navigation was still in doubt. Although I was fairly confident of success in everything else, on this subject I was very nervous, as we already knew that in it four of us had failed, and I greatly feared that I was included in the number. In fact, I became so pessimistic that I laid the odds against myself to the tune of a sovereign, and further promised a friend to stand him a bottle of champagne in the event of my forebodings being falsified. However, on July 31, the official information reached the ship, and to my intense relief I found I had lost my bet.... Never did loser pay up more willingly!
On August 2 the Captain sent for Campbell, our senior Snotty, and after having a final "strafe" at him in that capacity, informed him that he and I had been rated Acting Sub-Lieutenants. Five minutes later Campbell burst into the gunroom proudly sporting on his sleeves the newest and brightest of gold stripes, and, on hearing the joyful news, I promptly dashed off to my chest to don the coat which I, too, had had prepared in anticipation of this blissful moment! Our jubilation was only marred by our sympathy with the disappointment of our two messmates who had not had our luck, and whose promotion was in consequence deferred for another two months.
CHAPTER X
OF SHADOW AND SUNSHINE
The wrecks dissolve above us, their dust drops down from afar ...
Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.
There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep,