Traffics and Discoveries
by
Rudyard Kipling
Part 2 out of 6
Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.
_News!_
By the fires of the camps--now--now--where the travellers meet
Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,
_They_ beat (among the packmen and the drivers)
_"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud_!"
Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand!
_News!_
Under the shadow of the border-peels--now--now--now!
In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,
_They_ beat (among the rifles and the riders)
_"Nimrud--ah Nimrud!
Shall we go up against Nimrud_?"
Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand?
_News!_
Bring out the heaps of grain--open the account-books again!
Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest!
Eat and lie under the trees--pitch the police-guarded fair-grounds,
O dancers!
Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch-towers!
_They_ beat (among all the peoples)
_"Now--now--now!
God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!
God has given Victory to Nimrud!"
Let us abide under Nimrud_!"
O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!
A SAHIBS' WAR
Pass? Pass? Pass? I have one pass already, allowing me to go by the _rêl_
from Kroonstadt to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are, where I am to be
paid off, and whence I return to India. I am a--trooper of the Gurgaon
Rissala (cavalry regiment), the One Hundred and Forty-first Punjab
Cavalry, Do not herd me with these black Kaffirs. I am a Sikh--a trooper
of the State. The Lieutenant-Sahib does not understand my talk? Is there
_any_ Sahib on the train who will interpret for a trooper of the Gurgaon
Rissala going about his business in this devil's devising of a country,
where there is no flour, no oil, no spice, no red pepper, and no respect
paid to a Sikh? Is there no help?... God be thanked, here is such a Sahib!
Protector of the Poor! Heaven-born! Tell the young Lieutenant-Sahib that
my name is Umr Singh; I am--I was servant to Kurban Sahib, now dead; and I
have a pass to go to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are. Do not let him
herd me with these black Kaffirs!... Yes, I will sit by this truck till
the Heaven-born has explained the matter to the young Lieutenant-Sahib who
does not understand our tongue.
* * * * *
What orders? The young Lieutenant-Sahib will not detain me? Good! I go
down to Eshtellenbosch by the next _terain_? Good! I go with the Heaven-
born? Good! Then for this day I am the Heaven-born's servant. Will the
Heaven-born bring the honour of his presence to a seat? Here is an empty
truck; I will spread my blanket over one corner thus--for the sun is hot,
though not so hot as our Punjab in May. I will prop it up thus, and I will
arrange this hay thus, so the Presence can sit at ease till God sends us a
_terain_ for Eshtellenbosch....
The Presence knows the Punjab? Lahore? Amritzar? Attaree, belike? My
village is north over the fields three miles from Attaree, near the big
white house which was copied from a certain place of the Great Queen's by
--by--I have forgotten the name. Can the Presence recall it? Sirdar Dyal
Singh Attareewalla! Yes, that is the very man; but how does the Presence
know? Born and bred in Hind, was he? O-o-oh! This is quite a different
matter. The Sahib's nurse was a Surtee woman from the Bombay side? That
was a pity. She should have been an up-country wench; for those make stout
nurses. There is no land like the Punjab. There are no people like the
Sikhs. Umr Singh is my name, yes. An old man? Yes. A trooper only after
all these years? Ye-es. Look at my uniform, if the Sahib doubts. Nay--nay;
the Sahib looks too closely. All marks of rank were picked off it long
ago, but--but it is true--mine is not a common cloth such as troopers use
for their coats, and--the Sahib has sharp eyes--that black mark is such a
mark as a silver chain leaves when long worn on the breast. The Sahib says
that troopers do not wear silver chains? No-o. Troopers do not wear the
Arder of Beritish India? No. The Sahib should have been in the Police of
the Punjab. I am not a trooper, but I have been a Sahib's servant for
nearly a year--bearer, butler, sweeper, any and all three. The Sahib says
that Sikhs do not take menial service? True; but it was for Kurban Sahib--
my Kurban Sahib--dead these three months!
* * * * *
Young--of a reddish face--with blue eyes, and he lilted a little on his
feet when he was pleased, and cracked his finger-joints. So did his father
before him, who was Deputy-Commissioner of Jullundur in my father's time
when I rode with the Gurgaon Rissala. _My_ father? Jwala Singh. A Sikh of
Sikhs--he fought against the English at Sobraon and carried the mark to
his death. So we were knit as it were by a blood-tie, I and my Kurban
Sahib. Yes, I was a trooper first--nay, I had risen to a Lance-Duffadar, I
remember--and my father gave me a dun stallion of his own breeding on that
day; and _he_ was a little baba, sitting upon a wall by the parade-ground
with his ayah--all in white, Sahib--laughing at the end of our drill. And
his father and mine talked together, and mine beckoned to me, and I
dismounted, and the baba put his hand into mine--eighteen--twenty-five--
twenty-seven years gone now--Kurban Sahib--my Kurban Sahib! Oh, we were
great friends after that! He cut his teeth on my sword-hilt, as the saying
is. He called me Big Umr Singh--Buwwa Umwa Singh, for he could not speak
plain. He stood only this high, Sahib, from the bottom of this truck, but
he knew all our troopers by name--every one.... And he went to England,
and he became a young man, and back he came, lilting a little in his walk,
and cracking his finger-joints--back to his own regiment and to me. He had
not forgotten either our speech or our customs. He was a Sikh at heart,
Sahib. He was rich, open-handed, just, a friend of poor troopers, keen-
eyed, jestful, and careless. _I_ could tell tales about him in his first
years. There was very little he hid from _me_. I was his Umr Singh, and
when we were alone he called me Father, and I called him Son. Yes, that
was how we spoke. We spoke freely together on everything--about war, and
women, and money, and advancement, and such all.
We spoke about this war, too, long before it came. There were many box-
wallas, pedlars, with Pathans a few, in this country, notably at the city
of Yunasbagh (Johannesburg), and they sent news in every week how the
Sahibs lay without weapons under the heel of the Boer-log; and how big
guns were hauled up and down the streets to keep Sahibs in order; and how
a Sahib called Eger Sahib (Edgar?) was killed for a jest by the Boer-log.
The Sahib knows how we of Hind hear all that passes over the earth? There
was not a gun cocked in Yunasbagh that the echo did not come into Hind in
a month. The Sahibs are very clever, but they forget their own cleverness
has created the _dak_ (the post), and that for an anna or two all things
become known. We of Hind listened and heard and wondered; and when it was
a sure thing, as reported by the pedlars and the vegetable-sellers, that
the Sahibs of Yunasbagh lay in bondage to the Boer-log, certain among us
asked questions and waited for signs. Others of us mistook the meaning of
those signs. _Wherefore, Sahib, came the long war in the Tirah_! This
Kurban Sahib knew, and we talked together. He said, "There is no haste.
Presently we shall fight, and we shall fight for all Hind in that country
round Yunasbagh. Here he spoke truth. Does the Sahib not agree? Quite so.
It is for Hind that the Sahibs are fighting this war. Ye cannot in one
place rule and in another bear service. Either ye must everywhere rule or
everywhere obey. God does not make the nations ringstraked. True--true--
true!"
So did matters ripen--a step at a time. It was nothing to me, except I
think--and the Sahib sees this, too?--that it is foolish to make an army
and break their hearts in idleness. Why have they not sent for men of the
Tochi--the men of the Tirah--the men of Buner? Folly, a thousand times.
_We_ could have done it all so gently--so gently.
Then, upon a day, Kurban Sahib sent for me and said, "Ho, Dada, I am sick,
and the doctor gives me a certificate for many months." And he winked, and
I said, "I will get leave and nurse thee, Child. Shall I bring my
uniform?" He said, "Yes, and a sword for a sick man to lean on. We go to
Bombay, and thence by sea to the country of the Hubshis" (niggers). Mark
his cleverness! He was first of all our men among the native regiments to
get leave for sickness and to come here. Now they will not let our
officers go away, sick or well, except they sign a bond not to take part
in this war-game upon the road. But _he_ was clever. There was no whisper
of war when he took his sick-leave. I came also? Assuredly. I went to my
Colonel, and sitting in the chair (I am--I was--of that rank for which a
chair is placed when we speak with the Colonel) I said, "My child goes
sick. Give me leave, for I am old and sick also."
And the Colonel, making the word double between English and our tongue,
said, "Yes, thou art truly _Sikh_"; and he called me an old devil--
jestingly, as one soldier may jest with another; and he said my Kurban
Sahib was a liar as to his health (that was true, too), and at long last
he stood up and shook my hand, and bade me go and bring my Sahib safe
again. My Sahib back again--aie me!
So I went to Bombay with Kurban Sahib, but there, at sight of the Black
Water, Wajib Ali, his bearer checked, and said that his mother was dead.
Then I said to Kurban Sahib, "What is one Mussulman pig more or less? Give
me the keys of the trunks, and I will lay out the white shirts for
dinner." Then I beat Wajib Ali at the back of Watson's Hotel, and that
night I prepared Kurban Sahib's razors. I say, Sahib, that I, a Sikh of
the Khalsa, an unshorn man, prepared the razors. But I did not put on my
uniform while I did it. On the other hand, Kurban Sahib took for me, upon
the steamer, a room in all respects like to his own, and would have given
me a servant. We spoke of many things on the way to this country; and
Kurban Sahib told me what he perceived would be the conduct of the war. He
said, "They have taken men afoot to fight men ahorse, and they will
foolishly show mercy to these Boer-log because it is believed that they
are white." He said, "There is but one fault in this war, and that is that
the Government have not employed _us_, but have made it altogether a
Sahibs' war. Very many men will thus be killed, and no vengeance will be
taken." True talk--true talk! It fell as Kurban Sahib foretold.
And we came to this country, even to Cape Town over yonder, and Kurban
Sahib said, "Bear the baggage to the big dak-bungalow, and I will look for
employment fit for a sick man." I put on the uniform of my rank and went to
the big dak-bungalow, called Maun Nihâl Seyn, [Footnote: Mount Nelson?]
and I caused the heavy baggage to be bestowed in that dark lower place--is
it known to the Sahib?--which was already full of the swords and baggage
of officers. It is fuller now--dead men's kit all! I was careful to secure
a receipt for all three pieces. I have it in my belt. They must go back to
the Punjab.
Anon came Kurban Sahib, lilting a little in his step, which sign I knew,
and he said, "We are born in a fortunate hour. We go to Eshtellenbosch to
oversee the despatch of horses." Remember, Kurban Sahib was squadron-
leader of the Gurgaon Rissala, and _I_ was Umr Singh. So I said, speaking
as we do--we did--when none was near, "Thou art a groom and I am a grass-
cutter, but is this any promotion, Child?" At this he laughed, saying,
"It is the way to better things. Have patience, Father." (Aye, he called me
father when none were by.) "This war ends not to-morrow nor the next day.
I have seen the new Sahibs," he said, "and they are fathers of owls--all--
all--all!"
So we went to Eshtellenbosch, where the horses are; Kurban Sahib doing the
service of servants in that business. And the whole business was managed
without forethought by new Sahibs from God knows where, who had never seen
a tent pitched or a peg driven. They were full of zeal, but empty of all
knowledge. Then came, little by little from Hind, those Pathans--they are
just like those vultures up there, Sahib--they always follow slaughter.
And there came to Eshtellenbosch some Sikhs--Muzbees, though--and some
Madras monkey-men. They came with horses. Puttiala sent horses. Jhind and
Nabha sent horses. All the nations of the Khalsa sent horses.
All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with
them, unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses oil:
with both hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me to the
command (what a command for me!) of certain woolly ones--_Hubshis_--whose
touch and shadow are pollution. They were enormous eaters; sleeping on
their bellies; laughing without cause; wholly like animals. Some were
called Fingoes, and some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but they were all Kaffirs
--filth unspeakable. I taught them to water and feed, and sweep and rub
down. Yes, I oversaw the work of sweepers--a _jemadar_ of _mehtars_
(headman of a refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban Sahib little better, for five
months. Evil months! The war went as Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men
were slain and no vengeance was taken. It was a war of fools armed with
the weapons of magicians. Guns that slew at half a day's march, and men
who, being new, walked blind into high grass and were driven off like
cattle by the Boer-log! As to the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a
Sahib--only a Sikh. I would have quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon
Rissala in that city--one little troop--and I would have schooled that
city till its men learned to kiss the shadow of a Government horse upon
the ground. There are many _mullahs_ (priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They
preached the Jehad against us. This is true--all the camp knew it. And
most of the houses were thatched! A war of fools indeed!
At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said, "The
reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow, and,
once away, I shall be too sick so return. Make ready the baggage." Thus we
got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a certain new
regiment that had come in a ship. The second day by _terain_, when we were
watering at a desolate place without any sort of a bazaar to it, slipped
out from the horse-boxes one Sikander Khan, that had been a _jemadar_ of
_saises_ (head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch, and was by service a trooper in a
Border regiment. Kurban Sahib gave him big abuse for his desertion; but
the Pathan put up his hands as excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented
and added him to our service. So there were three of us--Kurban Sahib, I,
and Sikander Khan--Sahib, Sikh, and _Sag_ (dog). But the man said truly,
"We be far from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we
see the Indus again." I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander Khan--
beef, too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some swine's
flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it is
written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial
obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up of
sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place where
there lay a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a grey
gelding there. They let their horses stray too much, those new regiments.
Some shameless regiments would indeed have made away with _our_ horses on
the road! They exhibited indents and requisitions for horses, and once or
twice would have uncoupled the trucks; but Kurban Sahib was wise, and I am
not altogether a fool. There is not much honesty at the front. Notably,
there was one congregation of hard-bitten horse-thieves; tall, light
Sahibs, who spoke through their noses for the most part, and upon all
occasions they said, "Oah Hell!" which, in our tongue, signifies _Jehannum
ko jao_. They bore each man a vine-leaf upon their uniforms, and they rode
like Rajputs. Nay, they rode like Sikhs. They rode like the Ustrelyahs!
The Ustrelyahs, whom we met later, also spoke through their noses not
little, and they were tall, dark men, with grey, clear eyes, heavily
eyelashed like camel's eyes--very proper men--a new brand of Sahib to me.
They said on all occasions, "No fee-ah," which in our tongue means _Durro
mut_ ("Do not be afraid"), so we called them the _Durro Muts_. Dark, tall
men, most excellent horsemen, hot and angry, waging war _as_ war, and
drinking tea as a sandhill drinks water. Thieves? A little, Sahib.
Sikander Khan swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten
generations; he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a _Durro Mut_ in regard
to horse-lifting. The _Durro Muts_ cannot walk on their feet at all. They
are like hens on the high road. Therefore they must have horses. Very
proper men, with a just lust for the war. Aah--"No fee-ah," say the _Durro
Muts_. _They_ saw the worth of Kurban Sahib. _They_ did not ask him to
sweep stables. They would by no means let him go. He did substitute for
one of their troop-leaders who had a fever, one long day in a country full
of little hills--like the mouth of the Khaibar; and when they returned in
the evening, the _Durro Muts_ said, "Wallah! This is a man. Steal him!" So
they stole my Kurban Sahib as they would have stolen anything else that
they needed, and they sent a sick officer back to Eshtellenbosch in his
place.
Thus Kurban Sahib came to his own again, and I was his bearer, and
Sikander Khan was his cook. The law was strict that this was a Sahibs'
war, but there was no order that a bearer and a cook should not ride with
their Sahib--and we had naught to wear but our uniforms. We rode up and
down this accursed country, where there is no bazaar, no pulse, no flour,
no oil, no spice, no red pepper, no firewood; nothing but raw corn and a
little cattle. There were no great battles as I saw it, but a plenty of
gun-firing. When we were many, the Boer-log came out with coffee to greet
us, and to show us _purwanas_ (permits) from foolish English Generals who
had gone that way before, certifying they were peaceful and well-disposed.
When we were few, they hid behind stones and shot us. Now the order was
that they were Sahibs, and this was a Sahibs' war. Good! But, as I
understand it, when a Sahib goes to war, he puts on the cloth of war, and
only those who wear that cloth may take part in the war. Good! That also I
understand. But these people were as they were in Burma, or as the Afridis
are. They shot at their pleasure, and when pressed hid the gun and
exhibited _purwanas_, or lay in a house and said they were farmers. Even
such farmers as cut up the Madras troops at Hlinedatalone in Burma! Even
such farmers as slew Cavagnari Sahib and the Guides at Kabul! We schooled
_those_ men, to be sure--fifteen, aye, twenty of a morning pushed off the
verandah in front of the Bala Hissar. I looked that the Jung-i-lat Sahib
(the Commander-in-Chief) would have remembered the old days; but--no. All
the people shot at us everywhere, and he issued proclamations saying that
he did not fight the people, but a certain army, which army, in truth, was
all the Boer-log, who, between them, did not wear enough of uniform to
make a loincloth. A fool's war from first to last; for it is manifest that
he who fights should be hung if he fights with a gun in one hand and a
_purwana_ in the other, as did all these people. Yet we, when they had had
their bellyful for the time, received them with honour, and gave them
permits, and refreshed them and fed their wives and their babes, and
severely punished our soldiers who took their fowls. So the work was to be
done not once with a few dead, but thrice and four times over. I talked
much with Kurban Sahib on this, and he said, "It is a Sahibs' war. That is
the order;" and one night, when Sikander Khan would have lain out beyond
the pickets with his knife and shown them how it is worked on the Border,
he hit Sikander Khan between the eyes and came near to breaking in his
head. Then Sikander Khan, a bandage over his eyes, so that he looked like
a sick camel, talked to him half one march, and he was more bewildered
than I, and vowed he would return to Eshtellenbosch. But privately to me
Kurban Sahib said we should have loosed the Sikhs and the Gurkhas on these
people till they came in with their foreheads in the dust. For the war was
not of that sort which they comprehended.
They shot us? Assuredly they shot us from houses adorned with a white
flag; but when they came to know our custom, their widows sent word by
Kaffir runners, and presently there was not quite so much firing. _No fee-
ah_! All the Boer-log with whom we dealt had _purwanas_ signed by mad
Generals attesting that they were well-disposed to the State.
They had also rifles not a few, and cartridges, which they hid in the
roof. The women wept very greatly when we burned such houses, but they did
not approach too near after the flames had taken good hold of the thatch,
for fear of the bursting cartridges. The women of the Boer-log are very
clever. They are more clever than the men. The Boer-log are clever? Never,
never, no! It is the Sahibs who are fools. For their own honour's sake the
Sahibs must say that the Boer-log are clever; but it is the Sahibs'
wonderful folly that has made the Boer-log. The Sahibs should have sent
_us_ into the game.
But the _Durro Muts_ did well. They dealt faithfully with all that country
thereabouts--not in any way as we of Hind should have dealt, but they were
not altogether fools. One night when we lay on the top of a ridge in the
cold, I saw far away a light in a house that appeared for the sixth part
of an hour and was obscured. Anon it appeared again thrice for the twelfth
part of an hour. I showed this to Kurban Sahib, for it was a house that
had been spared--the people having many permits and swearing fidelity at
our stirrup-leathers. I said to Kurban Sahib, "Send half a troop, Child,
and finish that house. They signal to their brethren." And he laughed
where he lay and said, "If I listened to my bearer Umr Singh, there would
not be left ten houses in all this land." I said, "What need to leave one?
This is as it was in Burma. They are farmers to-day and fighters to-morrow.
Let us deal justly with them." He laughed and curled himself up in
his blanket, and I watched the far light in the house till day. I have
been on the border in eight wars, not counting Burma. The first Afghan
War; the second Afghan War; two Mahsud Waziri wars (that is four); two
Black Mountain wars, if I remember right; the Malakand and Tirah. I do not
count Burma, or some small things. _I_ know when house signals to house!
I pushed Sikandar Khan with my foot, and he saw it too. He said, "One of
the Boer-log who brought pumpkins for the mess, which I fried last night,
lives in yonder house." I said, "How dost thou know?" He said, "Because he
rode out of the camp another way, but I marked how his horse fought with
him at the turn of the road; and before the light fell I stole out of the
camp for evening prayer with Kurban Sahib's glasses, and from a little
hill I saw the pied horse of that pumpkin-seller hurrying to that house."
I said naught, but took Kurban Sahib's glasses from his greasy hands and
cleaned them with a silk handkerchief and returned them to their case.
Sikander Khan told me that he had been the first man in the Zenab valley
to use glasses--whereby he finished two blood-feuds cleanly in the course
of three months' leave. But he was otherwise a liar.
That day Kurban Sahib, with some ten troopers, was sent on to spy the land
for our camp. The _Durro Muts_ moved slowly at that time. They were
weighted with grain and forage and carts, and they greatly wished to leave
these all in some town and go on light to other business which pressed. So
Kurban Sahib sought a short cut for them, a little off the line of march.
We were twelve miles before the main body, and we came to a house under a
high bushed hill, with a nullah, which they call a donga, behind it, and
an old sangar of piled stones, which they call a kraal, before it. Two
thorn bushes grew on either side of the door, like babul bushes, covered
with a golden coloured bloom, and the roof was all of thatch. Before the
house was a valley of stones that rose to another bush-covered hill. There
was an old man in the verandah--an old man with a white beard and a wart
upon the left side of his neck; and a fat woman with the eyes of a swine
and the jowl of a swine; and a tall young man deprived of understanding.
His head was hairless, no larger than an orange, and the pits of his
nostrils were eaten away by a disease. He laughed and slavered and he
sported sportively before Kurban Sahib. The man brought coffee and the
woman showed us _purwanas_ from three General Sahibs, certifying that they
were people of peace and goodwill. Here are the _purwanas_, Sahib. Does
the Sahib know the Generals who signed them?
They swore the land was empty of Boer-log. They held up their hands and
swore it. That was about the time of the evening meal. I stood near the
verandah with Sikander Khan, who was nosing like a jackal on a lost scent.
At last he took my arm and said, "See yonder! There is the sun on the
window of the house that signalled last night. This house can see that
house from here," and he looked at the hill behind him all hairy with
bushes, and sucked in his breath. Then the idiot with the shrivelled head
danced by me and threw back that head, and regarded the roof and laughed
like a hyena, and the fat woman talked loudly, as it were, to cover some
noise. After this passed I to the back of the house on pretence to get
water for tea, and I saw fresh fresh horse-dung on the ground, and that
the ground was cut with the new marks of hoofs; and there had dropped in
the dirt one cartridge. Then Kurban Sahib called to me in our tongue,
saying, "Is this a good place to make tea?" and I replied, knowing what he
meant, "There are over many cooks in the cook-house. Mount and go, Child."
Then I returned, and he said, smiling to the woman, "Prepare food, and
when we have loosened our girths we will come in and eat;" but to his men
he said in a whisper, "Ride away!" No. He did not cover the old man or the
fat woman with his rifle. That was not his custom. Some fool of the _Durro
Muts_, being hungry, raised his voice to dispute the order to flee, and
before we were in our saddles many shots came from the roof--from rifles
thrust through the thatch. Upon this we rode across the valley of stones,
and men fired at us from the nullah behind the house, and from the hill
behind the nullah, as well as from the roof of the house--so many shots
that it sounded like a drumming in the hills. Then Sikandar Khan, riding
low, said, "This play is not for us alone, but for the rest of the _Durro
Muts_," and I said, "Be quiet. Keep place!" for his place was behind me,
and I rode behind Kurban Sahib. But these new bullets will pass through
five men arow! We were not hit--not one of us--and we reached the hill of
rocks and scattered among the stones, and Kurban Sahib turned in his
saddle and said, "Look at the old man!" He stood in the verandah firing
swiftly with a gun, the woman beside him and the idiot also--both with
guns. Kurban Sahib laughed, and I caught him by the wrist, but--his fate
was written at that hour. The bullet passed under my arm-pit and struck
him in the liver, and I pulled him backward between two great rocks atilt
--Kurban Sahib, my Kurban Sahib! From the nullah behind the house and from
the hills came our Boer-log in number more than a hundred, and Sikandar
Khan said, "_Now_ we see the meaning of last night's signal. Give me the
rifle." He took Kurban Sahib's rifle--in this war of fools only the
doctors carry swords--and lay belly-flat to the work, but Kurban Sahib
turned where he lay and said, "Be still. It is a Sahibs' war," and Kurban
Sahib put up his hand--thus; and then his eyes rolled on me, and I gave
him water that he might pass the more quickly. And at the drinking his
Spirit received permission....
Thus went our fight, Sahib. We _Durro Muts_ were on a ridge working from
the north to the south, where lay our main body, and the Boer-log lay in a
valley working from east to west. There were more than a hundred, and our
men were ten, but they held the Boer-log in the valley while they swiftly
passed along the ridge to the south. I saw three Boers drop in the open.
Then they all hid again and fired heavily at the rocks that hid our men;
but our men were clever and did not show, but moved away and away, always
south; and the noise of the battle withdrew itself southward, where we
could hear the sound of big guns. So it fell stark dark, and Sikandar Khan
found a deep old jackal's earth amid rocks, into which we slid the body of
Kurban Sahib upright. Sikandar Khan took his glasses, and I took his
handkerchief and some letters and a certain thing which I knew hung round
his neck, and Sikandar Khan is witness that I wrapped them all in the
handkerchief. Then we took an oath together, and lay still and mourned for
Kurban Sahib. Sikandar Khan wept till daybreak--even he, a Pathan, a
Mohammedan! All that night we heard firing to the southward, and when the
dawn broke the valley was full of Boer-log in carts and on horses. They
gathered by the house, as we could see through Kurban Sahib's glasses, and
the old man, who, I take it, was a priest, blessed them, and preached the
holy war, waving his arm; and the fat woman brought coffee; and the idiot
capered among them and kissed their horses. Presently they went away in
haste; they went over the hills and were not; and a black slave came out
and washed the door-sills with bright water. Sikandar Khan saw through the
glasses that the stain was blood, and he laughed, saying, "Wounded men lie
there. We shall yet get vengeance."
About noon we saw a thin, high smoke to the southward, such a smoke as a
burning house will make in sunshine, and Sikandar Khan, who knows how to
take a bearing across a hill, said, "At last we have burned the house of
the pumpkin-seller whence they signalled." And I said: "What need now that
they have slain my child? Let me mourn." It was a high smoke, and the old
man, as I saw, came out into the verandah to behold it, and shook his
clenched hands at it. So we lay till the twilight, foodless and without
water, for we had vowed a vow neither to eat nor to drink till we had
accomplished the matter. I had a little opium left, of which I gave
Sikandar Khan the half, because he loved Kurban Sahib. When it was full
dark we sharpened our sabres upon a certain softish rock which, mixed with
water, sharpens steel well, and we took off our boots and we went down to
the house and looked through the windows very softly. The old man sat
reading in a book, and the woman sat by the hearth; and the idiot lay on
the floor with his head against her knee, and he counted his fingers and
laughed, and she laughed again. So I knew they were mother and son, and I
laughed, too, for I had suspected this when I claimed her life and her
body from Sikandar Khan, in our discussion of the spoil. Then we entered
with bare swords.... Indeed, these Boer-log do not understand the steel,
for the old man ran towards a rifle in the corner; but Sikandar Khan
prevented him with a blow of the flat across the hands, and he sat down
and held up his hands, and I put my fingers on my lips to signify they
should be silent. But the woman cried, and one stirred in an inner room,
and a door opened, and a man, bound about the head with rags, stood
stupidly fumbling with a gun. His whole head fell inside the door, and
none followed him. It was a very pretty stroke--for a Pathan. They then
were silent, staring at the head upon the floor, and I said to Sikandar
Khan, "Fetch ropes! Not even for Kurban Sahib's sake will I defile my
sword." So he went to seek and returned with three long leather ones, and
said, "Four wounded lie within, and doubtless each has a permit from a
General," and he stretched the ropes and laughed. Then I bound the old
man's hands behind his back, and unwillingly--for he laughed in my face,
and would have fingered my beard--the idiot's. At this the woman with the
swine's eyes and the jowl of a swine ran forward, and Sikandar Khan said,
"Shall I strike or bind? She was thy property on the division." And I
said, "Refrain! I have made a chain to hold her. Open the door." I pushed
out the two across the verandah into the darker shade of the thorn-trees,
and she followed upon her knees and lay along the ground, and pawed at my
boots and howled. Then Sikandar Khan bore out the lamp, saying that he was
a butler and would light the table, and I looked for a branch that would
bear fruit. But the woman hindered me not a little with her screechings
and plungings, and spoke fast in her tongue, and I replied in my tongue,
"I am childless to-night because of thy perfidy, and _my_ child was
praised among men and loved among women. He would have begotten men--not
animals. Thou hast more years to live than I, but my grief is the
greater."
I stooped to make sure the noose upon the idiot's neck, and flung the end
over the branch, and Sikandar Khan held up the lamp that she might well
see. Then appeared suddenly, a little beyond the light of the lamp, the
spirit of Kurban Sahib. One hand he held to his side, even where the
bullet had struck him, and the other he put forward thus, and said, "No.
It is a Sahibs' war." And I said, "Wait a while, Child, and thou shalt
sleep." But he came nearer, riding, as it were, upon my eyes, and said,
"No. It is a Sahibs' war." And Sikandar Khan said, "Is it too heavy?" and
set down the lamp and came to me; and as he turned to tally on the rope,
the spirit of Kurban Sahib stood up within arm's reach of us, and his face
was very angry, and a third time he said, "No. It is a Sahibs' war." And a
little wind blew out the lamp, and I heard Sikandar Khan's teeth chatter
in his head.
So we stayed side by side, the ropes in our hand, a very long while, for
we could not shape any words. Then I heard Sikandar Khan open his water-
bottle and drink; and when his mouth was slaked he passed to me and said,
"We are absolved from our vow." So I drank, and together we waited for the
dawn in that place where we stood--the ropes in our hand. A little after
third cockcrow we heard the feet of horses and gun wheels very far off,
and so soon as the light came a shell burst on the threshold of the house,
and the roof of the verandah that was thatched fell in and blazed before
the windows. And I said, "What of the wounded Boer-log within?" And
Sikandar Khan said, "We have heard the order. It is a Sahibs' war. Stand
still." Then came a second shell--good line, but short--and scattered dust
upon us where we stood; and then came ten of the little quick shells from
the gun that speaks like a stammerer--yes, pompom the Sahibs call it--and
the face of the house folded down like the nose and the chin of an old man
mumbling, and the forefront of the house lay down. Then Sikandar Khan
said, "If it be the fate of the wounded to die in the fire, _I_ shall not
prevent it." And he passed to the back of the house and presently came
back, and four wounded Boer-log came after him, of whom two could not walk
upright. And I said, "What hast thou done?" And he said, "I have neither
spoken to them nor laid hand on them. They follow in hope of mercy." And I
said, "It is a Sahibs' war. Let them wait the Sahibs' mercy." So they lay
still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree,
and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches
in the roof--one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud
noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have
crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees,
and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. But I said, "Abide!
Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs' war, O Sahibs. There is no
order that ye should depart from this war." They did not understand my
words. Yet they abode and they lived.
Presently rode down five troopers of Kurban Sahib's command, and one I
knew spoke my tongue, having sailed to Calcutta often with horses. So I
told him all my tale, using bazaar-talk, such as his kidney of Sahib would
understand; and at the end I said, "An order has reached us here from the
dead that this is a Sahibs' war. I take the soul of my Kurban Sahib to
witness that I give over to the justice of the Sahibs these Sahibs who
have made me childless." Then I gave him the ropes and fell down
senseless, my heart being very full, but my belly was empty, except for
the little opium.
They put me into a cart with one of their wounded, and after a while I
understood that they had fought against the Boer-log for two days and two
nights. It was all one big trap, Sahib, of which we, with Kurban Sahib,
saw no more than the outer edge. They were very angry, the _Durro Muts_--
very angry indeed. I have never seen Sahibs so angry. They buried my
Kurban Sahib with the rites of his faith upon the top of the ridge
overlooking the house, and I said the proper prayers of the faith, and
Sikandar Khan prayed in his fashion and stole five signalling-candles,
which have each three wicks, and lighted the grave as if it had been the
grave of a saint on a Friday. He wept very bitterly all that night, and I
wept with him, and he took hold of my feet and besought me to give him a
remembrance from Kurban Sahib. So I divided equally with him one of Kurban
Sahib's handkerchiefs--not the silk ones, for those were given him by a
certain woman; and I also gave him a button from a coat, and a little
steel ring of no value that Kurban Sahib used for his keys, and he kissed
them and put them into his bosom. The rest I have here in that little
bundle, and I must get the baggage from the hotel in Cape Town--some four
shirts we sent to be washed, for which we could not wait when we went
up-country--and I must give them all to my Colonel-Sahib at Sialkote in the
Punjab. For my child is dead--my baba is dead!... I would have come away
before; there was no need to stay, the child being dead; but we were far
from the rail, and the _Durro Muts_ were as brothers to me, and I had come
to look upon Sikandar Khan as in some sort a friend, and he got me a horse
and I rode up and down with them; but the life had departed. God knows
what they called me--orderly, _chaprassi_ (messenger), cook, sweeper, I
did not know nor care. But once I had pleasure. We came back in a month
after wide circles to that very valley. I knew it every stone, and I went
up to the grave, and a clever Sahib of the _Durro Muts_ (we left a troop
there for a week to school those people with _purwanas_) had cut an
inscription upon a great rock; and they interpreted it to me, and is was a
jest such as Kurban Sahib himself would have loved. Oh! I have the
inscription well copied here. Read it aloud, Sahib, and I will explain the
jests. There are two very good ones. Begin, Sahib:--
In Memory of
WALTER DECIES CORBYN
Late Captain 141st Punjab Cavalry
The Gurgaon Rissala, that is. Go on, Sahib.
Treacherously shot near this place by
The connivance of the late
HENDRIK DIRK UYS
A Minister of God
Who thrice took the oath of neutrality
And Piet his son,
This little work
Aha! This is the first jest. The Sahib should see this little work!
Was accomplished in partial
And inadequate recognition of their loss
By some men who loved him
_Si monumentum requiris circumspice_
That is the second jest. It signifies that those who would desire to
behold a proper memorial to Kurban Sahib must look out at the house. And,
Sahib, the house is not there, nor the well, nor the big tank which they
call dams, nor the little fruit-trees, nor the cattle. There is nothing
at all, Sahib, except the two trees withered by the fire. The rest is
like the desert here--or my hand--or my heart. Empty, Sahib--all empty!
"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
THE WET LITANY
When the water's countenance
Blurrs 'twixt glance and second glance;
When the tattered smokes forerun
Ashen 'neath a silvered sun;
When the curtain of the haze
Shuts upon our helpless ways--
Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
_Libera nos domine_!
When the engines' bated pulse
Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;
When the wash along the side
Sounds, a sudden, magnified
When the intolerable blast
Marks each blindfold minute passed.
When the fog-buoy's squattering flight
Guides us through the haggard night;
When the warning bugle blows;
When the lettered doorways close;
When our brittle townships press,
Impotent, on emptiness.
When the unseen leadsmen lean
Questioning a deep unseen;
When their lessened count they tell
To a bridge invisible;
When the hid and perilous
Cliffs return our cry to us.
When the treble thickness spread
Swallows up our next-ahead;
When her siren's frightened whine
Shows her sheering out of line;
When, her passage undiscerned,
We must turn where she has turned--
Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
_Libera nos Domine_!
"THEIR LAWFUL OCCASIONS"
PART I
... "And a security for such as pass on the seas upon
their lawful occasions."--_Navy Prayer_.
Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain, whose other name is
Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.
H.M.S. _Caryatid_ went to Portland to join Blue Fleet for manoeuvres. I
travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among
friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. _Caryatid_, whose guest I was to
have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret rendezvous
off the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was filled with Red
Fleet, my official enemies and joyous acquaintances, who received me with
unstinted hospitality. For example, Lieutenant-Commander A.L. Hignett, in
charge of three destroyers, _Wraith, Stiletto_, and _Kobbold_, due to
depart at 6 P.M. that evening, offered me a berth on his thirty-knot
flagship, but I preferred my comforts, and so accepted sleeping-room in
H.M.S. _Pedantic_ (15,000 tons), leader of the second line. After dining
aboard her I took boat to Weymouth to get my kit aboard, as the
battleships would go to war at midnight. In transferring my allegiance
from Blue to Red Fleet, whatever the Marine Captain may say, I did no
wrong. I truly intended to return to the _Pedantic_ and help to fight Blue
Fleet. All I needed was a new toothbrush, which I bought from a chemist in
a side street at 9:15 P. M. As I turned to go, one entered seeking
alleviation of a gum-boil. He was dressed in a checked ulster, a black
silk hat three sizes too small, cord-breeches, boots, and pure brass
spurs. These he managed painfully, stepping like a prisoner fresh from
leg-irons. As he adjusted the pepper-plaster to the gum the light fell on
his face, and I recognised Mr. Emanuel Pyecroft, late second-class petty
officer of H.M.S. _Archimandrite_, an unforgettable man, met a year before
under Tom Wessel's roof in Plymouth. It occurred to me that when a petty
officer takes to spurs he may conceivably meditate desertion. For that
reason I, though a taxpayer, made no sign. Indeed, it was Mr. Pyecroft,
following me out of the shop, who said hollowly: "What might you be doing
here?"
"I'm going on manoeuvres in the _Pedantic_," I replied.
"Ho!" said Mr. Pyecroft. "An' what manner o' manoeuvres d'you expect to
see in a blighted cathedral like the _Pedantic_? _I_ know 'er. I knew her
in Malta, when the _Vulcan_ was her permanent tender. Manoeuvres! You
won't see more than 'Man an' arm watertight doors!' in your little woollen
undervest."
"I'm sorry for that."
"Why?" He lurched heavily as his spurs caught and twanged like tuning-
forks. "War's declared at midnight. _Pedantics_ be sugared! Buy an 'am an'
see life!"
For the moment I fancied Mr. Pyecroft, a fugitive from justice, purposed
that we two should embrace a Robin Hood career in the uplands of Dorset.
The spurs troubled me, and I made bold to say as much. "Them!" he said,
coming to an intricate halt. "They're part of the _prima facie_ evidence.
But as for me--let me carry your bag--I'm second in command, leadin'-hand,
cook, steward, an' lavatory man, with a few incidentals for sixpence a day
extra, on No. 267 torpedo-boat."
"They wear spurs there?"
"Well," said Mr. Peycroft, "seein' that Two Six Seven belongs to Blue
Fleet, which left the day before yesterday, disguises are imperative. It
transpired thus. The Right Honourable Lord Gawd Almighty Admiral Master
Frankie Frobisher, K.C.B., commandin' Blue Fleet, can't be bothered with
one tin-torpedo-boat more or less; and what with lyin' in the Reserve four
years, an' what with the new kind o' tiffy which cleans dynamos with
brick-dust and oil (Blast these spurs! They won't render!), Two Six
Seven's steam-gadgets was paralytic. Our Mr. Moorshed done his painstakin'
best--it's his first command of a war-canoe, matoor age nineteen (down
that alleyway, please!) but be that as it may, His Holiness Frankie is
aware of us crabbin' ourselves round the breakwater at five knots, an'
steerin' _pari passu_, as the French say. (Up this alley-way, please!) If
he'd given Mr. Hinchcliffe, our chief engineer, a little time, it would
never have transpired, for what Hinch can't drive he can coax; but the new
port bein' a trifle cloudy, an' 'is joints tinglin' after a post-captain
dinner, Frankie come on the upper bridge seekin' for a sacrifice. We,
offerin' a broadside target, got it. He told us what 'is grandmamma, 'oo
was a lady an' went to sea in stick-and string-batteaus, had told him
about steam. He throwed in his own prayers for the 'ealth an' safety of
all steam-packets an' their officers. Then he give us several distinct
orders. The first few--I kept tally--was all about going to Hell; the next
many was about not evolutin' in his company, when there; an' the last all
was simply repeatin' the motions in quick time. Knowin' Frankie's groovin'
to be badly eroded by age and lack of attention, I didn't much panic; but
our Mr. Moorshed, 'e took it a little to heart. Me an' Mr. Hinchcliffe
consoled 'im as well as service conditions permits of, an' we had a
_résumé_-supper at the back o' the Camber--secluded _an'_ lugubrious! Then
one thing leadin' up to another, an' our orders, except about anchorin'
where he's booked for, leavin' us a clear 'orizon, Number Two Six Seven is
now--mind the edge of the wharf--here!"
By mysterious doublings he had brought me out on to the edge of a narrow
strip of water crowded with coastwise shipping that runs far up into
Weymouth town. A large foreign timber-brig lay at my feet, and under the
round of her stern cowered, close to the wharf-edge, a slate-coloured,
unkempt, two-funnelled craft of a type--but I am no expert--between the
first-class torpedo-boat and the full-blooded destroyer. From her archaic
torpedo-tubes at the stern, and quick-firers forward and amidship, she
must have dated from the early nineties. Hammerings and clinkings, with
spurts of steam and fumes of hot oil, arose from her inside, and a figure
in a striped jersey squatted on the engine-room gratings.
"She ain't much of a war-canoe, but you'll see more life in 'er than on an
whole squadron of bleedin' _Pedantics."_
"But she's laid up here--and Blue Fleet have gone," I protested.
"Precisely. Only, in his comprehensive orders Frankie didn't put us out of
action. Thus we're a non-neglectable fightin' factor which you mightn't
think from this elevation; _an'_ m'rover, Red Fleet don't know we're 'ere.
Most of us"--he glanced proudly at his boots--"didn't run to spurs, but
we're disguised pretty devious, as you might say. Morgan, our signaliser,
when last seen, was a Dawlish bathing-machine proprietor. Hinchcliffe was
naturally a German waiter, and me you behold as a squire of low degree;
while yonder Levantine dragoman on the hatch is our Mr. Moorshed. He was
the second cutter's snotty--_my_ snotty--on the _Archimandrite_--two
years--Cape Station. Likewise on the West Coast, mangrove swampin', an'
gettin' the cutter stove in on small an' unlikely bars, an' manufacturin'
lies to correspond. What I don't know about Mr. Moorshed is precisely the
same gauge as what Mr. Moorshed don't know about me--half a millimetre, as
you might say. He comes into awful opulence of his own when 'e's of age;
an' judgin' from what passed between us when Frankie cursed 'im, I don't
think 'e cares whether he's broke to-morrow or--the day after. Are you
beginnin' to follow our tatties? They'll be worth followin'. Or _are_ you
goin' back to your nice little cabin on the _Pedantic_--which I lay
they've just dismounted the third engineer out of--to eat four fat meals
per diem, an' smoke in the casement?"
The figure in the jersey lifted its head and mumbled.
"Yes, Sir," was Mr. Pyecroft's answer. "I 'ave ascertained that _Stiletto,
Wraith_, and _Kobbold_ left at 6 P. M. with the first division o' Red
Fleet's cruisers except _Devulotion_ and _Cryptic_, which are delayed by
engine-room defects." Then to me: "Won't you go aboard? Mr. Moorshed 'ud
like some one to talk to. You buy an 'am an see life."
At this he vanished; and the Demon of Pure Irresponsibility bade me lower
myself from the edge of the wharf to the tea-tray plates of No. 267.
"What d'you want?" said the striped jersey.
"I want to join Blue Fleet if I can," I replied. "I've been left behind
by--an accident.
"Well?"
"Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do
you need?"
"I don't want any ham, thank you. That's the way up the wharf. _Good_-
night."
"Good-night!" I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I found a
shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and
salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop
supplied me with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things I,
sweating, bore out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the shadow of
a crane. It was a clear, dark summer night, and from time to time I
laughed happily to myself. The adventure was preordained on the face of
it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or barefoot, would have drawn me very far from
the paths of circumspection. His advice to buy a ham and see life clinched
it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft--I heard spurs clink--passed me. Then the
jersey voice said: "What the mischief's that?"
"'Asn't the visitor come aboard, Sir? 'E told me he'd purposely abandoned
the _Pedantic_ for the pleasure of the trip with us. Told me he was
official correspondent for the _Times_; an' I know he's littery by the way
'e tries to talk Navy-talk. Haven't you seen 'im, Sir?"
Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; "Pye, you
are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!"
"Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It's marked with his name." There
was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said "Oh!" in a tone which the listener
might construe precisely as he pleased.
"_He_ was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life--was he? If he
goes back to the _Pedantic_--"
"Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir."
"Then what possessed _you_ to give it away to him, you owl?"
"I've got his bag. If 'e gives anything away, he'll have to go naked."
At this point I thought it best to rattle my tins and step out of the
shadow of the crane.
"I've bought the ham," I called sweetly. "Have you still any objection to
my seeing life, Mr. Moorshed?"
"All right, if you're insured. Won't you come down?"
I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself of
all the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.
"Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?" said my host.
"Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?"
"What do _you_ think of him?"
"I've left the _Pedantic_--her boat will be waiting for me at ten o'clock,
too--simply because I happened to meet him," I replied.
"That's all right. If you'll come down below, we may get some grub."
We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps twelve
feet long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either side; a
swinging table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre. Other
furniture there was none.
"You can't shave here, of course. We don't wash, and, as a rule, we eat
with our fingers when we're at sea. D'you mind?"
Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked me
over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way, but
his smile drew the heart. "You didn't happen to hear what Frankie told me
from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I've logged them
here in shorthand, were"--he opened a neat pocket-book--"_'Get out of this
and conduct your own damned manoeuvres in your own damned tinker fashion!
You're a disgrace to the Service, and your boat's offal.'"_
"Awful?" I said.
"No--offal--tripes--swipes--ullage." Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume
of his calling, with the ham and an assortment of tin dishes, which he
dealt out like cards.
"I shall take these as my orders," said Mr. Moorshed. "I'm chucking the
Service at the end of the year, so it doesn't matter."
We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with
whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an
uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.
"That's Mr. Hinchcliffe," said Pyecroft. "He's what is called a first-
class engine-room artificer. If you hand 'im a drum of oil an' leave 'im
alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin'."
Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a
folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manoeuvres, with the
rules that regulate these wonderful things, below.
"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 manoeuvres 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?"
"Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we'd wait till the sights came
on, an' then fire. Speakin' as a torpedo-coxswain, L.T.O., T.I., M.D.,
etc., I presume we fall in--Number One in rear of the tube, etc., secure
tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin'-bar, release safety-pin
from lockin-levers, an' pray Heaven to look down on us. As second in
command o' 267, I say wait an' see!"
"What's happened? We're off," I said. The timber ship had slid away from
us.
"We are. Stern first, an' broadside on! If we don't hit anything too hard,
we'll do."
"Come on the bridge," said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell over
some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the next
few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than with the
science of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out of Weymouth
Harbour, nor why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left and wallow in
what appeared to be surf.
"Excuse me," said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, "_I_ don't mind rammin' a
bathin'-machine; but if only _one_ of them week-end Weymouth blighters has
thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea here, we'll rip our plates open on
it; 267 isn't the _Archimandrite's_ old cutter."
"I am hugging the shore," was the answer.
"There's no actual 'arm in huggin', but it can come expensive if
pursooed."
"Right-O!" said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left those
scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.
A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.
"Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?" said Moorshed.
"I merely wished to report that she is still continuin' to go, Sir."
"Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d'you think?"
"I'll try, Sir; but we'd prefer to have the engine-room hatch open--at
first, Sir."
Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely through
the night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us across the
narrow deck.
"This," said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large rock
receives a shadow, "represents the _Gnome_ arrivin' cautious from the
direction o' Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders."
He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes
opened to a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards away.
"Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to panic
about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater, and
several millimetres too excited over the approachin' war to keep a look-
out inshore. Hence our tattics!"
We wailed through our siren--a long, malignant, hyena-like howl--and a
voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.
"The _Gnome_--Carteret-Jones--from Portsmouth, with orders--mm--mm--
_Stiletto_," Moorshed answered through the megaphone in a high, whining
voice, rather like a chaplain's.
"_Who_?" was the answer.
"Carter--et--Jones."
"Oh, Lord!"
There was a pause; a voice cried to some friend, "It's Podgie, adrift
on the high seas in charge of a whole dee-stroyer!"
Another voice echoed, "Podgie!" and from its note I gathered that Mr.
Carteret-Jones had a reputation, but not for independent command.
"Who's your sub?" said the first speaker, a shadow on the bridge of the
_Dirk_.
"A gunner, at present, Sir. The _Stiletto_--broken down--turns over to
us."
"When did the _Stiletto_ break down?"
"Off the Start, Sir; two hours after--after she left here this evening, I
believe. My orders are to report to you for the manoeuvre signal-codes,
and join Commander Hignett's flotilla, which is in attendance on
_Stiletto_."
A smothered chuckle greeted this last. Moorshed's voice was high and
uneasy. Said Pyecroft, with a sigh: "The amount o' trouble me an' my
bright spurs 'ad fishin' out that information from torpedo coxswains and
similar blighters in pubs all this afternoon, you would never believe."
"But has the _Stiletto_ broken down?" I asked weakly.
"How else are we to get Red Fleet's private signal-code? Any way, if she
'asn't now, she will before manoeuvres are ended. It's only executin' in
anticipation."
"Go astern and send your coxswain aboard for orders, Mr. Jones." Water
carries sound well, but I do not know whether we were intended to hear the
next sentence: "They must have given him _one_ intelligent keeper."
"That's me," said Mr. Pyecroft, as a black and coal-stained dinghy--I did
not foresee how well I should come to know her--was flung overside by
three men.
"Havin' bought an 'am, we will now see life." He stepped into the boat and
was away.
"I say, Podgie!"--the speaker was in the last of the line of destroyers,
as we thumped astern--"aren't you lonely out there?"
"Oh, don't rag me!" said Moorshed. "Do you suppose I'll have to manoeuvre
with your flo-tilla?"
"No, Podgie! I'm pretty sure our commander will see you sifting cinders in
Tophet before you come with our flo-tilla."
"Thank you! She steers rather wild at high speeds."
Two men laughed together.
"By the way, who is Mr. Carteret-Jones when he's at home?" I whispered.
"I was with him in the _Britannia_. I didn't like him much, but I'm
grateful to him now. I must tell him so some day."
"They seemed to know him hereabouts."
"He rammed the _Caryatid_ twice with her own steam-pinnace."
Presently, moved by long strokes, Mr. Pyecroft returned, skimming across
the dark. The dinghy swung up behind him, even as his heel spurned it.
"Commander Fasset's compliments to Mr. L. Carteret-Jones, and the sooner
he digs out in pursuance of Admiralty orders as received at Portsmouth,
the better pleased Commander Fasset will be. But there's a lot more----"
"Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe! Come on to the bridge. We can settle it as
we go. Well?"
Mr. Pyecroft drew an important breath, and slid off his cap.
"Day an' night private signals of Red Fleet _com_plete, Sir!" He handed a
little paper to Moorshed. "You see, Sir, the trouble was, that Mr.
Carteret-Jones bein', so to say, a little new to his duties, 'ad forgot to
give 'is gunner his Admiralty orders in writin', but, as I told Commander
Fasset, Mr. Jones had been repeatin' 'em to me, nervous-like, most of the
way from Portsmouth, so I knew 'em by heart--an' better. The Commander,
recognisin' in me a man of agility, cautioned me to be a father an' mother
to Mr. Carteret-Jones."
"Didn't he know you?" I asked, thinking for the moment that there could be
no duplicates of Emanuel Pyecroft in the Navy.
"What's a torpedo-gunner more or less to a full lootenant commanding six
thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? 'E seemed to cherish the 'ope
that 'e might use the _Gnome_ for 'is own 'orrible purposes; but what I
told him about Mr. Jones's sad lack o' nerve comin' from Pompey, an' going
dead slow on account of the dark, short-circuited _that_ connection.
'M'rover,' I says to him, 'our orders is explicit; _Stiletto's_ reported
broke down somewhere off the Start, an' we've been tryin' to coil down a
new stiff wire hawser all the evenin', so it looks like towin' 'er back,
don't it?' I says. That more than ever jams his turrets, an' makes him
keen to get rid of us. 'E even hinted that Mr. Carteret-Jones passin'
hawsers an' assistin' the impotent in a sea-way might come pretty
expensive on the tax-payer. I agreed in a disciplined way. I ain't proud.
Gawd knows I ain't proud! But when I'm really diggin' out in the fancy
line, I sometimes think that me in a copper punt, single-'anded, 'ud beat
a cutter-full of De Rougemongs in a row round the fleet."
At this point I reclined without shame on Mr. Pyecroft's bosom, supported
by his quivering arm.
"Well?" said Moorshed, scowling into the darkness, as 267's bows snapped
at the shore seas of the broader Channel, and we swayed together.
"'You'd better go on,' says Commander Fassett, 'an' do what you're told to
do. I don't envy Hignett if he has to dry-nurse the _Gnome's_ commander.
But what d'you want with signals?' 'e says. 'It's criminal lunacy to trust
Mr. Jones with anything that steams.'
"'May I make an observation, Sir?' I says. 'Suppose,' I says, 'you was
torpedo-gunner on the _Gnome_, an' Mr. Carteret-Jones was your commandin'
officer, an' you had your reputation _as_ a second in command for the
first time,' I says, well knowin' it was his first command of a flotilla,
'what 'ud you do, Sir?' That gouged 'is unprotected ends open--clear back
to the citadel."
"What did he say?" Moorshed jerked over is shoulder.
"If you were Mr. Carteret-Jones, it might be disrespect for me to repeat
it, Sir."
"Go ahead," I heard the boy chuckle.
"'Do?' 'e says. 'I'd rub the young blighter's nose into it till I made a
perishin' man of him, or a perspirin' pillow-case,' 'e says, 'which,' he
adds, 'is forty per cent, more than he is at present.'
"Whilst he's gettin' the private signals--they're rather particular ones--
I went forrard to see the _Dirk's_ gunner about borrowin' a holdin'-down
bolt for our twelve-pounder. My open ears, while I was rovin' over his
packet, got the followin' authentic particulars." I heard his voice
change, and his feet shifted. "There's been a last council o' war of
destroyer-captains at the flagship, an' a lot of things 'as come out. To
begin with _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, Captain Panke and Captain Malan--"
"_Cryptic_ and _Devolution_, first-class cruisers," said Mr. Moorshed
dreamily. "Go on, Pyecroft."
"--bein' delayed by minor defects in engine-room, did _not_, as we know,
accompany Red Fleet's first division of scouting cruisers, whose
rendezvous is unknown, but presumed to be somewhere off the Lizard.
_Cryptic_ an' _Devolution_ left at 9:30 P.M. still reportin' copious minor
defects in engine-room. Admiral's final instructions was they was to put
into Torbay, an' mend themselves there. If they can do it in twenty-four
hours, they're to come on and join the battle squadron at the first
rendezvous, down Channel somewhere. (I couldn't get that, Sir.) If they
can't, he'll think about sendin' them some destroyers for escort. But his
present intention is to go 'ammer and tongs down Channel, usin' 'is
destroyers for all they're worth, an' thus keepin' Blue Fleet too busy off
the Irish coast to sniff into any eshtuaries."
"But if those cruisers are crocks, why does the Admiral let 'em out of
Weymouth at all?" I asked.
"The tax-payer," said Mr. Moorshed.
"An' newspapers," added Mr. Pyecroft. "In Torbay they'll look as they was
muckin' about for strategical purposes--hanamerin' like blazes in the
engine room all the weary day, an' the skipper droppin' questions down the
engine-room hatch every two or three minutes. _I've_ been there. Now,
Sir?" I saw the white of his eye turn broad on Mr. Moorshed.
The boy dropped his chin over the speaking-tube.
"Mr. Hinchcliffe, what's her extreme economical radius?"
"Three hundred and forty knots, down to swept bunkers."
"Can do," said Moorshed. "By the way, have her revolutions any bearing on
her speed, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
"None that I can make out yet, Sir."
"Then slow to eight knots. We'll jog down to forty-nine, forty-five, or
four about, and three east. That puts us say forty miles from Torbay by
nine o'clock to-morrow morning. We'll have to muck about till dusk before
we run in and try our luck with the cruisers."
"Yes, Sir. Their picket boats will be panickin' round them all night. It's
considered good for the young gentlemen."
"Hallo! War's declared! They're off!" said Moorshed.
He swung 267's head round to get a better view. A few miles to our right
the low horizon was spangled with small balls of fire, while nearer ran a
procession of tiny cigar ends.
"Red hot! Set 'em alight," said Mr. Pyecroft. "That's the second destroyer
flotilla diggin' out for Commander Fassett's reputation."
The smaller lights disappeared; the glare of the destroyers' funnels
dwindled even as we watched.
"They're going down Channel with lights out, thus showin' their zeal an'
drivin' all watch-officers crazy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll
get you your pyjamas, an' you'll turn in," said Pyecroft.
He piloted me to the steel tunnel, where the ham still swung majestically
over the swaying table, and dragged out trousers and a coat with a monk's
hood, all hewn from one hairy inch-thick board.
"If you fall over in these you'll be drowned. They're lammies. I'll chock
you off with a pillow; but sleepin' in a torpedo-boat's what you might
call an acquired habit."
I coiled down on an iron-hard horse-hair pillow next the quivering steel
wall to acquire that habit. The sea, sliding over 267's skin, worried me
with importunate, half-caught confidences. It drummed tackily to gather my
attention, coughed, spat, cleared its throat, and, on the eve of that
portentous communication, retired up stage as a multitude whispering.
Anon, I caught the tramp of armies afoot, the hum of crowded cities
awaiting the event, the single sob of a woman, and dry roaring of wild
beasts. A dropped shovel clanging on the stokehold floor was, naturally
enough, the unbarring of arena gates; our sucking uplift across the crest
of some little swell, nothing less than the haling forth of new worlds;
our half-turning descent into the hollow of its mate, the abysmal plunge
of God-forgotten planets. Through all these phenomena and more--though I
ran with wild horses over illimitable plains of rustling grass; though I
crouched belly-flat under appalling fires of musketry; though I was
Livingstone, painless, and incurious in the grip of his lion--my shut eyes
saw the lamp swinging in its gimbals, the irregularly gliding patch of
light on the steel ladder, and every elastic shadow in the corners of the
frail angle-irons; while my body strove to accommodate itself to the
infernal vibration of the machine. At the last I rolled limply on the
floor, and woke to real life with a bruised nose and a great call to go on
deck at once.
"It's all right," said a voice in my booming ears. "Morgan and Laughton
are worse than you!"
I was gripping a rail. Mr. Pyecroft pointed with his foot to two bundles
beside a torpedo-tube, which at Weymouth had been a signaller and a most
able seaman. "She'd do better in a bigger sea," said Mr. Pyecroft. "This
lop is what fetches it up."
The sky behind us whitened as I laboured, and the first dawn drove down
the Channel, tipping the wave-tops with a chill glare. To me that round
wind which runs before the true day has ever been fortunate and of good
omen. It cleared the trouble from my body, and set my soul dancing to
267's heel and toe across the northerly set of the waves--such waves as I
had often watched contemptuously from the deck of a ten-thousand-ton
liner. They shouldered our little hull sideways and passed, scalloped, and
splayed out, toward the coast, carrying our white wake in loops along
their hollow backs. In succession we looked down a lead-grey cutting of
water for half a clear mile, were flung up on its ridge, beheld the
Channel traffic--full-sailed to that fair breeze--all about us, and swung
slantwise, light as a bladder, elastic as a basket, into the next furrow.
Then the sun found us, struck the wet gray bows to living, leaping opal,
the colourless deep to hard sapphire, the many sails to pearl, and the
little steam-plume of our escape to an inconstant rainbow.
"A fair day and a fair wind for all, thank God!" said Emanuel Pyecroft,
throwing back the cowl-like hood of his blanket coat. His face was pitted
with coal-dust and grime, pallid for lack of sleep; but his eyes shone
like a gull's.
"I told you you'd see life. Think o' the _Pedantic_ now. Think o' her
Number One chasin' the mobilised gobbies round the lower deck flats. Think
o' the pore little snotties now bein' washed, fed, and taught, an' the
yeoman o' signals with a pink eye wakin' bright 'an brisk to another
perishin' day of five-flag hoists. Whereas _we_ shall caulk an' smoke
cigarettes, same as the Spanish destroyers did for three weeks after war
was declared." He dropped into the wardroom singing:--
If you're going to marry me, marry me, Bill, It's no use muckin' about!
The man at the wheel, uniformed in what had once been a Tam-o'-shanter, a
pair of very worn R.M.L.I. trousers rolled up to the knee, and a black
sweater, was smoking a cigarette. Moorshed, in a gray Balaclava and a
brown mackintosh with a flapping cape, hauled at our supplementary funnel
guys, and a thing like a waiter from a Soho restaurant sat at the head of
the engine-room ladder exhorting the unseen below. The following wind beat
down our smoke and covered all things with an inch-thick layer of stokers,
so that eyelids, teeth, and feet gritted in their motions. I began to see
that my previous experiences among battleships and cruisers had been
altogether beside the mark.
PART II
The wind went down with the sunset--
The fog came up with the tide,
When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell (_bis_)
With a little Blue Devil inside.
"Sink," she said, "or swim," she said,
"It's all you will get from me.
And that is the finish of him!" she said,
And the Egg-shell went to sea.
The wind got up with the morning,
And the fog blew off with the rain,
When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell
And the little Blue Devil again.
"Did you swim?" she said. "Did you sink?" she said,
And the little Blue Devil replied:
"For myself I swam, but I think," he said,
"There's somebody sinking outside."
But for the small detail that I was a passenger and a civilian, and might
not alter her course, torpedo-boat No. 267 was mine to me all that
priceless day. Moorshed, after breakfast--frizzled ham and a devil that
Pyecroft made out of sardines, anchovies, and French mustard smashed
together with a spanner--showed me his few and simple navigating tools,
and took an observation. Morgan, the signaller, let me hold the chamois
leathers while he cleaned the searchlight (we seemed to be better equipped
with electricity than most of our class), that lived under a bulbous
umbrella-cover amidship. Then Pyecroft and Morgan, standing easy, talked
together of the King's Service as reformers and revolutionists, so
notably, that were I not engaged on this tale I would, for its conclusion,
substitute theirs.
I would speak of Hinchcliffe--Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, first-class engine-
room artificer, and genius in his line, who was prouder of having taken
part in the Hat Crusade in his youth than of all his daring, his skill,
and his nickel-steel nerve. I consorted with him for an hour in the packed
and dancing engine-room, when Moorshed suggested "whacking her up" to
eighteen knots, to see if she would stand it. The floor was ankle-deep in
a creamy batter of oil and water; each moving part flicking more oil in
zoetrope-circles, and the gauges invisible for their dizzy chattering on
the chattering steel bulkhead. Leading stoker Grant, said to be a
bigamist, an ox-eyed man smothered in hair, took me to the stokehold and
planted me between a searing white furnace and some hell-hot iron plate
for fifteen minutes, while I listened to the drone of fans and the worry
of the sea without, striving to wrench all that palpitating firepot wide
open.
Then I came on deck and watched Moorshed--revolving in his orbit from the
canvas bustle and torpedo-tubes aft, by way of engine-room, conning-tower,
and wheel, to the doll's house of a foc'sle--learned in experience
withheld from me, moved by laws beyond my knowledge, authoritative,
entirely adequate, and yet, in heart, a child at his play. _I_ could not
take ten steps along the crowded deck but I collided with some body or
thing; but he and his satellites swung, passed, and returned on their
vocations with the freedom and spaciousness of the well-poised stars.
Even now I can at will recall every tone and gesture, with each dissolving
picture inboard or overside--Hinchcliffe's white arm buried to the
shoulder in a hornet's nest of spinning machinery; Moorshed's halt and
jerk to windward as he looked across the water; Pyecroft's back bent over
the Berthon collapsible boat, while he drilled three men in expanding it
swiftly; the outflung white water at the foot of a homeward-bound Chinaman
not a hundred yards away, and her shadow-slashed, rope-purfled sails
bulging sideways like insolent cheeks; the ribbed and pitted coal-dust on
our decks, all iridescent under the sun; the first filmy haze that paled
the shadows of our funnels about lunch time; the gradual die-down and
dulling over of the short, cheery seas; the sea that changed to a swell:
the swell that crumbled up and ran allwhither oilily: the triumphant,
almost audible roll inward of wandering fog-walls that had been stalking
us for two hours, and--welt upon welt, chill as the grave--the drive of
the interminable main fog of the Atlantic. We slowed to little more than
steerage-way and lay listening. Presently a hand-bellows foghorn jarred
like a corncrake, and there rattled out of the mist a big ship literally
above us. We could count the rivets in her plates as we scrooped by, and
the little drops of dew gathered below them.
"Wonder why they're always barks--always steel--always four-masted--an'
never less than two thousand tons. But they are," said Pyecroft. He was
out on the turtle-backed bows of her; Moorshed was at the wheel, and
another man worked the whistle.
"This fog is the best thing could ha' happened to us," said Moorshed. "It
gives us our chance to run in on the quiet.... Hal-lo!"
A cracked bell rang. Clean and sharp (beautifully grained, too), a
bowsprit surged over our starboard bow, the bobstay confidentially hooking
itself into our forward rail.
I saw Pyecroft's arm fly up; heard at the same moment the severing of the
tense rope, the working of the wheel, Moorshed's voice down the tube
saying, "Astern a little, please, Mr. Hinchcliffe!" and Pyecroft's cry,
"Trawler with her gear down! Look out for our propeller, Sir, or we'll be
wrapped up in the rope."
267 surged quickly under my feet, as the pressure of the downward-bearing
bobstay was removed. Half-a-dozen men of the foc'sle had already thrown
out fenders, and stood by to bear off a just visible bulwark.
Still going astern, we touched slowly, broadside on, to a suggestive
crunching of fenders, and I looked into the deck of a Brixham trawler, her
crew struck dumb.
"Any luck?" said Moorshed politely.
"Not till we met yeou," was the answer. "The Lard he saved us from they
big ships to be spitted by the little wan. Where be'e gwine tu with our
fine new bobstay?"
"Yah! You've had time to splice it by now," said Pyecroft with contempt.
"Aie; but we'm all crushed to port like aigs. You was runnin' twenty-seven
knots, us reckoned it. Didn't us, Albert?"
"Liker twenty-nine, an' niver no whistle."
"Yes, we always do that. Do you want a tow to Brixham?" said Moorshed.
A great silence fell upon those wet men of the sea.
We lifted a little toward their side, but our silent, quick-breathing
crew, braced and strained outboard, bore us off as though we had been a
mere picket-boat.
"What for?" said a puzzled voice.
"For love; for nothing. You'll be abed in Brixham by midnight."
"Yiss; but trawl's down."
"No hurry. I'll pass you a line and go ahead. Sing out when you're ready."
A rope smacked on their deck with the word; they made it fast; we slid
forward, and in ten seconds saw nothing save a few feet of the wire rope
running into fog over our stern; but we heard the noise of debate.
"Catch a Brixham trawler letting go of a free tow in a fog," said Moorshed
listening.
"But what in the world do you want him for?" I asked.
"Oh, he'll came in handy later."
"Was that your first collision?"
"Yes." I shook hands with him in silence, and our tow hailed us.
"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice rose muffled and wailing. "After
us've upped trawl, us'll be glad of a tow. Leave line just slack abaout as
'tis now, and kip a good fine look-out be'ind 'ee."
"There's an accommodatin' blighter for you!" said Pyecroft. "Where does he
expect we'll be, with these currents evolutin' like sailormen at the
Agricultural Hall?"
I left the bridge to watch the wire-rope at the stern as it drew out and
smacked down upon the water. By what instinct or guidance 267 kept it from
fouling her languidly flapping propeller, I cannot tell. The fog now
thickened and thinned in streaks that bothered the eyes like the glare of
intermittent flash-lamps; by turns granting us the vision of a sick sun
that leered and fled, or burying all a thousand fathom deep in gulfs of
vapours. At no time could we see the trawler though we heard the click of
her windlass, the jar of her trawl-beam, and the very flap of the fish on
her deck. Forward was Pyecroft with the lead; on the bridge Moorshed pawed
a Channel chart; aft sat I, listening to the whole of the British
Mercantile Marine (never a keel less) returning to England, and watching
the fog-dew run round the bight of the tow back to its mother-fog.
"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war! We'm done with trawl. You can take us home
if you know the road."
"Right O!" said Moorshed. "We'll give the fishmonger a run for his money.
Whack her up, Mr. Hinchcliffe."
The next few hours completed my education. I saw that I ought to be
afraid, but more clearly (this was when a liner hooted down the back of my
neck) that any fear which would begin to do justice to the situation
would, if yielded to, incapacitate me for the rest of my days. A shadow of
spread sails, deeper than the darkening twilight, brooding over us like
the wings of Azrael (Pyecroft said she was a Swede), and, miraculously
withdrawn, persuaded me that there was a working chance that I should
reach the beach--any beach--alive, if not dry; and (this was when an
economical tramp laved our port-rail with her condenser water) were I so
spared, I vowed I would tell my tale worthily.
Thus we floated in space as souls drift through raw time. Night added
herself to the fog, and I laid hold on my limbs jealously, lest they, too,
should melt in the general dissolution.
"Where's that prevaricatin' fishmonger?" said Pyecroft, turning a lantern
on a scant yard of the gleaming wire-rope that pointed like a stick to my
left. "He's doin' some fancy steerin' on his own. No wonder Mr.
Hincheliffe is blasphemious. The tow's sheered off to starboard, Sir.
He'll fair pull the stern out of us."
Moorshed, invisible, cursed through the megaphone into invisibility.
"Aie! yeou little man-o'-war!" The voice butted through the fog with the
monotonous insistence of a strayed sheep's. "We don't all like the road
you'm takin'. 'Tis no road to Brixham. You'll be buckled up under Prawle
Point by'mbye."
"Do you pretend to know where you are?" the megaphone roared.
"Iss, I reckon; but there's no pretence to me!"
"O Peter!" said Pyecroft. "Let's hang him at 'is own gaff."
I could not see what followed, but Moorshed said: "Take another man with
you. If you lose the tow, you're done. I'll slow her down."
I heard the dinghy splash overboard ere I could cry "Murder!" Heard the
rasp of a boat-hook along the wire-rope, and then, as it had been in my
ear, Pyecroft's enormous and jubilant bellow astern: "Why, he's here!
Right atop of us! The blighter 'as pouched half the tow, like a shark!" A
long pause filled with soft Devonian bleatings. Then Pyecroft, _solo
arpeggie_: "Rum? Rum? Rum? Is that all? Come an' try it, uncle."
I lifted my face to where once God's sky had been, and besought The Trues
I might not die inarticulate, amid these half-worked miracles, but live at
least till my fellow-mortals could be made one-millionth as happy as I was
happy. I prayed and I waited, and we went slow--slow as the processes of
evolution--till the boat-hook rasped again.
"He's not what you might call a scientific navigator," said Pyecroft,
still in the dinghy, but rising like a fairy from a pantomime trap. "The
lead's what 'e goes by mostly; rum is what he's come for; an' Brixham is
'is 'ome. Lay on, Mucduff!"
A white whiskered man in a frock-coat--as I live by bread, a frock-coat!--
sea-boots, and a comforter crawled over the torpedo-tube into Moorshed's
grip and vanished forward.
"'E'll probably 'old three gallon (look sharp with that dinghy!); but 'is
nephew, left in charge of the _Agatha_, wants two bottles command-
allowance. You're a tax-payer, Sir. Do you think that excessive?"
"Lead there! Lead!" rang out from forward.
"Didn't I say 'e wouldn't understand compass deviations? Watch him close.
It'll be worth it!"
As I neared the bridge I heard the stranger say: "Let me zmell un!" and to
his nose was the lead presented by a trained man of the King's Navy.
"I'll tell 'ee where to goo, if yeou'll tell your donkey-man what to du.
I'm no hand wi' steam." On these lines we proceeded miraculously, and,
under Moorshed's orders--I was the fisherman's Ganymede, even as
"M. de C." had served the captain--I found both rum and curaçoa in
a locker, and mixed them equal bulk in an enamelled iron cup.
"Now we'm just abeam o' where we should be," he said at last, "an' here
we'll lay till she lifts. I'd take 'e in for another bottle--and wan for
my nevvy; but I reckon yeou'm shart-allowanced for rum. That's nivver no
Navy rum yeou'm give me. Knowed 'ee by the smack tu un. Anchor now!"
I was between Pyecroft and Moorshed on the bridge, and heard them spring
to vibrating attention at my side. A man with a lead a few feet to port
caught the panic through my body, and checked like a wild boar at gaze,
for not far away an unmistakable ship's bell was ringing. It ceased, and
another began.
"Them!" said Pyecroft. "Anchored!"
"More!" said our pilot, passing me the cup, and I filled it. The trawler
astern clattered vehemently on her bell. Pyecroft with a jerk of his arm
threw loose the forward three-pounder. The bar of the back-sight was
heavily blobbed with dew; the foresight was invisible.
"No--they wouldn't have their picket-boats out in this weather, though
they ought to." He returned the barrel to its crotch slowly.
"Be yeou gwine to anchor?" said Macduff, smacking his lips, "or be yeou
gwine straight on to Livermead Beach?"
"Tell him what we're driving at. Get it into his head somehow," said
Moorshed; and Pyecroft, snatching the cup from me, enfolded the old man
with an arm and a mist of wonderful words.
"And if you pull it off," said Moorshed at the last, "I'll give you a
fiver."
"Lard! What's fivers to me, young man? My nevvy, he likes 'em; but I do
cherish more on fine drink than filthy lucre any day o' God's good weeks.
Leave goo my arm, yeou common sailorman! I tall 'ee, gentlemen, I hain't
the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule yeou reckon I be. Before the mast
I've fared in my time; fisherman I've been since I seed the unsense of
sea-dangerin'. Baccy and spirits--yiss, an' cigars too, I've run a plenty.
I'm no blind harse or boy to be coaxed with your forty-mile free towin'
and rum atop of all. There's none more sober to Brix'am this tide, I don't
care who 'tis--than me. _I_ know--_I_ know. Yander'm two great King's
ships. Yeou'm wishful to sink, burn, and destroy they while us kips 'em
busy sellin' fish. No need tall me so twanty taime over. Us'll find they
ships! Us'll find 'em, if us has to break our fine new bowsprit so close
as Crump's bull's horn!"
"Good egg!" quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide
shoulders with the smack of a beaver's tail.
"Us'll go look for they by hand. Us'll give they something to play upon;
an' do 'ee deal with them faithfully, an' may the Lard have mercy on your
sowls! Amen. Put I in dinghy again."
The fog was as dense as ever--we moved in the very womb of night--but I
cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided by
the tow-rope, disappeared toward the _Agatha_, Pyecroft rowing. The bell
began again on the starboard bow.
"We're pretty near," said Moorshed, slowing down. "Out with the Berthon.
(_We'll_ sell 'em fish, too.) And if any one rows Navy-stroke, I'll break
his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe (this down the tube), "you'll
stay here in charge with Gregory and Shergold and the engine-room staff.
Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes." A deep groan broke from
Morgan's chest, but he said nothing. "If the fog thins and you're seen by
any one, keep'em quiet with the signals. I can't think of the precise lie
just now, but _you_ can, Morgan."
"Yes, Sir."
"Suppose their torpedo-nets are down?" I whispered, shivering with
excitement.
"If they've been repairing minor defects all day, they won't have any one
to spare from the engine-room, and 'Out nets!' is a job for the whole
ship's company. I expect they've trusted to the fog--like us. Well,
Pyecroft?"
That great soul had blown up on to the bridge like a feather. "'Ad to see
the first o' the rum into the _Agathites_, Sir. They was a bit jealous o'
their commandin' officer comin' 'ome so richly lacquered, and at first the
_conversazione_ languished, as you might say. But they sprang to attention
ere I left. Six sharp strokes on the bells, if any of 'em are sober enough
to keep tally, will be the signal that our consort 'as cast off her tow
an' is manceuvrin' on 'er own."
"Right O! Take Laughton with you in the dinghy. Put that Berthon over
quietly there! Are you all right, Mr. Hinchcliffe?"
I stood back to avoid the rush of half-a-dozen shadows dropping into the
Berthon boat. A hand caught me by the slack of my garments, moved me in
generous arcs through the night, and I rested on the bottom of the dinghy.
"I want you for _prima facie_ evidence, in case the vaccination don't
take," said Pyecroft in my ear. "Push off, Alf!"
The last bell-ringing was high overhead. It was followed by six little
tinkles from the _Agatha_, the roar of her falling anchor, the clash of
pans, and loose shouting.
"Where be gwine tu? Port your 'ellum. Aie! you mud-dredger in the fairway,
goo astern! Out boats! She'll sink us!"
A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: "Quiet! you gardeners
there. This is the _Cryptic_ at anchor."
"Thank you for the range," said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly. "Feel well
out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only Marconi
installation." The voices resumed:
"Bournemouth steamer he says she be."
"Then where be Brixham Harbor?"
"Damme, I'm a tax-payer tu. They've no right to cruise about this way.
I'll have the laa on 'ee if anything carries away."
Then the man-of-war:
"Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You'll get
yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift."
The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking, swung.
I passed one hand down Laughton's stretched arm and felt an iron gooseneck
and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The other hand I
laid on broad, cold iron--even the flanks of H.M.S. _Cryptic_, which is
twelve thousand tons.
I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour to
shave, and I smelled paint. "Drop aft a bit, Alf; we'll put a stencil
under the stern six-inch casements."
Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall.
Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was
renewed.
"Umpires are 'ard-'earted blighters, but this ought to convince 'em....
Captain Panke's stern-walk is now above our defenceless 'eads. Repeat the
evolution up the starboard side, Alf."
I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating with
life. Though my knowledge was all by touch--as, for example, when Pyecroft
led my surrendered hand to the base of some bulging sponson, or when my
palm closed on the knife-edge of the stem and patted it timidly--yet I
felt lonely and unprotected as the enormous, helpless ship was withdrawn,
and we drifted away into the void where voices sang:
Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me thy gray mare,
All along, out along, down along lea!
I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair
With Bill Brewer, Sam Sewer, Peter Gurney, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley an' all!
"That's old Sinbad an' 'is little lot from the _Agatha_! Give way, Alf!
_You_ might sing somethin', too."
"I'm no burnin' Patti. Ain't there noise enough for you, Pye?"
"Yes, but it's only amateurs. Give me the tones of 'earth and 'ome. Ha!
List to the blighter on the 'orizon sayin' his prayers, Navy-fashion.
'Eaven 'elp me argue that way when I'm a warrant-officer!"
We headed with little lapping strokes toward what seemed to be a fair-
sized riot.
"An' I've 'eard the _Devolution_ called a happy ship, too," said Pyecroft.
"Just shows 'ow a man's misled by prejudice. She's peevish--that's what
she is--nasty-peevish. Prob'ly all because the _Agathites_ are scratching
'er paint. Well, rub along, Alf. I've got the lymph!"
A voice, which Mr. Pyecroft assured me belonged to a chief carpenter, was
speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the lower
deck). He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly reduced
rates. Nobody wished to buy any fish. This ship was the _Devolution_ at
anchor, and desired no communication with shore boats.
"Mark how the Navy 'olds it's own. He's sober. The _Agathites_ are not, as
you might say, an' yet they can't live with 'im. It's the discipline that
does it. 'Ark to the bald an' unconvincin' watch-officer chimin' in. I
wonder where Mr. Moorshed has got to?"
We drifted down the _Devolution's_ side, as we had drifted down her
sister's; and we dealt with her in that dense gloom as we had dealt with
her sister.
"Whai! 'Tis a man-o'-war, after all! I can see the captain's whisker all
gilt at the edges! We took 'ee for the Bournemouth steamer. Three cheers
for the real man-o'-war!"
That cry came from under the _Devolution's_ stern. Pyecroft held something
in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, "Our Mister Moorshed!"
Said a boy's voice above us, just as we dodged a jet of hot water from
some valve: "I don't half like that cheer. If I'd been the old man I'd ha'
turned loose the quick-firers at the first go-off. Aren't they rowing
Navy-stroke, yonder?"
"True," said Pyecroft, listening to retreating oars. "It's time to go 'ome
when snotties begin to think. The fog's thinnin', too."
I felt a chill breath on my forehead, and saw a few feet of the steel
stand out darker than the darkness, disappear--it was then the dinghy shot
away from it--and emerge once more.
"Hallo! what boat's that?" said the voice suspiciously.
"Why, I do believe it's a real man-o'-war, after all," said Pyecroft, and
kicked Laughton.
"What's that for?" Laughton was no dramatist.
"Answer in character, you blighter! Say somethin' opposite."
"What boat's _thatt_?" The hail was repeated.
"What do yee say-ay?" Pyecroft bellowed, and, under his breath to me:
"Give us a hand."
"It's called the _Marietta_--F. J. Stokes--Torquay," I began, quaveringly.
"At least, that's the name on the name-board. I've been dining--on a
yacht."
"I see." The voice shook a little, and my way opened before me with
disgraceful ease.
"Yesh. Dining private yacht. _Eshmesheralda_. I belong to Torquay Yacht
Club. _Are_ you member Torquay Yacht Club?"
"You'd better go to bed, Sir. Good-night." We slid into the rapidly
thinning fog.
"Dig out, Alf. Put your _nix mangiare_ back into it. The fog's peelin'
off like a petticoat. Where's Two Six Seven?"
"I can't see her," I replied, "but there's a light low down ahead."
"The _Agatha_!" They rowed desperately through the uneasy dispersal of the
fog for ten minutes and ducked round the trawler's bow.
"Well, Emanuel means 'God with us'--so far." Pyecroft wiped his brow, laid
a hand on the low rail, and as he boosted me up to the trawler, I saw
Moorshed's face, white as pearl in the thinning dark.
"Was it all right?" said he, over the bulwarks.
"Vaccination ain't in it. She's took beautiful. But where's 267, Sir?"
Pyecroft replied.
"Gone. We came here as the fog lifted. I gave the _Devolution_ four. Was
that you behind us?"
"Yes, sir; but I only got in three on the _Devolution_. I gave the
_Cryptic_ nine, though. They're what you might call more or less
vaccinated."
He lifted me inboard, where Moorshed and six pirates lay round the
_Agatha's_ hatch. There was a hint of daylight in the cool air.
"Where is the old man?" I asked.
"Still selling 'em fish, I suppose. He's a darling! But I wish I could get
this filthy paint off my hands. Hallo! What the deuce is the _Cryptic_
signalling?"
A pale masthead light winked through the last of the fog. It was answered
by a white pencil to the southward.
"Destroyer signalling with searchlight." Pyecroft leaped on the stern-
rail. "The first part is private signals. Ah! now she's Morsing against
the fog. 'P-O-S-T'--yes, 'postpone'--'D-E-P-' (go on)! 'departure--till--
further--orders--which--will--be com" (he's dropped the other m)
"'unicated--verbally. End,'." He swung round. "_Cryptic_ is now answering:
'Ready--proceed--immediately. What--news--promised--destroyer--
flotilla?'"
"Hallo!" said Moorshed. "Well, never mind, They'll come too late."
"Whew! That's some 'igh-born suckling on the destroyer. Destroyer signals:
'Care not. All will be known later.' What merry beehive's broken loose
now?"
"What odds! We've done our little job."
"Why--why--it's Two Six Seven!"
Here Pyecroft dropped from the rail among the fishy nets and shook the
_Agatha_ with heavings. Moorshed cast aside his cigarette, looked over the
stern, and fell into his subordinate's arms. I heard the guggle of
engines, the rattle of a little anchor going over not a hundred yards
away, a cough, and Morgan's subdued hail. ... So far as I remember, it was
Laughton whom I hugged; but the men who hugged me most were Pyecroft and
Moorshed, adrift among the fishy nets.
There was no semblance of discipline in our flight over the _Agatha's_
side, nor, indeed, were ordinary precautions taken for the common safety,
because (I was in the Berthon) they held that patent boat open by hand for
the most part. We regained our own craft, cackling like wild geese, and
crowded round Moorshed and Hinchcliffe. Behind us the _Agatha's_ boat,
returning from her fish-selling cruise, yelled: "Have 'ee done the trick?
Have 'ee done the trick?" and we could only shout hoarsely over the stern,
guaranteeing them rum by the hold-full.
"Fog got patchy here at 12:27," said Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, growing
clearer every instant in the dawn. "Went down to Brixham Harbour to keep
out of the road. Heard whistles to the south and went to look. I had her
up to sixteen good. Morgan kept on shedding private Red Fleet signals out
of the signal-book, as the fog cleared, till we was answered by three
destroyers. Morgan signalled 'em by searchlight: 'Alter course to South
Seventeen East, so as not to lose time,' They came round quick. We kept
well away--on their port beam--and Morgan gave 'em their orders." He
looked at Morgan and coughed.
"The signalman, acting as second in command," said Morgan, swelling, "then
informed destroyer flotilla that _Cryptic_ and _Devolution_ had made good
defects, and, in obedience to Admiral's supplementary orders (I was afraid
they might suspect that, but they didn't), had proceeded at seven knots at
11:23 p. M. to rendezvous near Channel Islands, seven miles N.N.W. the
Casquet light. (I've rendezvoused there myself, Sir.) Destroyer flotilla
would therefore follow cruisers and catch up with them on their course.
Destroyer flotilla then dug out on course indicated, all funnels sparking
briskly."
"Who were the destroyers?"
"_Wraith, Kobbold, Stiletto_, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett, acting
under Admiral's orders to escort cruisers received off the Dodman at 7 P.
M. They'd come slow on account of fog."
"Then who were you?"
"We were the _Afrite_, port-engine broke down, put in to Torbay, and there
instructed by _Cryptic_, previous to her departure with _Devolution_) to
inform Commander Hignett of change of plans. Lieutenant-Commander Hignett
signalled that our meeting was quite providential. After this we returned
to pick up our commanding officer, and being interrogated by _Cryptic_,
marked time signalling as requisite, which you may have seen. The _Agatha_
representing the last known rallying-point--or, as I should say, pivot-
ship of the evolution--it was decided to repair to the _Agatha_ at
conclusion of manoeuvre."
"Is there such a thing as one fine big drink aboard this one fine big
battleship?" "Can do, sir," said Pyecroft, and got it. Beginning with Mr.
Moorshed and ending with myself, junior to the third first-class stoker,
we drank, and it was as water of the brook, that two and a half inches of
stiff, treacly, Navy rum. And we looked each in the other's face, and we
nodded, bright-eyed, burning with bliss.
Moorshed walked aft to the torpedo-tubes and paced back and forth, a
captain victorious on his own quarterdeck; and the triumphant day broke
over the green-bedded villas of Torquay to show us the magnitude of our
victory. There lay the cruisers (I have reason to believe that they had
made good their defects). They were each four hundred and forty feet long
and sixty-six wide; they held close upon eight hundred men apiece, and
they had cost, say, a million and a half the pair. And they were ours, and
they did not know it. Indeed, the _Cryptic_, senior ship, was signalling
vehement remarks to our address, which we did not notice.
"If you take these glasses, you'll get the general run o' last night's
vaccination," said Pyecroft. "Each one represents a torpedo got 'ome, as
you might say."
I saw on the _Cryptic's_ port side, as she lay half a mile away across the
glassy water, four neat white squares in outline, a white blur in the
centre.
"There are five more to starboard. 'Ere's the original!" He handed me a
paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet square, bearing in the centre
the six-inch initials, "G.M."
"Ten minutes ago I'd ha' eulogised about that little trick of ours, but
Morgan's performance has short-circuited me. Are you happy, Morgan?"
"Bustin'," said the signalman briefly.
"You may be. Gawd forgive you, Morgan, for as Queen 'Enrietta said to the
'ousemaid, _I_ never will. I'd ha' given a year's pay for ten minutes o'
your signallin' work this mornin'."
"I wouldn't 'ave took it up," was the answer. "Perishin' 'Eavens above!
Look at the _Devolution's_ semaphore!" Two black wooden arms waved from
the junior ship's upper bridge. "They've seen it."
"_The_ mote _on_ their neighbour's beam, of course," said Pyecroft, and
read syllable by syllable: "'Captain Malan to Captain Panke. Is--sten--
cilled frieze your starboard side new Admiralty regulation, or your Number
One's private expense?' Now _Cryptic_ is saying, 'Not understood.' Poor
old _Crippy_, the _Devolute's_ raggin' 'er sore. 'Who is G.M.?' she says.
That's fetched the _Cryptic_. She's answerin': 'You ought to know. Examine
own paintwork.' Oh, Lord! they're both on to it now. This is balm. This is
beginning to be balm. I forgive you, Morgan!"
Two frantic pipes twittered. From either cruiser a whaler dropped into the
water and madly rowed round the ship: as a gay-coloured hoist rose to the
_Cryptic's_ yardarm: "Destroyer will close at once. Wish to speak by
semaphore." Then on the bridge semaphore itself: "Have been trying to
attract your attention last half hour. Send commanding officer aboard at
once."
"Our attention? After all the attention we've given 'er, too," said
Pyecroft. "What a greedy old woman!" To Moorshed: "Signal from the
_Cryptic_, Sir."
"Never mind that!" said the boy, peering through his glasses. "Our dinghy
quick, or they'll paint our marks out. Come along!"
By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft's bending
back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as we skimmed
the _Cryptic's_ ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman in her whaler
when we barged fairly into him.
"Mind my paint!" he yelled.
"You mind mine, snotty," said Moorshed. "I was all night putting these
little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave 'em alone."
We splashed past him to the _Devolution's_ boat, where sat no one less
than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer.
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