Traffics and Discoveries Part 9

Was accomplished in partial And inadequate recognition of their loss By some men who loved him

_Si monumentum requiris circ.u.mspice_

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 pa.s.sed.

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 towns.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.s 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 flags.h.i.+p, 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 battles.h.i.+ps 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 bra.s.s 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-cla.s.s 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 tw.a.n.ged 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 pa.s.su_, 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 h.e.l.l; 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 _resume_-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 s.h.i.+pping 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-cla.s.s torpedo-boat and the full-blooded destroyer. From her archaic torpedo-tubes at the stern, and quick-firers forward and amids.h.i.+p, 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 pa.s.sed 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 cas.e.m.e.nt?"

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 circ.u.mspection. His advice to buy a ham and see life clinched it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft--I heard spurs clink--pa.s.sed 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 dispa.s.sionately 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?"