Czytaj książkę: «Pincher Martin, O.D.: A Story of the Inner Life of the Royal Navy», strona 12

CHAPTER IX
THE CLOUD

I

It all happened very suddenly. The fleet had been reviewed by his Majesty the King at Spithead in the middle of July, and after this certain exercises were carried out in lieu of the usual summer manœuvres. They did not last very long, however, for on Friday, 24th July, the Belligerent arrived at her home port to effect some necessary repairs, and, incidentally, to give four days' leave to her men; so the next morning half the ship's company, including Pincher, left for their homes.

Now the Martin family, being country-people, did not worry their heads with newspapers on weekdays. For one thing, the papers cost money and were difficult to get; and, for another, they had little time to read them. Mr Martin usually bought Reynolds's Weekly on Sunday; but on that particular Sunday, 26th July, there was nothing in it to give rise to any anxiety. He did notice that there was some sort of trouble between Austria and Serbia; but that could not possibly affect his weekly wages, and beyond remarking casually to his wife that 'them there Balkan nations is 'oly 'orrors for gettin' up rows,' he paid no further attention to it.

On the following Tuesday, 28th July, at ten-forty-three A.M. precisely, Pincher left the cottage to buy a packet of cigarettes at the village shop. Albert, his youngest brother, aged five, clutching a penny with which he proposed to purchase two sticks of glutinous but very succulent pink nougat, accompanied him. They were away exactly fourteen minutes, and on their return found Mrs Martin, fresh from her wash-tub and with her arms covered in soapsuds to the elbows, bubbling over with suppressed excitement. She was gazing in a perturbed manner at a telegram; for, to the Martin ménage, the arrival of an orange envelope was a matter of some importance. It generally spelt trouble. The last one had arrived over a year before to announce that Mrs Martin's sister had been run over by an omnibus.

''Ullo, ma!' Pincher exclaimed, noticing his parent's agitated condition; 'wot's th' racket?'

'This 'ere's just come,' she said excitedly, handing the telegram across with very damp fingers. 'For you, it is. You've got to go back to the ship at once!'

'Go back!' he echoed indignantly, taking the offending missive. 'My leaf ain't up till fu'st train ter-morrer mornin'!'

'Ye'd best read it, son,' remarked the lady, wiping her arms on her apron. 'See for yerself.'

Pincher did so. 'Gosh!' he exclaimed with a whistle of surprise, 'there ain't no bloomin' error abart this 'ere.'

There was not. It was addressed to him personally, and was signed, 'Commanding Officer.' 'Leave cancelled,' it said abruptly, almost brutally. 'Rejoin ship immediately.'

''Strewth! Wot's th' buzz, I wonder?' he murmured, very much puzzled, and looking at the back of the paper as if to find the answer to his question there. 'Wot's it mean?'

'That's wot I'm wonderin',' said his mother. 'Wot does it mean? Ye're not in trouble, are yer?' She had a vague suspicion at the back of her mind that Pincher might have absented himself without leave.

'Trouble! Course I ain't. It ain't that. There's somethin' else in th' wind. One o' these 'ere bloomin' war buzzes, I reckons.' He spoke as if wars and rumours of wars were of everyday occurrence.

Mrs Martin seemed rather alarmed. 'War!' she gasped, looking up with a horrified expression. 'Wot d' you mean, Bill? Surely we're not goin' to war?'

'Course we ain't, ma,' he replied, laughing, and patting her consolingly on the shoulder. 'This 'ere don't mean nothin'; only a bit of a buzz round like. Yer see,' he pointed out with pride, 'we – th' navy, that is – always 'as ter be ready fur these 'ere shows, 'cos if anythin' did 'appen an' we wasn't ready things 'u'd be in a pretty hot mess. S'pose I'd best be makin' a move, though,' he added ruefully. 'Bit orf, I calls it!'

'Goin' now?'

'Fu'st train,' he said, nodding. 'This 'ere telegraph says rejoin immediate. I expec's th' ship's goin' ter sea in an 'urry like, an' they wants me back perticular.'

Mrs Martin gazed at her son with motherly pride. She did not like the idea of his leaving so soon; but it was very consoling to think that he was a person of such importance on board the Belligerent that the ship could not go to sea without him. He must be very valuable, otherwise they would not have telegraphed.

Albert, who had already assimilated half a piece of nougat, and had covered his face with pink stickiness, looked up inquiringly. 'Bill goin'?' he queried fretfully.

'Yes, ducky,' answered his mother. 'Called back to 'is ship. 'E's goin' now.'

The information was too much for Albert. He withdrew the sweetmeat from his mouth, screwed up his face, and suddenly burst into a howl. 'Ow!' he bellowed; 'Bill's goin' back to 'is ship! Bill's goin' back!' It was a matter of some importance to him, for the presence of his elder brother meant an occasional honorarium of one penny, and one penny meant a plentiful supply of nougat. His little soul delighted in nougat. His mother never gave him pennies.

'Stop yer 'owlin', Albert!' Mrs Martin ordered severely. 'Has if I 'adn't enough to think about without listenin' to yer noise! – Bill,' she went on, glancing at the clock, 'you'd best be off. The Lunnon train stops at the station at eleven-forty-four, same one yer uncle Charles come by yesterday. There's not another till the arternoon. The clock's a bit fast, but it's about quarter-past eleven now, an' the station's a good couple o' miles.'

''Strewth!' muttered Pincher, darting from the room, 'I'll 'ave ter run.' He went to his bedroom, collected his few belongings, and presently reappeared with an oilskin over his shoulder and a small blue bundle in his hand.

Albert, with his mouth wide open, gazed at him tearfully.

'S' long, ma,' Pincher said, putting his arm round his mother's neck and kissing her gently. 'Say good-bye ter farther w'en 'e comes 'ome, an' th' kids w'en they gits back from school.'

'Good-bye, son. Good luck to yer,' she answered, drawing his head down and embracing him, with the tears in her eyes. 'I do 'ope it's not nothin' serious. Write an' let me know 'ow yer gets on.'

'Right you are, ma. – S'long, Halbert,' he went on cheerfully, bending down and kissing his small brother. 'Be a good boy, now, an' don't git worritin' ma, now I'm goin'.'

The tears streamed down the youngster's cheeks. He began to whimper loudly.

'Be a good boy, I tells yer,' Pincher went on, patting him. 'If ma writes an' tells me you've be'aved yerself I'll send yer another penny nex' week. If yer don't, yer won't git no penny – see? Gosh!' he added hastily, 'it's 'igh time I wus orf.' He gave his mother another hurried kiss, and a second later was out of the cottage and racing down the road as fast as his legs would carry him. The shrieks of the inconsolable Albert pursued him.

Mrs Martin watched him till he gave a final wave before disappearing round a bend in the lane, and then returned to admonish her small son. 'Ye're a naughty boy, ye are!' she scolded shrilly. 'If yer don't stop it I'll put yer across my knee an' give yer wot for; straight, I will! Stop it. D'you 'ear wot I say?'

Albert's howls gradually died away into sobs.

Mrs Martin returned to her wash-tub with dismal forebodings in her heart. Telegrams always meant trouble.

II

'Bless yer 'eart an' soul!' exclaimed Billings, with a loud snort, ''e ain't goin' ter fight. Orl this 'ere racket's only a bit o' bounce like. Same as wot 'e did in that 'ere show in nineteen eleven.' He rammed the tobacco down into his pipe and relit it, with one watchful eye on his companion.

'I presooms ye're talkin' abart that there Meroccer bizness,' said Tubby M'Sweeny, producing a cigarette from the lining of his cap. 'Aggie-dear wus wot they called it.' He seemed rather proud of his superior knowledge.

'Yus, that's it,' Joshua agreed with a nod. 'I knowed it wus Aggie somethin'. But, any'ow, look wot this 'ere Kayser Bill does then! Directly 'e see'd we meant bizness 'e piped down smart, an' sed 'e wus sorry for wot 'e'd done. That's wot 'e'll do this time, I reckons.'

'I dunno so much abart that,' M'Sweeny disagreed. 'Look 'ow them Germans downed France an' done th' dirty on them! I reckons they thinks they kin do the same wi' us – s'welp me, I do.'

'Garn!' jeered the other. 'They've got ter reckon wi' our bloomin' navy, an' it's more'n double as good as theirs. I'm not sayin' they doesn't mean ter fight us later on,' he added, wagging a finger; 'but I says they won't try it on now. 'Sides, they ain't sailors!' To show his contempt he expectorated violently, and with deadly precision, into an adjacent spitkid.

M'Sweeny seemed sceptical. 'Maybe they ain't sailors,' he pointed out solemnly; 'but we ain't see'd nothin' of 'em. We knows nothin' of 'em, either. I've 'eard tell, too, that that there Kayser bloke o' theirs 'as gingered 'em up somethin' crool, an' a navy wot's been gingered up must be on th' top line same as us, mustn't it?'

Joshua shook his head. 'I tell yer they ain't goin' ter fight yet awhile,' he persisted. 'Orl this 'ere racket's only a bit o' bounce. D' you think they doesn't know wot our navy's like? Ain't they bloomin' well scared of it?' Billings, a staunch and very insular Briton, still held to the belief that his own countrymen were the only really good seamen in the world. Those of other nationalities were either 'Dagoes' or 'niggers,' and which of the two terms was the more opprobrious was rather a moot point.

'An' wot abart our army?' came an irrelevant remark from Pincher, who happened to be listening. 'I knows a bloke wot's in th' Black Watch – lance-corporal 'e is – an' 'e reckons our army's bin properly gingered up an' is properly on th' top line.'

'Th' men is orl right,' said M'Sweeny mournfully, 'an' so is the orficers; but we ain't got enuf of 'em. We ain't got a million men in th' army, nor yet 'arf that number, an' that there Kayser's got millions an' millions!' He waved a hand vaguely to give some idea of the Teuton hordes.

'But if we goes ter war our army 'as a slap at somethin', I suppose?' Pincher queried.

'Course they does, fat'ead,' Joshua replied with fatherly condescension. 'They goes an' 'elps th' Frenchies ter take Berlin, while we – th' navy, that is – 'as a desprit battle in th' North Sea, an' wipes th' deck with their bloomin' 'Igh Sea Fleet. The army blokes'll be at Berlin in a month or six weeks, an' we'll 'ave done our job in 'arf th' time. W'en we've done it we orl goes 'ome on leaf wi' our medals an' V.C.'s, an' becomes public 'eroes wot saved the country. But you mark my words, the 'ole bloomin' war'll be over in three months w'en it comes. 'Owever, they ain't goin' ter fight now, so wot's the use o' yarnin' abart it? This 'ere racket's only a spasm like. It don't mean nothin'.'

But M'Sweeny, obviously a pessimist, shook his head. 'I dunno so much,' he answered sadly. 'I've bin 'avin' feelin's in me 'ead that somethin' 's goin' ter 'appen soon, an' me feelin's allus comes true. W'en you wus made a leadin' seaman, Josh, I 'ad a feelin' that you'd be an A.B. agen afore long; an' w'en' —

'Wot! d' yer mean yer 'ad a feelin' abart me?' Billings interrupted, rather annoyed. ''Ow dare yer?'

'I 'as feelin's in me 'ead abart lots o' people,' Tubby reiterated solemnly. 'They allus comes true.'

Joshua lifted up his head and laughed. 'Feelin's in yer 'ead!' he jeered. 'Feelin's in yer stummick, more like. It's beer wot's done it, Tubby; an' if it ain't beer, it wus them canteen termarters yer 'ad fur supper larst night!'

'Termarters be damned!' retorted M'Sweeny.

Now this conversation took place during the dinner-hour of Thursday, 30th July, two days after the watch on leave had been hurriedly recalled, and all further shore-going had been cancelled.

Neither Billings, M'Sweeny, nor Pincher – nor, for that matter, any other member of the ship's company – knew exactly how they could become embroiled. They were all painfully aware that there was trouble in Eastern Europe, and that, in some remote sort of way, this trouble transmitted itself to them. But beyond anathematising the 'spasm,' as they called it, on somebody's part which had caused their leave to be stopped, and extra work in the way of coaling and embarking ammunition to be carried out, they regarded the affair as of no more importance than the annual summer manœuvres. War was utterly unthinkable.

But by this time, if they had only known it, practically the whole of the British fleet was on a war footing, and ready for instant action. The newspapers had remained discreetly silent, and the whereabouts of squadrons, flotillas, and individual ships was unknown to the public. They had vanished into the air; but, except in isolated cases, every vessel in the navy was already at her war station or on her way there. Dockyards were working night and day. Naval reservists and pensioners were flocking to their depots; retired officers were coming forward in dozens to volunteer their services. Colliers, oil-fuel ships, ammunition ships, and a thousand and one other fleet auxiliaries had been chartered, and the Admiralty had taken their 'precautionary measures' so rapidly and so unostentatiously that hardly a soul in the country realised that anything untoward was happening.

The fleet was ready, and well it was for Britain that it was so. Germany, relying perhaps on a surprise attack at some 'selected moment' before an actual declaration of war, and while our fleets and squadrons were still dispersed, had bungled badly. She may not have expected us to join in the war; may have imagined that Britain, fettered with the possibility of complications in Ireland, preferred to keep out of a Continental struggle at all costs. But she had made a grievous mistake, an error which, combined with the wisest forethought on the part of the British Admiralty, made it practically impossible for the trident of Britannia ever to pass into the hands of the Teutonic Michael.

Early the next morning, 31st July, the Belligerent left her home port, and steamed to her base in the English Channel to rejoin the rest of the squadron. It was quite a short trip, but it was on the passage that the eyes of the ship's company were opened to the fact that something serious really was in the wind. For one thing, the ammunition for all the six-inch and lighter guns was brought up from the magazines and shell-rooms and distributed to the casemates and batteries; while certain of the weapons were kept constantly manned – what for, exactly, none of the men quite knew. The captain and the commander looked graver than usual; and Chase, the gunnery lieutenant-commander, rather worried, held hurried consultations with the gunner about shell and cartridges, and had a party of armourers constantly at work throughout the day testing and adjusting the mechanism of his weapons.

The commander and the carpenter, too, the latter armed with a large piece of chalk and a note-book, made a solemn peregrination of the ship, decorating various wooden fittings with cabbalistic signs as they went. Pincher, who happened to be working on the boat-deck at the time, heard part of their conversation. It rather frightened him.

'All this wood of yours will have to be landed or slung overboard, Mr Chipping,' the senior officer remarked, coming to a halt beside a pile of spars and planks on the boat-deck, and eyeing it with evident disfavour. 'If a shell burst in the middle of this little lot we'd have a bonfire in a couple of seconds.'

Pincher pricked up his ears.

'It's all on charge, sir,' the carpenter answered ruefully, with horrible visions of subsequent discrepancies in his store-books. 'I've got to account for every inch of it.'

The commander laughed. 'You storekeeping officers are born obstructionists, Mr Chipping,' he exclaimed. 'If we go to war your store-books will go to the devil, anyhow, so what on earth does it matter? I'm always greeted with the same remark when I'm trying to make the ship a little less like a bonfire. They're invariably "on charge," dammit!'

'And so they are, sir,' put in the carpenter. 'I have to account for 'em.'

'Can't help that. You'd better send in your bill to the Kaiser. Anyhow, we can't have all this lumber up here; it's a regular death-trap.'

Mr Chipping scratched his grizzled head. 'I'll land all what I can't strike below, sir,' he grudgingly assented at last.

'Yes, see to it at once, please. If this pile of wood catches fire it'll play Old Harry on the upper deck with the twelve-pounders and their ammunition.'

Pincher listened open-mouthed, for it was quite obvious from the way they talked that things were far more serious than Joshua had led him to believe. Moreover, he, Martin, was in full agreement with the commander as to the expediency of removing the pile of wood from the boat-deck. His station in action was at one of the upper-deck twelve-pounder guns, and he had no wish to emulate Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego of the Old Testament in their blazing, fiery furnace.

The carpenter got busy with his chalk, and before long the whole pile of lumber was ornamented with little noughts and crosses. The noughts, Pincher assumed, meant that the articles so marked were to be retained, and the crosses that those bearing this mark were to be thrown overboard or landed; and when, a little later, he had occasion to go on to the upper deck he found many other things decorated with the same mystic signs. Certain of the smaller boats, spare spars, cabin doors, accommodation ladders, gratings, lockers, anything and everything wooden, inflammable, or likely to make splinters, were apparently to go by the board. It gave him furiously to think.

The ship arrived at her base during the afternoon, and Captain Spencer went on board the flagship to report his arrival. He was away for an hour and a half, and came back with what the officer of the watch called 'a face like a sea-boot,' and the information that the situation was very serious. Beyond that he professed to know nothing, but every one noticed that the commander was closeted with him in his cabin for fully three-quarters of an hour on his return from the flagship. Petty Officer Finnigan, moreover, the captain's coxswain and a great friend of the admiral's cook on board the flagship Tremendous, told his messmates with much gusto that the cook had informed him that the admiral's steward had told him (the cook) that war with Germany was only a matter of hours.

We have heard of yarns emanating from ships' cooks generally being treated with derision, but presumably admirals' cooks are above suspicion in this respect, for the news spread rapidly, and the 'Belligerents,' believing it implicitly, were flung into a state of ill-suppressed excitement in consequence. Most of them had never seen a shot fired in anger; but the prospect of war – the awful prospect of the unknown – did not seem to alarm them. On the contrary, officers and men went about their business with light hearts and smiles on their faces, for, as Tickle had once pointed out when referring to the same subject, 'it's a bit thick if we're doomed to fire our guns at a canvas target all our lives.' Most of them longed for a run for their money, and to all appearances they were going to have it. The graver possibilities of war did not intrude themselves upon their minds until long afterwards. They all felt cocksure that they, individually, were not fated to die violent deaths by the enemy's shell, torpedoes, mines, bombs, or by drowning. If any one was to be killed, it was not they. They merely pictured to themselves a short and triumphant struggle, at the conclusion of which – in six months at the very most – they, having sunk the enemy's navy, would go home on leave with medals on their manly bosoms, to be hailed as the saviours of their country. Alas for their dreams!

The squadron was in a state of feverish activity. Some ships were taking in final supplies of coal and ammunition, working night and day; while others were landing all their superfluous wooden or inflammable fittings and non-necessary stores. The 'Belligerents' themselves started on the job early the next morning. Such a collection there was! Many tons of paint and varnish; some of the smaller boats; quantities of timber for building targets; wooden accommodation ladders; baulks, spars, and planks; chests of drawers from the officers' cabins, and tin cases and trunks containing their personal effects and more treasured possessions; the midshipmen's and chief petty officers' chests; doors of cabins; gratings; even the wardroom pianola, an instrument which was being paid for on the instalment system, were taken ashore and lodged in a place of security. The work took them a full forty-eight hours.

The Belligerent, being a pre-Dreadnought battleship, had to have more done to her to make her ready for battle than a similar vessel of a later class, and Sunday, 2nd August, brought no cessation of labour. If anything, it was a more strenuous day than the previous one, for except for a brief service on the quarterdeck, lasting exactly ten minutes, officers and men alike were hard at work preparing the ship for war. There was plenty to be done. Extra lifts and tackles were put upon the yards on the foremast to prevent them crashing down from aloft if struck by a shell, the rigging was snaked down with hawsers to stop it flying away if severed, and extra protection, in the shape of tightly rolled-up canvas awnings, thick enough to stop a substantial shell-splinter, was improvised round the bridge and fire-control positions up aloft.

Fire, first-aid, and stretcher parties were told off and organised, and everything was done, beyond the final wetting of decks, to make the ship ready for immediate action, and to lessen the chances of damage to vessel or men through fire or fragments of flying débris almost as dangerous as the shell-splinters themselves.

Surgical bags containing bandages, dressings, splints, and tourniquets were placed ready to hand in all the gun positions in case men were wounded; morphia tabloids were served out to all the officers of quarters for administration to badly injured men; while the fleet surgeon and Cutting, the 'young doctor,' saw to the gruesome implements of their profession, and caused the operating-table to be transferred from the sick-bay to a convenient site behind armour on the lower deck.

Tickle's cabin was next to the 'young doc's' in Rogues' Alley, as it was called; and, happening to go below during the forenoon, he noticed Cutting through the half-drawn curtain busy with a chamois leather and an array of murderous-looking knives, probes, and forceps laid out on his bunk.

'Hallo, Sawbones!' he remarked, putting his head inside; 'I see you've got all your ironmongery out. Think you're going to have something to do at last – eh?'

'Hallo, Toby! That you? Come inside and have a look. I've an excellent line in cutlery, guaranteed to kill or cure while you wait. What d'you think of that?' He held out a horrible-looking knife with a thin curved blade.

'Ugh!' shuddered Tickle. 'Take the beastly thing away! What d'you do with it?'

'Cut, my dear chap,' the doctor gloated. 'One sharp snick like that' – and he gave the blade a downward jerk, and clicked suggestively with his tongue – 'and then we get to work and remove – er – anything you like. Ripping little thing, isn't it?' he laughed. 'This,' the medico continued, laying the knife down and picking up a probe and a pair of forceps, 'is what we use for feeling for a bit of shell inside a chap, and this is what we fish it out with. Quite simply done. Topping little operation to watch.'

'You bloodthirsty little blighter!' Tickle ejaculated.

'Bloodthirsty! Why, it's my job, isn't it? We hardly ever get a chance of doing any decent operations in peace, worse luck!' he added regretfully; 'your sailors are so disgustingly healthy; and if they do get really ill and promise to be interesting cases, they're packed straight off to hospital. Sickening, I call it!'

'M'yes, that's true, I suppose,' Tickle agreed, smiling. 'Look here, though, doc; if you ever have to – er – extract a bit of shell or other foreign substance from my anatomy, look out you don't chuck it away. I want to keep it as a relic.'

Cutting grinned. 'Right-o, Toby; I'll see to it. Now you'd better clear out of here, young fellow, and get on with your work. I'm busy, and I'm sure you ought to be.'

Tickle departed.