"Down foresail. Top up mainsail!" The cutter, with the skiff towing peacefully astern, glided into a little bay where miniature cliffs, some twenty feet in height, rose from a narrow shale-strewn beach. The anchor plashed overboard.
"_Here we are, here we are, here we are again!_" carolled the Surgeon l.u.s.tily. "Come alongside, skiff! The landing of the Lancashire Fusiliers is about to commence under a withering fire!"
A letter received that morning from a soldier brother who had taken part in that epic of human gallantry had apparently inspired the Young Doctor. He pointed ahead with a dramatic gesture at the cliffs.
"Yonder are the Turks! See, they fly, they fly!" A pair of agitated cormorants, sunning themselves on the rocks, flew seaward with outstretched necks. "Lead on, brave lads, and I will follow!"
The skiff came b.u.mping alongside, and Mouldy Jakes, galvanised into wakefulness by the confusion and laughter, found himself inextricably entangled in the fishing-line, holding a kettle that someone had thrust upon him in one hand and a frying-pan in the other. Half a dozen partly clad forms, followed by the Doctor, flung themselves headlong into the skiff and made for the sh.o.r.e. The bows grated on the shingle and they sprang out.
"For drill purposes only," explained the Surgeon breathlessly, "we are Turks!"
Under his direction they proceeded to collect pebbles. "A withering volley will accordingly be opened on the Lancashire Fusiliers."
Despite a heavy fire of pebbles, the landing was ultimately effected; the invaders abandoned their trousers and floundered gallantly through the bullet-torn shallows. Ensued a complete rout of the Turks, who were pursued inland across the heather with triumphant shouts and the corpse of a seagull, found on the beach, hurled after them from the point of a piece of driftwood.
The evicted snipers eventually returned with their caps full of plovers" eggs, to find a fire of bleached twigs blazing and sausages frizzling in the frying-pan. They were handed mugs of hot tea.
In the phraseology of chroniclers of Sunday-school treats, "ample justice was done to the varied repast." Then it was discovered that the tide was falling, and a hasty re-embarkation followed.
Sails were hoisted, the anchor weighed, and the cutter, with the empty skiff in tow, headed for the West, where the sun was already setting in a great glory of gold.
The brief warmth of a Northern spring day had pa.s.sed, and, as they rounded the promontory and the Fleet hove in sight once more, duffle coats and m.u.f.flers were donned and a bottle of sloe-gin uncorked.
"Mug-up!" cried the Sub. "Mug-up, and let"s get "appy and chatty."
They crowded together in the stern-sheets for warmth, and presently Thorogood started "John Brown"s Body Lies A-mouldering in the Grave,"
without which no properly conducted picnic can come to a fitting conclusion. The purple shadows deepened in the far-off valleys ash.o.r.e, and anon stole out across the water, enfolding the anch.o.r.ed Fleet into the bosom of another night of a thousand vigils.
It was dusk when they reached the outlying Cruisers, and nearly dark when the first ship in the Battle Fleet hailed them. Then hail answered hail as one Battleship after another rose towering above them into the darkling sky, and one by one pa.s.sed into silence astern.
Silence also had fallen on the singers. Seen thus from an open boat under the lowering wings of night, there was something awe-inspiring--even to these who lived onboard them--in the stupendous fighting outlines limned against the last of the light. Complete darkness reigned on board, but once a dog barked, and the strains of an accordion drifted across the water as reminders that each of these menacing mysteries was the habitation of their fellow-men. A tiny pin-point of light winked from a yard-arm near by to another pin-point in the Cruiser line: Somebody was answering an invitation to dinner at 7.45 p.m., with many thanks; then, reminder of sterner things, a searchlight leaped out spluttering over their heads, and swept to and fro across the sky like the paint-brush of a giant.
A half-drowsy Midshipman in the bows of the cutter watched the message of hospitality blinking through s.p.a.ce; he consulted the luminous dial on his wrist. "H"m," he observed to his companion, "I thought it was getting on for dinner-time. Funny how quickly one gets hungry again."
A hail challenged them from the darkness, and a towering outline loomed familiarly ahead.
"Aye, aye!" shouted the voice of the India-rubber Man from the stern, adding in lower tones, "Boathook up forward. Fore halliards in hand...."
"Home again!" said another voice in the darkness. "And so the long day wears on..."
Dinner in the Gunroom was over. One by one the occupants became engrossed in their wonted evening occupations and amus.e.m.e.nts.
"Mordaunt," said the sandy-haired Midshipman, rising and opening the gramophone, "would you like to hear George Robey?"
The officer addressed, who was sitting at the table apparently in the throes of literary composition, raised his head. "No," he replied, "I wouldn"t; I"m writing a letter. "Sides I"ve heard that record at least seven hundred and eighty-one times already."
"Can"t help it," retorted the musical enthusiast, winding the handle of the instrument. "_I_ think he"s perfectly priceless!" He set the needle, stepped back a pace and stood beaming appreciatively into the vociferous trumpet while the song blared forth.
"Reminds me," said Harcourt, laying down a novel and rising from the corner of the settee where he had curled himself, "I must write to my young sister for her birthday. Lend me a bit of your notepaper, Billy."
His friend complied with the request without raising his eyes. "How d"you spell "afford"?" he enquired.
"Two f"s," replied Harcourt. ""Least I think so. Can I have a dip at your ink?"
"I thought it was two, but it doesn"t look right, somehow." The two pens scratched in unison.
Matthews, the Midshipman of the previous Night Patrol, had stretched himself on an adjacent settee and fallen asleep immediately after dinner.
Lettigne, otherwise known as "Bosh," amused himself by juggling with a banana, two oranges and a walnut, relics of his dessert. His performance was being lazily watched by the Sub from the depths of the arm-chair which he had drawn as near to the glowing stove as the heat would allow. It presently attracted the notice of two other Midshipmen who had finished a game of picquet and were casting about them for a fresh distraction. This conversion of edible objects into juggling paraphernalia presently moved one to protest.
"Why don"t you eat that banana, Bosh, instead of chucking it about?" he enquired.
""Cause I can"t," said the exponent of legerdemain.
"Why not?" queried the other.
"Too full already," was the graceful response. "I"m just waiting--waiting till the clouds roll by, so to speak."
The two interlocutors eyed each other speculatively.
"Did you have any dessert?" asked one.
"No," was the sorrowful reply. "My extra-bill"s up."
Thereupon they rose together and fell straightway upon the juggler. An equal division of the spoil was made while they sat upon his prostrate form, and eaten to the accompaniment of searching prods into their victim"s anatomy.
"Bosh, you ought to be jolly grateful to us, really. You"d probably have appendicitis if we let you eat all this--phew! Mally, just feel here.... Isn"t he a hog! ..."
"Just like a blooming drum," replied the other, prodding judicially.
Over their heads the tireless voice of the gramophone trumpeted forth its song. The Sub who had kept the Middle Watch the night before, slept the sleep of the tired just. The door opened and a Junior Midshipman entered hot-foot. "Letters," he shouted. "Any letters to be censored? The mail"s closing tomorrow morning."
"Yes," replied the two correspondents at the table, simultaneously bringing their letters to a close.
"Hurry up, then," said the messenger. "The Padre"s waiting to censor them. He sent me along to see if there were any more."
Mordaunt folded his letter and placed it in an envelope. "Got a stamp, Harcourt? I"ve run out." He extended a penny.
Harcourt looked up, pen in mouth, thumping his wet sheet with the blotting paper. "In my locker--I"ll get you one in a second."
"Oh, do buck up," wailed the messenger. "I want to turn in, an" the Padre"s waiting."
"All right," retorted Harcourt. He rose to his feet. "I forgot: little boys lose their roses if they don"t get to bed early. Billy, shove that letter in an envelope for me, to save time, while I get the stamp." His friend complied with the request and picked up his pen to address his own epistle. As he did so the prostrate juggler, with a sudden, spasmodic recrudescence of energy, flung his two a.s.sailants off him and struggled to a sitting position. They were on him again like wolves, but as they bore him prostrate to the deck he clutched wildly at a corner of the table-cloth.
The next moment the conflict was inextricably involved with the table-cloth, letters, note-paper, envelopes and ink descending upon the combatants in a cascade.
"You clumsy owls," roared Harcourt, returning from his locker. "Now, where"s my letter...." He searched among the debris.
"I say, do buck up," wailed the sleepy voice on the threshold.