Kitabı oku: «H.M.S. –», sayfa 4

A WAR WEDDING

Old Bill Dane? Yes, he's married now. We got a week's refitting leave, and I've just been seeing him through it. Ye – es, there was a bit of a hitch when they were engaged, but – Well, I'll tell you the story. I saw most of it, because I was sort of doing second for him then too. You see, he and I got it rather in the neck in the August scrap, and we came out of hospital together. I had a smashed leg and he had a scalp wound. Nothing to write home about, but it didn't make any more of a Venus of him when it healed. They sent us on sick-leave, and we stayed with his people. His guvnor's the eye specialist, you know – got a home in town, and keeps the smell of iodoform in Harley Street, and doesn't let it come into the house. We were all right. We led the quiet life, and just pottered around, and saw the shows and so on. We gave the social life a miss until Bill's sister let us in. Bill didn't want to go, but she put it to me, and as I was sort of her guest I had to make him come. Who? The sister? Oh! all right, you know. Don't be a fool, or I won't tell you the yarn. Well, she took us poodlefaking, and it cost me a bit at Gieves' for new rig, too. It was about our third stunt that way when Bill got into trouble. We were at some bally great house belonging to a stockbroker or bookie or some one, and they were doing fox-trots up and down the drawing-room, and Bill and I were rather out of it. I was lame and he's no dancing man, unless it's just dressed in a towel or two to amuse guests in the wardroom when there's a bit of table-turning going on. Some woman came and told him he'd got to join up, and took him over to the girl. She was dressed regular war-flapper fashion, you know, like a Bank of Expectation cheque, except she hadn't got a top-hat on as some of them had lately. Most of 'em in the room were togged out like that, and Bill and I had just agreed we didn't go much on the style at all, but Bill is a proper lamb about women. He did one turn of the room with the girl, dancing a sort of Northern Union style, and then she stopped, and he brought her over to me and plumped her on the sofa between us. I think he wanted to see if I was laughing. She started on me at once, and asked me all about my leg and Bill's head, and talked like a Maxim. Asked me if we were great friends, and made me laugh. I said we had only forgathered because I had beaten him in the middle-weights in the Grand Fleet championships, and though I had never seen his face before, his left stop had touched my heart. She dropped me then – she thought I was pulling her leg – and turned to Bill, and then his sister took me off to get her tea. I didn't realise Bill was getting soft about it till his sister told me, though the fact of our going to tea and dinner at the girl's home that week had seemed funny to me at the time. The sister was rather pleased about it – said she knew the girl and liked her. I said I didn't think much of that sort, but she smoothed me down a bit. She thought that they would do each other good. I said Bill was such an old lamb he'd only get sloppy, and do what the girl told him; but she laughed. She told me I might know Jim in the ring, but I didn't know much about him otherwise. I was rather shirty at that, but I think now she was talking sense, though I didn't then. Well, Bill can get quite busy when he makes his mind up, and the way he rushed that girl was an education to watch. They were engaged in ten days from the first time we went to her house, and I don't think we missed seeing her for more than twelve hours in that time. I? Oh, I and the sister were chaperons. I didn't mind. I was sorry for Bill, but I wasn't going to spoil things for him if he was set on it.

The girl's people were all right. They were rather the Society type, you know – thought London was capital of the world, and that a Gotha bomb in the West End ought to mean a new Commander-in-Chief to relieve Haig; but they were quite decent.

The trouble? Well, I'm coming to that. It came about a week after they had announced the engagement. Old Bill had been getting a bit restive over things. You see, he had begun to wonder just where he came into the business. He wanted to get the girl off by her lonesome to a desert island, and tell her what a peach she was, for the rest of her natural life; but the girl hadn't got an inkling of what he thought about it. He was towed round like a pet bear and told to enjoy himself, while people talked over his head. She was just a kid, and she didn't know. It seemed to her that being engaged was good fun, and getting married was a matter they could think about later, when she'd had time to consider it. She was all for the tango-tea and the latest drawing-room crazes. I didn't feel enthusiastic about his affairs, and I told the sister so; but she laughed about it all. I didn't. The girl, Hilda – her name was Hilda Conron – was just like a kid with a toy. She took him around and showed him off, and she went on quacking away to all her pals as if Bill wasn't in the room. She seemed to take it for granted he was going to join up with her crowd and learn to do the same tricks and talk the same patter as they did. Bill certainly tried; but they treated him like a fool, and he told me several times he felt like one. Well then, we came to the smash. Lord, it was a queer show, and I'd sooner have had my leg off than have missed it. We were taken off to a charity auction, Red Cross or something, where they sold bits of A. A. shell with the Government marks on them as bits of Zepp. bombs, and Pekinese dogs for a hundred quid or so. After the sale, about twenty of the household and the guests that had paid most clustered round to add up the takings and drink tea and talk. Miss Conron had been selling things, and was dressed up to the nines. There was a bishop there, and some young staff officers and some civilians, M.P.'s, or editors or something like that. Old Bill was sitting with me and his sister, looking like a family lawyer at a funeral, and the girl was perched on a sofa with a lanky shopwalker-looking bloke alongside her. He was an indispensable of sorts – Secretary to the Minister of some bloomin' thing or other. He was the lad, I tell you, – sort of made you feel you were waiting on the mat when he talked. He was laying down the law about the War and all about it, and he talked like all the Angels at a Peace Conference. But it was the bishop that put his foot in the mulligatawny first. He agreed with the smooth-haired draper-man about the need of peace, but he said we should see that Germany provided suitable reparation for Belgium. Bill sat up and got red and stuttered, and said: "I don't think Germany or anybody can give Belgium back what she has lost."

They all looked at Bill as if he had just dawned on them, and Bill looked more foolish. The draper-man shipped an eyeglass and looked him over like a new specimen. "Ah!" he said, "our naval friend? Perhaps you will tell us in what way you consider the War can be ended before the world comes to economic ruin. Must we wait until you have had your fill of fighting or have destroyed the High Sea Fleet?"

Bill stood up and stopped looking silly. Miss Dane leaned back in her chair, and I heard her sigh as if she was pleased about something.

"Never mind the High Sea Fleet," said Bill. "That's not your business to worry about. But as to 'fill of fighting,' you've said it there. When we've had our fill of fighting Germany will have had more, but we're a long way from that yet."

The long stiff turned to Miss Conron. "Why, little Miss Hilda," he said, "your fiancé is charming. He should speak in the Park on Sundays and we would all come to listen."

The girl got red and looked daggers at Bill. She didn't like his making a fool of himself, and she wanted him back in his chair again. The long man put a hand on her knee and spoke quietly to her, and she shook her head at him and laughed. That did it. My oath! that did it all right. Bill shrugged his shoulders back and took station in the outer ring of draper-worshippers, and spoke like a – a Demosthenes.

"You blank, blank, blank," he said, "get off that sofa and get away from Miss Conron."

The Bishop looked as if the end of the world had come and he was adrift with his cash accounts. The staff officers looked blank and the women got scary. I got up and took station on Bill's quarter in case any one got excited. The long man put up his glass again and showed symptoms of an approaching oration.

"You stay then, you half-breed dog," said Bill; "I'm going to talk to you." Bill put his hands in his coat pockets and looked around. "Now listen," he said; "I'm talking for a lot of men who aren't here. We're fighting this show, and there are some millions of us. Who are you to talk of War or Peace? By God, if you try and pack up we'll put you to work again. If you're going to compromise with Germany, we won't. Have you forgotten what the Germans can do? My oath, you make me sick. What can it matter if the nations are all broken and ruined so long as we smash Germany? We don't want money and luxuries to fight on. Give us food and munitions till we have done what we started to do. You whining people – what do you know of it? Have you got no guts at all? Have you read the Bryce Report? Yes, I bet you have, and locked it away so that your women shouldn't see it. I tell you, it doesn't matter to us, and we're about four million men, if we are all killed so long as we kill eight million Huns. I know a sergeant who has killed five Prussian officers, and I think he's a real man, not like you. He took to it after he saw a five-year-old girl with her hands cut off hanging like a sucking-pig on a meat-hook in a wrecked French village. Doesn't that make you feel it? I tell you, if you play the fool behind our backs we'll take charge of you. Yes, Bishop, you'll keep up the good work in a munition factory, and you'll work hard too. If you can't be a patriot now, you will be when you've been caned across your lathe."

They were as still as mice, and the rumble of traffic along Piccadilly sounded very loud. Miss Conron was as white as a sheet, and her eyes were staring as if she were scared to death. Bill took a long breath and went on —

"I've tried to see your point of view while I've been among you, and I can't. I'm going to leave you and get back to my own lot. I'm giving up something I didn't think I could give up, but I won't join you just to get it. There are not so many of us as there are of you, but you'll do what you're told if we take charge. Most of us have seen dead men, and some of us have seen dead women. None of you have seen either, and you don't understand. You want to hide things away and pretend they're not there. They are there, and they are going on wherever the Germans are, you fools. There's a man here who has been impertinent to me because he thinks I'm a fool. I'm a better man than any six of his sort, and I'm going to show him how. It will do the rest of you good to watch, because you haven't seen death yet, and a man with a bruise or two will seem a big thing to you. Come along, my sofa-king, you're for it."

Bill walked up to him with his hands down and the women began to squeal. The draper-man was game. He took a step forward and swung his right. Bill hooked him under the chin and gave him the left in the stomach. The poor beggar backed off, taking a wicked upper-cut as he did so. As he straightened again Bill sent a couple of full swings to his head. He was going down, but Bill wouldn't let him. I think if he hadn't been so clever with Miss Conron on the sofa he would have got off fairly cheap, but a girl makes a lot of difference to any scrap. He took about six more before he hit the deck, and then he looked like a Belgian atrocity picture by Raemaekers. Bill came over to me and signalled his sister to the door. She moved off. My oath, she hadn't turned a hair – she's a sportsman. He looked across at Miss Conron, who was still on the sofa looking at the huddled figure in the middle of the carpet. "I'm going now, Hilda," he said; "your people aren't my people. I'm sorry."

She never moved, but the colour had come back into her face again. Bill shrugged back his shoulders and turned his back, and we started for the door. Miss Dane was there, holding the handle and looking past us at the horrified group we had left. As we got almost up to her she smiled and came to Bill. She took him by the shoulders and turned him round, and I turned to see what she was looking at. Miss Conron was walking that sixty-foot plank after us, and I knew when I saw her face that she and Bill were going to be all right. She didn't say anything, and the four of us went out, and Bill kissed her in the hall in front of the servants. Trouble? No – not much. You see, Bill had had a scalp wound, and they put it all down to that. The draper-man didn't want to publish things much, and Miss Conron's father has got a bit of a pull. If he had no kick coming other people could shut up, and – oh yes! Sound as a bell – he wouldn't have got married otherwise. But, by gum, his sister was right – wasn't she?

A HYMN OF DISGUST

 
You wrote a pretty hymn of Hate,
That won the Kaiser's praise,
Which showed your nasty mental state,
And made us laugh for days.
I can't compete with such as you
In doggerel of mine,
But this is certain —and it's true,
You bloody-handed swine —
 
 
We do not mouth a song of hate, or talk about you – much,
We do not mention things like you – it wouldn't be polite;
One doesn't talk in drawing-rooms of Prussian dirt and such,
We only want to kill you off – so roll along and fight.
 
 
For men like you with filthy minds, you leave a nasty taste,
We can't forget your triumphs with the girls you met in France.
By your standards of morality, gorillas would be chaste,
And you consummate your triumphs with the bayonet and the lance.
 
 
You give us mental pictures of your officers at play,
With naked girls a-dancing on the table as you dine,
With their mothers cut to pieces, in the knightly German way,
In the corners of the guard-room in a pool of blood and wine.
 
 
You had better stay in Germany, and never go abroad,
For wherever you may wander you will find your fame has gone,
For you are outcasts from the lists, with rust upon your sword —
The blood of many innocents – of children newly born.
 
 
You are bestial men and beastly, and we would not ask you home
To meet our wives and daughters, for we doubt that you are clean;
You will find your fame in front of you wherever you may roam,
You – who came through burning Belgium with the ladies for a screen.
 
 
You – who love to hear the screaming of a girl beneath the knife,
In the midst of your companions, with their craning, eager necks;
When you crown your German mercy, and you take a sobbing life —
You are not exactly gentlemen towards the gentle sex.
 
 
With your rapings in the market-place and slaughter of the weak,
With your gross and leering conduct, and your utter lack of shame, —
When we note in all your doings such a nasty yellow streak,
You show surprise at our disgust, and say you're not to blame.
 
 
We don't want any whinings, and we'd sooner wait for peace
Till you realise your position, and you know you whine in vain;
And you stand within a circle of the Cleaner World's Police,
And we goad you into charging – and we clean the world again.
 
 
For you should know that never shall you meet us as before,
That none will take you by the hand or greet you as a friend;
So stay with it, and finish it – who brought about the War —
And when you've paid for all you've done – well, that will be the End.
 

THE "SPECIAL."

She was not new, and nobody could call her handsome. She was evidently more accustomed to rough weather than paint, and her sloping forecastle and low freeboard were old-fashioned, to say the least of them. She jogged slowly along, rolling to a short beam sea, with an apologetic air, as if she felt ashamed of being what she was – a pre-war torpedo-boat on local patrol duty.

She steered no particular course, and varied her speed capriciously as she beat up and down. Being in sight of the land – a grey, hard, low line to the westward – there was no need for accurate plotting of courses. On the bridge stood her Captain, a dark, lean, R.N.R. Lieutenant, pipe in mouth and hands in "lammy" pockets. The T.B. was rolling too much for any one to walk the tiny deck of the bridge; in fact, a landsman would have had difficulty in standing at all. He turned his head as his First Lieutenant swung up the little iron ladder behind him.

"What's for lunch?" he asked, carefully knocking out his pipe on the rail before him.

"The same," said his laconic subordinate, who was engaged in a rapid survey of the compass card, revolution indicator, and the horizon astern. The two stood side by side a moment looking out at the sea and sky to windward. "Any pickles?" said the Captain.

"No, only mustard."

The Captain sighed and turned to leave the bridge. The First Lieutenant pivoted suddenly – "It's better'n you and I had off the Horn in the Harvester. You'd 've been glad to get beef then, even if it was in a tin." He snorted, and turned forward again to look ahead. The Captain remained at the foot of the ladder, reading a signal handed to him by a waiting Boy Telegraphist. The argument on the subject of tinned beef had lasted a year already, and could be continued at leisure.

The boy received the signal back and vanished below, while the Captain climbed slowly to the bridge again. He spoke to the man at the wheel, and himself moved the revolution indicator.

"Panic?" said the First Lieutenant (neither of them seemed to use more than one word at a time, unless engaged in an argument).

"Sure," was the reply. "Tell 'em to make that blinkin' stuff into sandwiches and send 'em up."

The First Lieutenant went down the ladder in silence. The matter of the tinned beef was to him, as mess caterer, a continual sore point.

The T.B. started on a more erratic course than before, tacking in long irregular stretches out to seaward. Smoke was showing up against the land astern, and there was a sense of stirring activity in the air.

Two more torpedo-boats appeared suddenly from nowhere, hoists of coloured flags flying at their slender masts. The three hung on one course a moment, conferring, then spread fanwise and separated. The first boat turned back towards harbour and the growing smoke-puffs, which rapidly approached and showed more and more mine-sweepers coming out.

A droning, humming noise made the Captain look up, and he pivoted slowly round, following with his eyes a big seaplane a thousand feet above him.

As the sound of the engines died away, it seemed to start swelling again, as another machine appeared a mile abeam of them, and following the first.

The T.B. swung round ahead of the leading sweepers, and turned back to seaward. Her speed was not great, but half an hour after the turn the sweepers were hull down astern. A small airship slipped out of a low cloud and droned away on the common course. Every type of small craft seemed to be going easterly, and the sea, which an hour ago had been almost blank, was now dotted with patrol ships of every queer kind and rig. From overhead it must have looked like a pack of hounds tumbling out of cover and spreading on a faint line. But, like the hounds, the floating pack was working to an end, and whatever the various courses steered, the whole was moving out to sea.

The Boy Telegraphist hauled himself, panting, on to the bridge, and thrust a crumpled signal before the Captain's eyes. The Captain grunted and spoke shortly, and the boy dashed off below. A moment later the piping of calls sounded along the bare iron deck, and men in heavy sea-boots began to cluster aft and at the guns. The funnels sent out a protesting spout of brown smoke as the T.B. began to work up to her speed, and the choppy sea sent up a steady sheet of spray along her forecastle and over the crouching figures at the bow gun. The rest of the pack appeared to have caught the whimper too, for everything that could raise more than "Tramp's pace" was hurrying due east. A faint dull "boom" came drifting down wind as the First Lieutenant arrived on the bridge, and the two officers looked at each other in silence a moment.

"Bomb, sir?" said the junior, showing an interest which almost made him conversational.

"Sure thing," said the other. "She gave us the tip when she saw him, and that'll be one to put him under."

"How far d'you think it was?"

"Seven-eight mile. You all ready?"

The First Lieutenant nodded and slipped down the ladder again. Three miles astern came a couple of white specks – the bow-waves of big destroyers pushed to their utmost power. The Captain studied them a moment with his binoculars, and gave a grunt which the helmsman rightly interpreted as one of satisfaction. Slow as she was, the old T.B. had a long start, and was going to be on the spot first. The dark was shutting down, and the shapes of the other T.B.'s on either beam were getting dim.

The night was starlit, and with the wind astern the T.B. made easy weather of it. The two officers leaned forward over the rail staring ahead towards the unseen land. Lights showed on either hand, and occasionally they swung past the dark squat shape of a lit trawler, also bound home.

"Are you going to claim?" asked one of the watching figures. The other paused before replying —

"We-ell," he said, "I'll just report. I think we shook him to the bunt, but it's no good claiming unless you can show prisoners, Iron Cross and all." Another ruminative pause. "Your people were smart on it – devilish smart." Another pause. "What's for dinner?"

A dark mass ahead came into view, and turned slowly into a line of great ships coming towards them.

The T.B. swung off to starboard, and slowed her engines. One by one they went past her – huge, silent, and scornful, while the T.B. rocked uneasily in the cross sea made by their wakes. The Captain watched them go, chewing the stem of his unlit pipe. They were the cause of the day's activity, but it was seldom he met them at close range except like this, in the dark on his way home.

The line seemed endless, more and more dark hulls coming into view, and fading quickly into the dark again. As the last swung by the T.B.'s telegraph bells rang cheerfully, and she jogged off westward to where a faint low light flickered at intervals under the land.