Kitabı oku: «Stand By! Naval Sketches and Stories», sayfa 3

THE LOST SHEEP

The glass had gone down with a thump during the afternoon, and all through the night the destroyer had been steaming home against a rapidly rising gale.

Of how she came to be alone and parted from her flotilla the less said the better. It was due to a variety of circumstances, among them being a blinding rain squall after dark the evening before, in which the officer of the watch was unable to see more than twenty yards, and some temporary trouble with an air pump which necessitated stopping to put it right.

The sea, as is usual with the wind from the south-west, had risen fast, and by midnight it was heavy and steep, while the little ship, punching against it, had pitched, rolled, thumped and thudded as only a destroyer can. The motion was dizzy and maddening – a combined pitch and heavy roll which was the very acme of discomfort. Sometimes the bows fell into the heart of an advancing, white-topped hillock of grey water with a sickening downward plunge, and the breaking sea came surging and crashing over the forecastle to dash itself against the chart-house and bridge with a shock which made the whole ship quiver and tremble. Then, with

[Transcriber's note: pages 41 and 42 missing from source book.]

edged volumes with unerring accuracy on to his long-suffering head.

The only person who really did not mind the motion at all was the wireless operator in his little cubby-bole abaft the chart-house. He, with a pair of telephone receivers clipped on over his ears ready to catch stray snatches of conversation from invisible ships and distant shore stations, sat enthroned in a chair bolted to the deck. His den was hermetically sealed to keep out the water. The smell and the heat were indescribable; but he was reading a week-old periodical with every symptom of enjoyment and calmly smoked a foul and very wheezy pipe filled with the strongest and most evil-smelling ship's tobacco. But "Buzzer," as he was known to his friends, had the constitution of an ox and an interior like the exterior of an armadillo. He could stand anything.

* * * * *

An oil-skinned apparition, dripping with wet, appeared at the chart-house door. "The orficer of the watch says it's daylight, sir," it reported. "There's nothin' in sight, but 'e thinks as 'ow the sea's goin' down a bit."

The skipper, who had actually been asleep for forty consecutive minutes, sat up with a grunt, rubbed his eyes, and yawned. Then, in the dull grey light of the dawn, he surveyed the unsavoury mixture on the floor with his nose wrinkled and an expression of intense disgust on his face. But the sight of the broken cup reminded him of something, and reaching his hand underneath the cushion he extracted a vacuum flask, applied it to his lips, and swallowed what remained of the cocoa inside it. He was hungry, poor wight, for his dinner the night before had consisted of two corned-beef sandwiches and a biscuit. Next, with a little sigh of satisfaction, he produced a pipe, tobacco, and matches from an inner pocket and lit up, examined the chart with the ship's track marked upon it, and glanced at the aneroid on the bulkhead and noticed it was rising slowly.

Two minutes later, with his pipe bowl carefully inverted, he clambered up the iron ladder to the bridge.

"Hail, smiling morn!" he remarked sarcastically, ducking his head as a sheet of spray came driving over the forecastle and across the bridge. "Well, 'Sub,' how goes it?"

"Pretty rotten, sir," answered the sub-lieutenant, whose watch it was. "The wind shows no signs of going down, but I think the sea's a little less than it was. We're not bumping quite so badly as we were."

* * * * *

The motion certainly was less violent, and after looking for a moment at the angry sea and the grey, cloud-wrapped sky streaked with its wisps of flying white scud, the skipper nodded slowly. "You're right," he said. "It has gone down a bit. We're beginning to feel the lee of the land. Work her up gradually to twelve knots and see how she takes it."

The "Sub" did so, and though the increase in speed brought heavier spray and more of it, the movement of the ship no longer synchronised with the period of the waves, and she became steadier.

Before long the sea had gone down even more and the speed was increased to twenty knots. Then, on the grey horizon ahead, appeared the smoke of many steamers, and a quarter of an hour later the destroyer was threading her way through a sea-lane so densely populated with shipping that it reminded one of dodging the traffic in Piccadilly.

The next thing which hove in sight was a red-painted lightship, and half an hour later the destroyer, her funnels white with dried salt, was steaming into the harbour where the remainder of the flotilla were lying. They, having escaped the really bad weather, had arrived the evening before, and one of them made a facetious signal to this effect as the destroyer secured to the tank steamer to replenish her supply of oil-fuel.

The lost sheep had returned to its fold.

A NAVAL MENAGERIE

Denis was a pig, a very special sort of pig, a pig of German origin, and perhaps the only animal of his species in whose favour a special dispensation was made by the Board of Agriculture. He originally belonged to the German light cruiser Dresden, and, after the destruction of that vessel at Juan Fernandez by the Kent, Glasgow, and Orama, was seen swimming about in the water close to the Glasgow. A blue-jacket promptly jumped overboard and rescued him from a watery grave, and Denis, instead of being converted into pork or sausages, became a prisoner of war and a pet. He did not seem the least dismayed by his change of nationality, and, being an adaptable creature of robust constitution, throve on a miscellaneous and indiscriminate diet of ships' provisions, eked out by tobacco, cigarette ends, and coal. Moreover, within a month, so history relates, he was quite accustomed to sleeping in a hammock, where he snored exactly like a human being.

But the regulations as to the importation of animals into Great Britain are necessarily stringent, and on the Glasgow's arrival in home waters there were complications as to the disposal of Denis. He could not be landed in the ordinary way, but eventually, after some correspondence, the Board of Agriculture solved the momentous question by giving special permission for him to be put ashore at Whale Island, the naval gunnery school in Portsmouth harbour. There, so far as I know, he still remains as a naturalised Briton.

But a pig is by no means the strangest animal which has made its home on board a man-of-war. In a small gunboat in China some years ago the ship's company acquired a so-called tame alligator. Algernon, as they christened him, came on board as a youngster a few weeks old and about four feet long, and soon developed a habit of appearing when the decks were being scrubbed in the mornings, when he revelled in having the hose played upon him and in having his scaly back well scrubbed with a hard broom. He devoured a tame rabbit and two cats, but the crux came when he taught himself a trick of waiting until some unsuspecting person had his back turned, of making a sudden rush at his victim and capsizing him with a well-placed whisk of his horny tail, and then running in with a good-humoured smile and a ferocious snapping and gnashing of his yellow teeth. It was all very funny, but so many innocent persons were wrought almost to the verge of nervous prostration by Algernon's ideas of sport, that at last the fiat went forth that he must die. He was shot at dawn, and, less lucky than Denis, reached England in a stuffed and rather moth-eaten condition.

Goats are comparatively common as pets in the Navy, but the goat of all the goats was a white creature rejoicing in the unromantic name of William who lived on board a cruiser. His staple articles of food seemed to consist of tobacco, cigarettes, stray rope-yarns, bristles of brooms, and odds and ends of old canvas, while he was not averse to licking the galvanised compound off the newly painted quarter-deck stanchions whenever an opportunity of doing so presented itself. He was a healthy goat of voracious appetite. His gastric juices would have dissolved a marline-spike, and he even made short work of the greater portion of a pair of ammunition boots belonging to the Sergeant-Major of Royal Marines, and devoured with every symptom of relish a sheaf of official and highly important documents lying on the writing-table in the navigator's cabin.

William, in spite of his varied diet, always looked well-nourished and in the rudest of health, and on Sundays was wont to appear at divisions with his hair and beard parted in the middle, wearing an elaborate brass collar, and with gilded horns and hooves. He had charming manners, and even condescended to drink an occasional glass of sherry in the wardroom on guest nights. Of his ultimate fate I have no knowledge, but, with the very miscellaneous contents of his interior, he would have provided a most interesting subject for a post-mortem examination.

Several ships have had bears as pets, but one in particular, which was the mascot of a cruiser on the Mediterranean station, was a bear with a pronounced sense of humour. On one occasion it so happened that the vessel to which he belonged was lying alongside the mole at Gibraltar, while another cruiser, fresh from England, was made fast just astern of her. It was Sunday afternoon, and all hands and the cook, except those on duty, followed the usual custom of the Service by selecting sunny spots on deck and then composing themselves to peaceful slumber. At about 2.30 p.m. Master Bruin, freeing himself from his chain, landed, ambled along the jetty, and approached the newly arrived vessel on a tour of investigation. The sentry, not liking the look of the animal, found something important to do at the other end of his beat, while the bear proceeding on board unmolested, frightened nearly out of his wits a burly petty officer doing duty as quartermaster, and then followed up his moral victory by chasing him round and round the upper deck. The petty officer, a well covered man, nearly dropped from heat and exhaustion, but just managed to barricade himself in the galley before being overtaken and fondly hugged. The sleepers, meanwhile, hearing unusual sounds of revelry, woke up to see a wild-looking animal seeking another victim, and thinking that Bostock's menagerie had broken loose, rose from their couches and stampeded for the mess-deck.

The bear then waddled aft in search of further recreation, and seeing the curtained doorway of one of the upper deck cabins, promptly elbowed his way in. Inside was an officer fast asleep on the bunk, who, hearing the sound of heavy breathing, opened his eyes to see the shaggy bulk of his huge visitor interposed between him and the doorway. For a moment he was non-plussed, and, keeping quite still, endeavoured to mesmerise the animal by looking him full in the eyes. But the ferocious look on the bear's face, a pair of fierce twinkling eyes, an open mouth with its rows of sharp teeth, and a long red tongue dripping with saliva, warned him that mere mesmerism would be useless if he were to avoid a tussle. There was only one other exit besides the door, so without further ado he sprang for … the open scuttle. He wormed his way successfully through the small orifice with some loss of dignity and greatly to the detriment of his Sunday trousers, flopped gracefully into the water with a splash, and, swimming to the gangway, clambered back on board again. Then, rushing to his cabin, he slammed the door and imprisoned his unwelcome visitor inside.

Next, seeking out the sentry, he desired him to eject the intruder. But the marine, a wise man, firmly but politely intimated that he had joined his corps to fight the King's enemies, not bears of unknown origin and ferocious aspect, and added that the only conditions on which he would undertake the job was with the assistance of his rifle, a fixed bayonet, and some ball ammunition. The bear, meanwhile, locked in the cabin, was thoroughly enjoying himself in clawing and tearing to ribbons everything within reach, and by the time his breathless keeper from the other ship arrived upon the scene to conduct his charge home in disgrace, the cabin was in a state of utter desolation. A bull in a china shop is nothing to an unwieldy brute of a bear in a small apartment measuring ten feet by eight. All's well that ends well, but the officer's best trousers were completely ruined, and he himself never heard the end of his Sabbath afternoon adventure. The bear received six strokes with a cane for his share in the proceedings.

The last escapade of his that I heard of was when he hugged and removed most of the clothes from a low class Spanish workman from the dockyard at Gibraltar. The man had baited him, eventually releasing the terrified, half-naked wretch, and chasing him at full speed for nearly half a mile. A crowd of excited, laughing blue-jackets went in pursuit of the bear, but the faster they ran, the faster went the animal and his quarry. Bruin enjoyed it hugely. Not so the Spanish workman.

Dogs and cats are as common in the Navy as they are elsewhere, and it is surprising how soon they become accustomed to naval routine. The cats never go ashore unless their ship happens to be lying alongside a dockyard wall, when they usually desert en bloc and attach themselves to some other ship, a fresh detachment coming on board in their stead. The dogs are more faithful, and their wisdom becomes positively uncanny, for always at the routine times for boats going ashore they will be found waiting ready at the top of the gangway.

"Ginger" was an Irish terrier of plebeian origin belonging to a battleship. He invariably landed in the postman's boat at 6.45 a.m., and once ashore went off on his own business. Nobody ever took the trouble to discover what he did, but punctually at eight o'clock he used to reappear at the landing place and return to the ship in the boat which took off the married officers. On one occasion, however, he was badly sold, for though the postman landed at the usual time, the ship sailed at 7.30 to carry out target practice. Half an hour later, therefore, there was no boat for Ginger, and his ship was a mere speck on the horizon; but nothing daunted, the wise hound proceeded to the Sailors' Home and spent the day there. He was discovered the same afternoon when the ship returned into harbour, and his admirers always averred that his temporary absence was the result of a carefully thought out plan to avoid the sounds of gunfire, which he detested.

There must be many officers and men in the Navy who remember "North Corner Bob," another red-haired Irish terrier, who used to frequent the landing place at North Corner in Portsmouth dockyard. He was not a large dog, as terriers go, but was a ferocious creature of wild and bedraggled appearance, who seemed to regard North Corner as his own especial domain. He fought every other animal who dared to venture near the place, and many a naval dog bore the marks of Bob's teeth to his dying day.

He even boarded strange ships lying alongside and carried on his campaign of frightfulness there. In fact he terrorised all the dogs in Portsmouth dockyard, including two spaniels belonging to the Admiral Superintendent. But an officer in a certain ship whose wire-haired terrier Cuthbert had been badly beaten by Bob some days before, conceived a brilliant idea for having his revenge. Early one morning, at Bob's usual time for passing by the ship on his way to North Corner, Cuthbert, wearing a brand new muzzle, was taking his morning constitutional on deck. Bob, punctual to the minute, came trotting by in his usual don't-care-a-damn-for-anyone manner, but the sight of Cuthbert putting on an equal amount of side on board his own ship was too much for him, and rushing up the brow connecting the ship with the shore he came on board licking his lips in joyful anticipation and the lust of battle shining in his eye.

Cuthbert, a naturally good-natured dog, hurried forward to meet him, but Bob, spurning his friendly advances, circled round on tip-toe, with his teeth bared and hair bristling. Cuthbert, seeing that a fight was inevitable, adopted similar tactics, and for some moments the two animals padded softly round and round nosing each other and preparing to spring in to the attack. Then, quite suddenly and for no apparent reason, there came a shrill yelp of pain from Bob, and before anyone realised what had happened his tail went down, he rushed madly over the gangway, and shot along the jetty like a flash of greased lightning.

"What the devil's the matter with him?" queried the officer of the watch, staring in amazement after the rapidly disappearing figure of the well-known fighter.

"Matter!" spluttered Cuthbert's owner, weak with laughter. "Lord!

I've never seen anything like it! Did you see the way he skipped?"

"Did I not!" answered the O.O.W., laughing himself. "But what on earth made him streak off like that?"

"Come here, Cuthbert," said his master.

The dog came forward, wagging his tail, and had his muzzle removed.

"D'you see that?" asked his owner, pointing to the end of it. 'That' was a long and very sharp-pointed pin firmly soldered to the business end of Cuthbert's headgear.

North Corner Bob never visited that particular ship again.

THE "MUCKLE FLUGGA" HUSSARS

She was a member of that gallant and distinguished corps after which this article is named. You will not find her regiment mentioned in any British Army List, nor, so far as I am aware, and for all the foreign sound of it, in the Army List of His Imperial Majesty the Czar of All the Russias. The name does not appear in any Army List at all, for the Hussars to which she belonged are a sea regiment, pure and simple.

Her uniform of dull grey, with no facings or trimmings of any sort or description, was strictly in keeping with her surroundings, for her favourite habitat was anywhere in the wild waste of waters lying between Greenland, the North Cape, the Naze, and the Orkneys.

Some people with a libellous sense of humour referred to her as a member of "Harry Tate's Own," while others, most unkindly, said she belonged to the "Ragtime Navy." But she did not seem to mind. She knew in her heart of hearts that her work was of paramount importance, and, complacent in the knowledge, smiled sweetly as a well-conducted lady should when jibes and insults are hurled at her long-suffering head.

She had a great deal to put up with in one way and another. Thanks to her enormous fuel capacity she spent a long time at sea and had very brief spells in harbour. Her work, though important, was always dull and monotonous, while in bad weather it was even worse. She had no prospect of sharing in the excitement of a big sea battle like her more warlike sisters, though, with them, she ran the chance of encountering hostile submarines and of having an altercation with an armed raider. But, taking it all round, she had comparatively little to hope for in the way of honour and glory; she merely had to be at sea for many weeks at a time to prevent money-grabbing neutrals from reaping a rich harvest by supplying munitions of war and articles of contraband to an impoverished Hun who could not be trusted to put those commodities to any gentlemanly purpose.

Muckle Flugga, I believe, is a remote headland in the Shetlands, and she, a member of the corps called after it, flew the White Ensign of the British Navy and was an armed merchant cruiser.

* * * * *

Before the war she was a crack passenger liner. On her upper deck, and expressly designed for the use of potentates and plutocrats, she had regular suites of apartments. Gorgeous suites they were, furnished like the rooms in a mansion ashore. The sleeping cabins had white enamelled panels and comfortable brass bedsteads. The day cabins or sitting-rooms, panelled in bird's-eye maple, oak, walnut, or mahogany, had large square windows, regular fireplaces, and were fresh with flowered chintzes, while the tiled bathrooms were fitted with all the different appliances for hot baths, tepid baths, cold baths, needle baths, shower baths, and douches. One simply turned a handle and the water came. A telephone in each sitting-room communicated with a central exchange somewhere deep down in the bowels of the ship, and one could summon a barber to trim one's hair, a manicure expert to attend to one's hands, a tobacconist with samples of cigars, cigarettes, and tobacco, or the presiding genius of a haberdashery establishment with quite the latest things in shirts, collars, socks, and neckties. In fact, living in one of the expensive suites was exactly like being in a large and luxurious hotel, except that it was vastly more comfortable.

Lower down in the ship were the single, double, and treble-berthed cabins for the first and second-class passengers. They, though small, were very comfortable, and were fitted with telephones through which one could summon a stewardess with a basin or a steward with a whisky and soda. Down below, too, were the saloons, huge apartments with carved panels, ornamental pillars, glass-pictured domes, coloured frescoes, and dozens of small tables. There was also the Louis XIV. restaurant, if one preferred a simple beefsteak to the more formal dinner, and smoking-rooms, reading-rooms, libraries, drawing-rooms, writing-rooms, not to mention the swimming bath and the children's nursery.

We can imagine the great liner, spick and span in her spotless paint and gleaming brasswork, steaming through a placid summer sea. Her long promenade decks would be plastered with deck-chairs filled with recumbent passengers, some dozing, others smoking and talking. Some energetic enthusiast would be passing from group to group to collect sufficient people to play deck cricket, quoits, or bull-board, while yet another, armed with a notebook and a pencil, would be endeavouring to inveigle recalcitrant ladies with strict notions as to the sins of gambling into taking tickets for a sweepstake on the next day's mileage.

One would hear the laughter of children as they chased each other round the decks, and the sotto-voce remarks of some old gentleman roused from his afternoon nap by the sudden impact of a podgy infant of four tripping heavily over his outstretched feet.

After dark in some secluded corner one might happen upon a man and a girl. They would be sitting very close together, and behaving… well, as men and maidens sometimes do, to beguile the tedium of voyages at sea.

Everything would be calm and peaceful. Everybody would be happy, even the young gentleman with no prospects travelling second class, who having won the sweepstake on the day's run and suddenly finding himself £20 the richer, celebrated his luck with his friends in the smoking-room.

* * * * *

But then the war came and changed everything.

The Admiralty requisitioned the ship and armed her with guns. They painted her a dull grey all over, and tore down all her polished woodwork to lessen the chances of fire in action, leaving nothing but the bare steel walls. Most of the cabins were stripped of their furniture and fittings, only enough being left intact to provide accommodation for the officers.

The carved woodwork and most of the tables and chairs in the saloons were taken away, and though the painted frescoes and glass domes still remained, they were dusty and neglected.

In one corner of the first-class saloon was the wardroom, a space partitioned off by painted canvas screens to provide messing accommodation for the more senior officers. Opposite to it was the gunroom, a similar enclosure for the juniors.

They manned her with a crew of between three and four hundred Royal Navy Reserve men, with a leavening of Royal Navy ratings and a few Marines. They appointed a Captain R.N. in command and two or three other naval officers, but by far the greater proportion of officers and crew belonged to the Reserve, and excellent fellows they were.

Certain of the men had served on beard in peace-time, and had elected to remain on, but the majority came to her for the first time when she commissioned as a man-of-war. Some were Scots fishermen, men from trawlers and drifters, excellent, hardy creatures used to small craft, bad weather, and boat work. Others, having served their time in the Navy, had taken to some shore employment, and in August 1914 had been recalled to their old Service.

Nearly every imaginable trade was represented. In one of the first-class cabins was the barber's shop, presided over by a man who in pre-war days had worked in a hair-cutting establishment not far from Victoria Station. Next door lived another man who had been a bootmaker, and he, bringing all the appurtenances of his trade to sea with him, carried on a roaring business as a "snob." There was also a haberdashery emporium kept by a seaman who had been employed in some linen-draper's shop in his native town, while a professional tailor in blue-jacket's uniform spent all his spare time in making and repairing the garments of his shipmates. Even the ship's electric laundry was manned by folk who were well acquainted with starching and ironing.

Most of the cooks and stewards had left, but sufficient remained to provide for the needs of the officers and men. The catering was still run by the company to which the vessel belonged, and, as she had roomy kitchens and all manner of labour-saving devices in the way of electric dish-washers and potato-peelers, the messing was even better than that on board a battleship.

Gone were the troops of laughing children and the passengers. A pile of wicked-looking shell and boxes of cartridges for the guns lay ready to hand in the nursery, while the promenade decks resounded to the tramp of men being initiated into the mysteries of the squad and rifle drill and the work at their guns.

* * * * *

They have been at it for two years; two years of strenuous naval routine and discipline which have transformed the passenger liner into no mean man-of-war.