by Bartimeus
*XVI.*
*"WATCH THERE, WATCH!"*
Dinner in the long, antler-hung mess-room of the Naval Barracks had cometo an end. Here and there along the table, where the shaded lightsglinted on silver loving-cups and trophies, a few officers lingered inpairs over their coffee. Presently the band moved down from the gallerythat overlooked one end of the Mess, and began playing in the hall.This was the signal for a general move to the smoking-room, where ascore of figures in mess undress uniform were grouped round the fire,lighting pipes and cigars and exchanging mild, after-dinner chaff.
A few couples of dancing enthusiasts were solemnly revolving in thehall. Others made their way up the broad staircase to thebilliard-room, or settled down at the bridge tables.
"Come on," shouted a tall Commander seated on the "club" fender in thesmoking-room, "what about a game of skill or chance? Come up to thebilliard-room, and bring your pennies!" He stirred a form recumbent inan arm-chair with the toe of his boot. "What about you, young feller?Are you going to play pool?"
The young Lieutenant shook his head. "Not to-night, sir, thanks. I'mgoing to bed early: I've got the Night Guard trip."
Gradually the room emptied. The figure in the arm-chair finished thepaper he was reading, glanced at the clock and rose, knocking the ashesout of his pipe. "Call me at 1.15," he said to the hall porter as hepassed him on his way to his room.
An officer, immaculate in evening dress, who was putting his overcoat inthe hall, overheard the speaker, and laughed. "That's the spirit!Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise!"
"More'n you'll ever be, my sprig o' fashion," grumbled the Lieutenant,and passed on.
* * * * *
The Lieutenant of the Night Guard went cautiously down the wooden stepsof the Barracks' Pier that led to the landing-place. Cautiously, becausethe tide was low, and experience had taught him that the steps would beslippery with weed. Also the night was very dark, and the lights of thesteamboat alongside showed but indistinctly through the surrounding fog.At the bottom of the steps one of the boat's crew was waiting with alantern. Its rays lit for a minute the faces of the two men, andgleamed on the steel guard of the cutlass at the bearer's hip.
"Infernal night!" said the Lieutenant from the depths of his overcoatcollar. He had just turned out, and there was an exceeding bitternessin his voice. The lantern-bearer also had views on the night--possiblystronger views--but refrained from any reply. Perhaps he realised thatnone was expected. The other swung himself down into the sternsheets ofthe boat, and, as he did so, the Coxswain came aft, blowing on hishands.
"Carry on, sir?"
"Please. Usual rounds: go alongside a Destroyer and any ship thatdoesn't hail. Fog's very thick: got a compass?"
"There's a compass in the boat, sir." The Coxswain moved forward againto the wheel, wearing a slightly ruffled expression which, owing to thedarkness and the fact that there was no one to see it, was ratherwasted. For thirty years he'd known that harbour, man and boy, fair orfoul, and his father a waterman before him.... He jerked the telegraphbell twice, gave a half-contemptuous turn to the wheel, and spatoverside.
"Compass!" he observed to the night.
The boat slid away on its mission, and the shore lights glimmered wanand vanished in the fog astern. A clock ashore struck the hour, andfrom all sides came the answering ships' bells--some near, some far, allmuffled by the moisture in the heavy atmosphere.
Ding-ding! Ding! Half-past one.
He who had borne the lantern deposited it in the tiny cabin aft, andwith a thoughtful expression removed a frayed halfpenny paper from theinside of the breast of his jumper. To carry simultaneously a cutlassand a comic paper did not apparently accord with his views on thefitness of things, for he carefully refolded the latter and placed itunder the cushions of the locker. Then he unhooked a small megaphonefrom the bulkhead, and came out, closing the sliding-door behind him.Finally he passed forward into the bows of the boat, where he remainedvisible in the glare of the steaming light, his arms crossed on hischest, hands tucked for warmth one under each arm-pit, peering stolidlyinto the blackness ahead.
Once in mid-stream the fog lessened. Sickly patches of light waxed outof indistinctness and gleamed yellow. Anon as they brightened, a humanvoice, thin and lonely as a wraith's, came abruptly out of the night.
"Boat ahoy!" The voice from nowhere sounded like an alarm. It was asif the darkness were suddenly suspicious of this swiftly-moving,palpitating thing from across the water. The figure in the bows removedhis hands from his arm-pits, picked up the megaphone, and sent areassuring bellow in the direction of the hail.
"Guard Boat!" he answered, and as he did so a vast towering shape hadloomed up over them. "Answer's, 'Guard Boat!' sir," said the faintvoice somewhere above their heads, addressing an unseen third person. Adark wall appeared, surmounted by a shadowy superstructure and a gianttripod mast that was swallowed, long before the eye could reach itsapex, in vapour and darkness. The sleek flanks of guns at rest showedfor an instant.... A sleeping "Super-Dreadnought." It faded into thedarkness astern; then nothing but the mist again, and the throb of theboat's engines.
Another, and another, and yet another watchful Presence loomed up out ofthe night, hailed suspiciously, and, at the megaphone's answeringbellow, merged again into the silent darkness. A figure stepped aft inthe Guard Boat and adjusted the tarpaulin that covered the rifles lyingon top of the cabin: moisture had collected among the folds in littlepools. Then the engine-room gong rang, and a voice quite near hailedthem. A long black shadow appeared abreast, and the Guard Boat slidalongside a Destroyer at anchor. The dark water between the two hullschurned into foam as the boat reversed her engines. A tall figureholding a lantern leaned over the Destroyer's rail.
"Night Guard," said the Lieutenant curtly. As he came forward, three menclimbed silently up from below and stood awaiting orders at his side.The lantern shone unsteadily on their impassive faces.
"Are you the Quartermaster?"
"Yessir." The tall man in oilskins leaning over the Destroyer's raillowered his lantern.
"All right, I won't come inboard. All correct?"
"All correct, sir."
"Right. Put it in the log that I've visited you. Good-night."
"Good-night, sir."
The gong clanged, and the Guard Boat slid away into the mist again. Thefigure in the bows was relieved by a comrade, and together with theremaining two vanished down the foremost hatch. The faint reek of Navytobacco drifted aft to the stern-sheets, where the Lieutenant of theNight Guard had resumed his position, leaning against an angle of thecabin with his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat. He wasreflecting on the strangeness of a profession that dragged a man fromhis bed at one o'clock in the morning, to steam round a foggy harbour inthe company of armed men, these times of piping peace.
Once a night throughout the year, in every Dockyard Port in the kingdom,a launch slid away from the Depot jetty, slipped in and out among theanchored ships, and returned to her moorings when the patrol wascompleted. Why? Some grim significance surely lay in the duty, in theabrupt hails that stabbed the stillness, greeting the throb of herengines: in the figure of the armed man in the bows with the megaphone,ready to fling back the reassuring answer....
He shifted his position and glanced forward. The bowman was chewingtobacco, and every now and again turned his head to spit overside. Eachtime he did so the port bow-light lit his features with a ruddy glare.It was a stolid countenance, slightly bored.
The Lieutenant smiled gravely. Did the figure wonder why he wore acutlass in peace time? Did he realise the warning it embodied--themessage they conveyed night by night to the anchored ships? Histhoughts took a more sombre turn. Would the night ever come--just sucha night as this--and under the fog a Menace glide in among the blindfoldFleet? To the first hail of alarm answer w
ith a lever released, asilvery shadow that left a trail of bubbles on the surface.... Andthen--the fog and silence riven to the dark vault of heaven.
He raised his head. "All right, Coxswain, enough for to-night. Carryon back." Over went the helm: the boat swung round on a new course,heading whence she had come an hour before.
Carry on back! It was so easy to say.
His thoughts reverted to the grim picture his imagination had created.How would that shadowy Terror, her mission fulfilled, "carry on back"?Wheel wrenched over, funnels spouting flame, desperate men clinging tothe rail as she reeled under the concussion, racing blindly through theoutraged night for safety.
Thus had a warring Nation written a lesson across the map of Manchuriafor all the world to read--and, if they might, remember.
Where did he come in, then--this figure leaning thoughtfully against theangle of the steamboat's cabin? What was his mission, and that of thesteamboat with its armed crew, night after night, in fog and bystarlight, winter and summer...?
A chord of memory vibrated faintly in his mind. There was a phrase thatsummed it up, learned long ago.... He was a cadet again on theseamanship-deck of the old _Britannia_, at instruction in a now obsoletemethod of sounding with the Deep-Sea Lead and Line. They were shownhow, in order to obtain a sounding, a number of men were stationed alongthe ship's side, each holding a coil of the long line. As the heavylead sank and the line tautened from hand to hand, each man flung hiscoil overboard. As he did so he called to warn the next--
"Watch there, watch!"
The steamboat, slowed as she passed close under the stern of abattleship. The fog had lifted, and the Officer of the Middle Watch wasleaning over the quarter-deck rail. The Lieutenant of the Night Guardraised his head, and in the gleam of the ship's stern light the twoofficers recognised each other. They had been in the _Britannia_,together. The former laughed a greeting.
"Go back to bed, you noisy blighter!"
The cloaked figure in the boat chuckled. "That's where I am going," hecalled back.