“‘All right,’ says our Number One. ‘You can ‘ave the whole port watch if you like. Hell’s Hell,’ ‘e says, ‘an when there study to improve.’
“Jarvis was our Bosun’s name. He hunted up the ‘ole of the port watch by hand, as you might say, callin’ ‘em by name loud an’ lovin’, which is not precisely Navy makee-pigeon. They ‘ad that timber-loft off the booms, an’ they dragged it up and down like so many sweatin’ little beavers. But Jarvis was jealous o’ Chips an’ went round the starboard side to envy at him.
“‘Tain’t enough,’ ‘e says, when he had climbed back. ‘Chips ‘as got his bazaar lookin’ like a coal-hulk in a cyclone. We must adop’ more drastic measures.’ Off ‘e goes to Number One and communicates with ‘im. Number One got the old man’s leave, on account of our goin’ so slow (we were keepin’ be’ind the tramp), to fit the ship with a full set of patent supernumerary sails. Four trysails — yes, you might call ‘em trysails — was our Admiralty allowance in the un’eard of event of a cruiser breakin’ down, but we had our awnin’s as well. They was all extricated from the various flats an’ ‘oles where they was stored, an’ at the end o’ two hours’ hard work Number One ‘e made out eleven sails o’ different sorts and sizes. I don’t know what exact nature of sail you’d call ‘em — pyjama-stun’sles with a touch of Sarah’s shimmy, per’aps — but the riggin’ of ‘em an’ all the supernumerary details, as you might say, bein’ carried on through an’ over an’ between the cutter an’ the forge an’ the pork an’ cleanin’ guns, an’ the Maxim class an’ the Bosun’s calaboose and the paintwork, was sublime. There’s no other word for it. Sub-lime!
“The old man keeps swimmin’ up an’ down through it all with the faithful Antonio at ‘is side, fetchin’ him numerous splits. ‘E had eight that mornin’, an’ when Antonio was detached to get ‘is spy-glass, or his gloves, or his lily-white ‘andkerchief, the old man man would waste ‘em down a ventilator. Antonio must ha’ learned a lot about our Navy thirst.”
“He did.”
“Ah! Would you kindly mind turnin’ to the precise page indicated an’ givin’ me a résumé of ‘is tattics?” said Mr. Pyecroft, drinking deeply. “I’d like to know ‘ow it looked from ‘is side o’ the deck.”
“How will this do?” I said. “‘Once clear of the land, like Voltaire’s
Habakkuk — — — ”‘
“One o’ their new commerce-destroyers, I suppose,” Mr. Pyecroft interjected.
“‘ — each man seemed veritably capable of all — to do according to his will. The boats, dismantled and forlorn, are lowered upon the planking. One cries “Aid me!” flourishing at the same time the weapons of his business. A dozen launch themselves upon him in the orgasm of zeal misdirected. He beats them off with the howlings of dogs. He has lost a hammer. This ferocious outcry signifies that only. Eight men seek the utensil, colliding on the way with some many others which, seated in the stern of the boat, tear up and scatter upon the planking the ironwork which impedes their brutal efforts. Elsewhere, one detaches from on high wood, canvas, iron bolts, coal-dust — what do I know?’”
“That’s where ‘e’s comin’ the bloomin’ onjeuew. ‘E knows a lot, reely.”
“‘They descend thundering upon the planking, and the spectacle cannot reproduce itself. In my capacity of valet to the captain, whom I have well and beautifully plied with drink since the rising of the sun (behold me also, Ganymede!) I pass throughout observing, it may be not a little. They ask orders. There is none to give them. One sits upon the edge of the vessel and chants interminably the lugubrious “Roule Britannia” — to endure how lomg?’”
“That was me! On’y ‘twas ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’ — which I hate more than any stinkin’ tune I know, havin’ dragged too many nasty little guns to it. Yes, Number One told me off to that for ten minutes; an’ I ain’t musical, you might say.”
“‘Then come marines, half-dressed, seeking vainly through this “tohu- bohu”‘ (that’s one of his names for the Archimandrite, Mr. Pyecroft), ‘for a place whence they shall not be dislodged. The captain, heavy with drink, rolls himself from his hammock. He would have his people fire the Maxims. They demand which Maxim. That to him is equal. The breech-lock indispensable is not there. They demand it of one who opens a barrel of pork, for this Navy feeds at all hours. He refers them to the cook, yesterday my master — ’”
“Yes, an’ Retallick nearly had a fit. What a truthful an’ observin’ little
Antonio we ‘ave!”
“‘It is discovered in the hands of a boy who says, and they do not rebuke him, that he has found it by hazard.’ I’m afraid I haven’t translated quite correctly, Mr. Pyecroft, but I’ve done my best.”
“Why, it’s beautiful — you ought to be a Frenchman — you ought. You don’t want anything o’ me. You’ve got it all there.”
“Yes, but I like your side of it. For instance. Here’s a little thing I can’t quite see the end of. Listen! ‘Of the domain which Britannia rules by sufferance, my gross captain, knew nothing, and his Navigator, if possible, less. From the bestial recriminations and the indeterminate chaos of the grand deck, I ascended — always with a whisky-and-soda in my hands — to a scene truly grotesque. Behold my captain in plain sea, at issue with his Navigator! A crisis of nerves due to the enormous quantity of alcohol which he had swallowed up to then, has filled for him the ocean with dangers, imaginary and fantastic. Incapable of judgment, menaced by the phantasms of his brain inflamed, he envisages islands perhaps of the Hesperides beneath his keel — vigias innumerable.’ I don’t know what a vigia is, Mr. Pyecroft. ‘He creates shoals sad and far-reaching of the mid-Atlantic!’ What was that, now?”
“Oh, I see! That come after dinner, when our Navigator threw ‘is cap down an’ danced on it. Danby was quartermaster. They ‘ad a tea-party on the bridge. It was the old man’s contribution. Does he say anything about the leadsmen?”
“Is this it? ‘Overborne by his superior’s causeless suspicion, the Navigator took off the badges of his rank and cast them at the feet of my captain and sobbed. A disgusting and maudlin reconciliation followed. The argument renewed itself, each grasping the wheel, crapulous’ (that means drunk, I think, Mr. Pyecroft), ‘shouting. It appeared that my captain would chenaler’ (I don’t know what that means, Mr. Pyecroft) ‘to the Cape. At the end, he placed a sailor with the sound’ (that’s the lead, I think) ‘in his hand, garnished with suet.’ Was it garnished with suet?”
“He put two leadsmen in the chains, o’ course! He didn’t know that there mightn’t be shoals there, ‘e said. Morgan went an’ armed his lead, to enter into the spirit o’ the thing. They ‘eaved it for twenty minutes, but there wasn’t any suet — only tallow, o’ course.”
“‘Garnished with suet at two thousand metres of profundity. Decidedly the Britannic Navy is well guarded.’ Well, that’s all right, Mr. Pyecroft. Would you mind telling me anything else of interest that happened?”
“There was a good deal, one way an’ another. I’d like to know what this
Antonio thought of our sails.”
“He merely says that ‘the engines having broken down, an officer extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails.’ Oh, yes! he says that some of them looked like ‘bonnets in a needlecase,’ I think.”
“Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun’sles. That shows the beggar’s no sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I thought he was a sailorman, an’ ‘e hasn’t sense enough to see what extemporisin’ eleven good an’ drawin’ sails out o’ four trys’les an’ a few awnin’s means. ‘E must have been drunk!”
“Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice, and the execution.”
“Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio. As I told my crew — me bein’ captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though I’m a torpedo man now — it just showed how you can work your gun under any discomforts. A shell — twenty six-inch shell
s — burstin’ inboard couldn’t ‘ave begun to make the varicose collection o’ tit-bits which we had spilled on our deck. It was a lather — a rich, creamy lather!
“We took it very easy — that gun-practice. We did it in a complimentary ‘Jenny-’ave-another-cup-o’ tea’ style, an’ the crew was strictly ordered not to rupture ‘emselves with unnecessary exertion. This isn’t our custom in the Navy when we’re in puris naturalibus, as you might say. But we wasn’t so then. We was impromptu. An’ Antonio was busy fetchin’ splits for the old man, and the old man was wastin’ ‘em down the ventilators. There must ‘ave been four inches in the bilges, I should think — wardroom whisky- an’-soda.
“Then I thought I might as well bear a hand as look pretty. So I let my bundoop go at fifteen ‘undred — sightin’ very particular. There was a sort of ‘appy little belch like — no more, I give you my word — an’ the shell trundled out maybe fifty feet an’ dropped into the deep Atlantic.
“‘Government powder, Sir!’ sings out our Gunnery Jack to the bridge, laughin’ horrid sarcastic; an’ then, of course, we all laughs, which we are not encouraged to do in puris naturalibus. Then, of course, I saw what our Gunnery Jack ‘ad been after with his subcutaneous details in the magazines all the mornin’ watch. He had redooced the charges to a minimum, as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint an’ sickish notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time such transpired, our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin’ sarcastic about Government stores, an’ the old man fair howled. ‘Op was on the bridge with ‘im, an’ ‘e told me — ’cause ‘e’s a free-knowledgeist an’ reads character — that Antonio’s face was sweatin’ with pure joy. ‘Op wanted to kick him. Does Antonio say anything about that?”
“Not about the kicking, but he is great on the gun-practice, Mr. Pyecroft. He has put all the results into a sort of appendix — a table of shots. He says that the figures will speak more eloquently than words.”
“What? Nothin’ about the way the crews flinched an’ hopped? Nothin’ about the little shells rumblin’ out o’ the guns so casual?”
“There are a few pages of notes, but they only bear out what you say. He says that these things always happen as soon as one of our ships is out of sight of land. Oh, yes! I’ve forgotten. He says, ‘From the conversation of my captain with his inferiors I gathered that no small proportion of the expense of these nominally efficient cartridges finds itself in his pockets. So much, indeed, was signified by an officer on the deck below, who cried in a high voice: “I hope, Sir, you are making something out of it. It is rather monotonous.” This insult, so flagrant, albeit well- merited, was received with a smile of drunken bonhommy’ — that’s cheerfulness, Mr. Pyecroft. Your glass is empty.”
“Resumin’ afresh,” said Mr. Pyecroft, after a well-watered interval, “I may as well say that the target-practice occupied us two hours, and then we had to dig out after the tramp. Then we half an’ three-quarters cleaned up the decks an’ mucked about as requisite, haulin’ down the patent awnin’ stun’sles which Number One ‘ad made. The old man was a shade doubtful of his course, ‘cause I ‘eard him say to Number One, ‘You were right. A week o’ this would turn the ship into a Hayti bean-feast. But,’ he says pathetic, ‘haven’t they backed the band noble?’
“‘Oh! it’s a picnic for them,’ says Number One.
“‘But when do we get rid o’ this whisky-peddlin’ blighter o’ yours, Sir?’
“‘That’s a cheerful way to speak of a Viscount,’ says the old man. “E’s the bluest blood o’ France when he’s at home,’
“‘Which is the precise landfall I wish ‘im to make,’ says Number One.’
It’ll take all ‘ands and the Captain of the Head to clean up after ‘im.’
“‘They won’t grudge it,’ says the old man. ‘Just as soon as it’s dusk we’ll overhaul our tramp friend an’ waft him over,’
“Then a sno — midshipman — Moorshed was is name — come up an’ says somethin’ in a low voice. It fetches the old man.
“‘You’ll oblige me,’ ‘e says, ‘by takin’ the wardroom poultry for that. I’ve ear-marked every fowl we’ve shipped at Madeira, so there can’t be any possible mistake. M’rover,’ ‘e says, ‘tell ‘em if they spill one drop of blood on the deck,’ he says, ‘they’ll not be extenuated, but hung.’
“Mr. Moorshed goes forward, lookin’ unusual ‘appy, even for him. The
Marines was enjoyin’ a committee-meetin’ in their own flat.
“After that, it fell dark, with just a little streaky, oily light on the sea — an’ any thin’ more chronic than the Archimandrite I’d trouble you to behold. She looked like a fancy bazaar and a auction-room — yes, she almost looked like a passenger-steamer. We’d picked up our tramp, an’ was about four mile be’ind ‘er. I noticed the wardroom as a class, you might say, was manoeuvrin’ en masse, an’ then come the order to cockbill the yards. We hadn’t any yards except a couple o’ signallin’ sticks, but we cock-billed ‘em. I hadn’t seen that sight, not since thirteen years in the West Indies, when a post-captain died o’ yellow jack. It means a sign o’ mourning the yards bein’ canted opposite ways, to look drunk an’ disorderly. They do.
“‘An’ what might our last giddy-go-round signify?’ I asks of ‘Op.
“‘Good ‘Evins!’ ‘e says, ‘Are you in that habit o’ permittin’ leathernecks to assassinate lootenants every morning at drill without immejitly ‘avin’ ‘em shot on the foc’sle in the horrid crawly-crawly twilight?’”
“‘Yes,’ I murmured over my dear book, ‘the infinitely lugubrious crepuscule. A spectacle of barbarity unparalleled — hideous — cold-blooded, and yet touched with appalling grandeur.’”
“Ho! Was that the way Antonio looked at it? That shows he ‘ad feelin’s. To resoom. Without anyone givin’ us orders to that effect, we began to creep about an’ whisper. Things got stiller and stiller, till they was as still as — mushrooms! Then the bugler let off the ‘Dead March’ from the upper bridge. He done it to cover the remarks of a cock-bird bein’ killed forrard, but it came out paralysin’ in its tout ensemble. You never heard the ‘Dead March’ on a bugle? Then the pipes went twitterin’ for both watches to attend public execution, an’ we came up like so many ghosts, the ‘ole ship’s company. Why, Mucky ‘Arcourt, one o’ our boys, was that took in he give tongue like a beagle-pup, an’ was properly kicked down the ladder for so doin’. Well, there we lay — engines stopped, rollin’ to the swell, all dark, yards cock-billed, an’ that merry tune yowlin’ from the upper bridge. We fell in on the foc’sle, leavin’ a large open space by the capstan, where our sail-maker was sittin’ sewin’ broken firebars into the foot of an old ‘ammick. ‘E looked like a corpse, an’ Mucky had another fit o’ hysterics, an’ you could ‘ear us breathin’ ‘ard. It beat anythin’ in the theatrical line that even us Archimandrites had done — an’ we was the ship you could trust. Then come the doctor an’ lit a red lamp which he used for his photographic muckin’s, an’ chocked it on the capstan. That was finally gashly!
“Then come twelve Marines guardin’ Glass ‘ere. You wouldn’t think to see ‘im what a gratooitous an’ aboundin’ terror he was that evenin’. ‘E was in a white shirt ‘e’d stole from Cockburn, an’ his regulation trousers, barefooted. ‘E’d pipe-clayed ‘is ‘ands an’ face an’ feet an’ as much of his chest as the openin’ of his shirt showed. ‘E marched under escort with a firm an’ undeviatin’ step to the capstan, an’ came to attention. The old man reinforced by an extra strong split — his seventeenth, an’ ‘e didn’t throw that down the ventilator — come up on the bridge an’ stood like a image. ‘Op, ‘oo was with ‘im, says that ‘e heard Antonio’s teeth singin’, not chatterin’ — singin’ like funnel-stays in a typhoon. Yes, a moanin’ æolian harp, ‘Op said.
“‘When you are ready, Sir, drop your ‘andkerchief,’ Number One whispers.
“‘Good Lord!’ says the old man, with a jump. ‘Eh! What? What a sight
! What a sight!’ an’ he stood drinkin’ it in, I suppose, for quite two minutes.
“Glass never says a word. ‘E shoved aside an ‘andkerchief which the sub-lootenant proffered ‘im to bind ‘is eyes with — quiet an’ collected; an’ if we ‘adn’t been feelin’ so very much as we did feel, his gestures would ‘ave brought down the ‘ouse.” “I can’t open my eyes, or I’ll be sick,” said the Marine with appalling clearness. “I’m pretty far gone — I know it — but there wasn’t anyone could ‘ave beaten Edwardo Glass, R.M.L.I., that time. Why, I scared myself nearly into the ‘orrors. Go on, Pye. Glass is in support — as ever.”
“Then the old man drops ‘is ‘andkerchief, an’ the firin’-party fires like one man. Glass drops forward, twitchin’ an’ ‘eavin’ horrid natural, into the shotted ‘ammick all spread out before him, and the firin’ party closes in to guard the remains of the deceased while Sails is stitchin’ it up. An’ when they lifted that ‘ammick it was one wringin’ mess of blood! They on’y expended one wardroom cock-bird, too. Did you know poultry bled that extravagant? I never did.
“The old man — so ‘Op told me — stayed on the bridge, brought up on a dead centre. Number One was similarly, though lesser, impressed, but o’ course ‘is duty was to think of ‘is fine white decks an’ the blood. ‘Arf a mo’, Sir,’ he says, when the old man was for leavin’. ‘We have to wait for the burial, which I am informed takes place immejit.’
“‘It’s beyond me,’ says the owner. ‘There was general instructions for an execution, but I never knew I had such a dependable push of mountebanks aboard,’ he says. ‘I’m all cold up my back, still.’
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 370