“Now we’m just abeam o’ where we should be,” he said at last, “an’ here we’ll lay till she lifts. I’d take ‘e in for another bottle — and wan for my nevvy; but I reckon yeou’m shart-allowanced for rum. That’s nivver no Navy rum yeou’m give me. Knowed ‘ee by the smack tu un. Anchor now!”
I was between Pyecroft and Moorshed on the bridge, and heard them spring to vibrating attention at my side. A man with a lead a few feet to port caught the panic through my body, and checked like a wild boar at gaze, for not far away an unmistakable ship’s bell was ringing. It ceased, and another began.
“Them!” said Pyecroft. “Anchored!”
“More!” said our pilot, passing me the cup, and I filled it. The trawler astern clattered vehemently on her bell. Pyecroft with a jerk of his arm threw loose the forward three-pounder. The bar of the back-sight was heavily blobbed with dew; the foresight was invisible.
“No — they wouldn’t have their picket-boats out in this weather, though they ought to.” He returned the barrel to its crotch slowly.
“Be yeou gwine to anchor?” said Macduff, smacking his lips, “or be yeou gwine straight on to Livermead Beach?”
“Tell him what we’re driving at. Get it into his head somehow,” said Moorshed; and Pyecroft, snatching the cup from me, enfolded the old man with an arm and a mist of wonderful words.
“And if you pull it off,” said Moorshed at the last, “I’ll give you a fiver.”
“Lard! What’s fivers to me, young man? My nevvy, he likes ‘em; but I do cherish more on fine drink than filthy lucre any day o’ God’s good weeks. Leave goo my arm, yeou common sailorman! I tall ‘ee, gentlemen, I hain’t the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule yeou reckon I be. Before the mast I’ve fared in my time; fisherman I’ve been since I seed the unsense of sea-dangerin’. Baccy and spirits — yiss, an’ cigars too, I’ve run a plenty. I’m no blind harse or boy to be coaxed with your forty-mile free towin’ and rum atop of all. There’s none more sober to Brix’am this tide, I don’t care who ‘tis — than me. I know — I know. Yander’m two great King’s ships. Yeou’m wishful to sink, burn, and destroy they while us kips ‘em busy sellin’ fish. No need tall me so twanty taime over. Us’ll find they ships! Us’ll find ‘em, if us has to break our fine new bowsprit so close as Crump’s bull’s horn!”
“Good egg!” quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide shoulders with the smack of a beaver’s tail.
“Us’ll go look for they by hand. Us’ll give they something to play upon; an’ do ‘ee deal with them faithfully, an’ may the Lard have mercy on your sowls! Amen. Put I in dinghy again.”
The fog was as dense as ever — we moved in the very womb of night — but I cannot recall that I took the faintest note of it as the dinghy, guided by the tow-rope, disappeared toward the Agatha, Pyecroft rowing. The bell began again on the starboard bow.
“We’re pretty near,” said Moorshed, slowing down. “Out with the Berthon. (We’ll sell ‘em fish, too.) And if any one rows Navy-stroke, I’ll break his jaw with the tiller. Mr. Hinchcliffe (this down the tube), “you’ll stay here in charge with Gregory and Shergold and the engine-room staff. Morgan stays, too, for signalling purposes.” A deep groan broke from Morgan’s chest, but he said nothing. “If the fog thins and you’re seen by any one, keep’em quiet with the signals. I can’t think of the precise lie just now, but you can, Morgan.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Suppose their torpedo-nets are down?” I whispered, shivering with excitement.
“If they’ve been repairing minor defects all day, they won’t have any one to spare from the engine-room, and ‘Out nets!’ is a job for the whole ship’s company. I expect they’ve trusted to the fog — like us. Well, Pyecroft?”
That great soul had blown up on to the bridge like a feather. “‘Ad to see the first o’ the rum into the Agathites, Sir. They was a bit jealous o’ their commandin’ officer comin’ ‘ome so richly lacquered, and at first the conversazione languished, as you might say. But they sprang to attention ere I left. Six sharp strokes on the bells, if any of ‘em are sober enough to keep tally, will be the signal that our consort ‘as cast off her tow an’ is manceuvrin’ on ‘er own.”
“Right O! Take Laughton with you in the dinghy. Put that Berthon over quietly there! Are you all right, Mr. Hinchcliffe?”
I stood back to avoid the rush of half-a-dozen shadows dropping into the Berthon boat. A hand caught me by the slack of my garments, moved me in generous arcs through the night, and I rested on the bottom of the dinghy.
“I want you for prima facie evidence, in case the vaccination don’t take,” said Pyecroft in my ear. “Push off, Alf!”
The last bell-ringing was high overhead. It was followed by six little tinkles from the Agatha, the roar of her falling anchor, the clash of pans, and loose shouting.
“Where be gwine tu? Port your ‘ellum. Aie! you mud-dredger in the fairway, goo astern! Out boats! She’ll sink us!”
A clear-cut Navy voice drawled from the clouds: “Quiet! you gardeners there. This is the Cryptic at anchor.”
“Thank you for the range,” said Pyecroft, and paddled gingerly. “Feel well out in front of you, Alf. Remember your fat fist is our only Marconi installation.” The voices resumed:
“Bournemouth steamer he says she be.”
“Then where be Brixham Harbor?”
“Damme, I’m a tax-payer tu. They’ve no right to cruise about this way.
I’ll have the laa on ‘ee if anything carries away.”
Then the man-of-war:
“Short on your anchor! Heave short, you howling maniacs! You’ll get yourselves smashed in a minute if you drift.”
The air was full of these and other voices as the dinghy, checking, swung. I passed one hand down Laughton’s stretched arm and felt an iron gooseneck and a foot or two of a backward-sloping torpedo-net boom. The other hand I laid on broad, cold iron — even the flanks of H.M.S. Cryptic, which is twelve thousand tons.
I heard a scrubby, raspy sound, as though Pyecroft had chosen that hour to shave, and I smelled paint. “Drop aft a bit, Alf; we’ll put a stencil under the stern six-inch casements.”
Boom by boom Laughlin slid the dinghy along the towering curved wall. Once, twice, and again we stopped, and the keen scrubbing sound was renewed.
“Umpires are ‘ard-’earted blighters, but this ought to convince ‘em…. Captain Panke’s stern-walk is now above our defenceless ‘eads. Repeat the evolution up the starboard side, Alf.”
I was only conscious that we moved around an iron world palpitating with life. Though my knowledge was all by touch — as, for example, when Pyecroft led my surrendered hand to the base of some bulging sponson, or when my palm closed on the knife-edge of the stem and patted it timidly — yet I felt lonely and unprotected as the enormous, helpless ship was withdrawn, and we drifted away into the void where voices sang:
Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me thy gray mare,
All along, out along, down along lea!
I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair
With Bill Brewer, Sam Sewer, Peter Gurney, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley an’ all!
“That’s old Sinbad an’ ‘is little lot from the Agatha! Give way, Alf! You might sing somethin’, too.”
“I’m no burnin’ Patti. Ain’t there noise enough for you, Pye?”
“Yes, but it’s only amateurs. Give me the tones of ‘earth and ‘ome. Ha!
List to the blighter on the ‘orizon sayin’ his prayers, Navy-fashion.
‘Eaven ‘elp me argue that way when I’m a warrant-officer!”
We headed with little lapping strokes toward what seemed to be a fair- sized riot.
“An’ I’ve ‘eard the Devolution called a happy ship, too,” said Pyecroft. “Just shows ‘ow a man’s misled by prejudice. She’s peevish — that’s what she is — nasty-peevish. Prob’ly all because the Agathites are scratching ‘er paint. Well, rub along, Alf. I’ve
got the lymph!”
A voice, which Mr. Pyecroft assured me belonged to a chief carpenter, was speaking through an aperture (starboard bow twelve-pounder on the lower deck). He did not wish to purchase any fish, even at grossly reduced rates. Nobody wished to buy any fish. This ship was the Devolution at anchor, and desired no communication with shore boats.
“Mark how the Navy ‘olds it’s own. He’s sober. The Agathites are not, as you might say, an’ yet they can’t live with ‘im. It’s the discipline that does it. ‘Ark to the bald an’ unconvincin’ watch-officer chimin’ in. I wonder where Mr. Moorshed has got to?”
We drifted down the Devolution’s side, as we had drifted down her sister’s; and we dealt with her in that dense gloom as we had dealt with her sister.
“Whai! ‘Tis a man-o’-war, after all! I can see the captain’s whisker all gilt at the edges! We took ‘ee for the Bournemouth steamer. Three cheers for the real man-o’-war!”
That cry came from under the Devolution’s stern. Pyecroft held something in his teeth, for I heard him mumble, “Our Mister Moorshed!”
Said a boy’s voice above us, just as we dodged a jet of hot water from some valve: “I don’t half like that cheer. If I’d been the old man I’d ha’ turned loose the quick-firers at the first go-off. Aren’t they rowing Navy-stroke, yonder?”
“True,” said Pyecroft, listening to retreating oars. “It’s time to go ‘ome when snotties begin to think. The fog’s thinnin’, too.”
I felt a chill breath on my forehead, and saw a few feet of the steel stand out darker than the darkness, disappear — it was then the dinghy shot away from it — and emerge once more.
“Hallo! what boat’s that?” said the voice suspiciously.
“Why, I do believe it’s a real man-o’-war, after all,” said Pyecroft, and kicked Laughton.
“What’s that for?” Laughton was no dramatist.
“Answer in character, you blighter! Say somethin’ opposite.”
“What boat’s thatt?” The hail was repeated.
“What do yee say-ay?” Pyecroft bellowed, and, under his breath to me:
“Give us a hand.”
“It’s called the Marietta — F. J. Stokes — Torquay,” I began, quaveringly. “At least, that’s the name on the name-board. I’ve been dining — on a yacht.”
“I see.” The voice shook a little, and my way opened before me with disgraceful ease.
“Yesh. Dining private yacht. Eshmesheralda. I belong to Torquay Yacht
Club. Are you member Torquay Yacht Club?”
“You’d better go to bed, Sir. Good-night.” We slid into the rapidly thinning fog.
“Dig out, Alf. Put your nix mangiare back into it. The fog’s peelin’ off like a petticoat. Where’s Two Six Seven?”
“I can’t see her,” I replied, “but there’s a light low down ahead.”
“The Agatha!” They rowed desperately through the uneasy dispersal of the fog for ten minutes and ducked round the trawler’s bow.
“Well, Emanuel means ‘God with us’ — so far.” Pyecroft wiped his brow, laid a hand on the low rail, and as he boosted me up to the trawler, I saw Moorshed’s face, white as pearl in the thinning dark.
“Was it all right?” said he, over the bulwarks.
“Vaccination ain’t in it. She’s took beautiful. But where’s 267, Sir?”
Pyecroft replied.
“Gone. We came here as the fog lifted. I gave the Devolution four. Was that you behind us?”
“Yes, sir; but I only got in three on the Devolution. I gave the Cryptic nine, though. They’re what you might call more or less vaccinated.”
He lifted me inboard, where Moorshed and six pirates lay round the Agatha’s hatch. There was a hint of daylight in the cool air.
“Where is the old man?” I asked.
“Still selling ‘em fish, I suppose. He’s a darling! But I wish I could get this filthy paint off my hands. Hallo! What the deuce is the Cryptic signalling?”
A pale masthead light winked through the last of the fog. It was answered by a white pencil to the southward.
“Destroyer signalling with searchlight.” Pyecroft leaped on the stern- rail. “The first part is private signals. Ah! now she’s Morsing against the fog. ‘P-O-S-T’ — yes, ‘postpone’ — ’D-E-P-’ (go on)! ‘departure — till — further — orders — which — will — be com” (he’s dropped the other m) “‘unicated — verbally. End,’.” He swung round. “Cryptic is now answering: ‘Ready — proceed — immediately. What — news — promised — destroyer — flotilla?’”
“Hallo!” said Moorshed. “Well, never mind, They’ll come too late.”
“Whew! That’s some ‘igh-born suckling on the destroyer. Destroyer signals: ‘Care not. All will be known later.’ What merry beehive’s broken loose now?”
“What odds! We’ve done our little job.”
“Why — why — it’s Two Six Seven!”
Here Pyecroft dropped from the rail among the fishy nets and shook the Agatha with heavings. Moorshed cast aside his cigarette, looked over the stern, and fell into his subordinate’s arms. I heard the guggle of engines, the rattle of a little anchor going over not a hundred yards away, a cough, and Morgan’s subdued hail. … So far as I remember, it was Laughton whom I hugged; but the men who hugged me most were Pyecroft and Moorshed, adrift among the fishy nets.
There was no semblance of discipline in our flight over the Agatha’s side, nor, indeed, were ordinary precautions taken for the common safety, because (I was in the Berthon) they held that patent boat open by hand for the most part. We regained our own craft, cackling like wild geese, and crowded round Moorshed and Hinchcliffe. Behind us the Agatha’s boat, returning from her fish-selling cruise, yelled: “Have ‘ee done the trick? Have ‘ee done the trick?” and we could only shout hoarsely over the stern, guaranteeing them rum by the hold-full.
“Fog got patchy here at 12:27,” said Henry Salt Hinchcliffe, growing clearer every instant in the dawn. “Went down to Brixham Harbour to keep out of the road. Heard whistles to the south and went to look. I had her up to sixteen good. Morgan kept on shedding private Red Fleet signals out of the signal-book, as the fog cleared, till we was answered by three destroyers. Morgan signalled ‘em by searchlight: ‘Alter course to South Seventeen East, so as not to lose time,’ They came round quick. We kept well away — on their port beam — and Morgan gave ‘em their orders.” He looked at Morgan and coughed.
“The signalman, acting as second in command,” said Morgan, swelling, “then informed destroyer flotilla that Cryptic and Devolution had made good defects, and, in obedience to Admiral’s supplementary orders (I was afraid they might suspect that, but they didn’t), had proceeded at seven knots at 11:23 p. M. to rendezvous near Channel Islands, seven miles N.N.W. the Casquet light. (I’ve rendezvoused there myself, Sir.) Destroyer flotilla would therefore follow cruisers and catch up with them on their course. Destroyer flotilla then dug out on course indicated, all funnels sparking briskly.”
“Who were the destroyers?”
“Wraith, Kobbold, Stiletto, Lieutenant-Commander A. L. Hignett, acting under Admiral’s orders to escort cruisers received off the Dodman at 7 P. M. They’d come slow on account of fog.”
“Then who were you?”
“We were the Afrite, port-engine broke down, put in to Torbay, and there instructed by Cryptic, previous to her departure with Devolution) to inform Commander Hignett of change of plans. Lieutenant-Commander Hignett signalled that our meeting was quite providential. After this we returned to pick up our commanding officer, and being interrogated by Cryptic, marked time signalling as requisite, which you may have seen. The Agatha representing the last known rallying-point — or, as I should say, pivot- ship of the evolution — it was decided to repair to the Agatha at conclusion of manoeuvre.”
“Is there such a thing as one fine big drink aboard this one fine big battleship?” “Can do, sir,” said Pyecroft, and got it. Beginning wit
h Mr. Moorshed and ending with myself, junior to the third first-class stoker, we drank, and it was as water of the brook, that two and a half inches of stiff, treacly, Navy rum. And we looked each in the other’s face, and we nodded, bright-eyed, burning with bliss.
Moorshed walked aft to the torpedo-tubes and paced back and forth, a captain victorious on his own quarterdeck; and the triumphant day broke over the green-bedded villas of Torquay to show us the magnitude of our victory. There lay the cruisers (I have reason to believe that they had made good their defects). They were each four hundred and forty feet long and sixty-six wide; they held close upon eight hundred men apiece, and they had cost, say, a million and a half the pair. And they were ours, and they did not know it. Indeed, the Cryptic, senior ship, was signalling vehement remarks to our address, which we did not notice.
“If you take these glasses, you’ll get the general run o’ last night’s vaccination,” said Pyecroft. “Each one represents a torpedo got ‘ome, as you might say.”
I saw on the Cryptic’s port side, as she lay half a mile away across the glassy water, four neat white squares in outline, a white blur in the centre.
“There are five more to starboard. ‘Ere’s the original!” He handed me a paint-dappled copper stencil-plate, two feet square, bearing in the centre the six-inch initials, “G.M.”
“Ten minutes ago I’d ha’ eulogised about that little trick of ours, but
Morgan’s performance has short-circuited me. Are you happy, Morgan?”
“Bustin’,” said the signalman briefly.
“You may be. Gawd forgive you, Morgan, for as Queen ‘Enrietta said to the ‘ousemaid, I never will. I’d ha’ given a year’s pay for ten minutes o’ your signallin’ work this mornin’.”
“I wouldn’t ‘ave took it up,” was the answer. “Perishin’ ‘Eavens above! Look at the Devolution’s semaphore!” Two black wooden arms waved from the junior ship’s upper bridge. “They’ve seen it.”
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 376