H.M.S. ----

A WAGE SLAVE.

The Coxswain nodded to the boy messenger and reached for his cap.

"All right, my lad—'ook me down that lammy. What's the panic, d'ye know?"

"No, I dunno. Sez 'e, 'Tell 'im to come up. I want 'im at the wheel,' 'e sez. An' I come along an'——"

"All right—'ook it, and don't stand there blowin' down my neck."

The Coxswain jerked his "lammy" coat on, and clumped heavily out of the mess, chewing a section of ship's biscuit (carefully and cunningly—for the shortage of teeth among torpedo coxswains amounts almost to a badge of office) as he went.

"What's up, Jim—steam tattics?" asked the Torpedo Gunner's Mate—another Lower Deck Olympian—looking up from a three-day-old 'Telegraph.'

The Coxswain grunted in response. It is not the custom of the Service to answer silly questions. The reason the question was asked at all may be put down to the fact of the 'Telegraph' being not only old but empty of interest.

As he reached the upper deck he buttoned his coat and felt in his pockets for his mittens. It was very cold—a cold accentuated by the wind of the Destroyer's passage. There was no sea, but it was pitch-dark, with a glint of phosphorus from water broken by the wakes of six "war-built" T.B.D.'s running in line ahead at an easy twenty-four knots. The Coxswain could never, in all probability, have explained his reasoning, though the fact that the speed had been increased was noticeable; but he knew, as he swung up the ladders to the unseen fore-bridge, that he had not been sent for a mere alteration of course. His brain must have received some telepathic wave from the ship's hull which told him that the enemy had had something to do with the break in his watch below.

His sea-boots ceased their noisy clumping as he reached the bridge, and he was standing by the helmsman with a hand on the wheel before the man had noticed his arrival. With an interrogative grunt he stepped to the steering pedestal as the man moved aside, and he stood peering at the dimly lit compass card, and moving the wheel a spoke or two each way as he "felt" her.

"North Seventy East—carryin' a little starboard," said the dark figure beside him, and he accepted the "Turn-over" with another characteristic growl—

"That you, Pember? Follow the next ahead and steer small." The Commander had spoken, the white gleam from his scarf showing for a moment in the reflected compass light.

"Next ahead and steer small, sir." He leaned forward and watched the blue-white fan of phosphorus that meant the stern-wave of the next ship. Low voices spoke beside him, and the telegraphs whirred round and reply-gongs tinkled. Half, or perhaps a quarter, of his brain noticed these things, but they were instantly pigeon-holed and forgotten. He was at his job, and his job was to hold his course on the next ahead. Without an order, nothing but death would cause him to let his attention wander from his business. He heard the sub-lieutenant a few feet distant crooning in a mournful voice—

The back of his brain seized the words and turned them over and over. Babylon was in the Bible—he wasn't sure where it was on the map though. How much was three score and ten? Three twenties were sixty, and—"Action Stations"—Babylon slid into a pigeon-hole, and he relaxed for a second from his rigid concentration on the next ahead. He straightened up, stretching his long gaunt body, and a suspicion of a smile lit his face. Then he resumed his peering, puckered attitude, oblivious to everything but that phosphorescent glow ahead. The glow broadened and brightened, and he felt the quiver beneath his feet that told of a speed that contractors of three years ago would have gaped at. A vivid flash of yellow light lit up the next ahead and showed her bridge and funnels with startling clearness against the sky. By the same flash he saw another big destroyer on the bow crossing the line from starboard to port. His own bow gun fired at the instant the detonations of the first shots reached him, and in the midst of the tearing reports of a round dozen of high-velocity guns, by some miracle of concentration, he heard a helm order from the white scarf six feet away. The little fifteen-inch wheel whirled under his hand, and with a complaining quiver and roll the destroyer swung after her leader to port. In the light of a continually increasing number of gun-flashes he saw the next ahead running "Yard-arm to Yard-arm" with a long German destroyer, each slamming shell into the other at furious speed. He gave a side-glance to starboard to look for his opposite number on the enemy line—and then came one of those incidents which show that the Navy trains men into the same mental groove, whether officers or coxswains.

The enemy destroyer was just turning up to show her port broadside. She was carrying "Hard-over" helm, and her wheel could hardly reverse in the time that would be necessary if——. The coxswain anticipated the order he knew would come—anticipated it to the extent of a mere fraction of port-helm and a savage grip of the wheel. The order came in a voice that no amount of gun-fire could prevent the coxswain from hearing just then. "Hard-a-port! Ram her, coxswain!" The enemy saw and tried to meet the charge bow-on. There was no room between them for that, and he knew it. His guns did his best for him, but a man intent on his job takes a lot of killing at short range. Two shells hit and burst below the bridge, and the third—the coxswain swung round the binnacle, gripping the rim with his left hand. His right hand still held the wheel, and spun it through a full turn of starboard helm. The stiffened razor-edge bow took the enemy at the break of the poop, and went clean through before crushing back to the fore bulkhead. At the impact the shattered coxswain slipped forward on the deck and died with a smashing, splintering noise in his ears—the tribute of war to an artist whose work was done.

AN "ANNUAL."

A grey drizzly morning, with yellow fog to seaward and every prospect of a really wet day. At each side of the black basin gates stood a little group of men, the majority "Dockyard mateys" of the rigger's party. A few wore the insignia of higher rank—bowler hats and watch-chains. The bowler hats conferred together in low voices, while the rank and file conferred not at all, but stared solemnly out at the wall of mist that cut the visibility in the harbour down to a bare four hundred yards.

Round the corner of the rigger's store two uniformed figures appeared walking briskly towards the basin entrance. Both wore overcoats. The shorter man was grey where the hair showed beneath his gold-peaked cap, while the pale face and "washed-out" look of the younger man indicated that the hospital ship which took him away from Gallipoli had done so none too soon.

As they approached, one of the bowler-wearers detached himself from the group and spoke to the senior of the two. There was a three-cornered comparison of watches and then a move to the wall, over the edge of which they gazed down at the slowly moving yellow water.

"We'll give her another quarter of an hour, Mr Johnson, and then pack up," said the officer. "I think it has cleared a little since six, and I know they'll bring her up if they possibly can."

Through the medley of horns, syrens, and whistles that had been sounding through the fog, four short blasts caught the ear of a rigger who leaned against the outward capstan bollard. He lounged forward a couple of paces, and the men nearest looked round at him with a symptom of interest. The blasts sounded again, and he turned and looked at the foreman rigger behind him. The foreman nodded and spoke and the group separated a little, some of the men picking up long flexible "heaving-lines" coiled in neat rings on the cobble-stones.

"She's coming, sir," said the foreman, turning to the King's Harbourmaster; "she'll just do it nicely. That was the new tug's whistle."

A couple of capstan bollards began to clatter round as steam was turned on and a heavy wooden fender swung with a crash over the rounded edge of each entrance wall. The mist was clearing now, and the traffic in the harbour could be dimly seen. A foreman pointed to seaward, and the younger officer followed his arm with his tired eyes. Over the fog a slender dark line showed with a blurred foretop below. The unmistakable tripod mast of a big ship showed gradually through, and as he watched he was reminded of a magic-lantern picture out of focus being gradually brought into definition by the operator. The mist cleared faster than she approached, and at a quarter of a mile he could see the great looming bow surmounted by tier on tier of bridges, which mounted almost to the high overhanging top. She crawled slowly on, using her own engines, the hawsers leading to the furiously agitated paddle tugs on bow and quarter sweeping slack along the stream. On the tall "monkey's island" a group of figures clustered together, and the gleam of gold-peaked caps showed among the blue overcoats. At half a cable's length the voices of the leadsmen, inarticulate and faint before, could be clearly heard. "And a ha-a-a-f nine"—"and a ha-a-a-f nine." The bow tugs sheered off to each side, and whistles blew shrilly. The heavy bow hawsers fell splashing in the water, and the jingle of engine-room telegraph bells echoed up the walls of the entrance. A couple of dingy black "rigger" boats, propelled "Maltee fashion," with the rowers standing facing forward, appeared between the dockyard wall and the great curved stem. Heaving-lines sailed through the air, uncoiling as they flew, and the boats rowed furiously back to the entrance. From somewhere aft by the turret a great bull voice spoke through a megaphone. The riggers at the entrance leapt into sudden activity, and for five minutes the din and clatter of capstans, shrilling of whistles, and splash of hawsers in the water broke the spell of silence. The noise died suddenly, and the note of telegraph bells came ringing again from the high grey monster. Slowly she gathered way, and to the clatter of the dockyard capstans as the slack of the hawsers was taken in, her forty-foot curved stem passed the black caisson gates. The two officers, the young and the old, stepped to the edge of the wall and looked across. Her stem had hit off the exact centre of the entrance, but there was a good two hundred yards of her to come yet. In dead silence, with groups of men fallen in at attention along her side, she flowed on, her speed a bare two knots, but a speed in keeping with her enormous bulk and majesty. As she entered, and the finer lines of her bow passed, she seemed to swell, till she almost filled the entrance, and it looked as if one could step aboard her from the lock-side. The eyes travelled from the mighty turret guns that glistened in the rain, and were attracted up and up till heads were tilted back to look at the highest bridge of all. A quiet incisive voice could be clearly heard: "Port ten"—"'Midships"—"Stop both." Again the "kling-kling" of bells and then silence. The grey-haired officer on the wall raised his hand in salute, and a tall grave captain, looking down from above, saluted in return, showing a flash of white teeth in a smile of recognition.

As she passed the hawsers came with her, transferred from bollard to bollard by gangs of staggering men. The passage of her stern past the outer entrance seemed to break a spell, as if the hypnotism of hundreds of staring eyes had passed away. The caisson gates ground to with almost indecent haste behind her, as some castle portcullis might do as the last prisoner was dragged through. Whistles blew, answering each other across the oily, rain-pitted water of the basin, and to the weeep we-ooo of pipes and the roar of the boatswains mates' voices, the lines of rigid men on the great ship's side broke up and fell back. She had left the open sea and had become "Number 955—for refit—in Dockyard hands."

"How long is she for, sir? Ten days?"

The grey-haired officer turned: "No, only eight. They want her back as soon as possible. Four days' leave to each watch and she'll be off again. You're looking cold, boy—come up to breakfast. That malaria hasn't left you yet."

"I wish it would, sir. I want to get to sea again.

"I know. It's not so bad to watch them come in, but it makes me feel old when I see them leaving again. But you needn't worry, the War's going on a long time yet."

"OUR ANNUAL."

MASCOTS.

THE SPARROW.

A perfectly calm blue sea, a blazing June sun, and absolutely nothing to break the monotony of a blank horizon. The sparrow was deadbeat, and was travelling slowly to the north and west on a zigzag course, about two hundred feet high. The sparrow had no right to be there at all. He hailed from a Yorkshire hedgerow, and nothing but a real three-day fog and westerly winds could have brought him over such a waste of waters. He had been flying in a circle all night, swerving at intervals down to the water in the vain hope of finding rest for his aching muscles. Now he was heading roughly towards his home with but slight hopes of ever reaching it.

A faint droning noise to the north made him turn, and low over the straight-ruled horizon he saw a silvery-white line that every moment grew larger. He headed towards it, but at a mile range swerved away to pass astern of it. It was not an inviting object for even a lost sparrow to rest on. With engines running slow—so slowly that the blades of the great propellors could be easily seen—with a broad white-and-black ensign flapping lazily below and astern, the Zeppelin droned on to the south'ard, a thing of massive grace and beauty on such a perfect summer's day.

With a vague idea that the monster might lead him home, the sparrow turned and followed. The Zeppelin slowly drew ahead and rose higher, while far to the south another monster rose over the skyline, black against the sun. The great craft passed each other and turned away, the first one heading back to the north whence he had come, and the second disappearing to the east, climbing slowly as he went.

The sparrow turned also and fluttered and dipped in pathetic confidence after his first visitor. The fact of having seen something, however unpleasant and strange-looking, had given him a new access of strength, and he was able to keep the great silver thing in easy view. Suddenly the Zeppelin tilted like a hunter at a high fence, and the note of his engines rose to a dull roar. He climbed like—well, like a sparrow coming up to a house-top—and at three thousand feet he circled at full power, levelling off his angle, and showing a turn of speed which left the frightened bird gaping.

The sparrow fluttered on vaguely, passing at 100 feet above the water, below the Zeppelin. He had decided that a pilot who played tricks like that was no sort of use to him, and that he had better stick to his original idea of working to the north and west, however lonely a course it might be. He swerved a little at a rushing, whistling noise that came from above him, and which grew to a terrifying note. A big dark object whipped past him, and a moment later splashed heavily into the mirror-like surface below. The rings made by its impact had hardly started to widen, when there was a great convulsion, and a column of smoky-white water leapt up behind him, followed by the roar of an explosion. The sparrow started to climb—to climb as he had never done in his life. Twice more—his weariness forgotten—he was urged to further efforts to gain height, by the shock of the great detonations from the water below. The Zeppelin was down to a thousand feet now, swinging round on a wider circle. Five hundred feet below, the sparrow saw a faint streak on the water which faded at one end into blue sea, and at the other narrowed to a little feather of spray round a dark point that was travelling like the fin of some slowly moving fish to the north-westward. The Zeppelin saw it too, and came hunting back along the line. Bang—bang—bang! Great columns shot up again ahead and astern of the strange fish, and away went the sparrow to the south once more. Any course was bad in this place, and it was better to die alone in the waters than to be pursued by such a monster of the air. As he went he heard more and more detonations behind him, until the noise of the droning engine had died, when he was again alone over the sparkling unfriendly sea. The exertions and alarm of the last hour had taken the last of his reserve forces, and in uneven flutterings his flight tended lower and lower, till he was a bare twenty feet from what he knew must be his grave. Then came a miracle of war. A bare quarter-mile ahead a thing like a tapering lance began to rise and grow from the water. It was followed by a grey black-lettered tower which also grew and showed a rounded grey hull, moving slowly south with a white band of froth spinning away astern. A lid on the tower clanged open, and two figures appeared. One raised something to his eye, and faced south. The other stood on the rail and pivoted slowly round, staring at sky and sea.

"I wonder what the deuce he was bombing—bit of wreckage, I suppose," said the man on the rail.

"Well, it wasn't us anyway. The blind old baby-killer." The man with the sextant lowered it and fiddled with the shades. "We've got no boats near, have we, sir?"

"Not for donkeys' miles. I hope it was a Fritz, anyway. I say, look at that spadger!"

"Where? I don't see it. Stand by. Stop, sir."

"All right, I got you. Here, catch this watch. That spadger's gone down into the casing, and he'll drown if we dip with him there. Look out for those Zepps. coming back."

The Captain swung quickly down the foreside of the conning-tower, ran forward and peered into the casing in the eyes of the boat.

"Zepp. coming, sir,—north of us, just gone behind a bit of cloud."

"Zepp. be damned. Ah! got you, you little beggar." He reached his arm into a coil of wet rope and rose triumphantly to his feet. The sparrow cheeped pitifully as he ran aft again and took the ladder in two jumps. He gave a glance astern and another all round the horizon before following his sextant-clutching subordinate below. The lid clanged, and with a sigh, a gurgle, and a flirt of her screws the submarine slid under, the blank and expressionless eye of her periscope staring fixedly at an unconscious but triumphant Zeppelin that was gliding out from a fleecy patch of cloud astern.

"Here you are, Lizzie. Skipper said I was to let him go soon's we got in, but I just brought 'im to show you. We've 'ad 'im aboard five days now, and 'e can't 'alf eat biscuit. 'E's as full as 'e can 'old now. Open the window, old girl, and we'll let 'im out afore I starts 'ugging yer."

The lid of the cap-box opened wide and the sparrow hopped to the table. He raised his cramped wings and fluffed out his feathers as he felt his muscles again. There was a flutter and a flip of his impudent tail, and quicker than the eye could follow him the wanderer was gone.

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.

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.

BETWEEN TIDES.

A stranger, if suddenly transplanted to the spot, would have taken some time after opening his eyes to realise that the boat was submerged. He would probably decide at first that she was anchored in harbour. Far away forward, under an avenue of overhead electric lamps, figures could be seen—all either recumbent or seated—and from them the eye was led on till it lost its sense of distance in a narrowing perspective of wheels, pipes, and gauges. All the while there was a steady buzzing hum from slowly turning motors, and about every half minute there came a faint whir of gear wheels from away aft by the hydroplanes. From the bell-mouths of a cluster of voice-pipes a murmur of voices sounded—the conversation of officers by the periscope; while the ear, if close to the arched steel hull, could catch a bubbling, rippling noise—the voice of the North Sea passing overhead.

The men stationed aft near the motors were not over-clean, and were certainly unshaven; some were asleep or reading (the literature carried and read by the crew would certainly have puzzled a librarian—it varied from 'Titbits' and 'John Bull' to 'Piers Plowman' and 'The Origin of Species'): a few were engaged in a heated discussion as they sat around a big torpedoman—the only man of the group actually on duty at the moment. His duties appeared only to consist in being awake and on the spot if wanted, and he was, as a matter of fact, fully occupied as one of the leading spirits in the argument.

"Well, let's 'ear what you're getting at," he said. "We 'eard a lot of talk, but it don't go anywhere. You say you're a philosopher, but you don't know what you do mean."

"I know blanky well, but you can't understand me," said the engine-room artificer addressed. "Look here, now—you've got to die some time, haven't you?"

"Granted, Professor."

"Well, it's all arranged now how you're to die, I say. It doesn't matter when or how it is, but it's all settled—see? And you don't know, and none of us know anything about it."

"That's all very well—but 'oo is it knows, then? D'you mean God?"

"No, I don't—I'm an atheist, I tell you. There's something that arranges it all, but it ain't God."

"Well, 'oo the 'ell is it, then—the Admiralty?"

The Artificer leaned forward, his dark eyes alight and his face earnest as that of some medieval hermit. "I tell you," he said, "you can believe in God, or Buddha, or anything you like, but it's the same thing. Whatever it is, it doesn't care. It has it all ready and arranged—written out, if you like—and it will have to happen just so. It's pre—pre——"

"Predestination." The deep voice came from the Leading Stoker on the bench beside him.

"Predestination. No amount of praying's any good. It's no use going round crying to gods that aren't there to help you. You've got to go through it as it's written down."

"Prayer's all right," said the Leading Stoker. "If you believe what you pray, you'll get it."

"That's not true. Have you ever had it? Give us an instance now——"

"I don't pray none, thank you. All the same, it's good for women and such that go in for it, like. It ain't the things that alter; it's yourself that does it. Ain't you never 'eard o' Christian Science?"

"Yes; same as the Mormons, ain't it? Is that what you are?"

"No, it ain't—an' I'm a Unitarian, same as you are."

"I'm not—I'm a Baptist, same as my father was; but I don't believe in it."

"Well, if you believe in one God, that's what you are."

"But I'm telling you, I don't. Look here, now. I don't believe there's anything happens at all that wasn't all arranged first, and I know that nothing can alter it."

"Well, 'oo laid it all down first go off, then?" said the Torpedoman.

"Ah! I don't know and you don't know; but I tell you it wasn't God."

"Well, 'e's a bigger man than me then, an' I takes me 'at off to 'im, 'ooever it is. I tell yer, yer talkin' through yer neck. You say if you're going to be shot, there's a bullet about somewhere in some one's pouch with yer name writ on it. Ain't that it? Well, 'oo the 'ell put yer name on it, then?"

"It doesn't matter to me so long's it's there, does it?"

"Well, if that was so, I'd like to know 'oo 'e was, so's I could pass 'im the word not to 'ave the point filed off of it for me, anyway."

"Well, you couldn't—and he couldn't alter it for you if he was there, either."

The Torpedoman moved along the bench and twisted his head round till his ear was against one of the voice-pipes. The others sat silent and watched him with lazy interest.

"We're takin' a dip," he said. "Thought I 'eard 'im say, 'Sixty feet.'" The faint rolling motion that had been noticeable before died away, and the boat seemed to have become even more peaceful and silent. The Leading Stoker leaned back against the hull and rested his head against the steel. From the starboard hand there came a faint murmur, which grew till the regular threshing beat of a propeller could be distinguished. The sound swelled till they could hear in its midst a separate piping, squeaking note. The ship passed on overhead, and the threshing sound passed with her and faded until again the steady purr of motors remained the only reminder of the fact that the boat was diving. They felt her tilt up a little by the bow as she climbed back to regain her patrol depth.

"That's a tramp," said the Torpedoman; "nootral, I reckon."

"Squeaky bearing, too," said the Artificer judicially. "Don't suppose he's looked at his thrust since he left port. What's the skipper want to go under her for?"

"Save trouble, I s'pose; didn't want to alter helm for 'er. What was you talkin' of—yes, Kismet—that's the word I've been wantin' all along. You're a Mohammedan, you are?"

"Aw, don't be a fool; I tell you I'm nothing."

The fourth wakeful figure, another Torpedoman, spoke for the first time. "If you're nothing, and you think you're nothing, what the 'ell d'yer want to make such a fuss about it for?"

"I don't make a fuss. It's all you people who think you're something who make a fuss. You can't alter what's laid down, but you think you can. You fuss and panic to stave things off, but you're like chickens in a coop—you can't get out till your master lets you, and he can't understand what you say, and he wouldn't pay any attention to it if he did."

The big Torpedoman put out a hand like a knotted oak-root and spoke—

"You an' your Kismet," he said scornfully. "Look 'ere, now. This is Gospel, and I'm tellin' of yer. S'pose there is a bullet about with your name on it, but s'posing you shoot the other —— first, and there's to 'ell with yer Kismet. Gawd 'elps those that 'elp themselves, I say. S'pose we 'it a Fritz now, under water—'oo's Kismet is it? Never mind 'oo's arranged it or 'oo's down in the book to go through it, the bloke that gets 'is doors closed first and 'as the best trained crew is goin' to come 'ome and spin the yarn about it. I say it may be written down as you say, but there's Someone 'oldin' the book, an' 'e says: 'Cross off that boat this time,' 'e say. 'They've got the best lot aboard of 'em,' 'e'd say. Is it Kismet if yer thrust collars go? Are you goin' to stop oilin' 'em because it's in the book an' you can't alter it? Yer talkin' through yer neck. Call it luck, if yer like. It's luck if we 'it a mine, and it's luck if we don't; but if we met a Fritz to-night an' poop off the bow gun an' miss—that's goin' to be our blanky fault, an' you can call it any blanky name, but you won't alter it."

"But you don't understand," said the Artificer. "I didn't——"

"Action Stations—Stand by all tubes." The voice rang clearly from the mouth of the voice-pipe, and the group leapt into activity. For sixty seconds there was apparent pandemonium—the purr of the motors rose to a quick hum, and the long tunnel of the hull rang with noises, clatter and clang and hiss. The sounds stopped almost as suddenly as they had begun, and the voices of men reporting "Ready" could be heard beyond the high-pitched note of the motors.

The big Torpedoman stretched across his tube to close a valve, and caught the eye of the fourth participant in the recent debate. "Say, Dusty," he whispered, "'ere's Someone's Kismet—in this blanky tube, an' I reckon I ain't forgot the detonator in 'er nose, neither."

The Captain lowered the periscope, his actions almost reverent in their artificial calm. He looked up at the navigating officer a few feet away and smiled. "Just turning to east," he said. "We'll be in range inside three minutes." He glanced fore and aft the boat and then back at his watch. "By gum," he said, "it's nice to have a good crew. I haven't had to give a single order, and I wouldn't change a man of 'em."

LIGHT CAVALRY.

I.

Peter Mottin was an acting Sub-Lieutenant, but even acting Sub-Lieutenants from Whale Island may hunt if they can get the requisite day's leave and can muster the price of a hired mount. The hounds poured out of Creech Wood, and Mottin glowed with intense delight as his iron-mouthed horse took the rails in and out of the lane and followed the pack up the seventy-acre pasture from whence the holloa had come. It was late in a February afternoon, and most of the dispirited field had gone home, so that there was no crowd—and a February fox on a good scenting day is a customer worth waiting for. Mottin sat back as a five-foot cut and laid hedge grew nearer, and blessed the owner of his mount as the big black cleared the jump with half a foot to spare. Two more big fences, cut as level as a rule, and the field was down to six, with three Hunt servants. The fox was making for Hyden Wood, and scent was getting better every minute. A clattering canter through a farmyard, and Mottin followed the huntsman over a ramshackle gate on to grass again. The huntsman capped the tail-hounds on as he galloped, and Mottin realised that if they were going to kill before dark they would have to drive their fox fast. Riding to his right he saw Sangatte—a destroyer officer, whom he knew only by name, but whom he envied for the fact that he seemed able to hunt when he liked and could afford to keep his own horses. As they neared a ragged bullfinch hedge at the top of a long slope, he saw Sangatte put on speed and take it right in the middle, head down and forearm across his eyes. Mottin eased his horse to give the huntsman room at the gate in the left-hand corner. The pilot's horse rapped the top bar slightly, and as Mottin settled himself for the leap, he saw the gate begin to swing open away from him. There was no time to change his mind—he decided he must jump big and trust to luck, but the black horse failed him. The hireling knew enough to think for himself, and seeing the gate begin to swing, decided that a shorter stride would be safer. The disagreement resulted—as such differences of opinion are liable to do—in a crash of breaking wood and a whirling, stunning fall. Mottin rose shakily on one leg, feeling as if the ankle of the other was being drilled with red-hot needles, and swore at the black horse as it galloped with trailing bridle down the long stubble field towards Soberton Down. He saw Sangatte look back and then wrench his brown mare round to ride off the hireling as it passed. He caught the dangling reins and swung both horses round, and came hurrying and impatient back. As he arrived he checked the mare and turned in his saddle to watch the receding pack.

"Come on," he said. "Quick—you'll catch 'em at Hyden." He turned to look at Mottin by the gate-post, in irritation at feeling no snatch at the black horse's rein. His face fell slightly. "Hullo—hurt?" he said, and leapt from his mare.

"Go on. Don't wait. Go on," said Mottin. "I'll be all right. You get on—it's only my ankle."

"Damn painful too, I expect. I'm not going on. They'll be at Butser before I could catch them now, and I bet they whip off in the dark." He threw the reins over the mare's head and left her standing. "Now," he said. "It's your left ankle; come here to the near side, and put your left knee on my hands and jump for it."

Mottin complied, and to the accompaniment of a grunt and a pain-expelled oath arrived back in the muddy saddle.

"I say, this is good of you—you know," he said; "but you've——"

"Cut it out—it won't be anything of a run, anyway," lied Sangatte gloomily.

"Come along—it's only three miles to Droxford, but you'll have to walk all the way, and we'd better get on."...

II.

The big seaplane circled low over the harbour and then headed seaward, climbing slowly. There were two men aboard—a young Sub-Lieutenant as pilot and Mottin as observer. Mottin sat crouched low and leaning forward as he studied the chart-holder before him and scratched times and notes in his log-book. They were off on a routine patrol, but there was the additional interest to the trip that on "information received" they were to pay a little more attention than usual to a particular locality.

From his seat Mottin could see nothing of the pilot but his head and shoulders—a back view only, and that obscured by swathings of leather and wool. The two men's heads were joined by a cumbersome arrangement of listeners and tubes which, theoretically, made conversation practicable. As a matter of fact, the invariable rule of repeating every observation twice, and of adding embroidery to each repetition, pointed to a discrepancy between the theory and practice of the instrument. The machine was a big one, and its engines were in proportion. The accommodation in the broad fuselage was considerable, but on the present trip the missing units of the crew were accounted for by an equal weight of extra petrol and T.N.T. "eggs."

The morning had been hazy and they had delayed their start till nearly noon. It was not as clear as it might be even then, for in a quarter of an hour from leaving the slip the land was out of sight astern. At a thousand feet the pilot levelled off and ceased to climb. He flew mechanically, his head bent down to stare at the compass-card. At times he fiddled with air and throttle, twisting his head to watch the revolution indicator. The occasional bumping and rocking of the machine he corrected automatically without looking up. He had long ago arrived at the state of airmanship which makes a pilot into a sensitive inclinometer, acting every way at once.

Mottin finished his scribbling and sat up to look round. He raised himself till he sat on the back of his seat, and began to sweep the sea and horizon with a pair of large-field glasses. The wind roared past him, pressing his arm to his side as he faced to one side or the other, and making him strain the heavy glasses close to his eyes to keep them steady. An hour after starting he touched the pilot on the shoulder and shouted into his own transmitter. He waited a few seconds and shouted again, with the conventional oath to drive the sound along. The pilot nodded his swathed and helmeted head and swung the machine round to a new course. Mottin crouched down again and began to study his chart afresh. Navigation was easy so long as the weather was clear, but with poor visibility, which might get worse instead of better, he knew that it was remarkably easy to get lost in the North Sea, and at this moment he wanted to see his landfall particularly clearly. Five minutes later he saw it, and signalled a new course to the pilot by a nudge and a jerk of his gloved hand. A low dark line had appeared on the starboard bow, a line with tall spires and chimneys standing up from it at close intervals. The seaplane banked a little as they turned and headed away, leaving the land to recede and fade on their quarter. The hazy sun was low in the west and the mist was clearing. It had been none too warm throughout the journey, but it was now distinctly cold, the chill of a winter evening striking through fur and leather as if their clothes had been slit and punctured in half a dozen places.

Mottin had just slid back in his seat after a sweeping search of the sea through his glasses, and was slowly winding, with cold fur-gloved fingers, the neat carriage clock on the sloping board before him, when he heard a yelping war-cry from the pilot and felt the machine dive steeply and swerve to port. He half rose in his seat and then slipped back to feel for his bomb-levers. The submarine was just breaking surface eight hundred feet below and a mile ahead. As he looked she tucked down her bow and slipped under again, having barely shown her conning-tower clear of the short choppy waves. The pilot throttled well down and glided over the smooth, ringed spot which marked where she had vanished. As it slid past below them he opened up his engines again and "zoomed" back to his height. He turned his head to look at Mottin, but said nothing. Mottin made a circular motion with his hand and they began a wide sweep round, climbing all the while. Mottin sat back and thought hard. No, it had not been indecision that had prevented him from dropping bombs then. He knew it was not that, but the exact reasons which had flashed through his mind at the fateful moment must be hunted out and marshalled again. He knew that his second self, his wide-awake and infallible substitute who took over command of his body in moments of emergency, had thought it all out in a flash and had arrived at his decision for sound reasons. Yes, it was clear now, but that confounded fighting substitute of his was just a bit cold-blooded, he thought. They had petrol for the run home with perhaps half an hour to spare. Fritz had not seen them, as his lid had not opened—or at any rate if he had seen them through his periscope, the fact of no bomb having been dropped would encourage him to think that the seaplane had passed on unknowing. Of course they might have let go bombs, but, well, Fritz must have been at anything down to 80 feet at the moment they passed over him, and it was chancy shooting. Yes, it was quite clear. Fritz should be up again in an hour (he evidently wanted to come up), and if they were only high up and ready they would get a fair chance at him. Of course, they would not get home if they waited an hour; but if that cold-blooded second self of his thought it the right thing and a proper chance to take, well, it was so. Mottin looked over the side and wished it was not so loppy. A long easy swell was nothing, but this short choppy sea was going to be the devil. The pilot shouted something to him and pointed at the clock and the big petrol tank overhead. Mottin nodded comprehension, and shouted back. The Sub took a careful look overside and studied the water a moment. Then he laughed back at Mottin, and shouted something about bathing, which was presumably facetious, but which was lost in the recesses of the headpieces.