"Confound the wretched thing, Sefton!" exclaimed Major-General Crosthwaite explosively.
"I hereby confound it!" said his companion with grim solemnity. "I'll do anything you like, provided you don't ask me to evacuate this luxurious cushion and push."
"Now if I had my chauffeur here----" began the General, then, realizing that his duty to his country had necessitated the release of the man for military service, he held his peace on that point, only to break out in another direction.
"It's that horrible concoction that is sold as petrol," he remarked with an air of profound wisdom. "Sixty per cent paraffin and ten per cent water. Nine o'clock in the evening, miles from anywhere, and the idiotic car as obstinate as a mule."
Dick's father, enjoying a hard-earned fortnight's leave after a strenuous time at the front, had performed what he would have considered a desperate task in pre-war days. He had actually driven his own motor--a twenty-horse-power touring-car--from Shropshire to Southampton. Luck, in the shape of complete immunity from tyre troubles and the two thousand odd things that might go wrong with a car, had hitherto favoured him. Whereat he became conceited with his powers as a motorist; but it was pride before a fall, and Major-General Crosthwaite found himself stranded with his three companions somewhere in the vicinity of the little Wiltshire town of Malmesbury.
The eldest of the three passengers was Admiral Trefusis Sefton, K.C.B. (retired), whose son Jack was at that very moment engaged upon his desperate venture of bringing the crippled Calder across the North Sea. Residing near Southampton, he had accepted Crosthwaite Senior's invitation to spend a long week-end at the latter's house near Bridgnorth, and the Major-General thought it was a good opportunity for having a motor-tour by fetching his guest from the south of England.
"I'll take young George with me," wrote the Major-General, "and there will be room in the car for Leslie. They can't get into worse mischief than if they were left at home, and one will be company for the other."
So George Crosthwaite accompanied his father from Bridgnorth to Southampton. Shrewdly the fifteen-year old lad suspected that the primary object of his sire was to let his son see what an expert driver Crosthwaite Senior had become.
Leslie Sefton, also aged fifteen, jumped at the invitation, and, in spite of various and oft-repeated warnings from his parent not to skylark, his exuberant spirits formed a sympathetic counterpart to those of young George Crosthwaite.
Declining his son's offer of expert advice and assistance, the general divested himself of his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, inserted his monocle in his eye, and spent four precious minutes in deep contemplation of the stationary car. Then he applied rudimentary tests to half a dozen different parts without locating the trouble, while the admiral placidly smoked a choice cigar and meditated upon the pleasing fact that he had never succumbed to the motor craze.
George and Leslie, seated on a bank by the roadside, were discussing the merits and demerits of various types of aeroplanes when the former's parent interrupted the pleasant discussion.
"George."
"Sir?"
"I want you to go into Malmesbury and get them to send a car to tow us in."
Young Crosthwaite, unlike either of the two sons in the parable, prepared to obey. "Obey orders at the double" had been dinned into his head from time immemorial. On one occasion when the colonel--as he was then--was entertaining a high War Office official, George, in his alacrity to carry out his parent's behests, collided with the portly butler bearing a heavily-laden tray. But the culprit's plea that he was fulfilling the oft-reiterated order calmed the colonel's inward wrath (he dared not "let himself go" just then) and earned a substantial tip from the highly-amused guest.
"Coming?" asked George laconically, addressing his chum.
"Rather," was the reply.
George threw his greatcoat into the car. As he did so, his sharp eyes caught sight of a tap that was turned off when it should have been turned on.
Deftly he depressed the little lever, and, somewhat to his parent's surprise, "tickled" the carburetter.
"It's no use doing that," said the discomfited motorist. "Hurry up and be off. We'll be stranded here all night if you don't bestir yourself."
Crosthwaite Senior's astonishment increased when the dutiful George climbed into the car and released the self-starter. The motor fired without a hitch.
"By Jove!" ejaculated George's parent, too delighted to think of thanking his son. "However did you manage it?"
"Only turned the petrol on," replied George calmly.
"Have you been playing any tricks----?" began the general, then resolved to repeat the question at a more favourable private opportunity. "Jump in, Sefton; we've wasted an hour already. Might have been in Gloucester by this time. 'Fraid we'd better put up in Malmesbury to-night."
On the lowest gear, the car crawled slowly up the stiff gradient leading to the little town, and pulled up outside an ivy-clad inn within a stone's throw of the imposing ruins of the abbey.
"Any news to-night, I wonder?" enquired the general as the four sat down to a substantial supper. "Suppose there's no chance of a late paper in this out-of-the-way spot?"
"'Fraid not," replied the admiral. "You see, it is on a branch line. Decent weather, eh?"
"Not so bad for our men in the North Sea," remarked Crosthwaite complacently. "They've had a long, rotten winter, although Dick never complains on that score. Must be quite yachty weather, I should imagine," he added, with the memories of a certain pleasure cruise to the Baltic in June flashing across his mind.
He picked up a morning paper from a settee and glanced at it. He had read the selfsame news fourteen hours previously. Yet a paragraph had hitherto escaped his notice.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed.
"What's that?" enquired the admiral.
"Suppose, after all, it's nothing much," observed General Crosthwaite. "Masters of neutral steamers arriving at Danish ports state that they sighted numerous wrecks and hundreds of floating corpses. Another Reuter yarn, I take it."
"More U-boat frightfulness perhaps," hazarded Admiral Sefton.
And yet the report was a mild form of paving the way towards the announcement of the Jutland battle. This was on Friday. Already Germany had claimed a glorious and colossal naval victory, and the tardiness of the British Government in giving the lie direct to the boastful Hunnish claims gave, at least temporarily, a severe shock to neutrals' belief in the invincibility of Britain's sea power. Already American pro-German papers had appeared with highly coloured accounts of Great Britain's crushing naval disaster; cartoons depicting John Bull's consternation at the return of the battered British lion with a badly twisted tail spoke volumes for the incontestable superiority of the German navy.
Happily ignorant of the disquieting rumours, and, indeed, of any knowledge of the naval action, the motorists slept soundly until eight on the following morning.
"Another fine day," declared Crosthwaite Senior at breakfast. "We ought to be home by three in the afternoon. Any papers yet?" he enquired of the waiter.
"No, sir, not until eleven," was the reply.
"Must wait until we get to Gloucester, I suppose," grunted the general. "One of the penalties for stopping at a place on a branch line."
"A fine little place, Pater," remarked George. "Absolutely top-hole. Wish we were staying here. There's an awfully decent stream down there--looks just the place for fishing."
"Can't beat the Severn for that, my boy," declared his father, loyal to his native town and the river that flows past its site. "Buck up, my boy, and finish the packing. I want to see that that petrol-tank is properly filled--no unsealed cans, remember."
George Crosthwaite was really a useful assistant to his parent. Crosthwaite Senior frankly recognized the fact, but forbore from giving his son, personally, due credit, avowing that it was bad for discipline to be lavish with praise.
"Smart youngster, Sefton, my boy," he declared in proud confidence to the admiral. "He has his head screwed on the right way, although I suppose I ought not to brag about it. Have to be careful, though, that he doesn't kick over the traces just yet."
It was nearly nine before the car was ready to resume its journey. In high spirits, for the bracing air and bright sunshine made a perfect day, the party set off.
Major-General Crosthwaite started at a strictly moderate pace. He invariably did; but it was always noticeable that, before he had covered many miles, he accelerated the speed until it reached a reckless pace bordering on fifty miles an hour. Towards the end of his day's journey, he would develop a speed that caused his sedate passengers to quake with apprehension, and his youthful ones to revel in the terrific rush through the air.
Twenty minutes after leaving Malmesbury the car, now running splendidly, bounded up the steep ascent into old-world Tetbury. Here, taking a wrong turning, the motorists had to retrace their way, Crosthwaite Senior slowing down in order to avoid a similar mistake.
Presently Leslie caught sight of a placard displayed outside a news-agent's shop. In flaring red letters were the words: "Big Naval Action in the North Sea".
Leaning over the seat he gripped his father's arm. By this time the car was well beyond the shop.
"What's wrong?" bawled the admiral, for the wind-screen had been lowered and the breeze was whistling past his ears.
"Big scrap in the North Sea--it's on the placards," replied his son,
"Heave-to, Crosthwaite!" exclaimed Admiral Sefton. "Stop here!"
The driver, imagining that something was amiss, and that he had unknowingly run over something, applied his emergency brakes, bringing up his car all standing and at a grave risk to the tyres. Leslie, taken unawares, shot forward, "ramming" his parent in the small of the back with his head and forcing the admiral against the dash-board.
"What the----!" began the astonished Crosthwaite Senior.
Almost unconscious of the rough treatment by his son, Admiral Sefton descended from the car. Already George had executed a flying leap, and was running towards the news-agent's shop.
Returning with a handful of papers he met the admiral half-way.
"It's 'The Day', sir!" he exclaimed, confident in the belief that the long-expected struggle for naval supremacy had been settled once and for all in Britain's favour.
Admiral Sefton grabbed the proffered paper with super-energy, almost tearing the flimsy fabric with his powerful fingers as he fumbled with the recalcitrant leaves.
Then the look of eager expectancy faded from his face, giving place to a dull, strained expression of incredulity.
"Come along, Sefton!" sang out Crosthwaite Senior. "Don't be greedy with the good news. Why, man----"
"We've got it properly in the neck, Pater," announced his son. "Fourteen of ours, including the Queen Mary, sunk."
"But the enemy--the German losses are heavier than ours?" enquired the general, snatching at the paper George was holding.
The two officers scanned the official report. "Owing to low visibility"--was ever an Admiralty dispatch issued with such halting excuses? A straightforward admission of our losses, it is true, but nothing to suggest that the Germans had incurred similar or heavier casualties, or even that the British navy had gained the day. And then there was the perplexing statement that the Germans had rescued a number of British seamen, and no corresponding report to the effect that we had saved any of theirs. Everything pointed to a running fight in which the Huns were the pursuers.
Admiral Sefton was dumbfounded. Had there been a convenient wall, he might have turned his face towards it and groaned in spirit. Instead he set his jaw tightly and thought hard.
"What do you make of it?" enquired the general. "Looks bad on the face of it, eh?"
"We must wait for further details," was his companion's guarded reply. The journey was resumed, but all the joy had vanished from the minds of the party. No longer, the beautiful scenery appealed to them; the crisp, bracing air and brilliant sunshine called in vain.
Down the steep "hairpin" road through Nailsworth, and along one of the prettiest valleys of the Cotswolds, the car literally crawled. General Crosthwaite, contrary to his usual practice, was driving slowly and listlessly. His keen zest had disappeared. As he gripped the steering-wheel he thought deeply, remembering that his son was somewhere out there in the trackless, mine-strewn North Sea.
The admiral, too, was meditating. He would dearly have liked to have paced to and fro, with his hands clasped behind his back in true quarter-deck style; but since the limits of the car made such a proceeding impossible, and it was equally difficult to alight unless the car stopped, he "sat tight" and made a mental review of the battle, constructing his theories upon the slender foundations conveyed in the official report.
Gradually his perplexities vanished. The firm belief in the well-being of the navy that had gripped his mind ever since those long-past Britannia days was not to be shattered by a disquieting and obviously incomplete report, even though it bore Admiralty endorsement.
"Hang it all!" he exclaimed, startling his friend by bawling into Crosthwaite Senior's ear. "Hanged if I'll go by that report. Just you wait, my dear fellow, until supplementary information is forthcoming. It's my belief the Admiralty have something up their sleeve, and that we've won hands down."
"You think so?" asked the general eagerly.
"Think so! I know it," was the now decided reply. "Carry on, Crosthwaite, full-speed ahead, and we'll see what news there is when we get to Gloucester."
"Hope you're right," thought the army officer. Visions of a previous naval disaster--that of the gallant Craddock's defeat off Coronel, the first news of which came from German sources--urged that such a thing as a naval defeat might be possible, especially in view of the great part played by chance. A misunderstood order might result in disaster. A chance shot or an accidental internal explosion might imperil the superiority of the British fleet.
But there was always the dominating factor--men, not ships, win battles. The British seaman, with the glorious traditions of centuries behind him, is in every way superior to the brute who mans the fleet of the Black Cross Ensign.
Then the general found himself mentally kicking himself for not sharing in the admiral's optimism.
"Sefton's right," he concluded. "When we get more news we'll find that all's well."
At Gloucester the admiral sent off a telegram, bought four different papers, scanned the bulletins in the windows of the publishing offices, and found himself little wiser than before; but at Worcester, where the motorists stopped for lunch, they found the outlook much brighter.
Steps had already been taken to counteract the depressing effects of the preliminary official announcement of the Battle of Jutland. The loss of the Warspite and Marlborough, both ships having been claimed as sunk by the Germans, was categorically denied, and a statement of the British vessels, known to be sunk, given. Enemy ships, aggregating in tonnage more than that of our losses, were claimed only when definite reports of their fate were received, from which it was now evident that, far from being a German victory, the honours rested with the fleet under Jellicoe's command.
At the post office Admiral Sefton obtained a wire, sent in reply to his telegram from Gloucester. It was from an old shipmate, now holding an appointment at Whitehall, and was as follows:--
"Vessel in question has not returned to base."
Without a word the admiral handed the buff paper to his friend. Hardly a muscle of Crosthwaite Senior's weather-beaten face moved as he read the momentous but indefinite news, although the "vessel in question" was the T.B.D. Calder, and both men had similar personal interests in the matter.
For the moment private considerations held supreme sway. The two men mutually extended their right hands and exchanged sympathetic grips.
"If they are knocked out, it was in the thick of the scrap," declared General Crosthwaite. "I'll stake my all upon that."
"Dulce et----" began the admiral, then, coming to the conclusion that he was a trifle premature, he exclaimed: "Dash it all, Crosthwaite, strange things happen at sea! They may turn up after all."
"It's the suspense," added Crosthwaite. "Look here, I'll take the car right slap on to Edinburgh, and go on to Rosyth. Are you game?"
"Carry on," said Admiral Sefton. "I'm with you."