Bartimeus

“ A regatta is one of the safety valves through which the ships' companies of the silent Fleet in the North can rid themselves of a little superfluous steam. Only those who have shared the repressed monotony of their unceasing vigil can appreciate what such a day means. To be spared for a few brief hours the irksome round of routine, to smoke Woodbines the livelong day; to share, in the grateful sunlight, some vantage point with a "Raggie," and join in the full-throated, rapturous roars of excitement that sweep down the mile-long lane of ships abreast the sweating crews. ”

“ She changed on the instant into a column of black smoke and wreckage that leaped up into the outraged sky; it trembled there like a dark monument to the futile hate of man for his brother man and slowly dissolved into the mist. A German Destroyer attack crumpled up in the blast of the 6-inch batteries of the British Fleet, and the British Destroyers dashed to meet their crippled onslaught as vultures might swoop on blinded wolves. They fought at point-blank range, asking no quarter, expecting none; they fought over decks ravaged by shrapnel and piled with dead. ”

“ It was dusk when they reached the outlying Cruisers, and nearly dark when the first ship in the Battle Fleet hailed them. Then hail answered hail as one Battleship after another rose towering above them into the darkling sky, and one by one passed into silence astern.
Silence also had fallen on the singers. Seen thus from an open boat under the lowering wings of night, there was something awe-inspiring—even to these who lived onboard them—in the stupendous fighting outlines limned against the last of the light. ”

“ The drifter passed up a broad lane, on either side of which towered grey steel walls, unbroken by scuttles or embrasures; above them the muzzles of guns hooded by casemates and turrets, the mighty funnels, piled up bridges and superstructures, frowned down like the battlements of fortresses. Men, dwarfed by the magnitude of their environment to the size of ants, and clad in jerseys and white working-rig, swarmed about the decks and batteries.
"There's the Fleet Flagship," continued Thorogood, pointing. "That ship
with the drifters round her, flying the Commander-in-Chief's flag. ”

“ Thorogood, Officer of the Watch, was walking up and down with an expression of bored resignation to the inevitable. Forward of the after superstructure the liberty-men were falling-in in all the glory of white cap-covers and brand-new suits, carrying little bundles in their hands. There was on each man's countenance that curious blend of solemnity and ecstatic anticipation only to be read in the face of a bluejacket or marine about to start on long leave.
A group of officers gathering near the after gangway stood waiting for the boat and exchanging chaff customary to such an occasion. ”

“ He was followed into this voluntary exile by the Midshipman of his Division, one Morton, who sat in the bows contemplating him affectionately.
Precisely what it was that inspired this apparently one-sided attachment was never very apparent. The almost passionate loyalty and affections of youth are hardy plants, thriving abundantly on the scantiest soil.
For a while only the drowsy swish of the water past the bottom of the boat, and snatches of merriment or song drifting aft from the cutter, broke the silence in the skiff. Then Mouldy Jakes's companion apparently tired of this silent communion. ”

“ He had a vision of the electric-lit interior of the great ship, deck beneath deck, with men everywhere. Men rolled up in coats and oilskins, snatching half-an-hour's sleep along the crowded gun-batteries, men writing letters to sweethearts and wives, men laughing and quarrelling, or singing low-toned, melancholy ditties as they mended worn garments: hundreds and hundreds of reasoning human entities were crowded in those steel-walled spaces, each with his boundless hopes and affections, his separate fears and vices and conceptions of the Deity, and his small, incommunicable distresses.... ”

“ As he descended the ladder the upper-deck was ringing with bugle-calls, and the turrets' crews were already swarming round their guns. From the hatchways leading to the lower-deck came a great roar of cheering. Men poured up on their way to their action stations in a laughing, rejoicing throng. Mouldy Jakes, with the ever-faithful Midshipman of his turret at his side, was hurrying to his beloved guns, and greeted Thorogood as he passed with a sidelong jerk of the head and the first whole-souled smile of enjoyment a mess-mate had ever surprised on his face. ”

“ Death was abroad, berserk and blindfold. A fleeing German Cruiser fell among a flotilla of Destroyers and altered her helm, with every gun and searchlight blazing, to ram the leading boat. The Destroyer had time to alter course sufficiently to bring the two ships bow to bow before the impact came. Then there was a grinding crash: forecastle, bridge and foremost gun a pile of wreckage and struggling figures. The blast of the German guns swept the funnels, boats, cowls and men away as a gale blows dead leaves before it. ”

“ The India-rubber Man puffed his pipe in silence for a moment. "It struck me then," he went on in his slow, even tones, "that any price we can pay—any amount of sacrifice, hardship, discomfort—is nothing as long as we keep this quiet peace undisturbed...." Again he lapsed into silence, as if following some deep train of thought; the sound of the donkey cropping the grass came from the other side of the bush.
"One doesn't think about it in that way—up there," he jerked his head towards the North. "You just do your job for the job's sake, as one does in peace-time. ”

“ On the trigger of every gun there would be a twitching finger, and all the while the blackness round them would be pierced and rent by distant spurts of flame....
The wind and sea had risen, and over an area of several hundred square miles of stormy sea swept the Terror by Night. Bursting star-shell and questioning searchlight fought with the darkness, betraying to the guns the sinister black hulls driving through clouds of silver spray, the loaded tubes and streaming decks, the oilskin-clad figures on each bridge forcing the attack home against the devastating blast of the shrapnel. ”

“ The mysterious workings of the Midshipman-mind found full play on these occasions, as they tumbled about in the bottom of the boat in the unfettered enjoyment of a whole-hearted "scrap." If you have ever seen young foxes at play, buffeting each other, yelping with simulated anguish, nuzzling endearments half savage and half in play, you have an idea of the bottom of a cutter full of Midshipmen proceeding on a picnic. It was an embodiment of youth triumphant, shouting with laughter at the Jest of Life. ”

“ He clumped in hastily, wearing huge leather sea-boots. Beneath his cap his head was swathed in the neat folds of bandages whose whiteness contrasted with his smoke-blackened faced and singed, begrimed uniform.
"Hullo!" he said, "circuits gone here, too?" He peered round the table. "My word!" he exclaimed. "Hot tea! Who made it? The galley's a heap of wreckage." He poured himself out a cup and drank thirstily. "A-A-ah! That's grateful and comforting."
"I made it," said the Paymaster. "With my own fair hands I boiled the kettle and made tea for you all. Greater love than this has no man." ”

“ Submarine.
CHAPTER III ULTIMA THULE Across the stormy North Sea came the first faint streak of dawn. It overtook a long line of Destroyers rolling landward with battered bridge-screens and salt-crusted funnels; it met a flotilla of mine-sweeping Sloops, labouring patiently out to their unending task. It lit the frowning cliffs, round which wind-tossed gulls wailed and breakers had thundered the beat of an ocean's pulse throughout the ages.
The Destroyers were not sorry to see the dawn. The night was their task-master: in darkness they worked and in the Shadow of Death. ”

“ They ascended again to the upper deck and forward of the superstructure, descended a hatchway to the main deck. An open door in the armoured bulkhead gave a glimpse forward of a gun battery and a teeming mess-deck intent on its mid-day meal, where men jostled each other so thickly round the crowded mess tables that it seemed incredible that anyone could live for years in such surroundings and retain an individuality. ”

“ In the stern of the boat stood a mighty Norwegian with a red beard and a voice like a bull. One of his arms rested protectingly round a woman's shoulders, and he shook a knotted fist in von Sperrgebiet's face as his ship blew up and sank.
The woman seen thus in the pale moonlight was young and pretty, and the red-bearded man bellowed that she was his wife. The announcement was not an unfamiliar one to Oberleutnant von Sperrgebiet: they usually were young and pretty when he heard that hot rage in a man's voice. ”

“ Silence reigned in the skiff.
The cutter had passed beyond the outskirts of the Fleet, and the decorum required of the occupants of a Service boat in such surroundings no longer ruled their behaviour. They sang and shouted for sheer joy of bellowing, full-lunged, across the untrammelled water. No one whose life is not spent in the narrow confines of a man-of-war, walking paths sternly ruled by Naval Discipline, can realise the intoxicating effect of such an emancipation. ”

“ The sea was thick with floating corpses and shattered wreckage, and darkened with patches of oil that marked the grave of a rammed Submarine or sunken Destroyer. Maimed and bleeding men dragged themselves on to rafts and cheered their comrades as they left them to their death.
Through that witches' cauldron of fog and shell-smoke the British Battle-Fleet groped for its elusive foe. ”

“ Fire and wreckage parties stood in little groups along the main-deck, and first-aid parties were gathered at the hatchways; two Midshipmen, pale and bright-eyed with excitement, talked in low voices by the foremost gun: gradually a tense hush closed down upon the main deck; the crews stood silent round their guns, waiting in their steel-walled casemates for the signal that would galvanise them into death-dealing activity against the invisible foe.
Ultimate victory no man doubted: death might sweep, swift and shattering, along these electric-lit enclosed spaces where they stood waiting ”

“ Cut off from their base by the British Fleet the scattered German squadrons dodged and doubled through the darkness, striving to elude the cordon drawn across their path. They can be pictured as towering black shadows rushing headlong through the night, with the wounded groaning between their wreckage-strewn decks; and on each bridge, high above them in the windy darkness, men talked in guttural mono-syllables, peering through high-power glasses for the menace that stalked them.... ”

“ Grey ships with the White Ensign flying free on each: grey sea flecked here and there by the diverging bow-waves breaking as they met: a grey sky along which the smoke trailed sullenly and gathered in a dense, low-lying cloud that mingled with the haze astern.
The Lieutenant in the top drew Gerrard to his side. "Put your head down here," he said, "out of the wind ... can you hear?" There was a queer ring of exultation in his voice. "Guns!"
Gerrard bent down and strained all his faculties to listen. ”

“ It was the hour preceding dinner, and the majority of the members of the Wardroom had congregated in the ante-room to discuss sherry and the day's affairs before descending to their cabins to change. It was a cheerful gathering, as the hour and the place betokened, and the usual mild chaff flowed to and fro in its mysteriously appointed channels.
In Naval communities, as in most others where men are segregated from wider intercourse by a common mode of life and purpose, each one occupies the place designed for him by Destiny for the smooth working of the whole. ”

“ Despatch-case in hand, d'Auvergne, the King's Messenger, emerged from the Admiralty by one of the small doors opening on to the Mall. He paused on the step for a moment, meditating. The policeman on duty touched his helmet.
"Taxi, sir?"
"No, thanks," replied d'Auvergne. "I think I'll walk; I've not far to go."
Dusk was settling down over the city as he turned off into St. James's Park, but the afterglow of the sunset still lingered above the Palace and in the soft half-light the trees and lawns held to their vivid green. A few early lamps shone with steady brilliance beyond the foliage. ”

“ Even the fellows who die, die as if it all came in the day's work." His mind reverted to its original line of thought. "But even dying is a little thing as long as all this is undefiled." He smoked in silence for a minute.
"Death!" he continued jerkily, as if feeling for his ideas at an unaccustomed depth. "I've seen so much of Death, Betty: in every sort of guise and disguise, and I'm not sure that he isn't only the biggest impostor, really. A bogie to frighten happiness.... A turnip-mask with a candle inside, stuck up just round some corner along the road of life." ”

“ They have worked side by side with the dripping Submarine; they have sheltered through storms in the lee of anchored Battleships; they have piloted proud Cruisers through the newly-swept channels of a mine-field, and brought a Battle-cruiser Squadron its Christmas mail in the teeth of a Northern blizzard. In token of these things, babies born in fishing villages from the Orkneys to the Nore have been christened after famous Admirals and men-of-war, that the new generation shall remember. ”