In the Northern Mists 
 
 A GRAND FLEET CHAPLAIN'S NOTE BOOK
 
 In the Northern 
 
 Mists 
 
 A GRAND FLEET CHAPLAIN'S 
 NOTE BOOK 
 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
 LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO 
 
 MCMXVI
 
 The writer 6f these notes begs to acknow- 
 ledge most gratefully his indebtedness to the 
 Editor of the SATURDAY WESTMINSTER 
 in the columns of which paper they all origi- 
 nally appeared and to express his thanks 
 not only for the permission to reprint, but 
 also for the kind and wise editing to which 
 both the notes and their writer owe so much.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 i. 
 
 A MAIL-BAG AND A MESSENGER 
 
 1 
 
 n. 
 
 " SWAKKING " . 
 
 5 
 
 in. 
 
 WAITING FOR " THE DAY " 
 
 9 
 
 IV. 
 
 SUNDAY ..... 
 
 13 
 
 V. 
 
 A WEST-COUNTRY SHIP 
 
 16 
 
 VI. 
 
 AT SEA ..... 
 
 20 
 
 VII. 
 
 "GUNS" 
 
 L'4 
 
 VIII. 
 
 COALING ..... 
 
 27 
 
 IX. 
 
 CONCERNING A BUCKET 
 
 31 
 
 X. 
 
 THE HAND-PICKED LIFE 
 
 34 
 
 XI. 
 
 " STOKER, FIRST CLASS " 
 
 38 
 
 XII. 
 
 DESTROYING .... 
 
 42 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ATMOSPHERE .... 
 
 46 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE GUN-ROOM .... 
 
 50 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE GRAND FLEET 
 
 55 
 
 XVI. 
 
 TROPES, AND THREE WATCH- 
 
 
 
 KEEPERS .... 
 
 59 
 
 XVII. 
 
 MY SERVANT .... 
 
 64 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 THE WEDDING PRESENT 
 
 69 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE WEDDING .... 
 
 74 
 
 XX. 
 
 A WAR WIDOW .... 
 
 78 
 
 XXI. 
 
 ELEGANT LEISURE 
 
 81 
 
 XXII. 
 
 MEALS ..... 
 
 86 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 LOWER-DECK LOVE ... 
 
 91 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 THE PATROL TRAWLER 
 
 96 
 
 XXV. 
 
 " A LITTLE DROP O* LEAF " 
 
 101 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 ON THE SICK LIST 
 
 106 
 
 2139043
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XXVII. CLOTHES UNIFORM AND OTHER- 
 WISE . . . . . Ill 
 
 XXVIII. SEA-SOLDIERS .... 115 
 
 XXIX. GUESTS ..... 120 
 
 XXX. RELIGION AND THE WAR AND 
 
 THE NAVY .... 124 
 
 XXXI. HOBBIES ..... 129 
 
 XXXII. THE DUG-OUTS . . . .134 
 
 XXXIII. CELEBRATION . . . .138 
 
 XXXIV. MINES AND MINE-SWEEPERS . 142 
 XXXV. EQUITY . . . . .147 
 
 XXXVI. " NAVAL MISCARRIAGES " . . 152 
 
 XXXVII. ROMANCE . . . . .157 
 
 XXXVIII. PROMOTIONS AND RESOLUTIONS . 161 
 
 XXXIX. WARRANT OFFICERS . . . 166 
 
 XL. PAPER- WORK . . . .171 
 
 XLI. HOSTILITY-MEN . . . .175 
 
 XLII. WOOL AND WATER . . . 180 
 
 XLHI. " WIRELESS " AND A CAT . . 184 
 
 XLIV. A FLAP ..... 188 
 
 XLV. THE BEACH . . . .193 
 
 XLVI. SUNRISE AND SUNSET. . . 198 
 
 XLVII. THE ACTING SUB. . . . 203 
 
 XLVIII. STORM 207 
 
 XLJX. RANKS AND RATINGS . . . \211 
 
 L. BOY GIBLETS . . . .214 
 
 LJ. SINGING SAILORMEN . . . 218 
 
 LII. " SMALL CORDS " . . . 222 
 
 Lin. " TONAL' " .... 227 
 
 LIV. THE ADVANTAGE-PARTY . . 231 
 
 LV. AN INDETERMINATE EQUATION . 236 
 
 LVI. AFTERMATH : THE MORNING AFTER 
 THE JUTLAND BATTLE (JUNE, 
 
 1916) ... .240
 
 /. A Mail-Bag and a Messenger 
 
 IF at the time when I was first ordained and 
 about to enter upon a quiet curacy some 
 prophetic instinct had told me that after 
 a considerable number of years I should find 
 myself in my present position I should probably 
 have quoted a few words concerning lying prophets : 
 but then, as someone remarks, you never can tell ! 
 
 I am " in the North Sea " ; in a battleship in 
 the North Sea ; in an office in the battleship ; 
 in a mail-bag in the office. That is to say, the 
 lower half of me is in a mail-bag, which, being 
 made of stout canvas and drawn up close around 
 the waist, forms a very comforting protection 
 against the cold. 
 
 As to what I am doing in the office, the strict- 
 ness of the censorship forbids me to say ; but it is 
 a certain job for which I have volunteered, as 
 everyone must do his bit in these days. Certainly, 
 the work does not come under the heading of 
 pastoral duties, and according to the terms of the 
 Hague Convention I am probably rendering 
 myself liable to be shot by our friends the enemy 
 if they catch me. Well, they are quite welcome to 
 do it if they can 1 
 
 About four feet above my head, as I sit writing, 
 is a steel deck ; and upon this deck there are now 
 
 1
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 being dumped down a large number of projectiles, 
 weighing well over a thousand pounds each. As 
 the process of dumping is not conducted with any 
 undue delicacy, the resultant noise can well be 
 imagined. Should one of these huge projectiles 
 by any mischance explode, what death and havoc 
 it would spread around ! Of course, there is not 
 the slightest possibility of such a thing happening ; 
 the precautions and safety arrangements make 
 certain of that. But let me spin a brief yarn 
 with a moral. A man was once brought up before 
 the captain for some misdemeanour, and, being a 
 bit of a sea-lawyer, was fully persuaded that 
 according to all the wording of the King's Regu- 
 lations and Admiralty Instructions the captain 
 could not punish him. " 'E can't do it, 'e can't 
 do it," he kept repeating to himself ; and so 
 argued till the last moment " 'E can't do it, 'e 
 can't do it I But 'e 'ave ! " 
 
 There is one consolation. If I should prove 
 mistaken in believing that the projectiles over- 
 head cannot explode, I should have no time to 
 exclaim, " But 'e 'ave ! " 
 
 Equanimity remains undisturbed. If I remem- 
 ber rightly, it was a part of the Kuttur scheme 
 that we in the Fleet were to be in-the-nerves- 
 shaken and to-a-state-of-collapse-reduced by the 
 fearful mental strain to which we should naturally 
 be subjected, being harried and worried by per- 
 petual alarms and fears. Another miscalculation ! 
 I am thinking of writing a book, in imitation of a 
 reverend colleague in the Sister Service, and 
 calling it " How to be Happy Though Harried." 
 
 2
 
 A Mail-Bag and a Messenger 
 
 For the men of the Fleet were never so cheerful 
 and contented as now. Never have I known a 
 ship's company so universally " happy " as that 
 to which I have the honour now to belong. The 
 sailor loves his growl, in normal circumstances. 
 To-day he has given up growling, and goes about 
 his work with the smile that won't come off. 
 And as for the dreadful strain, the only strain 
 noticeable is that on the buttons of those many 
 officers and men who, since the war started, have 
 put on that flesh which argues a contented mind. 
 
 Outside the office a young bluejacket paces 
 slowly up and down. He is my attendant satel- 
 lite, and waits upon my bidding. As he occa- 
 sionally strolls beyond easy ear-shot, the cry of 
 " Messenger 1 " does not always bring him to me ; 
 and it has been a problem how to accentuate the 
 word so as to give it the utmost carrying value. 
 For a long time I tried " Mess-en-ger," and then 
 " Mess-en-ger," with varying results ; and finally 
 discovered that the greatest penetration was 
 obtained simply by calling out sharply the last 
 syllable alone. Thus " Ger ! " Moreover, it is 
 a great saving of breath. Possibly this was an 
 unconscious memory of a scheme I once saw 
 outlined by which the Eng vocab might be ren 
 infin more simp by the very ordin meth of truncing 
 ev unnecc syll. 
 
 I feed my messenger on peppermints. Kind 
 ladies send me tins of these now and then, and, as 
 there are not enough to go round amongst the whole 
 of the ship's company, a choice has to be made. 
 
 I clothe him with mufflers. If he were peeled 
 
 8
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 he would probably be found to be wearing six. 
 There are plenty of these, thanks also to the kind 
 ladies aforesaid. Mufflers are excellent for the upper 
 works ; but they cannot be adapted to the lower 
 limbs ; and that is where my mail-bag comes in 
 or, rather, where I come into the mail-bag. 
 
 The kind ladies' labours of love would be even 
 more appreciated if they would now stop making 
 mufflers for us, and knit us instead lots of stockings, 
 long enough to come up well above the knee, and 
 big enough to be worn outside the trouser-legs 
 and inside the sea-boots. The coarsest and 
 thickest wool would be the best, and they would 
 be all the better for being made without turning 
 the heel. Oh, how welcome they would be ! * 
 
 Part of the pleasure of living in a mail-bag is 
 that when moving about the office I can revive 
 ancient memories of long-past sack-races in fact, 
 I have to do so, unless I were willing to take the 
 trouble of unhermitcrabbing, which I am not. 
 Perhaps it is not a very dignified form of progres- 
 sion for a middle-aged clergyman of the Church 
 of England but then, think of the exercise ! 
 
 Now I am going off duty for a while, and someone 
 else takes my place. My messenger also Ngets 
 relieved. I relinquish my comfortable mail-bag 
 with a certain amount of regret. But I shall 
 be in it again in a few hours' tune. 
 
 * As a result of these lines appearing, many ladies sent 
 parcels of " woollies " to the ship ; and the number of such 
 gifts soon growing, the Editor of the Saturday Westminster 
 instituted a scheme for providing " Sea-boot Stockings for the 
 Fleet," which proved of invaluable benefit. The Admiralty now 
 issue all necessary gear of this sort. 
 
 4
 
 //. "Swakking" 
 
 ALL private correspondence sent from the 
 ship is, very properly, censored before 
 being placed in the sealed mail -bags, in 
 order that no careless expression may chance to 
 give away information of importance. 
 
 The sailor alludes to this process as " Censuring " 
 and indeed this is what it sometimes amounts 
 to 1 Only this morning a Chief Petty Officer 
 approached me, more in sorrow than in anger, and 
 displayed the remnants of a letter which he had 
 sent to his father some days ago, and the latter 
 had sent it back. No wonder 1 The first page 
 was represented by a narrow ribbon of paper at 
 the top and a similar one at the bottom ; the 
 remainder had been cut out bodily by the hard- 
 hearted Censurer ! Yet his was not an excep- 
 tional case ; the policy of ruthlessness and frightful- 
 ness is pursued indiscriminately wherever it is 
 thought necessary. The letters of the captain 
 and all other officers are subject to the same 
 treatment and frequently get it ! 
 
 There are two official Censors the Fleet-Pay- 
 master and myself. But with a ship's company 
 of over eight hundred letter-writers we are not 
 enough to cope with all the work, so several 
 other officers kindly share our labours. We settle 
 
 5
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 down after dinner each night to a couple of hours' 
 " Swakking." 
 
 This mystic word is derived from the fact that 
 the sailor in love and all sailors are always in 
 love makes a practice of writing on the tip of 
 the envelope flap the letters S.W.A.K. 
 
 For a long time we puzzled our brains as to the 
 meaning of these letters. Were they a secret 
 code ? If so, they ought to be " censured." 
 The brightest brain among us guessed, just in 
 time, that they stood for Sealed With a Kiss ! 
 
 Alas for sentiment and romance ! The actual 
 kiss which seals the letters is given by an old red 
 rubber sponge in a bowl of water. One sweep of 
 the envelope across the sponge's moist surface, 
 a blow of the fist, and all is over. The letter is 
 swakked and ready to proceed on its journey. 
 
 Swakking is a little tedious at times. Nine 
 letters out of ten inform Dear Beat (if the sailor's 
 star is not named Beat she is a Flo, almost invari- 
 ably) that the writer is in the pink, and the weather 
 is very cold, but he doesn't mind it : he hopes to 
 have a smack at the Sausages soon, and is her 
 ever-loving Sweetheart. 
 
 But there are compensations, in the Mnsight 
 which swakking gives one into the minds and 
 characters of the men of the Fleet, and in the 
 closer touch with the " lower-deck " that results 
 in many cases from having to read their letters. 
 
 One thing stands out with remarkable clearness 
 the deep religious feeling possessed by practically 
 all. One does not suspect the sailor of being 
 religious, as a rule ; his ordinarv language 
 
 6
 
 " Swakking " 
 
 is not that of the saints, nor is his conduct 
 always above reproach. Yet, if the quiet acknow- 
 ledgment of God's power over all the world and 
 the final triumph of righteousness ; devout prayers 
 for the blessing and protection of those whom he 
 holds dearest ; a complete trust in the Divine 
 Wisdom to take care of him in life or death if 
 these things mean religion, they are in nearly 
 every sailor's letter. 
 
 " All the girls will be after Billy when he has 
 won this war, but the only one he wants is Flo " ; 
 " I would rather have a kiss than a thousand 
 drinks " (and this after many beerless weeks, 
 too !), are sayings typical of him whom All the 
 Nice Girls Love. One who signs himself " Yours 
 for ever " is apparently a novice, for he says, " I 
 asked you before what is the meaning ' Mizhap '(!) 
 at the end of your letter ; please tell me." 
 
 The patriotic tone of the letters is simply 
 splendid ; they reveal just that some old fighting 
 spirit which is half the battle. Not all express 
 their patriotic feelings in the same manner. The 
 style varies from the heroic to the comically devil- 
 may-care. One man will bid his relatives take a 
 pride in having so many of the family fighting 
 for their country ; while the next will pour out 
 his hopes that the Germs may send out their 
 high-canal fleet so that we may have a bump at 
 them and see them off in rag-time. 
 
 There is a great deal of thorough-going righteous 
 indignation against the enemy and all his works ; 
 but not the least among the many causes of resent- 
 ment is the fact that by starting the war the 
 
 B 7
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 blighters did us out of seven days' leave in July 
 yes, and our Christmas leave as well ! 
 
 It is not only in their letters that the men 
 express their longing for battle. There was a day 
 when we quite expected to be going into action 
 (it was months ago, and proved a false hope). 
 Never should I have thought it possible for so 
 much feeling to be put into one word as was heard 
 in the word " Action ! " passed delightedly from 
 one man to another ! As for our expectations as 
 to the result of the action, I can do no better than 
 quote the forethought of our Marine officer, who 
 took a spare clean handkerchief with him into his 
 turret " in case my nose should bleed " 1 
 
 8
 
 ///. Waiting for " The Day " 
 
 BARRILI adduces the case of one of his 
 friends who, although now of more than 
 middle age, persists in wearing straps to 
 his trousers in order to create the illusion that he 
 is still but twenty years old. We retain, in the 
 Navy, a large number of trouser-straps for the 
 fostering of ideas which belong to the post. As an 
 instance, there is that custom of saluting the 
 quarter-deck on coming aboard the omission of 
 which by a certain noble lord who honoured one 
 of His Majesty's ships with a visit caused an old 
 A.B. to remark to his shocked and offended 
 topmate, " W'y, bless yer, Bill, wot do 'ee expect ? 
 'E ain't niver bin to sea to larn manners ! " The 
 crucifix raised on the poop, which our forebears 
 used to salute, no longer stands as warrant for the 
 custom though the Cross of St. George on the 
 White Ensign fills its place ; but the custom 
 itself still holds. 
 
 But one of the chief illusions carefully tended by 
 the Navy is that we are only by accident sailors 
 and fighting men, while really and essentially 
 we are country gentlemen or, according to our 
 degree, such gentlemen's retainers. 
 
 Drake and his compeers, it would seem, used 
 to regard their estates and farms as their real life 
 
 B2 9
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 interests : now and then they were obliged, by 
 force of circumstances, to leave their pleasant 
 fields and take to the sea to wallop the Spaniard ; 
 it was rather a nuisance, and the best thing there- 
 fore was to do it thoroughly so as to get back 
 again the quicker. 
 
 Much of our success as a naval nation is due, I 
 believe, to our having carefully maintained this 
 illusion that we are landsmen come to sea ; our 
 friends the enemy, on the other hand, fail because 
 they take themselves too seriously as seamen as, 
 indeed, they appear to do in every capacity. I 
 have seen something of the German Navy's dis- 
 cipline it is Kolossal ! Their whole naval system 
 is based on carefully compiled text-books. But 
 text-books never yet have provided for every 
 contingency, and discipline overdone makes no 
 allowance for the human element. The German 
 is too much of the Perfect Sailor. 
 
 But with ourselves even our naval titles sit 
 awkwardly upon us. I served once with an 
 Admiral who had been at sea for forty years, 
 yet his coxswain could never get out of the 
 
 habit of alluding to him as Mister . The 
 
 prints on our wardroom bulkheads atfe all of 
 dogs and birds ; our gunnery lieutenant and our 
 navigator do not discuss the higher mathematics 
 as applied to their own specialised arts like their 
 German opposite numbers probably do, but debate 
 instead the rival merits of the Tavy and the 
 Walkham. 
 
 So now, while we are waiting for " The Day,'* 
 our spare-time occupations are as un-naval as we 
 
 10
 
 Waiting /or " The Day " 
 
 can possibly make them. The commander can 
 be seen any afternoon practising his swing upon a 
 golf ball tied to a long cord. We have a hockey 
 tournament now in progress ; the players get 
 into flannels before assembling for the game on 
 the quarter-decks ! Our sailors, also, though 
 they do turn up at the various lectures on the war 
 given by different officers attendance is quite 
 optional roll up in far greater numbers at the 
 concerts and theatricals which are constantly 
 being organised ; and the favourite songs and 
 " sketches " are those which have the least sea- 
 flavour (the Admiralty, by the way, issues a very 
 excellent collection of songs and chanties in the 
 " Naval Song-book," but nobody ever sings them). 
 
 It is a long time since we in this particular ship 
 have set eyes upon one of the Gentle Sex (so much 
 for our " Skulking in Harbour " !) ; consequently, 
 when one of our midshipmen appeared in the 
 theatricals as a girl and a very pretty girl he 
 made, too he was received with overwhelming 
 favour ; though to watch him recuperating after 
 his efforts rather dispelled the girlish charm. 
 
 A wonderful good-humour prevails. One might 
 imagine that the long period of waiting would be 
 bound to tell upon the tempers of such a large 
 number of men cooped up together ; but this is 
 not so. A fine example of our men's conduct to 
 one another occurred only a few days ago : there 
 was needed one man of a certain rating to be sent 
 from the ship to a home port for a particular 
 duty which would entail his living on shore for a 
 long time in much greater comfort, of course, 
 
 11
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 than can be found on board ship at present. Four 
 men were equally eligible for the job, and in order 
 to be quite fair they drew lots. Next morning the 
 lucky winner came to his officer and asked that 
 one of the others might be sent in his stead ; he 
 was a bachelor, whereas the other three were all 
 married, and he would like one of those wives to 
 see her husband. 
 
 But we are not entirely contented. It is not 
 our fault if our record of this war must be, as one 
 of Napoleon's generals, De Segur, wrote of his 
 part in the drama of 1812 : " Je fus la moins 
 acteur que temoin " ; still, it is hard to reconcile 
 ourselves to this. The fact that " Willy's Fleet " 
 refuses to hearken to the old cry of " Dilly, Dilly, 
 come and be killed " causes much grumbling 
 against those cautious heroes : so much so that a 
 little while ago some of our men fell in before the 
 captain with the request that they might be sent 
 on active service \ 
 
 12
 
 IF. Sunday 
 
 A PROFANE rhyme, current among blue- 
 jackets and of ancient date, parodies 
 the fourth Commandment in the words, 
 " Six days shalt thou work and do all that thou 
 art able, And on the seventh thou shalt holystone 
 the deck and scrub the cable." This, of course, is 
 an exaggeration, to say the least of it. Sunday 
 is observed with us not only by custom, but by 
 naval regulations, and indeed has always been so 
 since the Navy existed. 
 
 Certainly, our Sunday routine differs in some 
 respects from that observed on shore. There is, 
 I remember, an interesting paragraph to this 
 effect at the beginning of one of the chapters of 
 " The King's Own." I have searched the ship's 
 library for a copy of the book in order to verify 
 my reference, as every good parson should, but 
 regret to find that it is no longer included in the 
 catalogue ; a pity, if this indicates that Marryat's 
 splendid yarns of the Navy as it was a century 
 ago are no longer in demand ! But, to draw on 
 my memory, the passage explains that a due 
 regard for Sunday is shown on board ship not so 
 much by the formal religious observances practised 
 as by the extra care taken in making the ship 
 herself and everything about her neat and beautiful. 
 
 13
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 The words are true of the Navy as it is to-day, even 
 in this time of war. 
 
 Myself, I hold that to observe Sunday by 
 repeating the alphabet backwards and standing on 
 one leg while doing so would be infinitely better 
 than not observing the day at all. So, if the 
 sailor has to dress in a better suit of clothes one 
 day in seven as a sign that Christ is risen, this is 
 a thing to be glad and thankful for. 
 
 But let it not be thought that in war-time we 
 only mark our Sundays by a little extra bit of 
 what the sailor tersely calls " spit and polish." 
 On the contrary, on most occasions we keep to the 
 same regular Sunday routine as in peace-time. 
 Only there is a difference : there is a deeper interest 
 and a greater fervour displayed in the Church 
 services than ever before. It means more to us 
 now when we pray that our gracious Sovereign 
 Lord King George may vanquish and overcome 
 all his enemies ; and there is no one who can 
 make request for peace in our time so feelingly 
 as the man who has to fight for that peace. 
 
 Of course it will be readily understood that not 
 all of our Sundays are of the calm order. The 
 Admiral possesses a power which out-Joshuas 
 Joshua with respect to the passage of time, and 
 " Next Saturday will be Sunday " is a signal 
 which contains to a sailor's mind nothing humorous, 
 but much satisfaction. 
 
 If this is out of the question, then we have, on 
 a busy Sunday, " Stand-up Prayers," a term 
 which explains itself. There is another name, 
 not quite so self-evident in meaning, for the same 
 
 14
 
 Sunday 
 
 thing ; and I confess I had to reflect a while when 
 first the Commander said to me, " Padre, I'm 
 afraid we shall only be able to have Church by 
 hand this morning." But in the New Navy, 
 where everything, even to boat-hoisting, that 
 used to be done by hand, is now done by machinery, 
 and done much more efficiently, a make-shift 
 substitute for the full Church Service performed 
 decently and in order describes itself naturally to 
 the modern sailor as " Church by hand." 
 
 For a certain period we had a temporary Roman 
 Catholic chaplain attached to us. Some of our 
 men were a little exercised in mind as to how the 
 two rivals would get on together ; and finally 
 one came to me, very shyly, and asked me what I 
 was going to do about it. At first I did not quite 
 understand what he was driving at, but on his 
 making his meaning clear I explained that on the 
 following Sunday, instead of the usual service, we 
 had arranged to have a ten-round contest, without 
 gloves, to settle the conflicting claims of the 
 Anglican and Roman Churches once and for all. 
 My interviewer went away with a broad grin on 
 his face ; but I fancy that on the Sunday morning 
 there was a more than usual interest taken in the 
 arrangements for rigging Church. 
 
 15
 
 V. A West-Country Ship 
 
 OURS is a West-Country ship. Such is the 
 unofficial designation given to a vessel 
 belonging to and commissioned at the 
 great Naval Depot of Devonport. This important 
 naval centre has also an unofficial name by which 
 it is known to all Navy men : I regret to say it is 
 the unromantic name of " Guzzle," but, seeing 
 that the reference is to the good and plentiful fare 
 of the West Country, it must be taken as a com- 
 pliment. It is certainly a more expressive term 
 than " Pompey," the naval nickname for Ports- 
 mouth ; while Chatham, the third of the principal 
 depots, is not distinguished by any pet name at 
 all except that crews from that vicinity are 
 always spoken of as " Chatham rats." 
 
 There is something more than a geographical 
 meaning in the term " A West-Country Ship " ; 
 a very distinctive character is also N implied. 
 Foreigners by which, of course, I mean people 
 who do not belong to Devon or Cornwall would 
 explain it by saying, in naval phraseology, that we 
 are " Chatty but Happy " and " chatty " means 
 lacking in those superficial qualities of cheap 
 smartness and ostentatious cleanliness which to a 
 Royal Yachtsman are the be-all and end-all of 
 naval efficiency ; or, in short, slovenly. 
 16
 
 A West-Country Ship 
 
 Of course, we are not slovenly, really. There 
 may be a certain amount of slowness and delibera- 
 tion about our methods, but, bless your heart, 
 we get there all the same ! It is no use trying to 
 get a move on a West-Country crew beyond what 
 they consider right and proper ; but somehow 
 the work gets done, and done in good time, too. 
 What is more, it gets done in a happy, good-tempered 
 way, if perhaps a little noisily. For " Westoes " 
 cannot do anything without a power of talk. 
 " What are you making all that noise about 
 quacking like a lot of old maids round a blessed 
 baby ! " roars an irate Warrant Officer with a fine 
 broad Devonshire burr, incidentally making as 
 much noise as the working-party he is addressing. 
 But he might as well talk to the winds. The men 
 grin back at him, and are quiet for a moment, but 
 presently they are at it again as hard as ever, with 
 the Warrant the most talkative of the whole crowd. 
 
 A stoker, clad in a piratical-looking suit of 
 fearnought, passes my cabin door on the way to 
 the engine-room ; he does not walk, but progresses 
 with a kind of roller-skating motion, and his 
 heavy clogs, shuffling across the bare iron deck, 
 resound half the length of the ship. And this 
 noise, so agreeable to his ears if not to mine, he 
 accompanies by an appropriate fragment of a 
 rag-time ballad 
 
 " Glide, glide, keep on a-glidin'," 
 sung at the top of his voice and in a particularly 
 nasal tone. But they are singing all along the 
 mess deck, too. They always are. So one more 
 does not make any great difference. It shows 
 
 17
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 that the ship is a happy one, and that is the great 
 thing after all. 
 
 They poke a good deal of mild fun at us, those 
 others. Pure jealousy, of course. They hint 
 that we are all web-footed, and that we have 
 become so by a process of natural selection in- 
 duced by the West-Country climate. On Staddon 
 Heights, overlooking Plymouth Sound, stands a 
 long, high wall, built originally as part of a rifle 
 range ; but those who have the misfortune to be 
 born elsewhere say that we built it to keep the 
 seagulls out from the farmers' fields. Such 
 remarks as these we treat with the contempt 
 they deserve. 
 
 In this ship, as in all West-Country ships, there 
 is a large contingent of Irishmen. Fine fighting 
 men they are, and merry, good-humoured fellows 
 in ordinary times of peace. Many of our naval 
 surgeons, too, hail from Ireland. By a recognised 
 naval convention they all come from " Shkib- 
 bereen," the birthplace of the famous Skibbereen 
 Eagle, which really did warn Europe : " We 
 have our eye upon the German Emperor." One 
 of these, a raw, newly-caught sawbones, seeing 
 for the first time the menu of the wardrodhi mess, 
 is commonly reported to have exclaimed : " Begobs, 
 fwhat doiet ! Mate three toimes a day ! " And 
 I, who write, had the happiness of being shipmates 
 with an officer who asked, when the conversation 
 turned upon the topic of collisions at sea : " Was 
 ye iver in two ships to wance, an' they to meet ? " 
 
 It is held against us who belong to the West- 
 Country ships that we are inclined to be a little 
 
 18
 
 A West-Country Ship 
 
 boastful. But is there not a cause ? We have 
 our share of heroes dead and gone, from Drake 
 to Captain Scott. And if the records of this 
 present war be examined it will be found, I think, 
 that West-Country ships and West-Country 
 sailors have not done so badly. And presently 
 you shall see us back in our sweet old villages, 
 when the gallant blue uniform shall flaunt it 
 down the sunlit street, admired by all the village 
 lassies ; and on Sunday shall be seen conspicuous 
 amongst those who come to render their service 
 of praise and thanksgiving in the well-loved old 
 church. And if, here and there, such a one be 
 lacking, his very absence shall attest that he has 
 kept up the honour of the West-Country ship. 
 
 19
 
 VI. At Sea 
 
 IT would interest and perhaps astonish the 
 public if the intelligence were allowed to 
 be made known of how many leagues of sea 
 we have covered since the beginning of the war. 
 Ours has always been a seagoing Navy as are not 
 some other navies ; and, far from letting a little 
 thing like a war interfere with its usual habits, 
 it has as a whole put in more sea-time within 
 the last few months than in several years of peace. 
 
 A witty officer of my acquaintance described 
 the war from the naval point of view as con- 
 sisting of " long periods of extreme boredom 
 punctuated by moments of intense fear." There 
 is as much truth in this as can be expected in an 
 epigram, remembering always that it takes a 
 brave man to confess to feeling afraid. Even 
 the boredom, however, has not been profitless ; 
 it has all tended to an increase of naval efficiency 
 which is nothing less than extraordinary. Cer- 
 tainly the Navy has always been considered 
 fairly efficient, but even such a non-technical 
 person as myself can see that there is simply no 
 comparison between what it was seven months 
 ago and what it is now. To watch the Fleet 
 manoeuvring at sea was formerly a fine sight : it 
 is now a revelation. 
 
 20
 
 At Sea 
 
 Scarcely less marvellous is the perfection of 
 mechanical engineering displayed by the machinery 
 of our ships, which instead of being slightly worn 
 out by the amount of work got out of it is, on the 
 contrary, in more perfect condition- than ever 
 like our ship's gramophone records, which require 
 to be played a dozen times or so before they get 
 into good condition. 
 
 I make a mental comparison between this state 
 of affairs and that of the " High Sea " Fleet, with 
 its officers and men getting no practice in seaman- 
 ship, strategy, or tactics, and its untried engines 
 concealing who knows what undiscovered defects ; 
 and I realise that if our Grand Fleet were only 
 half its size we might on this account still face a 
 conflict with equanimity. 
 
 It means a good deal this keeping the seas. 
 It means, for example, a pitch-black night, with 
 the temperature well below freezing ; there is 
 half a gale of wind blowing and a heavy sea 
 running ; a blinding snowstorm stings the faces 
 of the look-outs, and makes it impossible to see 
 more than a foot ahead. And through all this the 
 Fleet is steaming at fast speed, without lights. 
 The officer of the watch knows that there is a ship 
 ahead of him and another astern, and he must keep 
 his exact distance if he would avoid a calamity 
 which might mean not alone the loss of hundreds 
 of lives and of a two-million-pound ship, but the 
 weakening of Britain's first line of defence. How 
 is it done ? How are any of a score of similar sea- 
 marvels done ? The only answer is, By keeping 
 on doing them. And not the least marvellous 
 
 21
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 part about it all is that they who do these things 
 do not realise that they are doing anything out of 
 the way. I have often watched one who has just 
 come down from the bridge at midnight or at four 
 in the morning a weird figure, looking as little 
 like a sailor as I suppose our men in the trenches 
 look like soldiers, clad in jacket and trousers of 
 fearnought over three or four layers of ordinary 
 clothes, and apparently at least a yard and a half 
 wide, until he gradually peels off the layers and 
 makes a pile on the deck of the snow-soaked, stiff 
 coverings and the heavy sea-boots. But his one 
 desire is for cocoa, hot cocoa, and lots of it ; and 
 his one complaint is that that lop-eared blighter 
 Smith-Jones has relieved him ten minutes late ! 
 
 The ship at sea, in the night-time, is a curious 
 place. It is so different from what our friends 
 from the shore used to see in those far-off days 
 when they used to come aboard for tea-parties 
 and dances ! The long wardroom table has three 
 officers " bedded-down " on it, and others in the 
 same apartment have beds made up on chairs 
 or on the settees. Almost at any hour of the 
 night the smoking-room has a little group of 
 officers chatting as in daytime ; they have just 
 come off watch, or are just going on, or they have 
 sat up to hear the Poldhu wireless news, or they 
 have come from their bunks to make an inspection 
 of the particular department for which they are 
 responsible. The guns' crews are at their posts, 
 and when their watch is over clank noisily down 
 the iron ladders to seek their greatly desired 
 hammocks. Down far below the stokers whom 
 
 22
 
 At Sea 
 
 for some unaccountable reason the newspapers 
 will persist in calling by the distasteful name of 
 the Black Squad are working away with calm 
 indifference to the fact that should the ship strike 
 a mine or be torpedoed they are the ones who 
 have the poorest chance of escape. Searchlights' 
 crews, wireless operators, signalmen, and many 
 others are all awake and busy. The ship never 
 sleeps. Gradually the grey morning dawns, bleak 
 and cold, and the huge forms of the other ships 
 of the line begin to loom up they are all in perfect 
 station, ploughing along, " lost in the mists of 
 the North Sea," and doing their appointed work. 
 Which is real " Sea-Power " this, or sitting close 
 under a harbour's guns and strewing the seas 
 with mines like poisonous tares scattered broadcast 
 in a pleasant field ? 
 
 23
 
 VII. " Guns " 
 
 AS touching the race of Gunnery Lieutenants, 
 they are all exactly alike, only some are 
 rather more so than others. I write 
 this because our own particular representative 
 of the type has just blown in through the ward- 
 room door as though impelled by a charge of 
 cordite, there to explode with rapid firing for the 
 space of three minutes, then blowing out noisily 
 through another door, leaving the wardroom and 
 its occupants a shattered wreck amidst the fumes ; 
 and I, who have witnessed an identical per- 
 formance on the part of many gunnery lieutenants 
 through a long series of years, thought well to 
 commit to paper at once some notes on the life 
 and character of " Guns." 
 
 From his particular point of view the whole 
 ship is nothing more than a gun-platform ; the 
 engines a convenient means of bringing Jiis guns 
 within range of an object ; all the officers and men 
 are considered by him according as they subserve 
 in greater or less degree the great purposes of 
 gunnery ; and he mildly wonders that an inscru- 
 table Providence permits the existence of some 
 who are entirely unconnected with the great 
 scheme ; while as for his opinion of the torpedo 
 lieutenant and all his works . . . Even the Weather 
 
 24
 
 Guns " 
 
 gets drawn into it. Should you hazard the original 
 remark that it is a fine day, he will agree with 
 you up to a certain point : " Very nice, but not 
 quite so much Visibility as there was in the fore- 
 noon, do you think ? " The heat haze has 
 softened a little the sharp clearness of the morning 
 light and so a target cannot be seen at quite so 
 distant a range now. An unexpected hot day, 
 such as we sometimes get in early spring, is a little 
 irritating to him, as it means that certain arrange- 
 ments connected with gunsights and graduated for 
 definite temperatures must all be altered at once ! 
 
 Do not, please, confuse the Gunnery Lieutenant 
 with an ordinary common naval officer. This is 
 an enthusiast, a dreamer 1 He lives for his guns ; 
 by, with, or from his guns, and, as the Latin 
 Primer says, sometimes in his guns, or as far in 
 as he can crawl, and certainly in the guns' turrets, 
 where he is to be found half the day. Occasionally 
 he descends from his Olympian heights to the 
 lower world of the wardroom, clad in an overall 
 suit of blue dungaree of the " boiler-creeping " 
 type such a rig as would have struck cold horror 
 into the pure soul of any executive officer a dozen 
 years ago ! 
 
 Every type of gun is equally acceptable to him, 
 from a tiny three-pounder to a huge fifteen-inch ; 
 they are the organ-pipes from which he conjures 
 the music he loves ; he has practised so long 
 with ecstasy, and only awaits the hour when he 
 may make them sound a grand Triumphal March ! 
 
 And by virtue of his office he also takes a loving 
 interest in any sort of machine that bears the 
 
 c2 25
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 remotest resemblance to that masterpiece of 
 science and art, The Gun. Be it only a clay- 
 pigeon throwing-trap, you will see him fingering 
 it delicately and caressing it like a mother with 
 her child. We had in this ship a toy, a game, 
 sent by some kind friend to relieve our nervous 
 tension, consisting of (1) a cardboard model of a 
 roof ; (2) Horresco referens, five cardboard pussies 
 to place on the same ; and (3) some catapults of 
 wire and rubber with projectiles of leathern strips 
 to shoot them with : a Hunnish conceit, in truth, 
 and must surely have been made in Germany ! 
 But, would you believe it, " Guns " felt that this 
 naturally came within his department, and at 
 once took the whole affair out of our hands ! In 
 the most scientific way he " bracketed," spotted, 
 and all the rest of it, getting the range in speedy 
 time, and showing the greatest delight when the 
 poor pussies were " put out of action " ! 
 
 I suppose he has his counterpart amongst the 
 German Navy. Possibly some Oberleutnant is 
 equally anxious to see the effect in action of his 
 beloved Kanone : for what is the good of a war, 
 anyway, asks " Guns," if we can't have a proper 
 day-out with the big-boys ? And if you suggest 
 to him that there is just a possibility that'the war 
 may finish without a general fleet action he turns 
 away in disgust, only staying to remark, " Then, 
 for goodness' sake, let's have peace soon, so that 
 we can get on with our battle-practice firing ! " 
 
 26
 
 VIII. Coaling 
 
 THE following soliloquy was overheard 
 the other morning from one of the 
 Royal Corps engaged in the daily task 
 of zogging it off : " The greatest war the world 'as 
 ever seen ! And wot's a Marine doin' ? Cleaning 
 paint-work \ " Truly, it does seem at times that, 
 if our destiny calls us to serve by standing and 
 waiting, such service is, to say the least of it, a 
 trifle dull ! The crowded hour may yet come ; 
 but in the meantime we may perhaps be allowed 
 the growl of those enforced to live the quiet life. 
 Our commander remarked to me the other day 
 that after the war there will be a great demand 
 amongst naval officers for wooden-legged wives ; 
 the esoteric meaning of this dictum being that we 
 have all become so accustomed to doing without 
 amusements and excitements that those ladies will 
 be the most sought after who will not want to drag 
 us from our own fireside to partake of distractions 
 whose allurements we have now outgrown. 
 
 One thing, however, which brings a little mild 
 excitement at quite frequent intervals is Coaling 
 Ship. In peace-time we used to look upon this 
 as something of a severe strain, and grumbled if 
 it occurred as often as once a month. But now ! 
 Why, the men look on it as a rather amusing form 
 
 27
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 of athletics, a pleasant game to break the monotony, 
 and if they were deprived of it for a whole month 
 they would probably have a fearful moan ! 
 
 Coaling ship in a man-of-war is a very different 
 thing from what it is in a comfortable liner. There 
 you lean over the rail and watch a mass of coal- 
 laden lighters being slowly brought alongside by 
 a puffing tug, while another barge brings a crowd 
 of shouting and laughing men with glistening 
 brown bodies, all ready to run up the sloping 
 planks and disappear with their baskets of coal 
 through the ship's side ; and then you go ashore, 
 to buy ostrich feathers, model catamarans, moon- 
 stones, or Teneriffe work, returning in the evening 
 to the nice clean ship. 
 
 Here we begin by getting up several hundreds 
 of coal bags from store-rooms down below. They 
 are passed up through a round hole in the deck, 
 covered usually with an iron plate, exactly like 
 the supply to a coal-cellar on a London pavement. 
 One such place is just outside my own cabin, as 
 I am forcibly reminded every time we get the 
 bags up. From another store come iron trolleys 
 hand-barrows for wheeling the filled bags. Then 
 the collier comes alongside, and derricks and 
 whips are quickly made ready. The men mean- 
 while have got into " coaling-rig " for we are 
 our own coolies, and do not have the assistance of 
 " outside labour." The bluejacket loves nothing 
 so much as to get into some costume different 
 from his ordinary everyday one, and, as he is 
 allowed to wear what he likes for coaling, you see 
 something like an impromptu fancy dress party ; 
 
 28
 
 Coaling 
 
 one man has an old football jersey of stripes and 
 colours, another sports a tattered khaki tunic, 
 the gift of some soldier chum, while another is 
 happy in the possession of a solar topee. In each 
 hold of the collier there is a party of men shovel- 
 ling coal into the bags which are flung down to 
 them in a constant stream. When eight or ten bags 
 are filled a couple of men attach a strap to them, 
 and signal to the motor-man ; the engine buzzes 
 round, and up go the bags into the ah 1 , and are 
 swung over and lowered on the ship's deck. There 
 another party of men are waiting ; each seizes a 
 bag, tilts it dexterously on to his trolley, and runs 
 away with it along the deck to an appointed coal- 
 shoot, where he tips the coal out so that it falls 
 down into the bunker below, where stokers are 
 waiting to trim it that is, build it up cleverly, 
 so that it occupies the smallest possible space. 
 There is a great art in trimming. Officers as well 
 as men take part in the coaling, and frequently 
 those officers who do not happen to have any 
 appointed share in the work will handle a trolley 
 and work with the men. Very often the band 
 " buck things up a bit " by playing popular airs 
 from the top of a turret or some such spot where 
 they are not in the way. And what a rate they 
 do work at ! For 600 men at work 300 tons an 
 hour is a record often attained. This means that 
 every man must do the equivalent of handling 
 completely half a ton, from the hold of the collier 
 to its stacked-up resting-place in the bunker, in 
 one hour! And after, perhaps, a day's work or, 
 it may be, a night's work of this kind, the men 
 
 29
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 must turn to and clean ship, and then do the 
 ordinary work of the day in addition. But he is 
 an extraordinary fellow, my friend the sailor ! 
 Give him a long coaling that lasts well into the 
 night ; let a drenching rain come down all the time 
 and soak him to the skin ; add a cold biting 
 wind, and let the whole business, in short, be 
 thoroughly miserable and when things are at 
 their worst it is ten to one that he and 500 of his 
 mates will all at once be heard merrily singing at 
 the top of their voices 1 
 
 80
 
 IX. Concerning a Bucket 
 
 TWO mediaeval States once went to war 
 about an old bucket. I wish I knew 
 this story in all its details, as it ought to 
 be a most exciting one ; unfortunately I am 
 ignorant of more than the bald fact. But I am 
 able to give a fuller account of another quarrel 
 originating from a similar casus belli which lately 
 came under my notice. 
 
 The space outside this office is technically 
 termed a " flat," and has nothing resembling the 
 desirable suite of apartments which the word 
 " flat " connotes on shore. It is more like the 
 bottom of a well ; Truth and myself residing there 
 in congenial companionship. Occasionally this 
 region is visited by a marine whose official desig- 
 nation is Flat-Sweeper, his duty being to scrub the 
 place out each morning and keep it generally 
 clean ; and his were the lachrymose tones I over- 
 heard breathing out complaint to a sympathetic 
 wardroom servant engaged in tidying his master's 
 cabin in the same flat. 
 
 " First Lootenant, 'e blows along, and 'e says 
 the flat ain't properly cleaned up ; says it looks 
 like the main 'old of a pig-boat, and asks me if 
 I've never 'card of the chemical properties of soap 
 and water 1 " 
 
 31
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 " Well, why hadn't you scrubbed out ? " asks 
 the sympathetic one rather tactlessly. 
 
 " 'Ow can I scrub out without a bucket ? Tell 
 me that ! That's what I says to 'im, same as I 
 says to you ! " 
 
 " Well, where is your bloomin' bucket ? " 
 
 " Someone's pinched it ! I got that bucket 
 from the Bos'n only last week, the old one being 
 wore out and wouldn't hold water, and the Bos'n 
 tells me to be particular careful of it, because 
 there's only nine 'undred and ninety-nine of 'em 
 or words to that effect, served out to this ship, 
 and this was the last one he'd got until he drawed 
 stores at the end of the quarter, so no one couldn't 
 'ave no more. And then some 'un must go and 
 pinch it, an' me scrubber with it ! " 
 
 " Didn't you have your mark on it ? " 
 
 " Didn't I 'ave my mark on it ? I spent the 
 entire forenoon carvin' O.F. on it, standin' for 
 Office Flat, with a knife I borrowed off the 'alf- 
 deck messenger, 'avin' smacked his little 'ead 
 because he didn't want to lend it ; I put my own 
 initials on it in a drop of the awfice red ink ; an' 
 I cut three notches on the rim as a private mark, 
 signifyin' in me own mind the Three Days 10.A 
 what I done for losin' the last one. I^ask you, 
 what could a man do more ? " 
 
 " And can't you find out who's pinched it ? " 
 inquires the other voice, very compassionately. 
 
 " Might as well look for the badge I lost for 
 tellin' the sergeant-major what I thought of him ! 
 Buckets might be made o' gold by the way they 
 disappears in this ship ! I've done my best tried 
 
 32
 
 Concerning a Bucket 
 
 to pinch someone else's, but the people in this ship 
 are that suspicious ! A nice set of friends they 
 must be used to, judgin' by the way they looks 
 after all their belongings, as if it was the furnicher 
 of a French chatto in the track of the Clown Prince ! 
 Disgustin' I calls it ! " 
 
 " Well, and what are you going to do about it, 
 if you can't find it ? " 
 
 " I'm goin' to see the Captain of Marines about 
 it. And if that don't do, I'm goin' on with it till 
 till I gets to the 'Ouse of Lords. I'm goin' to 'ave 
 someone's blood for it, and get justice done. I 
 don't see why I should be treated with contumeely 
 by the First Lootenant, let alone sufferin' the risk 
 of breakin' somethin' hi me inside by being re- 
 doosed to the necessity of not answerin' 'im back. 
 I'm goin' to why, you've got my bucket ! It's you 
 what pinched it ! You you / " 
 
 It was true. The wardroom servant carelessly 
 pulled back the curtain of the cabin just a little 
 too far, and revealed the bucket in question, which 
 he had converted to his own use in his zeal for 
 keeping his master's cabin clean. 
 
 I wonder if the war between those two States 
 in the Middle Ages began in some such way as 
 this ? 
 
 33
 
 X. The Hand-Picked Life 
 
 WE were walking back together to the 
 landing place, where the ship's boats 
 lay waiting the return of the funeral 
 party. One of our men, no youngster, but a man 
 who had spent many years in the service, had died. 
 For him, the Great War was over. A death in the 
 hour of battle, with the sound of the guns and the 
 cries of victory ringing in his ears at the last, was 
 denied him : a common malady seized him, and 
 he died quietly in his bed as though he had never 
 seen the sea nor taken upon him to fight for his 
 country. But we buried him with all the pomp 
 and circumstance which attends the last rites of a 
 man who lays down his life for the service of his 
 King and in the defence of his native land, for 
 such a man he was, and such was his end, at least 
 in his goodwill. The volleys rang out by the lonely 
 graveside and the buglers sounded the mournful 
 Last Post, and there we left him. 
 
 Back through the bleak hills along the rough 
 roadway the funeral-party retraced the miles along 
 which the band had led them, setting the pace 
 with slow funeral marches. Now they were 
 marching at ease and smoking their pipes, and 
 lively airs mingled with talking and laughter ; for 
 such is the way of the Navy, and so it must 
 
 34
 
 The Hand-Picked Life 
 
 rightly be where men are crowded together and 
 have their own lives to live ; they do not forget 
 a comrade, but they cannot long continue openly 
 mourning him. And even though the occasion 
 be a funeral, it cannot be denied that a walk ashore 
 is a pleasing thing to men who have long been 
 cooped up on board, especially when the sun is 
 shining and the fresh wind brings to the nostrils 
 the unaccustomed smell of the good earth. From 
 the rude cottages, scattered rarely about the hill- 
 sides, and seeming an integral part of the boulders 
 and the soil, wild-eyed children came shyly out to 
 gaze wonderingly upon the strange sight ; for 
 them also the funeral made a holiday, to be the 
 warp of discussions and conjectures woven by the 
 shuttle of a child's lisping tongue across a speech 
 to ourselves almost unintelligible, a dialect of a 
 dialect. 
 
 The sounds from the band and the marching 
 men came wafting faintly back to us, the officer- 
 in-charge and myself, as we walked some half a 
 mile in the rear of the funeral party. " We have 
 been fortunate," my companion said, " in the 
 small number of deaths amongst our ship's com- 
 pany." On further consideration we soon reached 
 the conclusion that it was not unreasonable to hope 
 for a low death-rate amongst a body of men all 
 chosen by medical examination, all in the prime 
 of life and leading a most healthy existence. 
 " Yes," he said, " and I think it is not altogether 
 good for us, this hand-picked life that we lead. We 
 are sheltered from the sights of death and suffering 
 and all the woes common to the generality of 
 
 35
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 mankind ; we see nothing of the troubles of little 
 children ; want and distress are kept from us. 
 And men ought to know these things, it is good tc 
 have such experiences." 
 
 It was curious to listen to another usurping thus 
 my own province of moralising ; but there are few 
 jobs that a sailor cannot turn his hand to on 
 occasion, and even that of a parson cannot floor 
 him. I am sure that he was in the right, but only 
 from the selfish point of view of our own spiritual 
 development, the value of which, in comparison 
 with greater needs, may be assessed at, roughly, 
 tuppence. It certainly is not good to breathe only 
 the spirit of detachment far above the grosser air 
 of the world's cares. What do we see of Belgium's 
 sufferings except a subscription-list on the notice- 
 board, of women and children murdered save in 
 the pictures in the daily papers ? Even those 
 sorrows which are the common lot of all shore- 
 going folk are removed from our ken as by the 
 unseen hand of one who is anxious to shelter 
 us from the knowledge of such things. Shall 
 we forget, in the course of time, and assume 
 the inhuman placidity of a Buddha or a 
 Sphinx ? 
 
 On the other hand, I am inclined to think that 
 our living this hand-picked life is serving a larger 
 interest than our own. It is for the good of the 
 country that we should dwell in this detachment. 
 No man can fight his best distracted by cares, nor 
 concentrate upon the one supreme object a mind 
 torn by sympathetic thoughts of outside woes. 
 Let us live our hand-picked life for this present ; 
 
 36
 
 The Hand-Picked Lije 
 
 by-and-by, please God, we shall see something of 
 pain and care once more. 
 
 Meanwhile, we are not wholly free from our own 
 particular griefs. There are some woes from which 
 there is no escape by land or sea. Chief among 
 these our younger men would probably number 
 the pains of a crossed love, and I could find an 
 instance in a sailor whose letter I recently swakked. 
 It was addressed to a young lady in Ireland, and 
 the love-lorn writer complained : " If you do not 
 wish to have any communication with me, I think 
 you might at least write and say so " 1 
 
 37
 
 XI. " Stoker, First Class " 
 
 THE other day I read somewhere a very 
 interesting article about the world's 
 most popular tune, "Malbrouk," giving 
 a list of the many different " words " to which that 
 air has been set in various lands and ages. 
 
 I could have added one more to the list. Back 
 in the long-ago days of Sunday-school picnics 
 St. Jude's was almost in the country then, and it 
 was spring-time all the year round the children 
 used to return from their long day and tumble out 
 from the packed and hot railway carriages into the 
 arms of their mothers waiting on the platform, and 
 there sing : 
 
 " God bless the Engine-Driver (ter) 
 For driving us so well ! " 
 
 It is a sentiment which I heartily echo in applying 
 it to the Engine-Driver of the fleet. He\is rated 
 " Stoker, First-Class," to take the typical repre- 
 sentative of his kind, and a fivst-class fellow indeed 
 he is ! 
 
 He has a deal of hard work, and precious little 
 glory ; although in this latter respect he is coming 
 into his own at last. Popular opinion has vastly 
 misjudged him, and, while ever ready to sing the 
 praises of the glorious A.B., has rather looked 
 
 38
 
 Stoker, First Class " 
 
 down upon the Stoker as a grimy, underground sort 
 of fellow only to be classed on sufferance with the 
 Lads in Navy Blue. How such an idea ever 
 started, goodness only knows ! Certainly it does 
 not hold on board ship. We know that during this 
 war-time the stokers have been the hardest- 
 worked body of men in the ship, and that where 
 a vessel has been in action the good steaming has 
 had as much to do with the result as the straight 
 shooting. Jealousies and odious comparisons be- 
 tween different branches are non-existent, I am 
 thankful to say, and everyone recognises that it is 
 not much good having gunnery at the pitch of 
 perfection unless the ship can be pushed along to 
 bring and keep the guns within range. And this 
 is the stoker's part, a part he performs splendidly. 
 " You heave the bricks at 'em we'll shove the 
 old 'bus along," I overheard a stoker saying to one 
 of a turret's crew, and that illustrates pretty well 
 the spirit that unites the upper-deck people with 
 those down below. 
 
 Not that the stoker's work is always " down 
 below," by any means. This is another of the 
 things not by all understood, that a stoker goes 
 through very much the same training as everybody 
 else on board. He has his course of musketry 
 training and frequently proves himself the best 
 shot at the range ; he is taught how to pull and 
 not seldom in the races between different " parts 
 of the ship " the stokers' cutter bears away the 
 prize. On the same principle, an Able Seaman 
 has to go through periodical stokehold training 
 classes ; for the work of a stoker is not a task that 
 
 D 39
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 requires no learning, though many appear to think 
 it is so. On the contrary, it is a skilled workman's, 
 almost an expert's, task ; and if anybody thinks 
 it is simply a matter of shovelling coals on a fire, 
 all I can say is, let him go below and try it ! Also, 
 a stoker is required to have a practical and theo- 
 retical knowledge of machinery of quite a high 
 standard : altogether he is a thoroughly all-round 
 competent man. 
 
 There are, of course, degrees in the stokers' 
 hierarchy. The arch-priests are known as Chief 
 Stokers, and wear a fore-and-aft rig, and very 
 solid, staid, and sound members of society they 
 are. I do not know why it should be so, but 
 almost always the chief stoker has the breadth of 
 two ordinary men ; and to look at the little round 
 hole that does duty for a hatchway on the deck 
 of a destroyer, and then to go down it and discover 
 a chief stoker actually there in bodily presence, 
 reminds one of the narrow-necked bottles with 
 models of full-rigged ships inside so dear to the 
 old-time sailor. 
 
 I know of no more impressive sight in the world 
 than three chief stokers walking abreast along the 
 streets of a foreign port. Ponderous, slow, ma- 
 jestic, and inevitable is their progress ; you^ watch 
 them with awe, and you realise exactly how the 
 British Empire has slowly swept its way across 
 the world. 
 
 I heard a good story of a stoker lately. It 
 happens to be absolutely true, but even if I did 
 not know this for a fact, I should still believe it. 
 One of our destroyers was in action, and in the 
 
 40
 
 " Stoker, First Class " 
 
 course of the fight was struck by a shell which 
 penetrated into one of her bunkers and there 
 exploded. Fragments of the bulkhead and a 
 litter of coal came flying out into the stokehold ; 
 and shot out with them in a cloud of black dust 
 came also a stoker, who had at the time been 
 trimming coal inside. He picked himself up 
 slowly, gave himself a shake, and then, turning 
 to the chief stoker, said : " I don't see that I'm 
 doin' much good in there ; the bloomin' coal's 
 trimmin' itself 1 " 
 
 D2 41
 
 XII. Destroying 
 
 THE Grand Fleet has, of course, the usual 
 complement of destroyers, without which 
 no battle fleet can be considered com- 
 plete. They act as the eyes of the fleet, to use a 
 common expression ; which means either that they 
 serve as a screen to ward off possible dangers or else 
 that they fulfil the same office as the pilot fish does 
 for the shark, searching out the prey for him to 
 snap up according to the way one looks at the 
 matter. 
 
 In prehistoric times that is, before the war 
 it was the ambition of every young lieutenant to 
 obtain command of a destroyer. So it is still, but 
 for a different reason. Then, the reason was that 
 the promising young officer frequently had a 
 promised young bride, and naval pay at the 
 ordinary rates being insufficient for setting up 
 housekeeping, the lady in question would fix the 
 date for the wedding at the time " When I^illy gets 
 a destroyer." Because the command of one of 
 those craft carries with it an extra allowance, 
 officially termed Hard-lying money, just sufficient 
 to translate the little flat at Southsea from the 
 region of fairy dreams into reality. I should add 
 that the expression Hard-lying money has really 
 no connection with that occasional manioulation 
 42
 
 Destroying 
 
 of paper-returns rendered so necessary by the 
 exigencies of the Service, especially in a destroyer 
 where no assistant-paymaster is carried, but 
 refers to the fact that in one of these vessels you 
 lie hard in the sense of your life being not alto- 
 gether a bed of roses. But Billy's reason at the 
 present time for moving heaven and earth to get 
 a destroyer is that he thinks it would give him a 
 better chance of seeing action, and perhaps of 
 distinguishing himself ; in which idea he is not 
 very far wrong, for this war has proved to be, from 
 the naval point of view, largely a destroyer's war. 
 I was watching some of our destroyers the other 
 day from the deck of my own ship. There was 
 rather a heavy sea running. Each of these little 
 craft was keeping her station splendidly ; what 
 strength in their build, and what power to drive 
 them through the tumbling seas so steadily ! The 
 destroyer's side is no thicker than a piece of card- 
 board ; but the engines, humming away to the 
 tune of twenty thousand horse-power, drive that 
 frail structure at the speed of an express train in 
 the face of waves such as, breaking against a sea- 
 wall, would rend the solid masonry into fragments ! 
 I watched, as one never tires of watching, other 
 ships in company with one's own ; down pinned 
 each destroyer, bows under, into the grey seas, 
 righting herself a moment later and rising heavily 
 from beneath the weight of water which now 
 streamed from each side of the focs'le in thick 
 curtains of dazzling white ; then, freed from its 
 mass, while the last tattered ends of the waterfall 
 were caught by the wind and tossed into the faces 
 
 43
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 of the men on the bridge, she rose up and up, till 
 her forefoot was quite clear of the water, and the 
 keel could be seen for a third of its length. Then 
 she came down again with a thump into the next 
 sea, and perhaps for a few seconds kept more or 
 less on an even keel, cutting through the waters 
 with the knife-edge of her bows. And so the 
 process was repeated, hour after hour, knot after 
 knot. (To be more correct, I should have said 
 " mile after mile," for a " knot " is not really a 
 sea-mile, but a unit to express the number of sea- 
 miles travelled per hour.) Really, however, the 
 destroyers as a rule do not make heavier weather 
 of it than the big ships ; and, granted that you 
 once get used to their quick motion, they are not 
 half so uncomfortable as they look. The worst 
 thing is the amount of water that somehow finds 
 its way inside when the sea is rough, and fills the 
 mess-deck to a depth of a foot or more, making 
 the " hard-lying money " not wholly undeserved. 
 
 They look so pretty and yacht-like, these 
 destroyers, on a fine day ; you long to take a 
 little cruise in them. Some soldier officers had 
 this feeling on an occasion I remember. The 
 ship I was in had to go out for the day ^o run 
 torpedoes, attended by a half-flotilla of destroyers. 
 The soldiers were eager to be allowed to enjoy the 
 sea-breeze and the sunshine from the decks of the 
 dainty little craft, and out they came. Un- 
 fortunately, one of our torpedoes sank a thing 
 that happens, of course, with extreme rarity ; and 
 all destroyers had to spend the rest of a long, long 
 day in that task whose very mention is enough to 
 
 44
 
 Destroying 
 
 strike bitterness into the soul of the torpedoman, 
 " looking for bubbles" By the afternoon it began 
 to breeze up, and in those shallow waters a swell 
 soon arose, and the destroyers were rolling their 
 twenty-five degrees, and all the soldiers were 
 deadly sick. We in the big ship could not get 
 back to the shore, either ; and our only consolation 
 rested in looking at the soldiers. Perhaps of all 
 human pleasures, that of watching the mis- 
 fortunes of others is the last of which we tire. 
 
 A destroyer story came to my ears the other 
 day a really true story. Two German officers 
 had been rescued from the sea after one of the 
 many minor actions of this war ; they were taken 
 down to the wardroom of the rescuing destroyer, 
 and given dry clothing ; next their preservers, 
 now become their hosts, offered them whisky and 
 soda and cigarettes, in all courtesy. The German 
 officers were astonished at such treatment, and 
 stammered out their lively thanks ; it was not 
 much they could do, they said, in such circum- 
 stances, to show how very much they appreciated 
 the kindness of their captors, but if the latter could 
 suggest anything, they would be only too happy 
 to do it. 
 
 Then up spoke the irresponsible young Sub. 
 " Well, yes," said the bright youth, " there is one 
 thing you might do ; just get up and sing us the 
 Hymn of Hate .' " 
 
 45
 
 XIII. Atmosphere 
 
 THE firmament that lieth above the waters 
 has almost as much to do with the 
 sailor's life as the waters themselves, 
 and there is not a single branch of naval work 
 which is not affected in some way by the atmo- 
 sphere. The wireless operator's life is made a 
 burden to him by what he vaguely terms " atmo- 
 spherics " are these, I wonder, identical with the 
 little demons which an old retired paymaster of 
 my acquaintance used to say were specially told off 
 to annoy him on certain days when everything 
 went wrong ? The navigating officer is only 
 prevented from returning two-thirds of his pay in 
 the form of conscience money by the reflection 
 that the atmosphere owes him a huge indemnity 
 for the grey hairs it has caused him ; and as for 
 the gunnery branch, well, " when Willie's Canal 
 Fleet comes out," it is the atmosphere alone that 
 will decide whether the action is to be fought at 
 close range or long. For the atmosphere can play 
 strange tricks. I have seen, for example, in Far 
 Eastern waters, a perfectly good sunset with sun 
 and rays and everything complete on the eastern 
 horizon at the same time as the genuine show was 
 taking place in the proper quarter. And on the 
 African coast I have seen houses which were 
 46
 
 Atmosphere 
 
 surrounded by miles of sand apparently standing 
 in the middle of a lake : this, of course, was 
 nothing out of the common, but what did surprise 
 me was to notice that the houses were reflected in 
 the non-existent water ; the Wonders-of-Science 
 books of childhood had never said anything about 
 that ! 
 
 Whether the physical atmosphere that hangs 
 over the oceans has any connection with the 
 spiritual one of naval life I cannot say, but there 
 is no doubt that there does exist a definite naval 
 atmosphere, quite different from everything else. 
 
 Let me say at once that it is not " breezy." If 
 you want to make a naval officer thoroughly 
 dislike you, call him a " breezy sailor." This 
 popular conception is only to be found in comic 
 operas of the " Geisha " sort, or amongst R.N.V.R. 
 officers who have not yet been to sea : in real 
 naval life he does not exist. As a class, that is ; 
 you do, of course, come across rare specimens of 
 the type, just as you might find a breezy chartered 
 accountant or a breezy veterinary surgeon, but 
 these are, happily, few and far between, and as a 
 rule they are much more appreciated when visiting 
 other ships than they are in their own mess. For 
 they are trying people to live with, these breezy 
 people ; it is all very well out of doors to stand 
 up to the jolly buffets of the wind, but a breeze 
 blowing all through the house upsets things and 
 becomes a nuisance. No ; if the naval officer can 
 be said to run to type at all, it is of that kind 
 expressed in his own words as " mouldy " ; or, to 
 get back to my theme, he lives in an atmosphere 
 
 47
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 in which the elements of care and sadness form a 
 large part. Certainly we have nothing to com- 
 pare with a French naval lieutenant who came 
 visiting on board one of our ships and, before he 
 left, threw his gold watch overboard just to 
 express his entire satisfaction with life in general 
 and with the Entente Cordiale in particular. 
 
 Ours is an atmosphere, again, in which we 
 breathe into our being a certain content with 
 injustice, and learn that a measure of that un- 
 pleasant medicine is extremely salutary. Just 
 like everyone on shore, so everyone in the Navy, 
 from Boy to Admiral, gets treated unjustly some 
 time or other during his career, and possibly 
 several times. But we come to recognise that it 
 is a jolly good thing, and at the worst, take it 
 philosophically, with the reflection that everyone 
 has to stand his turn. There is no place, except 
 perhaps at a public school, where this lesson can 
 be learnt though I cannot speak for the Army ; 
 I daresay it is much the same there. The ordinary 
 man on shore who finds himself treated with 
 injustice is shocked that such an outrage can 
 possibly happen to him ; it is an unheard-of thing 
 that such a deserving person should have been 
 treated as though well, imagine the remainder of 
 his laments. " What am I going to do about it ? " 
 he asks himself plaintively, feeling that some steps 
 ought to be taken to set matters right ; a ques- 
 tion to which the naval officer in like case replies 
 in the wise and weighty words of Tiny Tim of 
 the old "Vanity Fair" "Hard Cases " " Do 
 nothing." 
 
 48
 
 Atmosphere 
 
 On the whole, the atmosphere of naval life may 
 be fairly accurately summed up in the words of 
 the old :t Gunnery Drill Book," quoting from 
 which the G.I. used to bid the men practising the 
 routine for a funeral, " Assoom a mournful but not 
 too melan-cholly a haspect, subdood yet cheerful." 
 And, by the way, in order to impress this and other 
 facts upon their memories, he used then to pace 
 slowly down between the lines, saying : " The party 
 will now follow out the instructions as mentioned ; 
 I will be Hie corpse " / 
 
 49
 
 XIV. The Gun-Room 
 
 jeunesse savait if only the youngster had 
 a grain of savvy," is the Commander's 
 lament as the midshipman of the picket- 
 boat comes alongside and nearly succeeds in 
 carrying away the ladder in doing so. But he 
 probably did the same thing in his day, though, 
 of course, he would strongly resent your telling him 
 this, and would impress upon you that " when 1 
 was a Gun-room officer, if I had ever shown myself 
 such a hopeless ullage as all midshipmen appear to 
 be nowadays," etc., etc., ad lib. The whole truth 
 of the matter is that the Commander has grown 
 up ; or, from the Gun-room point of view, has 
 already advanced far into the sere and yellow leaf 
 stage with all the attributes of doddering old age 
 crowding thick upon him. 
 
 For the Gun-room is that part of the ship where 
 Youth is at its flower ; nearly all its occupants are 
 in their teens, and the presiding member is a Sub 
 aged about twenty-one ; the solitary specimen of 
 hoary eld being the Assistant-Paymaster, who 
 ploughs his long furrow in the Gun-room till the 
 age of twenty-six or so before becoming a " two 
 stripe A.P." and entering upon the dignity of 
 Ward-room rank. 
 
 So here is young blood in varying degrees, from 
 
 50
 
 The Gun-Room 
 
 the squeaker just fresh from Dartmouth to the 
 nearest thing we get in the Navy corresponding to 
 the complete Nut. This latter type I can best 
 illustrate by narrating how a friend of mine went 
 to his outfitters for a suit of plain clothes, and 
 explained that while he wanted something quite 
 in the latest fashion, he did not wish for anything 
 too dressy, too " I understand, sir," said the 
 tailor ; " you don't want a sub-lieutenant's suit" 
 
 The Midshipmen's Berth in the days of Fielding, 
 and even in those of Marryat, seems to have been 
 a horrible dark hole far down below decks ; the 
 Gun-room in those times was the mess of the 
 senior officers, was a portion of the main deck 
 partitioned off with three or four of the square 
 gun-ports along its outboard side, the muzzle- 
 loading guns mounted on their wooden carriages 
 standing at the ports. Ward-room and Gun- 
 room were then synonymous terms ; but at some 
 date unknown to me the latter term was applied 
 to the junior officers' quarters, and so remains at 
 the present day, though there are no longer any 
 guns within its precincts. 
 
 In respect of space, there is no very great im- 
 provement on the old Midshipmen's Berth. I 
 wonder what the Health Authorities would say if 
 it were proposed to accommodate five-and-twenty 
 Board-school children in a room about thirty feet 
 by ten and seven feet high ? 
 
 A great deal of this space is taken up by a long 
 table, and there are seats built all around against 
 the bulkheads, with lockers underneath. On the 
 table is a litter of caps, sextants, dirks and belts,
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 work-books, remnants of a watch meal, newspapers 
 of the latest mail, gramophone records and a score 
 of other things. One midshipman has cleared a 
 space with a sweep of his arm, and is working out 
 his sights with his Inman's Tables ready at his 
 elbow ; opposite him sits the Engineer-Sub, 
 writing his home letters ; the Assistant-Clerk, 
 having struggled unsuccessfully with the ledger 
 all the forenoon, vents his feelings by viciously 
 kicking down a stack of hockey-sticks from the 
 settee, murmuring sardonically the while, " Who 
 wouldii't sell his farm and go to sea ? " The two 
 who were writing, annoyed by the clatter, and 
 reinforced by a couple more who have just entered, 
 rise from the table, crying, " Dogs of War on the 
 Cheese-eye Pusser 1 " and there results at once a 
 very fair imitation of a rugger scrum, with the 
 unfortunate clerk representing the ball. In a few 
 moments peace is restored, and all resume their 
 normal occupations, and discuss amicably their 
 chances of getting a game of golf later on. 
 
 The discipline of the Gun-room is of the patri- 
 archal nature, and is administered principally by 
 the Senior Sub. Moral suasion is his ordinary 
 method, and great are the qualities of wisdpm and 
 tact displayed in his rule ; when such means fail 
 the collective sense of justice of the Gun-room 
 supports him in having recourse to the old- 
 fashioned remedy popularly known as " Six of the 
 best." 
 
 Very much depends on the Senior Sub ; the 
 general tone of the Gun-room rests entirely with 
 him to make or mar. As a rule, he comes out not 
 
 52
 
 The Gun-Room 
 
 only well, but brilliantly, from such a really 
 trying ordeal ; learning, with some mistakes and 
 with not a little opposition, to handle men in such 
 a way that they may submit cheerfully to his 
 ruling and may keep within restraints and yet not 
 feel their pressure. 
 
 I was a guest once at the Coming-of-Age party 
 of our one and only Sub in a certain ship. The 
 proceedings began with a ceremonious introduction 
 to the hero of the hour, who was attired in royal 
 robes and seated on a throne made of a couple of 
 empty gin cases. Before him stood two statuesque 
 dark-skinned attendants the " native " pantry 
 boy and third steward each holding a six-inch-gun 
 rammer as a staff of office ; though what their 
 precise office was no one exactly knew, being quite 
 satisfied with the fact that they looked very nice 
 and imposing. Soon it began to occur to the mind 
 of the Gun-room that the function of presentation, 
 however dignified, was just a little tame ; so they 
 conceived the idea of a Private Entree for some of 
 the smallest of their members ; and, taking them 
 quietly outside the room, shot them in head- 
 foremost through the pantry trap-hatch ! This 
 quaint conceit proved so pleasing that it was felt 
 it called for repetition, and the " young gentlemen " 
 were therefore presented some half a dozen tunes 
 each, appearing like human bullets through the 
 trap-hatch in what the Gunnery Lieutenant 
 described as " rapid firing." I should not omit to 
 say that the bullets enjoyed it as much as anyone. 
 
 Certainly the Gun-room is the life of the ship. 
 Its officers can always be relied upon for cricket 
 
 53
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 matches, football, hockey, or any game under the 
 sun, for the " funny party," for racy little verses 
 in the ship's magazine, for sailing picnics, and for 
 any fun and devilry that may suggest itself ; the 
 Gun-room is on the top line for such affairs, always. 
 
 And not for such things alone. In keeping the 
 enemy from our shores these bright young lads 
 have borne their part, just as much in their own 
 way as the Admirals and Captains. Without 
 them the great machine could not run as it does. 
 
 How many of them, too, have given glorious 
 proof that " dulce et decorum " is as great an 
 inspiration to-day as ever ! Willingly, heroically, 
 they have gone to a sailor's grave, many of them 
 going to sea for the first time as officers, only to be 
 asked to give the supreme test of devotion at the 
 very beginning of their career. It cannot be right 
 to think of these splendid youngsters as " cut off 
 in their prime " ; rather do they seem as sons who, 
 having an equal gift with others to offer to their 
 Mother, render it not in paltry inconsiderable 
 driblets, thinning out their homage through the 
 long years of a lifetime ; but give splendidly, 
 heaping all that they possess at her feet in one 
 magnificent moment. N
 
 XV. The Grand Fleet 
 
 MY most insistent grievance at present is 
 the old one, that all the best things 
 which can possibly be said about 
 anything have already been said. I am not com- 
 plaining now about Shakespeare, who, of course, 
 in this respect is hopelessly incorrigible ; my 
 grievance is against Professor Seeley for having 
 made a remark to the effect that the British Empire 
 was acquired in a fit of absent-mindedness. Be- 
 cause I wanted to say that about the Navy, and 
 especially about the Grand Fleet. The German 
 High Sea Fleet is the product of deliberate pro- 
 posals ; the officials of that country appear to have 
 said at some definite moment, " Happy thought : 
 good thing to have a Navy : remember to get one 
 from the stores when next ordering." But the 
 Navy of Britain came to us by exactly the reverse 
 process, by pure absence of mind. 
 
 Of course, nothing that is worth having is ever 
 acquired in any other way. No man by taking 
 thought can add one cubit unto his stature ; but 
 by taking thought for quite other matters, such, 
 for instance, as the defence of his country, drilling, 
 and training in the open air, he finds to his surprise 
 that he has added to his stature a very considerable 
 fraction of a cubit, whereas the combined efforts 
 
 E 55
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 of Miiller and Sandow and a diet of vermicelli had 
 previously failed utterly. The only way to keep 
 the vision is to go away and feed the poor at the 
 convent gate. 
 
 The Grand Fleet is a fortuitous agglomeration 
 of units so entirely suited to its purpose that it 
 affords a rare example of the Beautiful and the Fit, 
 such as would have delighted the heart of St. 
 Augustine in his Plotinian days. It is, in respect 
 of this, comparable to the works of Creation, and 
 has reached that result by being evolved on the 
 same plan of chance that is not altogether chance. 
 Nature never said : " Good idea : let's have a horse 
 and an Englishman and a nice bit of grass " ; but 
 bungled along in a happy-go-lucky manner, evolv- 
 ing weird types of protohipps, primequines, spelun- 
 cahoms, and graminoid bamboos, just like our- 
 selves with our ironclads, turret-ships, fleet-rams, 
 scouts, and coast defence vessels ; until finally she 
 arrived at the culminating perfection of the Grand 
 National, and we at the Grand Fleet. 
 
 The term " Grand Fleet " was never used in 
 recent times until the beginning of this present 
 war. Yet it is an ancient expression, and the idea 
 of reviving it was a most felicitous one. There is 
 something very grand about the word " ^rand." 
 And it is so essentially English. No other modern 
 language, to my limited knowledge, contains a 
 word exactly corresponding to it ; just as no other 
 Navy quite answers to ours, and no foreign naval 
 spirit is exactly the same as our own. For 
 " Grand " seems to connote a dignity that needs 
 not the trappings of magnificence, a consciousness 
 
 56
 
 The Grand Fleet 
 
 of power that does not require to be kept awake 
 by self-laudation, and boasts not itself against 
 those of lesser strength. 
 
 Such, it appears to me, is the Grand Fleet. We 
 have other fleets, working in various parts of the 
 world, each of them forming a complete Navy such 
 as a more than minor Power might well envy ; but 
 the Grand Fleet stands alone as the sure shield, 
 under God, of the lives and liberties of the British 
 nation and Empire more, of the rights of the 
 whole civilised world. 
 
 All that might be said concerning the composi- 
 tion of this great fleet, the various types of ships, 
 and their numbers ; its elaborate technical organi- 
 sation ; its skilful handling by those in both the 
 higher and the lower posts of responsibility ; its 
 arrangements for the order of battle and its working 
 methods during the period of waiting ; all such 
 matters must be left to the reflection of those who 
 have a partial knowledge of them for not even 
 in the fleet itself are many who could claim to 
 know fully and to the imagination of such as 
 place an implicit but uninformed trust in the Navy. 
 
 The Grand Fleet is not absolutely undefeatable. 
 No fleet is. Were ours ten times its present size, 
 you could not make such a claim for it with any 
 certainty. But it is undefeated, and, please God, 
 will remain so. Entirely owing to this fact it 
 happens that our fields can be ploughed and reaped 
 peacefully, our womenfolk pursue their way without 
 terror, our young men go a-soldiering with confi- 
 dence as to the safety of their homes, and our 
 factories work busily to supply the Army's needs. 
 
 E2 57
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 Until the Grand Fleet is defeated not a single 
 German soldier can set foot on our shores. The 
 enemy may exercise his childish malignity in 
 sinking a merchant ship here and there, or may 
 rain down indiscriminating murder from the risky 
 security of the skies ; but these are deeds of spite, 
 not of war. Between him and the real object of 
 his serious desires there lies a barrier which, by 
 the help of God, he shall never break down 
 the Grand Fleet. 
 
 58
 
 XVI. Tropes, and Three W atchkeepers 
 
 MYSELF: There was a fellow in " Hudi- 
 bras " 
 Who ne'er his mouth did ope' 
 But out there flew a trope. 
 
 FIRST WATCHKEEPER : Well, of all the silly 
 rotten things to say ! Is it supposed to be funny ? 
 Do we laugh now ? And what is a trope, anyway ? 
 
 SECOND WATCHKEEPER : It comes from the 
 Eyetalian troppo, meaning Too much of your back 
 answers ! You ought to know that if you've been 
 up the Straits. Dry up and give the Padre a chance. 
 
 THIRD WATCHKEEPER : No, it comes from the 
 Greek tropos hence the term Tropics. The idea 
 is that whenever the chap opened his lips you 
 heard some pretty Hot Stuff ! 
 
 MYSELF : A trope is a word turned out of its 
 original meaning in order to add emphasis or wit 
 to a remark. It also means a metaphor, or or, 
 well, almost any old thing of that sort. 
 
 FIRST WATCHKEEPER: Like saying that So-and-So 
 has " had a one-gun salute " l ; is that the idea ? 
 
 MYSELF : Something like that. My aim is to 
 make a collection of such naval tropes. So I want 
 you to help me. 
 
 1 Meaning that he has been court-martialled. The ship in 
 which a C.-M. is held fires one gun at 8 a.m. on the day of the 
 Court. 
 
 59
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 SECOND WATCHKEEPER: Padre, that's all very well, 
 but don't forget that the majority of naval sayings 
 have been handed down from days when polite con- 
 versation was not quite so restrained as it is at present; 
 so, unless your collection is to be a private one 
 
 MYSELF : It may need Bowdlerising ? Perhaps 
 that can be done. 
 
 FIRST WATCHKEEPER : How will this do for 
 you ? One of my turret's crew is going to be 
 married, and, being very ignorant and nervous 
 about the Marriage Service, he came and asked me 
 whether it would be possible to get the Chaplain 
 to give him a dummy run ! 1 . 
 
 SECOND WATCHKEEPER : Poor effort ! This is 
 rather neater : I asked the waiter at dinner last 
 night if the chicken was fit to eat, and he whispered 
 confidentially in my ear, " Well, sir, I think 'twas 
 an old hen just coming up for her third badge ! " *. 
 
 THIRD WATCHKEEPER : Ever meet old Jones, a 
 Siwash Gunner ? 3 . One of the Hungry Hundred * 
 he was ; I remember him training a racing 
 cutter's crew, mostly Selborne's Light Horse 6 , 
 
 1 At certain firing practices the ship steams along a buoyed 
 course, aiming the guns at the target but not actually firing, as 
 a rehearsal or dummy run. , 
 
 8 A man comes up before the Captain to apply for nis third 
 good-conduct badge after sixteen years' service, " man and boy." 
 
 3 A lieutenant who earns a shilling a day for carrying out 
 gunnery duties in the absence of a more fully trained gunnery 
 officer, more commonly known as a Bob-a-day Gunner. A 
 Siwash (N. American Indian) duck is a disappointing bird which 
 looks like a wild duck but isn't one. 
 
 4 A name given to the first lot of Supplementary Lieu- 
 tenants entered straight from the Merchant Service. 
 
 8 Men entered for a period of five years only, under a scheme 
 originated when Lord Sel borne was First Lord. 
 60
 
 Tropes, and Three Watchkeepers 
 
 and shouting at the stroke oar : " Call that pulling ? 
 You couldn't pull your best girl from the arms of 
 a soldier ! " 
 
 SECOND WATCHKEEPER : I was shipmates with 
 Jones once. He was a proper Messman's Horror l , 
 always stowing his hold * used to ship a face 
 like a sea-boot 3 if there was only Fanny Adams * 
 for lunch. I hear he's in one of the mine- 
 bumpers now. 
 
 MYSELF : One of what ? 
 
 SECOND WATCHKEEPER : One of the Third 
 Fleet ships. And I hope he's living on Navy 5 
 now ; it would serve him right ! 
 
 FIRST WATCHKEEPER : If I wasn't two ends 
 and the bight ' of a fool I should be in one of 
 those ships myself, bung up and bilge free 7 , and 
 getting a drop of leaf now and then by the aid of 
 the Marricd-man's-friend. 
 
 MYSELF : ? 
 
 FIRST WATCHKEEPER : Pet name given to a 
 German submarine which, so the yarn goes, kept 
 one of the bug-traps 8 bailed up in a narrow 
 harbour for a week by waiting off the entrance 
 
 1 So fond of his meals that he ate up the messman's profits. 
 1 The Scots say : " Filling his kyte." 
 
 * A common naval expression, both verbal and facial. 
 
 4 Hash. Fanny Adams was a woman who was murdered 
 some years ago, and her body was found a considerable time 
 afterwards chopped in small pieces and packed in a box. 
 
 * To live on Navy is to have Service rations with no private 
 additions. 
 
 * The bight of a rope is the loop lying slack between its 
 ends, so the expression means the complete rope or fool. 
 
 7 A method of stowing Casks on board snug and com- 
 fortable. 
 
 * Gunboats. 
 
 61
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 ready to squirt a mouldy at her directly she 
 showed her nose outside. 
 
 MYSELF : Ready to ? 
 
 FIRST WATCHKEEPER : To fire a torpedo at her, 
 of course ! All the bundle-men 1 wanted to 
 subscribe and send out medical comforts 2 to 
 the submarine's crew to induce them to stay. But 
 their Number One, who was single and Salt- 
 Horse 3 , went about with a face like a scrubbed 
 'ammick 4 ; he used to say that married men 
 were as much use to the Service as sweethearts to 
 a nun. 
 
 THIRD WATCHKEEPER : Look here, we're not 
 getting on with these what-names for the Padre. 
 There's any amount of naval expressions which 
 are rather well chosen when you come to look into 
 them : " Angel's whisper " for the defaulters' 
 bugle-call ; " body-snatchers " for the ship's cor- 
 porals ; a " holiday " for a scamped bit of paint- 
 work ; " spun-yarn tricks " for underhand deal- 
 ings. 
 
 MYSELF : What's the origin of that last ? 
 
 THIRD WATCHKEEPER : Much the same as " having 
 everything on a split yarn " that is to say, ready 
 to start at once. Padre, anyone would think you 
 
 1 A bundle (of good things) allegorically denotes a wife. 
 
 * Among which a Sick Bay Port : a term of endearment 
 amongst sailors for wine of all kinds. 
 
 8 A non-specialist lieutenant. Salt-horse (beef in brine) 
 was the plain, ordinary fare of old-time sailors. Salt-horse 
 officers are frequently more of the briny old sea-dog than their 
 scientific confreres. 
 
 * Another naval expression similar to the sea-boot face. 
 A freshly scrubbed hammock looks about as un-joyous as 
 anything in the world. 
 
 62
 
 Tropes, and Three Watchkccpers 
 
 had only been a dog-watch in the Service 1 , not 
 to understand plain English ! At evolutions 
 " out-nets " for instance, the practice has been 
 known of getting everything ready the night 
 before and the proper fastenings replaced with 
 pieces of spun yarn which can be cut through with 
 a sailor's knife as soon as the signal is made. Of 
 course, it isn't playing the game : that's a " spun- 
 yarn trick." 
 
 SECOND WATCHKEEPER : A dry business, all 
 this quacking ! I say, Padre, this is a pretty long 
 ship, isn't it ? 
 
 MYSELF : About five-fifty to six hundred feet 
 in length, I believe ; but why do you ask ? 
 
 SECOND WATCHKEEPER : In order to be your 
 honoured guest. Don't you know that " a long 
 ship " means one where it is a long tune between 
 drinks ? 
 
 MYSELF : You've earned one. Press the bell, 
 will you ? 
 
 SECOND WATCHKEEPER (after a brief pause) : 
 Well, here's luck ! Precious little clear-lower-deck 2 
 about this soda ! 
 
 FIRST AND THIRD WATCHKEEPERS : But what 
 about us ? 
 
 MYSELF : Certainly. Call the waiter again. 
 Well worth it, as the sailor said when he got seven 
 days' cells for kissing the Admiral's daughter. 
 
 1 The dog-watches are the shortest, only two hours each. 
 People who " have only been a dog-watch in the Navy " are 
 not encouraged to express their opinions about Service matters. 
 
 * At the order " clear lower deck " men come tumbling 
 up from below to the upper deck, like the bubbles in good 
 soda-water. 
 
 63
 
 XVII. My Servant 
 
 ONE great advantage enjoyed by a chaplain 
 over his brother officers is that he is the 
 only individual in the ship able to talk 
 to all sorts and conditions of naval men on equal 
 terms. I have frequently spent a pleasant half- 
 hour with one whose free spirit could not brook 
 restraint, and his vile body consequently had to ; 
 have sat by his side on the plank bed of his cell 
 and picked a small portion of his oakum ; and then 
 have gone almost immediately to pick a small 
 portion of the Admiral's grouse " in the hupper 
 suckles of the cuddy," as the Ward-room puts it. 
 In each case it was my privilege to be able to talk 
 as man to man or, as I once heard a devout young 
 warrant officer say in a Gospel address, using a 
 common name for a sailor with astonishing in- 
 appropriateness, " to speak as fellow-flatfoot to 
 fellow-flatfoot." 
 
 The ordinary naval officer cannot do this ; even 
 if his training has not dulled his perception of the 
 fact that an admiral or captain stripped of official 
 paramountcy is but a human being of his own 
 social class, yet his sense of discipline prevents him 
 from putting that knowledge into practice. Simi- 
 larly, a well-defined barrier exists between officers 
 and men. This is as it should be, and does not 
 
 64
 
 My Servant 
 
 forbid a splendid spirit of comradeship such as 
 cannot be found in any other Navy in the world ; 
 but it does forbid any excessive familiarity. A 
 chaplain, however, is not only privileged to be in 
 closer personal touch with the men, but is expected 
 to be so to a certain extent. Therefore it happens 
 that the officer who shares a servant with me 
 refrains for service reasons from talking much with 
 him beyond giving him necessary orders, whereas 
 I can indulge in the full enjoyment of his conver- 
 sational and other talents. 
 
 Let me first describe these other talents. He 
 looks after my clothes and cleans up my cabin, 
 washes my clothes, and in short " does for me," 
 to use a technical expression, as a kind of combi- 
 nation butler, valet, tweeny-maid, and boots ; and 
 he performs these diaconal functions serving 
 tables and the rest remarkably well and for a 
 ridiculously few shillings a month. 
 
 Then, as a private in the Royal Marines, he has 
 to acquit himself well in various other directions. 
 " Soldier and sailor too," he sometimes vanishes 
 from my ken for the greater part of a day to take 
 part in coaling ship ; when I see him again he is 
 once more spruce and clean save for that which is 
 most difficult to get rid of, a rim of coal-dust on 
 the eyelids, showing up well against the healthy 
 fresh skin and giving him a handsome pair of 
 " Irish eyes." At other times he dons overcoat 
 and mufflers to keep a night watch on deck as 
 sentry ; we have met occasionally at 4 a.m., when 
 he has had the middle and I the morning. He 
 lands for route-marches, well turned out ; he can 
 
 65
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 pull an oar with any seaman, and is as smart a 
 soldier as any in the King's Army. 
 
 He is an artist, too, of no mean order. Much 
 of his spare time he spends in his mess or, by 
 special permission, in the cabin, making an en- 
 larged copy of some picture postcard that has 
 taken his fancy, and doing it very well indeed ; 
 he takes a brotherly interest in my own attempts 
 at water-colour sketching, and has given me many 
 useful hints on the subject. 
 
 Have I mentioned that he is a good-looking 
 young fellow ? At any rate, there is a girl in 
 Bristol who has no doubts on this question, and 
 to give this young pah* a little wedding present 
 will be more of a pleasure to me than is the case 
 with many other such offerings. The occasion 
 will arise, I hope, at no distant date : I have 
 already published his banns on board. 
 
 Early in the war, by the way, it was possible for 
 a Service man to get a special licence from any 
 Bishop at an hour's notice for a couple of guineas, 
 without any preliminary banns or notice. This 
 was a very great convenience, and I cannot under- 
 stand why it is now " a wash-out." There are, 
 every day, men coming back to their ^homes 
 unexpectedly who would seize the opportunity to 
 get married, but are prevented from doing so 
 because the legal twenty- one days stand in their 
 way. A recent criminal trial has proved that our 
 marriage regulations do not preclude the possi- 
 bility of fraud, and in my poor opinion their only 
 effect is to render marriage difficult for the sailor 
 and the soldier which is asking for trouble. The 
 
 66
 
 My Servant 
 
 two-guinea special was a good tip. and I am sorry 
 it no longer holds good. 
 
 To return to my servant and his varied energies 
 it is as a conversationist that he chiefly shines. 
 Mine is mostly a listening part, and very little 
 encouragement is needed to get him to air his 
 views. 
 
 Let it not be imagined that his speech and 
 expressions are those of the comic marine found in 
 a certain type of naval stories and sketches. He 
 talks grammatically and without accent, having 
 been fairly well educated and coming from a very 
 respectable and ** superior " social class. I wish 
 that people on shore would understand that a 
 large proportion of our men are like him in this 
 respect, and that the rollicking, roystering, semi- 
 savage of their ideas is as dead as Nelson himself. 
 
 My servant's views on things in general may not 
 be very original, but they are very sound ; and 
 they would make a socialist orator gnash his teeth 
 with rage. One of his pet phrases is " It is ridicu- 
 lous." For example, it is ridiculous to think that 
 we can do without rich people ; it is ridiculous to 
 imagine that they enjoy greater freedom than the 
 working man, or have less burdens to bear. Their 
 lives are different from ours, but not easier, and 
 without them the State would quickly go to pieces. 
 It is ridiculous to make any sharp distinction 
 between the upper classes and all others and to 
 rail against the former ; everybody knows that 
 there are innumerable grades amongst the working 
 classes themselves, and if people find themselves 
 in a lower grade it is generally their own fault. 
 
 67
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 No one spoils the game for the working man so 
 much as the working man who is content to live 
 like a beast and behaves like one. " Some of the 
 people in my mess," he says, " won't understand 
 these things ; you can argue with them as much 
 as you like, but they can't take it in they don't 
 seem to have the intellect ! " 
 
 On the subject of Germany he is mildly con- 
 temptuous, yet pitying withal. The whole trouble 
 with the people of that country is" that they want 
 to get everything without earning it, and they 
 must be shown that the world isn't run on those 
 lines. Their bombastic claims strike him as purely 
 silly ; such childishness comes from living in a 
 ring fence and never having any ideas of what is 
 going on outside. I am afraid that on the subject 
 of the Kaiser he is even more contemptuous, but 
 still without a trace of bitterness ; he sums up the 
 All-Highest's attitude in his favourite expression 
 " It is ridiculous 1 " 
 
 68
 
 XVIII. The Wedding Present 
 
 WE had a right-down regular genuine 
 old-fashioned Ward-room Cag about 
 it. One of our number was to be 
 married shortly, and as is customary on such 
 occasions the Mess wished to combine and give 
 him a present. 
 
 We in the Ward-room do not let such an oppor- 
 tunity for argument and debate evade us easily. 
 In peace time we might perhaps settle the business 
 in a day, and the amount of words expended over 
 it would not be more than enough to fill a couple 
 of volumes of Hansard ; but not so during the war, 
 when fresh topics of conversation are hard to come 
 by and the standing debate between optimists and 
 pessimists is apt to pall. 
 
 Be it noted here that the common form taken 
 by Ward-room discussions is liable to be mis- 
 understood by the uninitiated. A group of Maltese 
 boatmen talking over their private concerns in a 
 friendly manner appear to be engaged in such a 
 violent and deadly quarrel that you instinctively 
 turn to look for the nearest policeman to separate 
 them ; and in like manner our discussions, though 
 most unparliamentary both in method of proce- 
 dure and in the choice of expressions, do not really 
 give rise to bodily assaults or life-long hatreds, as 
 
 69
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 you might imagine they would. The main object 
 is for each man to express his own opinion and not 
 to listen to the ideas of others. When a chance 
 does occur of an unaccompanied duet a bullock- 
 driver would as soon expect to get a move on 
 without the aid of a little profanity as a naval 
 officer without a few nicely worded personal 
 affronts. 
 
 A preliminary question as to whether the Gun- 
 room should be invited to stand in with us was 
 disposed of with disappointingly calm celerity ; 
 the proposer put forward his suggestion with a 
 hesitating lack of confidence in his own ideas and 
 found no backers, and after some withering re- 
 marks on Gun-room officers in general and our 
 own in particular the question was allowed to drop 
 quietly. 
 
 Next came the consideration of what amount 
 should be contributed by each officer. Everyone 
 was willing and even eager to give to an extent, 
 within reasonable limits, but that was not going 
 to be allowed to interfere with our enjoyment. 
 
 " Let everybody give one day's pay," was the 
 first suggestion. " Too much ! We don't want 
 to give him a solid gold bedstead with diamond 
 knobs on the end ! " 
 
 " Well, we want to do the thing decently, don't 
 we ? I suppose you'd like to give him an ormolu 
 clock and a case of pipes suitably inscribed, and 
 the remainder of the hevening was spent in 
 'armony ! This isn't a dockyard matey's wedding, 
 it's a naval officer's ! " 
 
 " How about a half -day's pay ? " 
 
 70
 
 The Wedding Present 
 
 " Too hard on the juniors. Why make a hard- 
 and-fast rule ? There's no need to do everything 
 according to the drill-book ; you'd like to regulate 
 how many eggs we can eat for breakfast, two 
 hard-boileds for three-stripers, and one split 
 scrambled amongst the junior watchkeepers ! " 
 
 " And what about allowances ? Some of you 
 people are getting princely allowances while the 
 real hard workers have to live on their bare pay ; 
 I vote that the idle rich pay the super-tax if we're 
 going on these lines ! " 
 
 " Oh, why not let everyone give exactly what 
 he jolly well pleases ? Here, give us a piece of 
 paper, I'll write down the amounts. Come on, 
 how much will you give ? " 
 
 " What has it got to do with you how much I 
 give ? I don't see that you've got any qualifica- 
 tions for running this show beyond a nose like a 
 Yiddisher money-lender and a talent for faking 
 your quarterly returns ! " 
 
 " No, I'll tell you the best way to do it. If any 
 officer is too modest or too mean to say openly how 
 much he is willing to subscribe, I don't mind 
 sitting at the receipt of custom in my cabin and 
 you can all come and give your money to me 
 privately." 
 
 " Ho ! You want to pay off Gieves, do you ? 
 Put it down in the mess-bills, whatever else we do." 
 
 We finally settled this part of the discussion to 
 the contentment of at least a working majority. 
 
 Having reached this point, we then proceeded 
 to try to settle what form the present should take. 
 This act of the drama was divided into several 
 
 F 71
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 scenes, such as the Quarter-Deck, An Officer's 
 Cabin, The Ante-Room, etc., with groups of from 
 two to six people taking speaking parts in each, 
 the last scene comprising nearly the whole of the 
 caste. 
 
 Somebody suggested " Knives." A few were 
 were already becoming wearied with the contest 
 immediately agreed to the proposal ; but a more 
 virile number heaped scorn upon it. " Knives ! " 
 he echoed sarcastically, " why not give Blankets ! 
 A nice romantic, dainty present, knives, I must say 1 " 
 
 That killed knives. 
 
 " A standard lamp," said one ; " a silver tea- 
 tray," said another ; a third, " a spirit-kettle " ; 
 a fourth was for spending the money on not one 
 but several useful presents. " No," said an 
 objector, " this mess-present is going to be some- 
 thing that they will take a pride in, something 
 different to all the other presents. What is wanted 
 is a gadget that the bride can show off in years to 
 come as the present that came from her husband's 
 ship." 
 
 " Well then, why not ask them to choose for 
 themselves ? " 
 
 " No, I'm dead against that," struck in a con- 
 firmed bachelor who will probably be one of the 
 first to fall a victim when peace brings him again 
 into the society of the gentle irresistibles. " I'm 
 dashed if I'd allow her to have any voice in it. 
 This is our present to him, not to her. These 
 women have got to be kept in their places. Let 
 him choose if you like; but she must understand that 
 she has darned well got to take what's given her." 
 
 72
 
 The Wedding Present 
 
 A married man : " My poor fellow, you may say 
 what you please, and think what you like, but this 
 present is going to be the bride's property and 
 quite right, too ! Moreover, if there's any idea of 
 letting them choose for themselves, don't you 
 make any mistake, she will do the choosing, and 
 he will only think he has had a hand in it ! " 
 
 " Suppose we elect a Committee, and give them 
 a free hand ? " 
 
 This suggestion met with opposition, but not 
 much, and was adopted. 
 
 So the theatre of operations was narrowed ; but 
 it still left room for a combination of two against 
 one. The allies wanted each of the three com- 
 mitteemen to make a separate choice, so that 
 everybody's ideas might be more or less acted 
 upon ; three alternatives being submitted to the 
 interested couple, from which they might make a 
 final choice. 
 
 The opposing member was at last brought into 
 line, and a list of three articles was prepared. 
 
 And, of course, it was the bride who made the 
 choice. Equally, of course, she cliose something 
 that was not in the list so carefully drawn up by 
 the Committee. 
 
 F2 73
 
 XIX. The Wedding 
 
 I HAVE officiated at a good many naval wed- 
 dings in one part of the world or another, 
 but this one was different altogether. The 
 rest were all in the piping times of peace, while 
 this one had an added air of romance and certainly 
 an air of mystery from the fact of its being our one 
 war wedding. 
 
 As for the mystery, that all arose from the 
 strictness of the censorship and the necessity of 
 allowing nothing to leak out concerning the move- 
 ments of the ship. Poor bridegroom-elect ! He 
 had fidgeted until he got me to read his banns, 
 twice over, and even to start them for a third 
 time ; for months he used to count the stones in 
 the greengage jam at seven-bell tea and mutter 
 despondingly, " This year, next year, some time, 
 never " he used to cheat now and then, and put 
 back some of the jam into the jar, preferring plain 
 bread and butter to the unkindness of the sortes 
 (what is the Latin for jammy ?). He could not go 
 away from the ship to get married, nor could he 
 arrange with the lady to come to meet him at any 
 place for the same purpose, because he did not 
 know where the ship would be, and if he knew he 
 might not tell ! The bride in her distant home 
 must have been in an equal if not a worse per- 
 
 74,
 
 The Wedding 
 
 plexity ; but one has the feeling that she bore it 
 with greater patience and placidity, being of the 
 anabolic and not the catabolic sex, which is the 
 scientific way of saying that women have more 
 common sense than men. 
 
 All these difficulties were, however, suddenly 
 and unexpectedly overcome it is not permissible 
 for me to say how and, as the society papers say, 
 
 " A wedding was arranged between and ." 
 
 I use the word " arranged " of set purpose, because 
 the bridegroom himself had but little to do with it. 
 He would have been content with the barest legal 
 and ecclesiastical essentials ; but we, his mess- 
 mates of the Ward-room, had different views. The 
 bride, too, was quite prepared for a registry-office 
 wedding, or at best a Dickensian one, with a snuffy 
 sexton and a rusty pew-opener for witnesses. 
 
 We felt, though, that it was our show, not 
 theirs, and so we arranged it all for our own 
 satisfaction. 
 
 One of our lieutenants, who is a handsome fellow 
 and has a way with him, said that we really must 
 have some bridesmaids ; so he proceeded to call 
 upon the ladies of the district and persuaded them 
 to lend three of their pretty daughters for this 
 purpose ; and very charming bridesmaids they 
 made, too. 
 
 The gunnery lieutenant provided an excellent 
 substitute for the conventional red carpet out of 
 a bolt of " Canvas, Scene Painting, Red," com- 
 monly used for targets. For my own part, I fell 
 in the Funny Party, and drilled them well in two 
 hymns and the Marriage Psalm ; Barnby's 
 
 75
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 " Venite," day twenty-one, is a chant that goes to 
 any words, and all sailors know it. 
 
 We also raised a couple of motors, and instructed 
 the driver of the one which was reserved as the 
 bridal chariot that he was not to " turn on the 
 juice " on leaving the church, but leave matters 
 to the bridegroom's division, who were standing 
 by with concealed drag ropes. 
 
 The boatswain, as was his customary job, con- 
 structed an enormous garland, such as is always 
 hung from the triatic stay on these occasions ; it 
 is made of evergreens, and is really a kind of 
 globe formed of three garlands joined together, 
 with long streamers attached. 
 
 A bouquet was raised from somewhere, and 
 wedding presents were not lacking, though, of 
 course, the majority of these had been sent to the 
 bride's home. 
 
 One of the kind ladies mentioned above was 
 given the temporary acting rate of Mother-of-the- 
 Bride, and was ready with hospitality and warm 
 welcome to take her fair charge to her kindly arms, 
 and see her safely to the very altar. 
 
 So we had a gay wedding after all ! I ought, I 
 know, to describe the bride's dress, but all I can 
 say is that it was some white stuff, and I think it 
 was serge. At any rate, I am sure it was a travel- 
 ling dress. And she had a hat. 
 
 I rather pride myself on being a specialist in the 
 Marriage Service, and will guarantee to take a pair 
 of people utterly and completely ignorant of the 
 drill and to put them through it in such a way 
 that it seems the most natural and easy thing in 
 
 76
 
 The Wedding 
 
 their lives. These two backed me up in my boast, 
 anyhow. 
 
 And the harmonium rose to the occasion, 
 playing the Wedding March when it was all over 
 as if it really felt itself to be for the time a great 
 cathedral organ ! While it was playing all the 
 officers had quietly made their way out of the 
 church and had formed up outside, in such a way 
 that when the bride came out with her husband 
 why, she had heard of the custom before, and seen 
 it pictured in the papers, but this was her wedding, 
 hers and his ; truly it was for their own two selves 
 that the swords were flashing in the air, and she 
 was walking by her gallant man's side beneath an 
 arch of steel raised by his gallant comrades ! 
 
 That is just the one part of the festal ceremonies 
 which, as the officiant, I have never seen ; I am 
 still in the vestry, taking off my surplice and putting 
 away the books. If I hurry to come out while yet 
 in my black cassock, the church is empty and the 
 glad party are already on their way. For a few 
 minutes I enjoy the artificial pleasures of melan- 
 choly, and pretend to feel that I am left out of it. 
 They have made use of me, and I am not wanted 
 any more. This is all make-believe, remember ; 
 I do not really feel like that at all. But how can 
 a body understand or sympathise with the great 
 crisis of life of other people's lives, I mean 
 except by acting a part in a little toy theatre of 
 one's own making and using the cardboard figures 
 to try to construct the real scenes ? 
 
 77
 
 XX. A War Widow 
 
 IT was at a Church Service on board ship that 
 I saw her ; the exact locality I will not 
 mention. She does not know me, and will 
 not recognise herself from these notes ; the less 
 chance of that happening because her sad little 
 story is hardly distinguishable from several thou- 
 sand other sad little stories dated any time these 
 last twelve months. 
 
 She was the prettiest and dearest girl in all the 
 countryside, and had lovers more than you could 
 count from now to Michaelmas. Amongst these 
 came many a smart young officer of the King's 
 Navy yes, and many besides, who, though no 
 longer young, were still smart of bearing, and 
 could throw their rank into the scales, with gold 
 in plenty to bring up the weight. 
 
 Amorous middle-aged captains and love-sick 
 boys of midshipmen, she dismissed them all, 
 with others of every intervening rank and every 
 other branch. At last, however, the inevitable 
 happened the right lad came along, and the lass 
 was his. 
 
 It was a love-match. He was a handsome young 
 lieutenant with a laughing face and merry eyes, 
 and besides these recommendations very little 
 beyond his bare pay. Al the rejected lovers came 
 
 78
 
 A War Widow 
 
 and danced at the wedding, which took place 
 scarcely more than a year ago. 
 
 Little more than a year ago and now he lies 
 cold beneath the waves of the North Sea. 
 
 What touched me most when I saw her in church 
 was that, although clad in the deep black that 
 becomes a new-made widow, her clothes and head- 
 gear were by no means the conventional widow's 
 weeds : she wore the hat and dress of a young 
 girl, the style most suited to her age, for she was 
 not more than twenty ; and these clothes, of so 
 young a fashion and so deadly sombre a hue, 
 seemed to me more pathetic than any widow's 
 garb I have ever seen. 
 
 With the others of her party she sat amongst 
 the sailors, surrounded by officers and men ; and 
 as the simple service proceeded there were many 
 times when I saw her childish eyes fill with tears. 
 No doubt she had recollections of going to church 
 on board the ship she had learned to call proudly 
 " my ship ; " recollections, possibly, of enduring 
 little prickings of her tender conscience for wishing 
 the service to be over, so that she might again join 
 her handsome lieutenant, who sat apart from her, 
 looking so debonair in his frock-coat with the 
 bright gold stripes on the sleeves, then sit by his 
 side at a merry lunch party in the after-cabin, and 
 go ashore with him in the whaler and watch how 
 splendidly he sailed it ! 
 
 Seeing her, I felt as one does at the sight of a 
 seagull with a broken wing ; the beautiful bird, so 
 peri'ectly adapted for happiness that one demands 
 nothing from it except to be perfectly happy, has
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 been broken and spoiled ; and the first natural 
 ejaculation that springs to one's lips is not so 
 much " What a pity ! " as " What a shame ! " 
 
 Well, the seagull's wing may mend if it be not 
 too badly broken. There was a time when a love 
 story was ruined for me if the heroine could debase 
 herself by becoming affianced to the wrong man, 
 through the misunderstandings of the middle 
 chapters, before clearing matters up with the hero 
 on the final page ; while as for a second marriage, 
 that showed, in those days, that the author had 
 no conception of what true love really was. 
 
 It is possible, I hope, to keep the romantic ideas 
 of earlier days and yet to temper them with a little 
 common sense. It might be a very splendid and 
 loyal action on the part of this girl-widow to live 
 out the rest of her life in bereaved loneliness, true 
 to the memory of the husband of her youth ; but 
 I cannot help seeing that it would be better if she 
 could bring herself, a little later on, to well, 
 putting it coarsely and bluntly to make the best 
 of a bad job, and take another husband. He will 
 not be able to give her back the happiness she has 
 lost, but it may be he will help to make the loss 
 less bitter. 
 
 Poor little war-widow ! How monstrous she 
 would think these sentiments if she were to read 
 this ! God's pity on her ; she has a long way and 
 a hard way to go before 'she realises that there may 
 be something in them, after all. 
 
 80
 
 XXI. Elegant Leisure 
 
 THERE was a day when the loud trump of 
 war dwindled to a thin, piping note, and 
 the temporary lull imitated peace so 
 closely that it was possible to go ashore for the 
 whole day, forgetting the ship and spending the 
 blissful hours in elegant leisure. 
 
 My plans were made for me ; the P.M.O., who 
 is an ardent fisherman, had long been persuading 
 me to follow the craft. Weakly enough, I had 
 allowed him to give me a lesson in " casting " on 
 the quarter-deck a few days before. That settled 
 it. I now found a rod prepared for me, all com- 
 plete, with a made-up cast and with certain 
 feathered things concealing unforeseen contingen- 
 cies, which the P.M.O. called flies. There was no 
 getting out of it. The steamboat was called away 
 early in the morning, and, together with three of 
 our lieutenants, known as Uncle, Mud, and the 
 Bulgar, w made for the distant shore. We 
 walked awhile and came to a lake. The P.M.O. 
 and I got into a boat and pulled about a mile to a 
 likely spot. (For myself, in future, it will be a 
 not-likely spot.) Then it rained. Hard. Then 
 t came on to blow. Hard, also. Yet for three 
 solid hours I really honestly tried to break the back 
 of any unseen and unsuspecting fish by smiting it 
 
 81
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 hard with my whip-lash. I didn't succeed in 
 hitting one. Well, no more did the P.M.O., which 
 was one consolation. I also hoped the other 
 blighters weren't getting any, and said so ; but 
 the P.M.O. told me that was a very unsportsman- 
 like remark ; still, I meant it ! 
 
 The rain cleared, and after we had flogged the 
 lake for weeks and weeks, we came ashore and had 
 lunch in a roofless, stone boathouse. Here we 
 unpicked the entomological specimens from the 
 ends of our strings and tied on six other weird 
 atrocities. A second venture on the lake proved 
 no more successful than the first, so once more we 
 pulled to the beach, and the P.M.O. suggested that 
 we should fish from the bank, he going on about 
 a hundred yards ahead of me. 
 
 Casting from the bank is quite a different science 
 from casting when sitting in a boat. Did you 
 know that ? I am not really an expert angler, 
 but I am a very good entangler : this I discovered 
 quite soon, and therefore, having made quite sure 
 that my mentor was well beyond shouting distance, 
 I stealthily made my way back to the roofless 
 boathouse, and there sat me down upon the grass. 
 I felt it was a cruel thing to take life, and that if 
 it were really necessary to do so if we actually 
 needed fish a big net or a stick of dynamite would 
 prove much more efficient than the method we had 
 been pursuing. This might be debated, but I felt 
 quite positive that I was not really a born fisherman. 
 
 The lintel of the boathouse door was one huge 
 stone, and I wondered why these modern lacustrine 
 peasants had spent so much effort for such a humble 
 
 82
 
 Elegant Leisure 
 
 purpose, gathering from their scattered huts to 
 close round the mighty monolith and raise it on 
 their sweating shoulders ; and whether they were 
 unknowingly following the custom handed down 
 by their forebears of a million years ago. 
 
 Around me, as I lay upon the ground, were a 
 score of pretty weeds, of whose names and habits 
 I was ignorant ; I might have been taught them 
 at school in the time I spent learning the method 
 (which I have now forgotten) of making bad Greek 
 verse ; but the penalty for being uneducated has 
 now to be paid by missing large delights which are 
 at hand everywhere. A cow looks upon the wild 
 plants with more discernment than I do : she at 
 least knows that some are good to eat and others 
 are not. It seems strange to go through life and 
 amass little more knowledge than does a three- 
 year-old child who has grasped the fact that these 
 are " pitty f'owers." 
 
 We all have our own peculiar ideas as to how to 
 make the most of our leisure time ashore. I 
 remember a bluejacket at Gibraltar who had 
 exhausted the pleasures of the land, and, having 
 some money still left in his pocket, determined to 
 spend his last half-hour of liberty in the grand 
 style ; so he hired all the shore boats he could 
 find there were ten of them, in fact and made 
 them all join up in one long line, towing the last 
 boat, in which he sat in lordly state in the stern- 
 sheets, and in this manner he came alongside his 
 ship, feeling that his money had been well spent. 
 
 I have been told of another who went ashore at 
 Pernambuco and came back on board with a live 
 
 83
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 sheep, for which he had given five pounds ; he 
 said that he could not see anything else to buy ! 
 
 You rarely see sailors going for a walk beyond 
 the limits of a town. The pleasures of a country 
 stroll have no attraction for them. They do not 
 mind hiring bicycles, and often pay large sums for 
 a carriage and pair, in which they will make ex- 
 cursions into the country, passing on the way their 
 officers, who are content to trudge it along the 
 dusty roads ; this disinclination of sailors for 
 walking has always seemed to me quite inexplicable. 
 Certainly they are ready enough to tramp about 
 the streets of a town, and are always keen on 
 sight -seeing, though the sights that attract them 
 are not always such as you would imagine. 
 " Haven't you been to Bethlehem ? " said a young 
 sailor, whose ship had just come from the Levant 
 cruise ; " Oh, you ought to go there and see the 
 electric light works ! " 
 
 Our leisure when we are " on the beach " is 
 generally spent in an irreproachable fashion ; I 
 have seldom been at a foreign port where the local 
 papers have not devoted a special article to the 
 exemplary conduct of the British sailors. If 
 there are sometimes exceptions to this rule, ^let it 
 be put down to the fact that " there be land- 
 sharks." Sometimes our shore-going friends them- 
 selves lead us astray, as the following true tale 
 will make clear. 
 
 An officer friend of mine has an uncle, a man 
 well past middle age, and of the most intensely 
 respectable outward appearance ; he looks like a 
 bank director, and his benign and dignified air 
 
 84
 
 Elegant Leisure 
 
 would inspire confidence in the most suspicious ; 
 even his clothes alone would almost do this. 
 Unfortunately, he has never grown up. My friend 
 was once taking a railway journey in his company, 
 and as the train was slowly steaming out of the 
 station the uncle beckoned courteously to a 
 gentleman, a perfect stranger, who was standing 
 on the platform. The stranger came forward 
 briskly to the carriage window anyone would 
 have done the same for such an eminently grave 
 and reverend seigneur. Then said the uncle, as 
 the train gathered way, " You will excuse me, sir, 
 I trust, but I really must pull your nose ! " And 
 he did so. 
 
 8r,
 
 XXII. Meals 
 
 MEALS in war-time assume an importance 
 far greater than they possessed in the 
 peace period. Then they were the 
 mere punctuation marks of the day ; but now they 
 have become the principal paragraphs, with large 
 blank spaces between them. " Let us eat and 
 drink, for to-morrow we die," has quite a new 
 meaning now, for if the British Army marches on 
 its stomach, the British Navy steams on the same 
 portion of its anatomy, and it is only common 
 sense to pervert the scriptural phrase into sound 
 advice for fighting men, avoiding the original 
 meaning thereof, which I take to be homoousian 
 with that of the words I once read on a Melbourne 
 restaurant menu, " Have a good time while you're 
 living, for you'll be a long time dead." 
 
 Caesar's legionaries refused with scorn their 
 rations of mutton and beef soft stuff, ttiey said, 
 not fit for men's eating and demanded good 
 honest corn which they could feel between their 
 teeth. (I present this argument from the Classics 
 to all vegetarian propagandists, and am surprised 
 that they have not discovered it before.) Quantum 
 mutati are we sailors now ! For our official rations, 
 as served out to us by our maternal Admiralty, 
 provide us with the sole alternative of mutton and 
 86
 
 Meals 
 
 beef or beef and mutton. Sometimes, indeed, we 
 call the mutton lamb, but it is only the aspersion 
 of mint sauce and the giving of a name that make 
 the difference. The men of the lower-deck, how- 
 ever, would not suffer any change ; and they only 
 follow Caesar's warriors to the extent of growling 
 at any interference with what they regard as their 
 proper diet like all good fighting men in every 
 age ; I have known them to chuck overboard a 
 large consignment of grouse sent to them as a 
 special treat, and, on another occasion, several 
 hundred fresh salmon ; Gallio-like, they cared for 
 none of these things, and fell in at the Paymaster's 
 office, complainingly demanding their beef-and- 
 mutton rights. We in the Ward-room rely for the 
 joint upon the same staple articles, and though we 
 do introduce a little variety on our own account, 
 even in this variety we are still bound to the wheel ; 
 full rightly may those grand old words be applied 
 to us : " Nee coenum nee animal mutant qui trans 
 mare currunt " that is to say, we still stick to the 
 same old cold supper o' Sunday nights, with the 
 same old palaeolithic chicken. 
 
 The greatest of all Sacraments was created out 
 of a meal partly for the reason, I think, that we 
 might learn to make every meal into a sacrament ; 
 and certainly in the Navy do we at our meals find 
 the inward and spiritual grace of knowing our- 
 selves to be one communion and fellowship. We 
 have no " places " at table, but the greatest sits 
 down with the least, and the last-comer, be he 
 three-striper or one-ringed man, has to take what 
 vacant chair he can find. There is a general 
 
 c 87
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 interchange of conversation and everyone is at his 
 brightest. I am referring to dinner-time princi- 
 pally. A Ward-room dinner in peace-time has 
 always seemed to me a very picturesque sight ; 
 down the long table gleam the gold lace and white 
 linen against the dark blue of the naval uniforms, 
 brightened at one or two places by the flaming 
 scarlet of the Marine officers' mess-jackets, while 
 the necessary artistic touch of sombreness is added 
 by the befrogged coat and black silk waistcoat of 
 the chaplain for it is one of his very few naval 
 privileges that he is permitted of an evening to 
 disguise himself as an Ecclesiastical Dignitary ! 
 The Marine waiters in white jackets with blue 
 facings and silver buttons give the scene a further 
 touch of brightness, and altogether it looks as 
 people say of a specially brilliant sunset exactly 
 like a picture. During this present distress, how- 
 ever, the brilliancy is gone ; we do not " dress " 
 for dinner now it would be impossible, seeing that 
 officers have to hurry off to turrets, or get to some 
 other warlike work immediately afterwards. But 
 this does not prevent the good-fellowship of the 
 meal ; it still remains the great medium for 
 drawing us all very closely together and cementing 
 friendships. Understand, it is only of dinner that 
 this may be said ; lunch is a hurried, go-as-you- 
 please affair, and as for breakfast well, there 
 are very few people who are at their best at 
 breakfast-time. 
 
 Once, long ago, I bade a cheery, a very cheery 
 " Good-morning " to a shipmate, and proceeded to 
 follow up my kindly greeting with various bright 
 
 88
 
 Meals 
 
 remarks and inquiries after his general well-being. 
 " Padre," returned he, more in anger than in 
 sorrow, " have you never read what it says in the 
 book of Proverbs about people like you ? " I 
 confessed my ignorance. " Then," said he, " listen 
 well to this : ' He that blesseth his friend with a 
 loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be 
 counted a curse to him.' ' I didn't believe that 
 these words were in Proverbs at all. But they 
 are ! 
 
 We still keep up the custom of having a Guest 
 Night once a week, and sometimes have the oppor- 
 tunity of asking officers from other ships to come 
 on board. Even when this is impossible, as, for 
 instance, when we are at sea, the messman holds 
 to his contract of giving us one or two extra courses 
 on this weekly occasion ; for which reason Guest 
 Night is frequently known in the Navy as Camel 
 Night, the underlying idea being that one then 
 needs the same interior arrangement of space as is 
 devised in the Ship of the Desert, which, I under- 
 stand, is blessed with three central compartments, 
 divided by transverse bulkheads, instead of having 
 only one, like us poor humans. 
 
 As for the sailors, they eat five meals a day, and 
 how they can manage it is more than I can tell ; 
 but they are always equal to any odd snacks they 
 can get between meals besides. 
 
 At the other end of the scale come the meals at 
 the Admiral's table. There is a good game that 
 can be played at Admirals' dinner-parties; it is 
 called Pineapple Loo. You play it by surrep- 
 titiously wrenching off the top of the best pine- 
 
 G2 89
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 apple and counting the leaves, with a small wager 
 as to the result. You would hardly believe that 
 there are so many leaves ; perhaps you might 
 hazard a guess at twenty-four or so, but as a matter 
 of fact you would be safer if you were to say a 
 hundred and fifty. It is a very interesting game, 
 but it is not good for the pineapple. 
 
 It was at an Admiral's dinner-table that I once 
 heard a German Consul disprove the theory that 
 all Teutons are quick at acquiring the niceties of 
 foreign languages. The fish had been served, and 
 the butler came insinuatingly behind the Consul's 
 shoulder and murmured, " 'Ock, sir ? " The 
 foreign guest showed by his puzzled face that he 
 did not understand. Again came the butler's 
 invitation, " 'Ock, sir ? " and again the uncompre- 
 hending blankness. For the third time the patient 
 entreaty was uttered, and at last the light broke 
 upon the German's mind and illumined his features 
 as he exclaimed, " Ach, Ox-toil ! Yess ! " 
 
 Enjoyment of food is, like all other human 
 interests, an affair of mixed motives and complex 
 foundations ; delight in the unaccustomed forms, 
 I suppose, one of the principal factors. This may 
 explain the inner mind of the sailor who told me 
 recently that he hoped the war would be ended 
 soon so that he might go home and have a nice 
 piece of fried fish ! Alas ! it may account for the 
 peculiar leaning of many naval officers towards 
 kippers at afternoon tea. 
 
 90
 
 XXIII. Lower-Deck Love 
 
 THERE is a passage in the " Antigone 
 beginning with : 
 
 which the Classical Master at my school, having a 
 taste for rhyme-making, insisted on translating : 
 
 Love, unconquered in the battle, 
 Love, that lightest on the cattle 
 
 a version which certainly brings out the interesting 
 fact that the ancient Greeks were in the habit of 
 speaking of cattle as " The Things " (tcn'mara), just 
 as we do down in the West Country (vide Eden 
 Phillpotts, passim) proof positive that we are 
 the inheritors of the true Greek spirit. But, to 
 return to Sophocles, I would hazard the opinion 
 that his verses may be more correctly rendered : 
 
 Love, what an undefeated sport you be, 
 You pounce on every blessed thing you see ! 
 
 For what but Love is it makes gallants turn col- 
 lectors sometimes even " purveyors " of gauds, 
 toys, gew-gaws, apricocks and dewberries, articles 
 of bigotry and virtue, gold and silver, ivory, apes 
 and peacocks, from Eastern bazaars, foreign ports, 
 looted towns and rifled palaces what but Love, 
 aching to lay its tribute at a mistress's feet ? 
 
 91
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 And do the goddesses really value the gifts 
 heaped lavishly upon their shrines ? Why, no, 
 bless your heart, not a bit, except for the giver's 
 sake 1 
 
 We have amongst us here a misogynist who 
 always speaks of To Qrfkv yevos as " those self- 
 seekers " ; and if he had sufficient acquaintance 
 with Biblical language which he hasn't to know 
 the phrase " Daughters of the horse-leech," he 
 would hug it to his bosom ; he is in outer darkness, 
 and has yet to learn that if bright eyes become 
 brighter at the gift of a milky coconut or a diamond 
 tiara, it is only because such homage proves Ly- 
 sander or Bill still fond and true. And the real 
 pleasure that the incomparable She derives from 
 the tribute is the pleasure of knowing that her 
 man is pleased in believing himself to be giving 
 her pleasure. Our misogynist does not know this 
 yet : but I expect he will find it out, some 
 day. 
 
 Nothing pleases Jack so much as to send a 
 present home ; he never wants to keep anything 
 for himself, but delights in making up a parcel for 
 Flo or Beat. Those pretty little brass boxes, 
 graciously presented to us last Christmas by 
 Princess Mary, were originally intended to hold 
 tobacco : but I would wager that nine out of ten 
 of those sent to the Navy now contain hairpins ! 
 
 Love-tokens take varied and curious forms 
 when Jack has the run of the shops, especially in a 
 foreign port ; but, now that his opportunities are 
 so restricted, he is obliged to make the best of 
 what he can find near to hand. 
 
 92
 
 Lower-Deck Love 
 
 Cap-ribbons, too, are much in request as tokens 
 of affection ; and when you see a girl with the 
 same ship's name upon her sailor-hat month after 
 month until the gilt letters gradually become faded 
 and tarnished, it is a sure sign that her undimmed 
 love is glowing in the inverse ratio of brightness ; 
 but out upon the fickle jade who collects ships' 
 ribbons like trophy scalps, heartlessly and without 
 care for the original owners, to make a cushion 
 cover or deck a banjo ! 
 
 It is not by gifts alone that the bluejacket shows 
 the sterling qualities of his affection. As husband 
 or as sweetheart he takes a lot of beating and 
 takes it with wonderful patience, as a rule ! 
 
 Mr. Punch's twelve-year-old candidate for a 
 Naval Cadetship, who, on being asked his reason 
 for wishing to join the Navy, replied, " Because a 
 sailor has a wife in every port," was the victim of 
 a delusion founded upon a gross libel, and should 
 have been made to commence his naval studies with 
 the Sea-Songs of Dibdin, where he would have 
 read : 
 
 That girl who fain would choose a mate 
 
 Should ne'er in fondness fail her, 
 May thank her lucky stars if fate 
 
 Should splice her to a sailor : 
 
 and I am proud to testify that Dibdin's words are 
 as true to-day as in his own time. Having oppor- 
 tunities of knowing the sailor-man's most intimate 
 and undisguised feelings, the more I get to know 
 him the more am I struck with admiration at the 
 wonderful love he bears towards the girl of his 
 heart. In fact, there are instances, sometimes. 
 
 33
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 when circumstances point to his being a long sight 
 too good for her, and I should like to give the 
 hussy a real good shaking ! 
 
 Love on the Lower Deck is not seldom a matter 
 of Arrangement, just as it is so I am informed 
 in the highest circles of our Nobility. Tom 
 Trunnion (A.B., 30 Mess) writes to his sweetheart 
 that he has a chum, Ben Backstay, in the same 
 mess, who has no Young Lady at present, and 
 would like someone to Go With when on leaf, so 
 does she know of anybody ? And Will Clinker 
 (Leading Stoker, 17 Mess) talks of his young sister 
 Polly to an unattached friend on board, and refers 
 the matter to his mother, who agrees that if the 
 friend is a respectable young fellow it may be a 
 very good thing for Polly when she is a little older. 
 Sometimes the unblessed bachelor has no friend to 
 work for him, and is forced to take matters into his 
 own hands ; and hi such a case, hiding his shyness 
 behind the walls of the Post Office, he will write 
 to " Dear Miss " a damsel he has seen when on 
 his walks abroad and say that although he has 
 not the pleasure of her acquaintance he would very 
 much like to write to her and to get a letter and her 
 photo in return, and trusts that she will not con- 
 sider this a liberty. Signing himself " Your ever- 
 loving Sweetheart, Jack, x x x " More power to 
 him ! We parsons know that there is such a thing 
 as taking Heaven by storm ; while, as for his signa- 
 ture, it is well known that the girl who marries 
 i sailor always has a sweetheart for a husband ! 
 
 Gallant enough in his intentions, but not equally 
 so in his method of expressing them, was the man 
 94
 
 Lower-Deck Love 
 
 who came up before the captain to ask for forty- 
 eight hours' leave. " What do you want the leave 
 for ? " was naturally the first question. " Trouble 
 ashore, Sir," said the man. " I'm sorry to hear 
 that," exclaimed the sympathetic captain " what 
 sort of trouble ? " " Want to get married, Sir," 
 replied the Devout Lover. (Leave approved.) 
 
 Without doubt, those girls who " join the Navy " 
 have many hardships to bear, not the least among 
 which is that long and heart-breaking loneliness 
 when the husband is away on a foreign station, 
 and the scanty pay will not permit of going out to 
 him ; especially if there is a little one to keep. 
 
 Unhappier still the wife who is one amongst that 
 frantic crowd outside the Dockyard Gates, where 
 Captain's Lady weeps upon the neck of weeping 
 Poll, her sister in sorrow when the Casualty List is 
 posted up 1 
 
 But, hard as the lot of the sailor's wife must 
 always be, she has her compensation in knowing 
 that she is the Pole to which her True Love's 
 Compass-Needle always points ; and she smiles 
 amidst her tears at the new version of " I could not 
 love thee, Dear, so much," when she reads, " Of 
 course I wants to come back to you, but we've got 
 to put the Strafers in their place first." 
 
 95
 
 X X IV. The Patrol Trawler 
 
 WHO is the Happy Sailor ? Who is he 
 that every young N.O. would wish to 
 be ? Well, I can tell you quite 
 definitely who he isn't : the officer selected to go 
 away in the Patrol Trawler. 
 
 Upon the happy circle in the Wardroom bursts 
 one who wears a brass hat and an expression of 
 gloom : he bears in his hand a signal-chit, and scans 
 it, muttering softly. 
 
 " Tell us the news, Commander," cries one of 
 the watch-keepers ; " let us know the worst at 
 once ! Is it another regatta ? " 
 
 " Worse than that," replies the Second-in- 
 Command, who sometimes describes himself bitterly 
 as a " perishing maid-of -all-work " ; " we're told 
 off for the Patrol Trawler, and I've got to send 
 away one of you and a snottie ; just when Guns 
 comes moaning that I've taken away all his turret 
 officers and the skipper says there must be a lieu- 
 tenant in charge of the boys' sailing cutter ! 
 Nobody loves me ! " 
 
 With a fine disregard for anybody's troubles but 
 his own, the watch-keeper, who had eagerly asked 
 the news, now makes a swift calculation with the 
 help of his fingers and realises that he himself is 
 the one on whom the choice must fall. Summing 
 
 96
 
 The Patrol Trawler 
 
 up the situation in a few well-chosen words, he 
 concludes with : " And I shall be as sick as a dog, 
 I know ! I always am ! Well, I may as well 
 have something to be sick on." So he orders ham- 
 sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, beer in bottles, sar- 
 dines, apples, and chocolate, calling loudly the while 
 for his oilskin, his binoculars, and his largest pipe. 
 
 Picture him some few hours later. The night is 
 dark and very cold, and a heavy sea is running. 
 Every few minutes a chilly rain-squall comes 
 lashing down. The trawler is fairly dry by 
 which I mean that she takes in few seas ; for the 
 wetting of the rain counts for nothing. Like all 
 these North Sea craft, trawlers, drifters, and the 
 rest, she is built with bows nearly twice as high 
 out of the water as the after-part in order to ride 
 the big waves easily ; and by just keeping her 
 shoulder to the heaviest seas it is possible to keep 
 her dry and snug in a howling gale. Yet to-night 
 a green sea sweeps the decks from time to time : it 
 is because the weather is such that if the trawler 
 were engaged in peaceful fishing she would run for 
 shelter or else lie hove-to until the gale moderated ; 
 but now she is on Patrol duty, and must stick it out. 
 
 The lieutenant pulls up the collar of his oilskin 
 and takes shelter under the lee of the wheel-house. 
 He is not concerned about the navigation of the 
 vessel ; he has his own duties to perform and has 
 a very poor opinion as to their importance. " Here 
 am I," he reflects, spitting contemptuously into the 
 sea, " doing absolutely nothing at all ! Living in 
 the lap of luxury " (a green sea slops over the side 
 and surges up to his waist) '* while those beggars 
 
 97
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 in the trenches are getting all the work ! If we 
 don't get a fleet-action sooner or later our name 
 will be mud with the people ashore ! " 
 
 He fails to see that what he is doing is just as 
 useful as firing twelve-inch salvoes at the enemy's 
 ships and far more trying work. There is no 
 excitement about it, and no glory ; but it demands 
 nerve and endurance to the highest degree. Almost 
 anyone could screw himself up to the pitch of 
 exaltation in a fleet-action, I fancy ; but I do not 
 envy the enemy that gets up against a ship manned 
 with people who have done the Trawler Patrol ! 
 
 Up in the tiny glass-sheltered wheel-house the 
 skipper peers out into the darkness, and keeps a 
 light hand on the ever-shifting spokes. He is a 
 Tynesider, or else a Grimsby man, or maybe a 
 Scotty or a Shetlander, and all his crew hail from 
 the same place as himself ; probably half their 
 number are part-owners with him in the vessel, 
 and all are equally qualified to take on the duties of 
 skipper or mate or cook just as convenience may 
 direct. There are no shore-lights to guide him in 
 his navigation, but he has to keep to his appointed 
 beat, in spite of the fact that the tide is setting 
 strongly and the vessel must be making leeway 
 with ail this wind. How does he manage* it ? 
 Partly by an occasional sight of the loom of the 
 land, but mostly by that intuition, earned only by 
 many years of flogging the seas, which he would 
 describe as " smelling his way." 
 
 Towards morning the midshipman comes on deck 
 to stand his watch and relieve his senior. But the 
 lieutenant, who has been up all night, has an idea 
 
 98
 
 The Patrol Trawler 
 
 that there is just a chance of his being required, or, as 
 he puts it, " Shouldn't be surprised if there was 
 something doing when the dawn comes," and de- 
 cides under the circumstances not to turn in at all. 
 
 Down below in the tiny saloon there is an atmo- 
 sphere that makes the one hanging oil-lamp burn 
 with a struggling blue flame and a temperature 
 like midday in the tropics. Trawler-men like a 
 good froust, and, as they get plenty of fresh air and 
 cold when on deck, they like a change when they 
 go below ! There is a round stove in one corner, 
 nearly red-hot ; every scuttle is screwed up tightly, 
 and the cabin door is carefully closed, to exclude 
 all possible " draughts " ! 
 
 On either side of the long table are four bunks, 
 ranged in two tiers, and at any time of the day or 
 night some of the crew will be found sleeping here, 
 for they work watch-and-watch in the trawlers, and 
 the sleepers take every precaution against chills by 
 drawing the heavy bunk curtains when they turn in ! 
 
 It is in this cabin, in the spare bunks, that the 
 Patrol officers have to sleep. One of our lieu- 
 tenants, detailed for this duty, did not mind any 
 of the other hardships and discomforts, but rather 
 shirked sleeping in the cabin. He was a lover of 
 fresh air, the very personification of cleanliness, 
 with an extremely sensitive skin and a deep 
 abhorrence of dirt and all that dirt breeds. So 
 before turning in he approached the skipper of the 
 trawler, and with a certain amount of hesitation, 
 not wishing to hurt his feelings, inquired : '* I sup- 
 pose you haven't any any, well, live-stock on 
 board, have you ? " " Oh, no, sir," the skipper 
 
 99
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 reassured him ; " no, sir, not one ! Nothing of 
 that sort ! But she's infested with fleas I " 
 
 Another of our officers, philosophical enough 
 with regard to this particular form of discomfort, 
 was yet a little troubled about the preparation 
 of his food on board the trawler, being somewhat 
 fastidious in culinary matters. " I couldn't stick 
 plain hard-boiled eggs," he related on his return ; 
 " some people's souls never seem to rise above 
 hard-boiled eggs, but mine does ! So I made an 
 omelet. I'm rather a good hand at an omelet ! " 
 
 " How did it turn out ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Well, do you know," he said, " it was a very 
 good omelet ; there was just that light touch of the 
 expert about it, that je ne sais quoi in fact, well to 
 tell the truth " here he paused, and the expression 
 on his face gave me to thinkthat pride in his achieve- 
 ments was mingled with some unexplained regret. 
 
 " Well, what was wrong about it ? " I asked. 
 
 " It was the beastly, beastly frying-pan ! They 
 had been using it for herrings and there were very 
 strong reminiscences of onions about the darn thing 
 besides ! My omelet was wasted ! " 
 
 " Couldn't you eat it ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I ate the beastly thing ! But ^t was 
 wasted all the same afterwards ! " 
 
 Different people have different ideas as to what 
 is best to take away with them in a trawler. One 
 of our people came back the other day and told us 
 that he had been relieved by a sub-lieutenant 
 whose provision for nourishment and amusement 
 during his turn of duty consisted of a melon^ a 
 bottle of champagne, and a set of bagpipes ! 
 
 100
 
 XXV. " A Little Drop o Leaf" 
 
 IN the very explicit words of the " King's 
 Regulations and Admiralty Instructions," 
 which always aim at putting you in your 
 place, and none of your nonsense about it, " Leave 
 of absence to officers and men is to be granted or 
 withheld, as the circumstances of the Service may 
 render expedient," the same idea being expressed 
 by the familiar sentence, " Leave is a Privilege, not 
 a Right." 
 
 I am happy to be able to chronicle the fact that 
 the circumstances of the Service have rendered it 
 expedient to grant this privilege to certain of 
 our number. My own feeling about the matter 
 is that we should have had no cause to grumble 
 even if we had been kept on board our ships from 
 the start of the war to the finish, but we certainly 
 did appreciate being let loose ! I myself had 
 been home once only during the previous eighteen 
 months, and then for no more than three days, 
 and there were others of those who went with me 
 in like case ; so it can readily be imagined that we 
 looked forward to our leave with considerable 
 eagerness. 
 
 This time it was not to be a mere " Dickie 
 Flurrie " that is, a brief, wild, glorious spree of 
 a few hours on shore but an affair of days, in 
 
 301
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 which we might once more pick up the threads 
 of civilised life, hear the opinions of ordinary 
 normal people, see shops and trams and trains, 
 and the " movies," and, above all, everything 
 connoted by the picturesque naval term " Skirt." 
 
 The anticipation alone made a wonderful differ- 
 ence to us ; no longer did the Ante-room after 
 lunch present the usual Tableau only semi-Vivant of 
 Gassed Naval Officers sitting like their grandsires 
 cut in marble. We began to be quite animated, 
 and formed ourselves into a committee of ways and 
 means to discuss how the few days might most 
 profitably be spent. 
 
 Perhaps it was natural that the ideal programme 
 as outlined by the majority should include the 
 maximum possible number of theatres and music- 
 halls. The Play is much to my t^aste though I 
 prefer to pay my half-crown for something 
 thoroughly unintellectual : Back-Chat Comedians 
 delight my soul ; and it will be a sad day for me 
 if ever the Stage relinquishes the fine old English 
 tradition of letting fall and breaking a pile of 
 plates. But on this occasion all my craving was 
 for plain, unadulterated Leader and Yeend King : 
 to the great contempt of the Young Surgeon, who 
 witheringly remarked, " The country I Oh, well, 
 I don't object to the country you must have 
 something to put round London ! " 
 
 A bluejacket from our company landed with a 
 chum, and, as he told me, " As soon as we got into 
 the main street we saw a woman wheeling a pram ; 
 my chum seemed to go suddenly mad, for he 
 clutched my arm and dragged me forward, shouting, 
 
 102
 
 A Little Drop o' Leaf' 
 
 ' Come on, I say, Bill ; here's a woman and a real 
 live child ! ' The woman looked, naturally, rather 
 surprised, but my chum apologised and said, ' I beg 
 pardon, ma'am, but it's twelve months since I've 
 seen one 1 ' I think we all felt much the same, 
 even if we were not quite so demonstrative about it. 
 
 Comparing notes with others afterwards, I found 
 that we had all been alike in taking at least a 
 couple of days to get our land legs, thereby upset- 
 ting the calculations of our sisters and our cousins 
 and our aunts, who were for dragging us off to 
 various amusements with such terrifying energy 
 that we began to understand why Excursions and 
 Alarms are always bracketed together. 
 
 We were all of us curious to see to what extent 
 old habits and routines had become changed, and 
 to find out whether any one great prevailing Idea 
 had come to birth during the war ; we had been 
 long enough away from shore life, we thought, to 
 get the right perspective. But it was by no 
 means easy to obtain just the impression we 
 wanted ; the fact of there being plenty that was 
 new to see and to hear proved to be no more help 
 in forming an idea than a cartload of artists' 
 materials would be a help in painting a faithful 
 picture of an elusive sunset. The mind is a way- 
 ward child ; you may seek to divert it with a host 
 of magnificent and expensive toys, and it will turn 
 away and concentrate all its attention upon an 
 old broken clock or a handful of common shells. 
 
 It was so in my own case. I kept on saying to 
 myself, " Look here, surely you can make some- 
 thing out of all this." Here's the tramping of 
 
 H 103
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 armies, the marching of men ; schools turned into 
 hospitals, and the children working hard in a 
 hundred little war-ways ; wounded soldiers at- 
 tended by girls who only a year ago never thought 
 of doing a hand's turn of work ; high prices and 
 smiling faces yet not so very high, the prices, and 
 the smiles often those of courage rather than of 
 gaiety ; gossiping tea-parties transmuted into 
 sewing-guild meetings, and the Army of a Dream 
 really come true. Does all this convey nothing to 
 you ? 
 
 But my mind refused all these proffered aids, 
 and would not fix itself upon anything more 
 phenomenal than a bill-hoarding to be seen from 
 my window. On it were three posters : the first 
 inviting the public to come without paying and 
 see a religious picture of the war, painted by a 
 great artist ; the second calling for men to come 
 and work at making munitions in the new factories ; 
 and the third advertising the performance of the 
 world-renowned Somebodies at a music-hall. And 
 side by side these posters, so diverse, made their 
 mute appeal to the passers-by. 
 
 Which thing was to me an allegory. Religion, 
 Art, Work, and Play, we have always had them 
 with us, but never before standing side lay side 
 as now. They are old elements combined to make 
 an entirely new compound. England has found 
 out that to sweat at lathe or forge can be true 
 religion, and it is not wrong to laugh or even to 
 make others laugh, and the conscientious workman 
 is a true artist ; and the complete man something 
 so very different from the Complete Mcnsch of 
 
 104
 
 " A Little Drop o' Leaf '" 
 
 Teutonic philosophy must have a little of all 
 these elements ; and, in short, that all things work 
 together for good to them that love God and their 
 Country. It is a new type of national character 
 that will come out of "The Melting-Pot " a 
 phrase of recent coinage which has a happy augury 
 in its relation to the old Biblical promises of a 
 nation being purified in the refiner's fire. 
 
 But I did not spend all my leave in peripatetic 
 philosophising. I meant to have a real good time 
 and I had it. So did the others. And we came 
 back quite ready to spend another winter at the 
 same old game or another ten, if necessary I 
 
 H2 105
 
 XXVI. On the Sick List 
 
 A LITTLE while ago I was on the sick list, 
 and in bed, or perhaps I should say in 
 bunk, for a fortnight ; an inglorious 
 business and most unsatisfactory, since from an 
 artistic point of view a carefully placed shrapnel 
 wound might have been much more effective and 
 less painful. But the P.M.O. did not find it unsatis- 
 factory, by any means ! Trade has been so slack 
 with him that he just gloats when someone falls 
 into his clutches. This is such a thoroughly 
 healthy life that when the next Blue-book on the 
 Health of the Navy is issued it will be found that 
 our absence from the microbe-haunted land justifies 
 Horace Walpole's expression of thankfulness that 
 " England is safely at war again." But to the 
 P.M.O., chock-full of science and keenness, it is 
 nothing short of dreadful that there should be so 
 few brows wrung with pain and anguish xfor his 
 angelic ministrations. He therefore made up for 
 lost time by starting three different treatments on 
 me all at once. And, after he had had a rub at 
 me, the Young Surgeon blew along. This Medical 
 Luminary said " Hum ! " at me twice ; and then, 
 seeing that I was not impressed, proceeded to try 
 to vindicate his professional qualifications by 
 telling me that a worm has eight hearts. Fancy a 
 106
 
 On the Sick List 
 
 worm, of all people, having eight hearts ! That 
 burning problem, Can a man love two women ? so 
 dear to modern novelists, must I suppose be 
 extended in the vermicular world to Can a worm 
 love sixteen she-worms ? Quite possibly the Junior 
 Man of Blood deliberately intended to distract my 
 mind by turning it into such psychological ch annels; 
 at any rate, I am sure he would take the credit for 
 it if the idea occurred to him ; they are wily 
 fellows, these doctors ! 
 
 Sometimes, of course, a little wiliness is neces- 
 sary ; one of the rare cases of malingering in the 
 Navy was that of a man I once heard of who was 
 continually coming up to the Sick Bay and com- 
 plaining of pains which were undoubtedly imagi- 
 nary ; all that he really suffered from was a 
 constitutional dislike for work of any kind. How- 
 ever, it was impossible to prove this, and the man 
 still kept coming up. At last the Fleet Surgeon, 
 who was an irascible Irishman, grew tired of this, 
 and, having made the man strip to the waist, said 
 soothingly, " Me poor man, I see what 'tis ye're 
 wanting " and then added in a blood curdling 
 voice, " Shteward, bring me a big knoife ! ' The 
 patient gathered up his clothes and fled. 
 
 As a general rule, though, the men are of a very 
 different type ; they do not trouble the doctor 
 unless it is absolutely necessary, and when once 
 they get under his care they are exemplary patients. 
 I knew one man who suffered an injury to his knee 
 overnight, and said nothing about it till the 
 morning, when he was quite unable to walk. 
 " But didn't you feel any pain in it during the 
 
 107
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 night ? " asked the doctor, as he examined a knee 
 about the size of a football. " Well, sir, it did 
 seem a bit stiff like," was the extent of the patient's 
 willingness to own up. 
 
 All the encomiums I have read lately about our 
 Tommies as hospital patients, their cheerfulness, 
 and their pluck, I can echo about sailors when they 
 are " on the list " ; a long illness or a serious 
 operation they will endure smilingly ; and when 
 it is only a case of a minor ailment that lays them 
 by for a few days their one growl is that they 
 cannot get out of bed and go back to work again. 
 Often has a man n the sick bay said to me : "I 
 used to think I should like to get Guard and 
 Steerage " (i.e., an extra hour's lie-in) '* every 
 morning, but now anybody that likes can have 
 my place." 
 
 The patients, both in the naval hospitals and on 
 board ship, are looked after by the sick-berth staff, 
 a most superior class of men, for whom I have the 
 highest admiration. There are exceptions, of 
 course, but taking them " big and large " they are 
 marvellously tender and careful nurses, and possess 
 a professional knowledge of no mean order. Their 
 training is very thorough, and covers a x wide 
 ground, and their examinations are of a very high 
 standard. 
 
 I was once told a curious piece of information 
 with respect to the training of probationary Sick- 
 Berth Attendants at Haslar ; it was said that these 
 youngsters on their first introduction to the 
 operating theatre were lined up in a row against a 
 wall, With a rope stretched taut close in front of 
 
 108
 
 On tJie Sick List 
 
 them just below the waist level ; so that if anyone 
 of them should faint at the unaccustomed sights 
 he would fall forward, the rope preventing him 
 from coming to the ground, and being thus sus- 
 pended by the middle he would automatically 
 recover by the rush of blood to the head. It was 
 further said that on a good day a dozen of them 
 might be seen bobbing up and down in rapid time, 
 fainting and recovering and fainting again, looking 
 like so many kow-towing Mandarins, and nobody 
 taking the slightest notice of them. 
 
 I regret to say that this story is entirely untrue 
 in every particular. 
 
 How is it, I wonder, that when you are on the 
 sick list you read books that you would never 
 dream of reading when you are well ? I went 
 solidly through one of the silliest stories that were 
 ever written, by one of the best story-tellers that 
 ever lived Nathaniel Hawthorne's " Transforma- 
 tion " ; yet the basic idea a man being descended 
 from an ancestral Faun had great possibilities ; 
 the story failed chiefly through the faun-man being 
 respectable to the point of frightfulness ; for the 
 rest, it seems a good rambling guide-book to the 
 Rome of 1860. For all that, I read it to the 
 last page, and enjoyed it after a fashion. And 
 another officer, whose natural bent is all for 
 mechanics and inventions, " went sick " for a few 
 days and feasted his mind on Carlyle's '* French 
 Revolution " ! 
 
 Making use of this curious fact of the reading 
 taste being changed by sickness, I give the patients 
 in the sick bay a great deal of literature of a sort 
 
 109
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 they would not ordinarily care to read. The plan 
 worked very well, in most cases. 
 
 But not always. There was a time when a cele- 
 brated murder trial was in progress, and the 
 interest in it spread even to the bluejackets' sick- 
 bed. Many a time then did I visit our patients, 
 to be met by the request given in the weakest of 
 voices " Can you tell me any news, sir, about 
 Crippen ? " 
 
 110
 
 XXVII. Clothes Uniform and Othcnvise 
 
 THE war has done one thing for naval 
 officers it has taught them how to 
 wear their uniform on shore without 
 looking iuid feeling awkward and ashamed. For- 
 merly, uniform was never worn ashore except 
 when on duty, or occasionally in foreign ports ; and 
 the wearer never quite escaped the feeling of 
 being rigged out for private theatricals ; but now 
 that its use is compulsory at least, in the big 
 naval ports the strangeness of it has vanished. 
 In fact, I heard of two naval officers who went 
 to a theatre in London, and decided beforehand 
 that they would go in plain clothes as the more 
 comfortable and accustomed rig ; but when they 
 got there they found all parts of the house filled 
 with people in khaki, and felt so uncomfortable 
 that they were constrained to return to their hotel 
 and change into uniform ! 
 
 But it is not only the wearers who are unused to 
 naval uniform on shore. One of the two officers 
 who were at the theatre belonged to the medical 
 branch, and consequently displayed between the 
 gold stripes on his sleeve a backing of scarlet 
 (typifying, in the words of Shakespeare, that 
 " this is a bloody business "). " A naval officer, 
 I think, my dear," said a lady seated in the row 
 
 111
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 behind to her daughter. " Surely not," whispered 
 back the girl, who by pleasant experience had 
 lately become learned in the many minutiae of 
 military uniform ; "he must be a Staff officer 
 notice the red upon his sleeve ! " A third fair 
 speaker, unseen, and, like the others, believing 
 herself unheard, broke in at this point and corrected 
 both the others with, " Neither of your guesses 
 happens to be right he is a Belgian 1 " 
 
 This same absence of general acquaintance with 
 naval uniform on the part of the public brings with 
 it occasionally certain disadvantages. There was, 
 for example, a certain Fleet Paymaster who had to 
 make a long railway journey in that particular 
 variety officially described as " Frock-coats without 
 swords " ; he arrived at his destination in an 
 extremely angry condition, due to the fact that 
 at various stations en route he had been consis- 
 tently mistaken for every single grade of railway 
 official, from stationmaster to porter, and treated 
 accordingly ; it is rumoured that at one place a 
 dear old lady pressed two pennies into his hand 
 and requested that he would get her a bun and 
 keep the odd penny for himself ; but as I am very 
 particular about telling the truth I will not Vouch 
 for the accuracy of this part of the story. 
 
 But there are also disadvantages in not wearing 
 uniform, as one of my own branch discovered some 
 time ago. He was on a foreign station, where 
 chaplains frequently wear white suits of semi- 
 uniform cut, with pearl buttons instead of brass 
 ones. Going ashore one day in this rig, he was 
 met by the picket and promptly stopped by the 
 
 112
 
 Clothes Uniform and Otherwise 
 
 petty officer, who charged him with being an 
 officer's steward ashore without leave. " You are 
 making a great mistake," said the cleric ; "I am 
 the chaplain of the ' Nonesuch.' ' " I've heard 
 that yarn before," said the P.O. ; " you come 
 along o' me to the picket-house." And he had to ! 
 It was hours before he succeeded in establishing 
 his identity. 
 
 One of the most delightful of naval phrases is 
 connected with clothes it is the order for the 
 men, before any work that might soil their ordinary 
 garments, to " clean into a dirty rig" ; another 
 one, " a makc-and-mend," has become synonymous 
 with a " half-holiday," since the time originally 
 given for overhauling and replenishing the ward- 
 robe is almost universally spent in having a little 
 shut-eye, with the mess-tables and benches for 
 couches and ditty-boxes for pillows. 
 
 The order to wear uniform on all occasions has 
 been somewhat liberally interpreted. Surely some 
 of the old-time rigid sticklers for propriety in dress 
 would faint to see officers going ashore for golf 
 or a walk in a monkey-jacket and grey flannel 
 trousers ! All the " glad rags " of yester-year, the 
 " dog-robbers," " poodle-faking suitings," and 
 cherished ancient Bantry tweeds, are stowed away 
 in drawers or sent ashore for safe keeping now, and 
 changing into plain clothes to go ashore is a thing 
 of the past. 
 
 There was a captain once who was always most 
 particular about having fitting honours paid to his 
 dignity ; and, being ashore in plain clothes, he 
 was on oie occasion met by a young seaman of his 
 
 113
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 ship who omitted to salute him. The captain, very 
 irate, sent the man on board, with orders to put 
 himself in the report. The case was brought up 
 before the captain in due course, and the man was 
 asked what excuse he had. " I didn't recognise 
 you, sir, in your plain clothes," was the answer. 
 " Then you must learn to recognise your captain 
 in whatever costume he may choose to wear 1 
 You will come and look at me at intervals of two 
 hours, night and day, for the next three days ! " 
 And so the unfortunate man had to go and study 
 the appearance of the captain in every rig or lack 
 of rig, in uniform, plain clothes, in bed, in pyjamas, 
 and in the bath ! 
 
 It is an inexhaustible subject, but I will close it 
 now with one more apt expression : any article 
 which can be bought in the shops to serve a purpose 
 similar to that of the corresponding Government 
 article is termed a " plain-clothes " thing. You 
 can have, for instance, a " plain-clothes rifle " 
 and I suppose an ordinary shore-going parish priest 
 would be a " plain-clothes parson."
 
 XXVIII. Sea-Soldiers 
 
 MANY regiments carry on their colours a 
 long list of battle-honours ; the Royal 
 Marines have but one. 
 
 The reason is that if all the battle-honours to 
 which the Marines are entitled were to be set down 
 the job would be one for a publisher, who would 
 have to bring out a small edition of the " Gazetteer 
 of the World." 
 
 Always, when a difficult military nut has had 
 to be cracked, the word has been passed, " Send 
 for the Marines," and the Marines have come 
 along, smiling and efficient, have cracked the nut, 
 and have been rewarded with the nutshells. 
 There you have a brief summary of the history of 
 the corps. For fuller details read the history of 
 the principal British campaigns for the last three 
 or four hundred years. And see the splendid part 
 which the Marines have played and are still playing 
 in this present war, in which about sixty of their 
 officers have now been killed and more than that 
 number wounded, and the rank-and-file in propor- 
 tion for when it comes to following an officer's 
 lead, be it to the gates of dealh or beyond them, 
 a man of the Royal Marines has no intention of 
 being left far behind. What St. Vincent said of 
 the Marines in Nelson's days remains as true now 
 
 115
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 as then : " There was never any appeal made to 
 them for Honour, Courage, or Loyalty, that they 
 did not more than realise my expectations. If ever 
 the hour of real danger should come to England the 
 Marines will be found the country's sheet-anchor." 
 
 Afloat, the marine finds himself in a curious 
 position, to which he has adapted himself with the 
 same ready facility displayed by him in all other 
 circumstances. He becomes subject to the Ad- 
 miralty, and is no longer under War Office control ; 
 the men become seamen to all practical intents, 
 though they still wear their own distinctive 
 uniform, and their messes are termed the " bar- 
 racks." As for the marine officer, his position on 
 board has undergone great changes of recent years ; 
 there used to be an old joke against them and 
 against my own branch, too relating how one 
 sailor put to another the conundrum, " Which of 
 the orf'cers has the least work to do aboard this 
 ship ? " " I dunno ! Well, the chaplain, I 
 s'pose ? " " No ; 'tis the cap'n of marines. "- 
 " How d'ye make that out, Bill ? " " Well, you 
 see," said Bill, " the chaplain, he's got nothin' to 
 do all day long ; but the cap'n of marines, he's 
 got nothin' to do neither, but lie's got a subawltern 
 to help him ! " Nothing but modesty forbids my 
 denying the soft impeachment with regard to the 
 chaplain, but in the case of the marine officers the 
 point of the jest has certainly become blunted. 
 I well remember the great excitement caused 
 when they were first required to keep watch in 
 harbour ; the upper decks of the whole fleet were 
 alive with men swarming up to watch with great 
 
 116
 
 Sea-Soldiers 
 
 delight the strange spectacle of the " young sol- 
 dier " pacing the quarter-deck with a telescope 
 under his arm. It does not look at all funny now, 
 when he performs a score of assorted jobs which 
 in former days were done by the naval officer 
 alone. 
 
 In a big ship there may be as many as a hundred 
 and fifty marines, consisting almost equally of 
 " gunners," or " blue marines " the R.M.A., and 
 of " red marines " R.M.L.I., sometimes known 
 as " the Royal Light Fut," and both are frequently 
 classed together by the affectionate term of " Bashi- 
 Bazouks," though I do not know why ! 
 
 Every sailor will readily agree that the marines 
 are the smartest and best-disciplined men of all 
 on board ; it is their training when in barracks 
 on shore that makes them so, a training which has 
 the effect of fostering in the men a feeling towards 
 their barracks composed in equal parts of reveren- 
 tial loyalty to a sacred institution and profound 
 affection for a home. 
 
 Since the beginning of the war the Major has 
 naturally become Our Military Expert. We go 
 to him for the meaning of bridgeheads and saps 
 and fougasses, and other such fearful wildfowl ; he 
 explains to us how a salient may sometimes be a 
 tophole thing to have, and sometimes simply 
 rotten ; the minor details of tactics and the 
 deeper mysteries of strategy he has alike at his 
 fingers' ends ; he tells us just why the military 
 correspondents of all the papers are all wrong, 
 and he sticks the little flags in our war-maps with 
 a precision that makes us regard him with silent 
 
 117
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 awe, as knowing more than it is good for a mere 
 human being to know. 
 
 Like all other marine officers I have ever met, 
 he is an enthusiast on the subject of field-training. 
 Put him ashore for a day with a half-company of 
 marines, and he will dig trenches enough to spoil 
 the best landscape going, and point to his horrid 
 work with pride. No matter if the terrain (notice 
 his influence upon my vocabulary) be solid rock or 
 quivering bog-land, he will have it all entrenched 
 before the day is out, and in all probability he 
 will have marched his men fifteen miles in an hour 
 and a half into the bargain, practising scouting by 
 the way. For the last half-hour of his time on 
 shore he will most likely slate his men thoroughly 
 and comprehensively for being a useless, rabbit- 
 backed, idle, loose-kneed set of eviscerated nurse- 
 maids, who may thank their stars they were not 
 in the corps ten years ago, when a day's work 
 really was a day's work ; and he will then stand 
 them beer at the local pub. For, you must under- 
 stand, they are his children, every one of them. 
 Nobody else must say a word against them, but he 
 may say what he pleases ; thinking all the while 
 in his own heart what a thundering set of fine 
 fellows they are, and how he would like to lead 
 them against three times their number of Germans, 
 Austrians, Turks or, if it comes to that, 
 Hivites, Hittites, Perizzites or Jebusites, anybody 
 in the world, so long as they could put up a good 
 scrap. 
 
 I suppose this love for field -training springs 
 from the same source as the sailor's ambition to 
 
 118
 
 Sea-Soldiers 
 
 run a farm when he retires, that longing for the 
 shore which possesses all sea-going folk. 
 
 There comes to my mind a marine on shore 
 out in South Africa. He was up a tree doing 
 something scientific in the field-training line, of 
 coure. When I sighted him he was about thirty 
 feet above the ground, but the next moment he 
 was at the level of my boots, and a loud crash 
 signified that his descent was both rapid and 
 involuntary. " Hurt ? " I inquired, prepared to 
 render first aid. " Broke, sir, I believe," said he. 
 " What arm or leg ? " " Why, the branch, sir ; 
 I've spoiled the look of that tree ! " returned the 
 marine, amazed that I should imagine a mere 
 thirty-foot fall could even dent a marine ! 
 
 And this is another true story, which I cull from 
 the " Globe and Laurel," the Marines' magazine, 
 a story of the North Sea action against the German 
 battle cruisers : " Our small bugler 15 years 5 
 months old, and 4 ft. 11 inches high did powder- 
 monkey in regular Trafalgar Day sty e ; he told 
 himself off to fill up the tubs for the rammers at the 
 6-in. guns, and because he was not big enough to 
 carry a mess-kettle full of water he towed it along 
 the battery, fore and aft,. at the end of a piece of 
 string ! " 
 
 Yes, the man in " The Flag Lieutenant " was 
 quite right when he characterised the Royal 
 Marines as " the finest corps in the world " 1 
 
 119
 
 XXIX. Guests 
 
 ' TV /[ ONARCHS * have met " wou l d for m an 
 1 ^r I article that might be written by most 
 * naval officers, for there are few who 
 
 have not frequently " hobnobbed with Royalty " 
 to use their own light-hearted expression 
 though the Royalty has been in varying degrees, 
 down to coal-black, semi-nude West Coast chiefs, 
 and including dusky Sultans and dignified Emirs, 
 minor European Serene Transparencies, and great 
 Kings and Emperors. For almost every potentate 
 in the world has been a guest on board one of his 
 Majesty's ships at some time or other. 
 
 The very last occasion of all was of almost 
 historical import when the German Emperor 
 came as an honoured guest on board H.M.S. 
 King George V., just four weeks before the outbreak 
 of war, and there flew his flag as Admiral of the 
 Fleet in the British Navy an honour which he 
 no longer holds. 
 
 Another renowned occasion of a different character 
 is connected with a certain officer in command 
 of a small gunboat on the West Coast, who arrived 
 at Simonstown hoping to have a few weeks' rest 
 and cool weather after having sweltered for months 
 threading steamy tropical rivers or rolling rail- 
 under off the coast. But to his great disgust he 
 120
 
 Guests 
 
 was ordered to go back immediately, and prepare 
 some of the local kings for a visit which the Admiral 
 would very shortly pay to that part of the station. 
 He did prepare them ! He took back with him 
 in his gunboat three top-hats and a quantity of 
 gold paper. And a little later on, when the flagship 
 dropped anchor off the coast, the Royal guests 
 came on board, one by one. When the first was 
 piped aboard, the junior King of the three, great 
 was the astonishment of all to see a solemn black 
 nigger wearing an immaculate silk hat garnished 
 with Commander's stripes in gold, and above them, 
 also in gold, the word " Dirt " ! The Admiral and 
 the Captain laughed convulsively, though the 
 Commander did not seem very pleased. Then the 
 next King was ushered on board, and he too had 
 a similar hat ; but there were four stripes on it, 
 and the legend was " More Dirt " ; the Captain 
 pulled a rueful face this time, which tickled the 
 Admiral still more ! When, however, the third 
 King arrived, there was trouble, for his silk hat 
 had an Admiral's stripes, and " Still more Dirt " 
 was gleaming above them ! 
 
 One more story of a Royal guest, and this is of 
 our own most gracious King at the time when he 
 was Prince of Wales. It was an occasion when 
 he honoured the Royal Naval College at Green- 
 wich by coming there as a guest at dinner, and 
 afterwards went into the billiard-room for a 
 game. The marker was much perturbed at the 
 honour thus suddenly thrust upon him, and some- 
 what at a loss as to how to comport himself. 
 Seeking aid in his difficulties, he approached one 
 
 12 121
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 of the officers present, and asked in an undertone, 
 " Beg pardon, sir, but would you mind tellin' me 
 what I ought to call 'im ' Your Royal 'Ighness,' 
 or ' Spot White ' ? " 
 
 The war has taken from us our opportunities of 
 walking with Kings, not losing the common touch. 
 We have opened a new brand of guests now, for 
 the most part captains of colliers and store-ships, 
 fine hardy seamen who sit awkwardly on the edge 
 of our wardroom chairs and wish us " Best respex " 
 over the top of their glasses. Or else they are of 
 the opposite extreme, garrulous and reminiscent, 
 quite easy to entertain, and not exacting towards 
 their listeners. We had one such on board not 
 very long ago ; he talked for weeks and weeks, but 
 all I can remember of his conversation is that his 
 wife was the most beautiful woman in England. 
 
 But we are glad enough to see these splendid 
 fellows, who risk so much in their perilous seafaring, 
 and risk it gladly, in the thought that they are " doing 
 their bit " and a brave fine bit it is too ! We 
 like to hear their tales of what is happening in the 
 ports from which they hail, their wondrous infor- 
 mation from the highest authority, their mysterious 
 hints as to further knowledge which they must 
 not reveal. 
 
 Guests from other ships are, of course, somewhat 
 rare nowadays, but we do see them occasionally, 
 and very pleasant it is when they do come. Our 
 own language neglects to give the solemn warning 
 conveyed by so many other tongues in which the 
 same word does duty for " host " and " guest," 
 thus teaching that if you are a host to-night you 
 
 122
 
 Guests 
 
 will probably find yourself a guest next week and 
 it is such a bother to get out of your own ship ! 
 This is the only drawback to having a guest to 
 dine with you. 
 
 Much could I write of guests in distant parts of 
 the world English guests, I mean, people who 
 build the Empire that we go to protect as, for 
 example, how I met in East London my best and 
 oldest pal, after many years, and found a school- 
 fellow serving behind a counter in Bombay. 
 
 Or of foreign officer guests, of various nations, 
 some now allies and some enemies ; but all alike 
 in this respect, that they prefer their champagne 
 sweet. So that the invariable order is given to 
 the wine-steward when such guests are expected : 
 " Bring up a case of the Foreign-Officers' Cham- 
 pagne." 
 
 123
 
 XXX. Religion and the War and the Navy 
 
 I FILLED some pages of my note-book with 
 remarks on the above-named subject and 
 then I tore them up. 
 
 They contained a number of sayings which 
 seemed to myself distinctly smart and amusing, 
 and I was not ill-pleased with them on the whole. 
 
 But I tore them up, because, although I was 
 really only smiling, other people might have 
 thought I was grinning. Now, Religion is a very 
 lovely thing, and you may smile at it or some 
 people may but you must not grin at it. And, 
 alas, even a smile is forbidden to me, for that is a 
 privilege reserved to God's saints, who may jest 
 about their sweet beliefs because they love them 
 so ; but, at the same time, I certainly do not want 
 it to be thought that I could grin on such a subject. 
 
 So I am writing my notes all over again, and the 
 ship is asleep as I write as much asleep ^,s the 
 ship ever is ; nearly a thousand men are within a 
 stone's-throw, sleeping in their hammocks or 
 hidden away at their work, yet by the silence and 
 the solitude I might be alone in the world ; so am 
 I far from their hidden thoughts, though I hear 
 their voices daily. What the war means to them, 
 how can I or anyone tell ? Have they traced the 
 finger of God in this terrible upheaval of the nations, 
 
 124
 
 Religion and the War and the Navy 
 
 or has their faith suffered such a shock that they 
 have been led to deny God's existence ? Or have 
 they thought about the matter at all ? 
 
 Surely upon the majority there must have been 
 made some impression by which I mean some 
 religious impression ; for although we have no 
 personal experience of tragedies and heroic deeds, 
 of imminent death and marvellous escapes, yet 
 into all our lives has come something of the deep 
 solemnity of the war. Many have lost their 
 dearest friends, and without them life can never 
 be quite the same thing again. Not a few have 
 brothers now in the trenches, and others had 
 them. We, too, have not been without our risks, 
 and the casualties by sea have plainly taught that 
 in war one must be prepared to give all, willingly 
 and without hesitation. 
 
 But whether any impression made by such 
 reflections may be a deep one or simply momentary 
 and fleeting, that, again, lies hidden. And, it may 
 fairly be questioned, is a momentary impression 
 necessarily fleeting ? That was no more than a 
 momentary impression which broke off the marble 
 arms of Milo's Venus, yet the effect has not yet 
 vanished ; and men of science say that nothing 
 is ever forgotten ; only, some things are tucked 
 away in a little back cell of the brain, pigeon-holed 
 and docketed for future use if necessary, to be 
 brought out again when occasion calls for them, 
 at the hour of death, maybe. 
 
 Once more I think of all these hundreds of men 
 so near me, deep in that counterfeit of death which 
 becomes so much more realistic when you remember 
 
 125
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 that a sailor's hammock also forms his shroud when 
 his body is solemnly committed to the deep. 
 For every one of them the smoke of many censers 
 has risen this evening, from the incense of the 
 prayers of good women, whose breath of love has 
 fanned the glowing flame. Can it be that there 
 is no effect I do not say from the prayers them- 
 selves, for that is unquestionable, but from the 
 knowledge that such prayers are being made ? 
 
 Even without the steadying influence of the 
 war, as an added impulse, most sailors are religious 
 men in their own way. Many are openly and 
 avowedly so ; others more secretly, as is the 
 Englishman's way. And even those of the swear- 
 ing, drinking, loose-living sort am I convicted 
 of condoning sin if I call these but wild, unbroken 
 colts, with no real vice, but with certain tricks of 
 which they have to be cured before they are yoked 
 to the Chariot of the Lord ? 
 
 Faith and unfaith are both of a very simple 
 kind in the Navy, and philosophic doubt is a growth 
 which flourishes very badly aboard ship. That, I 
 think, is because there is always plenty of work to 
 be done, and the people who get troubled with 
 intricate religious doubts are mostly those who 
 have nothing to occupy their time. So the sailor 
 as a rule accepts the puzzling affairs of this world 
 with a childlike faith that all " works for some 
 good," even though " by us not understood." 
 
 One of our men had sent him a card of prayers 
 for special use during the war : he was not pleased, 
 and his comment was, " I don't want any card 
 to tell me how and what to pray I should think 
 
 120
 
 Religion and the War and the Navy 
 
 that any man who believes in prayer at all cannot 
 help praying at such a time as this ! " He could 
 make no allowances for the good intentions of the 
 sender, nor for the condition of any men who might 
 be taught to make their prayers more real : either 
 you didn't pray at all, or else you prayed pro- 
 perly, was his point of view, which I imagine is a 
 typical view amongst naval people. 
 
 But let it not be thought that I would limit the 
 term " naval people " simply to those who man 
 our ships and establishments. A friend of mine 
 in a shore billet was once going out to dine, and 
 reminded his housemaid that he would require his 
 white mess waistcoat laid out for him. " Sir," the 
 maid answered indignantly, " do you think I don't 
 know that, after being in the Navy all these years ? " 
 
 Yes, they are " in the Navy," heart and soul, 
 tens of thousands of wives and mothers, sisters, 
 sweethearts, and faithful servants ; and no attempt 
 at writing on naval religion during the war would 
 be complete without mentioning them. Dreadful 
 as the war is, it has at least given a new colour 
 to this side of naval religion, rousing to wonderful 
 fresh activities of practical religion those who are so 
 closely bound up with ourselves. Have not many 
 of them found out that the most Christ -like service 
 is that of "going about doing good," or doing 
 good even without going about, but in any case 
 doing good, and not only being good ? 
 
 The gifts which have been showered upon us, 
 and the sincere kind letters accompanying them, 
 are ample proof that thoughtfulness for others 
 has taken deep root ; and much self-denial has 
 
 127
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 not seldom sprung up with it, for there are many 
 who have given out of their poverty from the 
 burning desire to be of service, and in sending gifts 
 to the Navy have really cast upon the waters the 
 very bread so hardly earned by them. 
 
 128
 
 XXXI. Hobbies 
 
 THERE is an old saying which begins, " Set 
 a sailor on horseback," and then pro- 
 ceeds to describe tersely the manner 
 and the destination of his riding. The saying is 
 equally true when the steed is a hobby-horse. 
 Few there are of us who fail to keep, and keeping, 
 fail to ride furiously, our own particular hobby ; 
 and a very good thing, too, under the present 
 circumstances, when the individual whose only 
 favourite pastime is fighting German ships finds 
 himself at a singularly loose end. 
 
 War-hobbies are quite different from peace- 
 hobbies. They have to be. For example, motor- 
 cycling is a thing of the past ; it has been super- 
 seded by the hobby of taking motor-cycles to 
 pieces. Almost any make-and-mend afternoon 
 nowadays you may see one of our erstwhile scorchers 
 busied up in the superstructure with the disin- 
 tegrated anatomy of his beloved stink-wheel, the 
 deck all around him strewn with nuts, bolts, pins, 
 wheels, and many other of those unseen influences 
 which have made England what she is from the 
 pedestrian's point of view while the owner himself, 
 one mass of oil, proceeds to justify the national 
 indictment that we take our pleasures sadly by 
 spending most of his time in trying to collect 
 
 129
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 elusive ball-bearings, a pastime which makes the 
 Road to Berlin a mere infant's amusement by 
 comparison. 
 
 The great universal naval War-Hobby is, of 
 course, Sleep. What prodigious quantities of 
 sleep we do take, to be sure ! And at what odd 
 times ! When you see an officer folding his tent 
 like an Arab, and silently stealing away immediately 
 after lunch, with the remark that he is about to 
 have a little of the stuff that knits up the ravelled 
 sleave of care, you think that nothing at all 
 unusual ; but when you see one stretched out at full 
 length on a settee and fast asleep at ten o'clock in 
 the forenoon, or just before dinner, or just after 
 dinner, you begin to realise that tired nature's 
 sweet restorer has really become a war-time hobby. 
 I know one officer who invariably makes a practice 
 of getting into pyjamas and turning into his bunk 
 on Sunday afternoons. Much of this is due to the 
 fact that the distinction between Day and Night 
 has largely lost its meaning for us ; it is hard to 
 make people realise that the modern sailor's life 
 has very little of the Blow-ye-winds-Yeo-Ho, Salt 
 Spray and Dazzling Sun business about it, but 
 resembles more the life of a booking-clerk in a x Tube 
 railway station so far as a big ship is concerned. 
 Once grasp this, and you can realise the point of 
 view taken by one of our Decoding Officers, who 
 does not at all mind being called upon to decipher 
 messages in the early evening that is, up to 3 or 
 4 a.m. but objects strongly to being turned out 
 in the middle of the night, by which he means 
 somewhere about 7.30 a.m. 
 
 130
 
 Hobbies 
 
 A hobby much affected by the Young Gentlemen 
 of our gun-room is one which I think has been 
 invented by themselves. At any rate I have not 
 heard of its being indulged in by any other ship 
 of the Fleet though it may be, for all I know. 
 It is called Photograph Pool. Those who take 
 part in it put, each of them, a shilling in the kitty ; 
 then they write a polite letter to various pretty 
 actresses in the town of London, and, according 
 to the answers received, so the money in the pool 
 is distributed. I am given to understand that a 
 signed photograph counts five points and a letter 
 two ; but a letter containing an invitation to tea 
 on the next occasion the Young Gentleman is in 
 town counts three ; if, however, the lady's invita- 
 tion is to take tea with herself and her mother, that 
 counts only one ! 
 
 This is not one of my hobbies. 
 
 The mention of photographs reminds me of 
 another hobby which has suffered a sea-change 
 through the war. Formerly there was much more 
 certainty of finding a camera in the possession of 
 every naval officer than of finding any of that 
 varied selection of articles, such as a copy of the 
 King's Regulations, of which he alleges his owner- 
 ship once a year by signing " Yes " against a list 
 of them ; as to which it may be remarked that if a 
 woman's No sometimes means Yes, a naval officer's 
 Yes frequently means No ; but all this camera- 
 work has now gone the way of motor-cycling, and 
 has turned into a pursuit known as Enlarging. 
 All the old negatives of lang syne have been dug 
 out and pilloried before a lamp that by some 
 
 131
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 clever manipulation picks out the tit-bits and 
 serves them up in an enlarged and entirely new 
 form, much as our wardroom cook picks out the 
 presentable portions of last month's chicken and 
 artistically arranges a totally new landscape 
 labelled " Indian Pilau." Engaged in this pursuit, 
 officers disappear into their cabins for hours at a 
 time, and you are not allowed to go in and play 
 with them. Or, if you are, you find that the 
 electric lights have been painted over with a lurid 
 red, and every air-hole has been pasted up with 
 newspapers ; you are shown a cruel snapshot of 
 one of your messmates, or possibly of yourself, 
 being slowly magnified till each trifling defect 
 becomes a glaring misdemeanour and the spot of 
 light at the tip of your nose shines like a good deed 
 in a naughty world. And the worst of it is that 
 when you would fain stagger out, breathless and 
 half-fainting, you are not allowed to, for fear you 
 might spoil the plate or something ! 
 
 The study of foreign languages is another very 
 persistent hobby of these days. There are several 
 of our number who indulge in this. One in parti- 
 cular may frequently be seen in the wardroom, at 
 such a time as a dozen others are all talking or 
 playing some game, or having a friendly scrap ; 
 but he in his corner is quite blind and deaf to it 
 all, and is quietly reading a French novel carefully 
 selected for him, laying down the book every now 
 and again to look up the hard words in a dictionary. 
 
 Then there is the Gramophone, which ought to 
 be allowed to coin a new proverb, to the effect that 
 an officer is known by the records he plays. There 
 
 132
 
 Hobbies 
 
 is one of us who always looks after the interests of 
 Russia ; and he invariably celebrates a Russian 
 victory by switching on a particularly lugubrious 
 bit of " Parsifal " ! 
 
 Many other curious hobbies there be ; but 
 perhaps none of them all equals that of a certain 
 post-captain, who smokes Wild Woodbines all 
 day long 1 
 
 133
 
 XXXII. The Dug-Outs 
 
 WHEN I retire from the Navy I shall 
 walk straight inland carrying an oar 
 over my shoulder, and never stop 
 till I come to a place where someone asks me 
 ' What's that thing you're carrying ? ' How 
 often have I heard this classical remark quoted ! 
 And I have watched many old shipmates one by 
 one dropping out of the Active List and putting 
 this resolve into practice with the most conscien- 
 tious adherence to the spirit if not to the letter of 
 the quotation. They settled down on shore, 
 enthusiastic supporters of Back-to-the-Land prin- 
 ciples, and, to use a phrase minted recently amongst 
 much other similar war-coinage, they regularly 
 " dug themselves in." 
 
 But now they have become the Dug-Outs, a 
 term which, I suppose, will stick to them, though 
 it is a very unjust name, seeing that all the digging- 
 out has been done by themselves. They have 
 come back, answering the first sound of the Call of 
 the Drum, some of them, like the Silly Sailors who 
 found that they could not live without their sea, 
 only too pleased at returning to a life which they 
 had abandoned with the honest conviction of 
 disliking it intensely ; and others, not recanting 
 their commmatory creed, yet responding to the 
 
 134
 
 The Dug-Outs 
 
 imperative summons which, unanswered, would 
 make a hell of the heaven wherein they basked 
 at ease. 
 
 One such I knew well as fine an all-round 
 sportsman as ever I met, and a brilliant young 
 officer, having no taste for a sailor's life he was 
 always seasick at the beginning of every cruise 
 and, seeing before him the hopeless prospect of long 
 years without chance of promotion, he left the 
 Service as a two-stripe lieutenant. An Indian 
 fortune-teller who came off to the ship one day 
 told him, " Master not really liking fighting : 
 master only pretending he liking it " a soft 
 impeachment, which he laughingly admitted to 
 be quite true. A man without nerve ? Hardly 
 that. At King Edward's Coronation, being on the 
 roof of a tall building to watch the procession, 
 he shinned up a chimney-stack, and must needs 
 stand on the very top of a chimney-pot, where 
 there was but barely room for his feet and abso- 
 lutely no support of any kind, with a sheer drop 
 of an appalling distance to the flagstones below. 
 I asked him why he did it, and he said, " Oh, well, 
 my brother was doing the same thing on another 
 chimney-pot, so of course I had to 1 " On leaving 
 the Navy he took to himself a charming wife and 
 settled down tea-planting in Assam. But he is 
 back again now and in harness, and, I doubt not, 
 doing excellent work somewhere, a Dug-Out who 
 can no longer be classed as " a loss to the Service." 
 
 A Dug-Out of a different type was one whom 
 I met not long ago, a lieutenant-commander who 
 retired from the Service full five-and-twenty years 
 
 K 135
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 ago ! Yet he still kept young and fit, and was 
 keen to get back to a job where he knew he might 
 be useful. He was given a ship ; and when he 
 turned out in time to keep the morning watch 
 without being roused there was some surprise that 
 he should have kept the trick of this after a quarter 
 of a century on shore. " Not at all," he explained, 
 " I have never dropped the habit ; I have been 
 sailing a boat of my own all these years." Here at 
 least was one Dug-Out, then, who belied the pro- 
 verbial opinions of the retired sailor-man 1 
 
 Another old messmate of mine was a major of 
 Marines, of an activity in inverse ratio to his girth. 
 We camped out together in a certain sub-tropical 
 land, and I remember that his ideas of com- 
 missariat were that we should require " A little 
 eggs and beef and whisky." The last I heard of 
 him was that he was at Gallipoli, camping out 
 under similar skies but very dissimilar conditions. 
 Yet another old messmate, amongst the Dug- 
 Outs, one of the most efficient officers we had in the 
 ship, and the one who you could be certain would 
 always be picked for a difficult job that required a 
 steady and competent officer. Once, in the 
 Persian Gulf, our whaler got blown away x and lost 
 to sight in one of the violent sandstorms so pre- 
 valent there ; this was the officer picked without 
 hesitation to man the cutter and go in search of 
 her. It seems strange now that the Service should 
 have allowed such a number of highly trained and 
 most useful officers to retire, while at the same 
 time entering a crowd of raw lads ; but so it was. 
 And in course of time these same freshly entered 
 136
 
 The Dug-Outs 
 
 youngsters would have grown to the stage at 
 which they were really useful, and then would have 
 retired likewise, many of them. But war has 
 altered all that. 
 
 My own accounts of Dug-Outs could easily be 
 enlarged, and could, no doubt, be matched by the 
 experiences of everyone else in the Service. There 
 must be some very curious instances, and some 
 very noble ones. Amongst the latter I would give 
 a place to those retired officers of high rank who 
 have volunteered to come back and work in any 
 lower grade, and are actually serving, and serving 
 splendidly, in ranks from which they were deser- 
 vedly promoted twenty years ago. 
 
 K2 187
 
 XXXIII. Celebration 
 
 SUNDAY morning dawns. Not heralded by 
 any coming of the pleasant daylight, for 
 this my cabin never sees. While I am yet 
 sleeping my servant enters quietly and turns on 
 the electric light, then takes from a cupboard my 
 folding altar and sets it up, with frontal and fair 
 linen cloth. Before he has finished I am awake, 
 and do not need his quiet rousing me to tell me 
 that " Church is rigged." I dress myself and 
 make ready. Little by little that becomes a 
 chapel which has been till now a bedroom. The 
 door-curtain drawn well back lets in a plentiful 
 breeze to make the cabin sweet and clean. I lift 
 the altar bodily into its right position, and arrange 
 the candles on it, taking care that the match-box 
 is ready to hand and filled. The sweet reasonable- 
 ness of this proceeding would, I think, be allowed 
 even by those who object on principle to the use 
 of altar lights, for without them we should\>ften be 
 left darkling in the midst of the service ; the circuit 
 by which my cabin is supplied is often switched off 
 about this time in the morning, and for a minute 
 or so I have to read the prayers by candlelight. 
 
 Next, I take from their cumbrous oaken case 
 the Chalice and the Paten which are supplied by 
 the Admiralty, leaving in its compartment the 
 
 138
 
 Celebration 
 
 enormous flagon which forms part of the outfit, 
 and is of solid silver like the rest. Our thoroughly 
 conservative Navy still issues this massive Georgian 
 flagon, which I suppose is never used by a single 
 chaplain, so unsuitable it is. Indeed, the whole 
 set of " communion vessels " which, by a curious 
 and typically naval arrangement, are in the car- 
 penter's charge might with advantage be replaced 
 by a smaller-sized but more complete set costing 
 about half the money. 
 
 The oaken case, however, comes in useful, for I 
 place it on its side upon my writing-table, and 
 cover it with a white linen cloth. This forms a 
 Credence, and upon this I place glass cruets of 
 wine and water and a box of altar-breads. Ancl 
 now, in transition from bedroom to chapel, the 
 cabin becomes a vestry ; the narrow wardrobe 
 from which the folding altar was taken contains 
 also my surplice and stole in addition to a host 
 of unecclesiastical gear. I robe myself, and wait 
 to begin the Celebration. 
 
 The worshippers come in. Sometimes in num- 
 bers sufficient to fill all the available space in the 
 cabin, and sometimes only one or two. But if 
 there be one only, yet I consider myself dispensed 
 by the circumstances of ship life from the rubric 
 which requires more, and the Celebration proceeds 
 as usual. And when there are more the service 
 becomes indeed a Communion, in a sense that has 
 no parallel in anything else that takes place on 
 board, not even in the Parade Service, in which all 
 are supposed to join ; for here captain and officers 
 kneel down side by side with the ship's boys ; 
 
 189
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 midshipmen, petty officers, members of the Ad- 
 miral's staff, and second-class stokers shuffle along 
 on their knees and make room for one another 
 before ever they can begin to join in that higher 
 union and fellowship wherein the Sacrament lifts 
 them all up to the same level. 
 
 It is a strange setting for a Celebration. To the 
 right of the altar hangs a large print of Hacker's 
 beautiful " Annunciation," and " The Light of the 
 World " is over the writing-table ; there is also a 
 photograph of the chancel of the cathedral in 
 which I was ordained ; and these are all that can 
 be considered even faintly reminiscent of a church. 
 For the rest, the bulkheads are adorned with 
 cherished water-colours, with paintings of former 
 ships, and photographs of family and friends. 
 The top of the chest of drawers is filled with books, 
 which overflow into many other odd corners. A 
 big arm-chair forms a prie-dieu for two or three 
 of the clustered congregation ; and behind it hang 
 my dressing-gown, oilskin, and overcoats. The 
 wash-hand stand closes with a mahogany lid, and 
 this also makes an occasional prayer-desk. A 
 tobacco jar and a pile of official papers, the big 
 church Bible, and some boxes of lantern-slides, 
 a few ornaments, and odd litter of various sorts, 
 combine to fill all the remaining spaces with such 
 tidiness as can be managed. Outside the cabin 
 the tramping of feet and all the many voices of a 
 ship are incessant. 
 
 How different from the beauty and the stillness 
 of a large church at an early Celebration ! That 
 subtle loveliness, so utterly different from anythinr 
 
 140
 
 Celebration 
 
 else that either nature or art can offer, brings with 
 it a delight about which I can never make up my 
 mind whether it is purely sensuous or truly ethereal ; 
 the large spirit in which all the adornments are 
 planned, the uncarnal beauty of stonework and 
 woodwork, the very height of the building where 
 sight wanders and is lost, and that even tempera- 
 ture maintained both when the blazing sun beats 
 against the outside walls and when the biting 
 wind drives the snow across the perch, all work 
 together to produce something which seems as 
 nearly like the courts of heaven as anything on 
 this earth can be. And since in such an atmo- 
 sphere earthly cares drop off and earthly passions 
 seem shameful, and the pettiness of this world is 
 really seen to be petty, and a heavenly frame of 
 mind replaces all else, though it be only for a little 
 time I care not whether the influence that can 
 do all this is sensuous or not ; or if, as in my 
 heart of hearts I am inclined to suspect, a verdict on 
 the question of fact would be given to the cold Puri- 
 tan, yet I cannot side with that theological school 
 which treats religious feelings as of no account. 
 
 All these external aids are missing, however, 
 on board ship. Perhaps, though, more is gained 
 on the whole than is lost in our simple service. 
 The worshippers are of very diverse schools as 
 regards Churchmanship : some cross themselves 
 devoutly when they receive the sacred elements, 
 others are earnest " Evangelicals " ; but these 
 barriers are broken down, like many other barriers 
 also, when men meet at a morning Celebration in a 
 ship's cabin 
 
 141
 
 XXX IF. Mines and Mine-Sweepers 
 
 1HAVE noticed in some of the more depressing 
 comic papers many attempts to formulate 
 a joke by playing upon the double meaning 
 of the word " mine." Now, a mine is not a thing 
 to be joked with at least, it demands an exceed- 
 ingly delicate touch ; handled heavily, it is apt to 
 recoil upon the joker with considerable force. 
 That is why our mine-sweepers treat their parti- 
 cular work with becoming seriousness. Indeed, 
 the only way in which a mine can really be regarded 
 as a joke is when it is viewed as the ridiculus mus 
 brought forth by Germany's mountainous boast, 
 " The Trident must be in Our Fist." 
 
 Though, of course, this is by no means the only 
 bit of quiet humour for which we have to thank 
 Germany ; the other day, for instance, I surprised 
 an officer shaking with silent laughter in his chair, 
 and on my inquiring the cause of his hilarity he 
 replied it seemed to be a quotation " Will the 
 English Fleet never come out ? " 
 
 But to return to mines. There are some kinds 
 that have horns like a dilemma ; and any logician 
 will tell you that a dilemma is a very dangerous 
 thing for the inexperienced to handle. It is better 
 not to break the horns of the ungodly hi this case, 
 for when the horns are broken the mine explodes. 
 
 142
 
 Mines and Mine-Sweepers 
 
 Some are arranged to come up to the surface long 
 after they were hidden in the depths, and at unex- 
 pected times, like regrettable incidents from a 
 hectic past. Others are constructed with fiendish 
 ingenuity to wait after touching a ship until they 
 have felt out its most vulnerable spot before 
 exploding. Some are made to float about at 
 random, as a malevolent wit flings abroad his 
 spiteful jests, caring not whom he wounds. And 
 others, more dangerous still, drift when they were 
 meant to remain anchored : and these, when they 
 are cast up on the German coasts, our enemy is 
 ever ready to describe as English mines never 
 German, mark you. But it is a rascally people, 
 that cares nothing for the difference between meum 
 and tuum. 
 
 The task of sweeping for all these different brands 
 of tinned doom is almost as great as that of tht 
 old lady in the nursery rhyme whose job it was 
 to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky. The labour 
 of Sisyphus was child's play compared to it. For 
 this labour must go on incessantly, over a vast 
 area, and often with a doubt whether the desired 
 results have been fully or only partly accomplished. 
 Added to this, somewhat on the principle of 
 making a big hole for the cat and a little one for 
 the kitten, there are frequently found, near the 
 surface above the big mines laid deep to catch 
 large vessels, smaller ones designed with special 
 forethought to entrap the mine-sweepers engaged 
 in clearing the field. 
 
 What the country owes to the men employed 
 in mine-sweeping can hardly be estimated. They 
 
 143
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 are the men who keep destruction away from our 
 fighting ships, great and small, and preserve the 
 Navy in a condition to uphold its tremendous 
 responsibility ; they sweep the mines from our 
 path, and from the path of the thousand merchant- 
 men that come daily to supply the needs of those 
 who live at home. 
 
 Many are the craft that have been enlisted in 
 this service ; some designed long ago for this 
 very purpose, and others that first took the water 
 with very different ideas about their career, 
 dreaming of the crowds of happy holiday-makers 
 they would carry, or stolidly resolving to settle 
 down to a life of humble industry. Now, like 
 many a gilded youth and many a hard-working 
 apprentice, they have changed their ideas and 
 their way of life, to their own very great surprise, 
 and to their much-increased usefulness. 
 
 One of these vessels came alongside us some time 
 ago. She was told off to be our chummy-ship, to take 
 a few days' rest after her battering by the mighty 
 seas, and to have a brief respite from her perils. 
 
 Fine fellows they were who formed her crew ; 
 laughing, polite, rampageous daredevils with an 
 allotment made out to the wife at home and a 
 tendency to sit at a sewing-machine in their spare 
 time ; they might have walked straight out of one 
 of Dumas' romances supposing him to have ever 
 written about the sea and yet were as uncon- 
 scious of it as though they were living in Sandford 
 and Merton. 
 
 The big mother-ship found many things she 
 could do for her temporary foster-child : carpenters 
 
 144
 
 Mines and Mine-Sweepers 
 
 and electricians and armourers and others lavished 
 their attentions like so many suddenly converted 
 Scrooges, and our limited possibilities in the social 
 line were offered and accepted with much mutual 
 pleasure. 
 
 A Sunday coming within the period gave me 
 the opportunity of holding a lantern-service on 
 board in the evening. The offer of it was hailed 
 with much delight ; and, if you think that this is 
 rather an exaggerated expression, please remember 
 that if you had been walloping about the North 
 Sea for weeks and weeks you might be glad enough 
 to go to a lantern-service too, or a dog-fight, or 
 anything ! 
 
 So much was this the case that I had a little 
 difficulty in making clear without saying so the 
 fact that this was not a " show." Many willing 
 hands rigged the screen for me, and unshipped the 
 tables down in the confined mess-deck, which was 
 the men's home, and all were prepared for any 
 mood that might invite them. But Guido Reni's 
 Head of Christ, switched suddenly on the screen 
 and allowed to remain there for a few moments 
 without comment, accomplished its object, as I 
 was confident it would. Pipes and cigarettes 
 were dowsed, unasked ; and when a Sankey's 
 hymn followed on the screen the whole ship's 
 company in that little hot and crowded space 
 were soon singing the words with, I hope, as 
 much inward feeling as outward sound. Followed 
 the story of the Prodigal Son ; but there was one 
 phase of his downward career upon which I felt 
 it inappropriate to dwell, and the slide that repre- 
 
 145
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 sented it I passed over very rapidly. Perhaps you 
 have seen the set of slides to which I refer ? The 
 artist has thrown so much feeling into his picture 
 of the Prodigal indulging in riotous living and 
 wantonness, and has allowed his imagination such 
 free play, that the resulting impression, upon men 
 forced to live a life of more than monastic severity, 
 without even so much riotousness as would fit out 
 a Sunday-school treat, might well be the opposite 
 of that repellent effect intended to be produced. 
 
 The mine-sweeping captain really deserves a note 
 all to himself. He is often a young lieutenant, and 
 this is his first command ; so he is charmingly 
 proud of it. He walks his little quarter-deck, 
 which is half rilled with mine-sweeping gear, as 
 though it were the deck of the Queen Elizabeth. 
 And it is a fine thing to see him speaking as a 
 brother captain to some dignified and courtly 
 grey-beard in command of a mighty battleship. 
 All very right and proper, too ; and even a finer 
 sight to see the veteran preux chevalier accepting 
 the young blood on an equal footing, with the 
 great spirit that is his ; not feeling himself lowered 
 thereby, but raising the other to his own high 
 level. 
 
 Officers and men and ships, all are of a fine type. 
 None but the best could be chosen for such drud- 
 gery. From which I could point a moral, to cry 
 sursum corda to all others who toil with little 
 recognition in those dull tasks which are the most 
 important in the world. 
 
 146
 
 XXXV. Equity 
 
 IT is not enough that the Law, as administered 
 to nations and individuals, should be perfect 
 of its kind : a further requirement is that 
 it should be readily accepted, and its perfection 
 acknowledged. Otherwise there is trouble. 
 
 Look at Ireland. And look at Stoker Daniel 
 Whiddon. 
 
 Look at his case, I mean ; for his personal 
 appearance is not sufficiently attractive to invite 
 inspection even now, though it is much better than 
 when he stood amongst the defaulters a few days 
 ago, waiting his turn to be brought before the 
 Captain. For at that time one eye was totally 
 obscured by a puffy swelling of lurid and vivid 
 hues, while the other did duty for both by gleaming 
 a double share of rancour and resentment. 
 
 The rest of his face was veiled from the public 
 gaze by a thick layer of coal-dust, and a like 
 indication of his profession had toned to a neutral 
 tint the whole surface of his canvas working-rig. 
 On his right hand stood an able-bodied seaman 
 from the picket-boat, in his number one suit, spruce 
 and immaculate as though he had just stepped 
 out of a naval recruiting poster ; and on his left a 
 cook's mate in kitchen cap and apron. Others of 
 his companions in misfortune were a boy, very 
 
 147
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 frightened at appearing for the first time in the 
 defaulter's list ; a leading-stoker in blue working- 
 rig ; a sick-bay attendant, with the Geneva cross 
 upon the sleeve of his fore-and-aft jacket ; and 
 three or four others, making up a small company 
 that might have been pictured as types of the 
 British Navy, or the supers and scene-shifters in 
 a nautical play. 
 
 The case immediately before his own having 
 been settled to the satisfaction of everybody 
 including the culprit, who had reckoned on getting 
 seven days' cells, and was agreeably surprised at 
 being let off with three days No. 10 Stoker Daniel 
 Whiddon heard his name called by the Master-at- 
 Arms, and, stepping forward to face the Captain 
 across a green-covered card-table, he was ordered 
 to " off-cap." 
 
 Next came the formal Reading the Charge, which 
 in this instance was : 
 
 " Did on the IQth of the month bite the swimming- 
 collar of Leading-Stoker Peter Davy" 
 
 The Captain's face lighted with a momentary 
 flicker of mild surprise ; he was accustomed to all 
 sorts of unusual " crimes," but this one was rather 
 more than usually unusual. Biting swimming- 
 collars is certainly wrong, and if persisted in may 
 degenerate into a bad habit, but it is not a suffi- 
 ciently common offence to be provided for in the 
 Articles of War or the King's Regulations, though 
 these between them cover the ground from pitch- 
 and-toss to manslaughter ; nor is it easy to say 
 how to make the punishment fit the crime, though 
 there is a range from " Death, or such other punish- 
 
 148
 
 Equity 
 
 ment as is hereinafter mentioned," down to One 
 day's pay and grog stopped. For all this, there 
 was no doubt that the pastime of biting swimming- 
 collars had to be discouraged. 
 
 " Have you anything to say for yourself ? " 
 asked the Captain. 
 
 " Yas, zur," answered Stoker Daniel Whiddon, 
 turning his phrases in the accent of his native 
 Widdicombe under the stress of his emotion, " 'e 
 'it me. L'adin'-Stoker Peter Davy, 'e 'it me. 
 'E did'n 'ave naw right to 'it me. I cud'n 'it un 
 back, cos tid'n allowed, so I bit 'is swimmin'- 
 collar, w'ich was 'angin' round 'is neck like, jest fur 
 to shaw un as I wad'n gwaine fur to be putt upon 
 by the likes o' 'e ! " 
 
 " Is Leading-Stoker Davy in the report ? " 
 asked the Captain, suspecting that there would 
 probably be a counter-charge ; " if so, I'll investi- 
 gate the two cases together." 
 
 " Leading-Stoker Davy," called the Master-at- 
 Arms, and then added, " Defaulters, shun I Right 
 turn ! March to the other side of the deck," a 
 procedure which is followed when a leading hand 
 or petty officer is being tried, in order to save his 
 honour from the curious ears of underlings. 
 
 " Did on the 10th of the month strike Stoker Daniel 
 Whiddon," announced the Master-at-Arms. 
 
 " Any witnesses ? " " Yes, sir ; Stokers William 
 Brewer, John Stewer, Peter Gurney, Henry Hawk, 
 and Chief Stoker Thomas Cobbley." 
 
 Here was the promise of an intricate case. 
 Remember that for minor offences the Briton's 
 Birthright of trial by his peers has no existence in 
 
 149
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 the Navy. The Commander and the Captain sit 
 in judgment like the Kadi of an Arabian Nights' 
 story, and the verdicts which they give are usually 
 unquestioned. This is because they fashion their 
 rulings after the principles of equity, which over- 
 rides the Common Law, and arrive at their decisions 
 with the speed and accuracy of a Solomon. It is 
 quite certain that if Jarndyce and Jarndyce could 
 have been brought before a naval captain sitting 
 at " Defaulters " the case would have been polished 
 off in less than five minutes. If necessary, the 
 evidence is occasionally treated with the disregard 
 that evidence frequently merits, and a decision is 
 reached simply by common sense ; and I have 
 known cases where a man's punishment might be 
 described as perfectly unjust but thoroughly well 
 deserved ! 
 
 Leading-Stoker Davy, being questioned on the 
 charge of hitting Daniel, admitted the fact. He 
 said that Daniel had refused to stop talking when 
 admonished, and so he had " just given him a 
 little tap, like." Had Daniel been talking ? 
 Daniel acknowledged that he had. " I was only 
 spakin' to 'Any 'Awk, zur, and tellin' of un not to 
 swear an' blaspheme so dreadful ! W'y, I niver 
 did 'ear sich talk, an' 'im brought up strict an' a 
 member of the chapel down to Widdicombe, same 
 as me ! " 
 
 " What did he say ? " the Captain asked. 
 
 " Aw, I cud'n repayt it, zur ! 'Twas tew bad 1 " 
 
 " But, my man, I'm afraid you must ! I can 
 quite understand your dislike to repeating bad 
 language, but I wish to hear all that took place." 
 
 150
 
 Equity 
 
 " Naw, zur, I cud'n do it, I tell 'ee. I wud'n 
 sully my lips wi' sich words as they." 
 
 " But I insist upon your doing so. The case 
 must be investigated thoroughly. You, appa- 
 rently, were the only man to hear the language 
 which you took upon yourself to reprove, and it 
 is necessary that you should repeat it." 
 
 " I've told 'ee before, zur, an' I tell 'ee again, I 
 wud'n sully my lips wi' it ! " 
 
 " But I order you to do so. Once more, I give 
 you the chance. And I warn you, if you do not 
 tell me, you will be punished for contumaciousness. 
 Now then, what did Hawk say ? " 
 
 " I wud'n sully my lips wi' it ! " 
 
 " Oh, take him away," cried the Captain, 
 thoroughly annoyed at the man's stubbornness, 
 " and let him do seven days' number 10 ! " 
 
 " Hook ! " snorted Stoker Daniel Whiddon, " an' 
 this 'ere's naval justice ! Naval Justice ! I thank 
 'ee ! Blank an' dash 'ee, you adjectival ole to-ad !" 
 
 From which it may be agreed that although the 
 offence of biting swimming-collars is not provided 
 for by the regulations, yet Daniel was not alto- 
 gether unjustly punished. Also, that the law, 
 though perfect of its kind, is not always appreciated 
 by those whom it affects. 
 
 151
 
 XX X VI. " Naval Miscarriages " 
 
 FROM the limbo of the past there comes to 
 mind an incident at a meeting of the 
 college Debating Society. What the sub- 
 ject of debate was I have entirely forgotten ; but 
 the discussion drifted into a quite irrelevant 
 side-issue as not infrequently happens at college 
 debates dealing with horses and horsemanship. 
 One " honourable member " sarcastically ventured 
 to question whether his opponent had ever been 
 on a horse in his life ; whereupon the latter, a 
 military man of much over the average under- 
 graduate age, retorted that he had not only been 
 on a horse, but had also been off a considerable 
 number of horses, and in every conceivable way 
 that it was possible for a man to fall or to be 
 thrown from a horse. After this the first speaker 
 had no further remark to make. 
 
 History shows that the British Navy has in the 
 past experienced many a fall from its high horse ; 
 it has suffered defeats of every possible kind, in 
 fleet actions and in single-ship actions, with inferior 
 numbers and with superior numbers, glorious 
 defeats and defeats most egregiously inglorious. 
 It was not in spite of these falls, but because of 
 them, that the Navy finally learnt to ride trium- 
 phant. 
 
 152
 
 Naval Miscarriages 
 
 We can talk and write quite dispassionately 
 now of such " regrettable incidents " ; we can 
 even feel a certain pride in them, like Beau Brum- 
 mell's valet when he came from his master's 
 boudoir laden with a trayful of crumpled but 
 unsoiled cravats, and explained with a lively 
 satisfaction, " These are our failures ! " Even 
 when we cannot actually feel proud of our naval 
 failures, we at least do not mind openly admitting 
 them. 
 
 A navy which has no past history and has 
 played not the smallest part in the making of its 
 nation cannot bear the reproach of ineffectualness, 
 and writhes when it meets with undeniable defeats. 
 In this respect it resembles a parvenu who lives in 
 constant horror of committing those solecisms of 
 speech and manners which in a well-bred man are 
 not only permissible, but even acquire a certain 
 grace ; being sure of oneself, it is no great matter 
 to have to admit some few defects in actions con- 
 nected with deportment or some few defeats in 
 actions with the enemy at sea. 
 
 So little unusual were such defeats during the 
 Napoleonic wars that we actually coined a term 
 to describe them : we called them " Naval Mis- 
 carriages," and the occasions on which the term 
 had to be applied to our enterprises were far from 
 infrequent. 
 
 When at Mauritius I heard of a curious example 
 
 of the naval miscarriages of that period. Our ships 
 
 . were patrolling the Indian Ocean, and Mauritius, 
 
 at that time a French possession, was cut off 
 
 from supplies and reinforcements. But the brave 
 
 L2 153
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 islanders, nothing daunted, set to work to cut 
 down trees and build ships of war for themselves. 
 Having completed these vessels and fitted them 
 out with guns I suppose from the shore batteries 
 they put to sea, met the British squadron, and 
 defeated it ! This incident is too unimportant to 
 find mention in general histories, but it is so 
 interesting that I should like very much to possess 
 a fuller account of it. 
 
 Nations with a long and honourable record at 
 sea, such as the French and ourselves, know per- 
 fectly well that in naval warfare, just as in land 
 warfare, a cause is not necessarily ruined nor even 
 greatly endangered by misfortunes and follies, 
 and that the side which eventually wins is the 
 one which does not make quite so many mistakes 
 as the other. 
 
 This morning we were pitching heavily in a sea- 
 way ; a loud crash in the wardroom pantry adver- 
 tised the fact that a lesser naval miscarriage had 
 occurred in connection with our glass and crockery. 
 But, seeing that a kindly Admiralty makes an 
 allowance for breakages and freely replaces 15 per 
 cent, of our stock each year if required, we may be 
 pardoned for not regarding such a contretemps 
 in the light of the disaster it would seem if* a small 
 household. 
 
 And a still worse misfortune has befallen our ship 
 according to many-tongued Rumour ; we have 
 been sunk indeed, several times. A German 
 cartoon I have seen shows a woe-begone John Bull 
 writing off his losses, holding a long list of sunken 
 ships, in which this ship occupies a very prominent 
 
 154
 
 " Naval Miscarriages " 
 
 place. It was quite thrilling to sit before the ward- 
 room fire in a sunken ship and look at this dramatic 
 cartoon ! But, even supposing the picture had 
 registered the truth, would there have been much 
 for our friends the enemy to crow about ? If the 
 fortunes of the sea or the fortunes of war take toll 
 of our glass and crockery or of our steel sea- 
 fortresses, we can say to them, " We have plenty 
 left for our needs -but what does your bill for 
 damages amount to ? " 
 
 Naval miscarriages are very frequent in the 
 career of the average midshipman in his junior 
 time. When he is first put in charge of a whaler he 
 generally succeeds in carrying away the mast and 
 losing half the boat's gear ; later, when promoted 
 to a picket -boat, it is a marvel if he does not begin 
 by staving in its bows by ramming the ship's side, 
 thus making himself thoroughly unpopular with 
 everybody from the commander to the carpenter ; 
 and he is very liable to incur further dislike by 
 breaking up the gangway when going alongside the 
 flagship. There are all sorts of wrong things he 
 can do when on board his ship, and he generally 
 manages to do most of them. As midshipman-of- 
 the-watch, Signal midshipman, Tanky, or Com- 
 mander's doggie, he finds ample opportunities for 
 many and varied naval miscarriages ; but somehow 
 or other he lives through them all, gathering useful 
 experience from every mishap, till he develops into 
 a thoroughly capable officer. And when he 
 achieves the dignity of two stripes as a full-blown 
 lieutenant he w r ill recount with pride the many 
 unfortunate incidents of his youthful career how 
 
 155
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 for this lubberly trick he got a dozen of the best, 
 and thoroughly deserved them, or how his leave 
 was stopped for a month on account of his thinking 
 when he didn't oughter think, or vice versa ; and 
 he will end up sententiously by remarking that it 
 would be a lot better for the Navy if the midship- 
 men of the present day were treated as he was, etc. 
 And to this degree he is right : that the value 
 of a seaman, like the value of a Navy, is to be 
 reckoned in direct proportion to the number of 
 naval miscarriages in the years or the centuries that 
 are gone. 
 
 156
 
 XXXVII. Romance 
 
 WE were coaling ship, and it was a miser- 
 ably cold day; the wardroom fire 
 could not be lighted, because the sky- 
 lights were closed down and the fans switched 
 off ; there was a dreadful fug, and everything was 
 beastly. Those of us who on this occasion be- 
 longed to the more leisured classes took up a posi- 
 tion on the settee in front of the empty stove, and 
 pretended there was a cheerful fire blazing. 
 
 An outlet for pent-up wrath was provided by a 
 reference to certain things that have appeared in 
 print about the Navy. The practical-minded man 
 seized upon this opportunity. It is a pity that the 
 word " Pshaw ! " is no longer in fashion, because 
 I am certain he would have found it very useful to 
 start in with. As it was, he began like this : 
 
 " Sloppy, I call it ! Just pure sloppiness ! 
 Sentimental tosh ! It gives me the dry heaves 1 
 What do people want to write like that for, making 
 out that we're a set of Little 'Eroes living in a world 
 of romance ? Boo-ah ! " (This last word cannot be 
 written phonetically with any degree of precision.) 
 
 " But, surely, you will admit that there is a cer- 
 tain amount of romance attached to the show ? " 
 
 " Romance ? Grrrr 1 Well, there may be some 
 in the case of the submarine fellows, and those
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 people who have been kicky enough to get a 
 scrap ; but, as for the Grand Fleet, there's just 
 about as much romance about us as there is about 
 a chucker-out at a theatre ! He's big and strong, 
 and so are we, and that's all there is to it ! ' Watch- 
 ing and Waiting in the Northern Mists ! ' Boo-ah ! " 
 
 " Well, that's just what we are doing, isn't it ? 
 Possibly it doesn't seem very romantic or dramatic 
 to ourselves, but that is just because we are in it, 
 and have to take too close a view ; but consider 
 the Grand Fleet as seen from the perspective of 
 people at home, or from the historian's point of 
 view, say, fifty years hence ? " 
 
 " Bosh ! The soldiers, now - ! But here we 
 have all the comforts of a well-appointed club 
 don't talk to me about our romantic life ! " 
 
 Well, perhaps he was right. Who shall decide ? 
 It depends largely upon what is meant by Ro- 
 mance. Love and adventure and death, and so 
 many other things, come under the heading, and 
 some of these elements we undoubtedly lack. 
 
 But not all of them, I think. 
 
 That very same day one of us received orders, 
 at only a few hours' notice, to leave the ship and 
 take up another appointment. He had been ex- 
 pecting this for some little time, but it was only 
 when the orders came that he really found out how 
 sorry he was to go ; and we how sorry we were 
 to lose him. For, in a " happy ship " such as this, 
 the war has unquestionably had the effect of making 
 us, like Nelson's captains, " a band of brothers." 
 
 We decided at once to " dine " him that same 
 evening, of course. That is the utmost we can do to 
 
 158
 
 Romance 
 
 speed the parting guest make him a guest indeed 
 at his last dinner on board, and then go up on deck to 
 " see him over the side," with the band to play "Auld 
 Lang Syne " as the picket -boat bears him away. 
 
 During the afternoon our guest had been packing 
 his gear, a most prosaic occupation. We saw him 
 at intervals, and told him that he was very lucky 
 to be getting a change, and we wished we had his 
 chances. Precious little room for any sentimental 
 feeling about getting away from this mould y exist- 
 ence ! But I noticed that each time he talked of 
 going away his eyes filled with tears. 
 
 As Guest of the Evening he comported himself with 
 that delightful ease of manner which is so peculiarly 
 his own. And the dinner went merrily on, though not 
 without those frequent interruptions which always 
 occur a midshipman coming in to ask the Com- 
 mander for certain instructions, or a signalman bring- 
 ing a message which may have to be attended to at 
 once. For instance, on this very occasion a man 
 came bearing an order to the torpedo-lieutenant that 
 searchlights were to be burnt forthwith, and this for 
 a little while broke up the party to a small extent. 
 
 After " The King " the president passed the wine 
 for the second time, and when all glasses were filled 
 he rose to make a little speech, short and not 
 flowery, but very much to the point. And when, 
 after a short pause, our guest rose to return thanks, 
 we felt that he meant every word of his expressed 
 regrets at the coming parting. 
 
 These serious speeches being disposed of, we 
 considered that some " comic relief " w r as needed, 
 and so called upon our chief wit for a few words. 
 
 159
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 But, instead of being funny, he surprised us all 
 by making a splendid little speech, which I cannot 
 put it otherwise touched all hearts, and won him 
 a round of genuine applause. 
 
 The boat which was to take our guest away had 
 to leave very soon after this, and we all escorted 
 our guest to the upper deck to see him leave. It 
 was bitterly cold, and a keen wind was blowing ; 
 the picket-boat surged heavily against the foot of the 
 gangway, and the seamen in their oilskins were kept 
 hard at work to fend her off with their boat-hooks. 
 
 The searchlights were still burning, and made a 
 pretty and romantic sight. Where the beams fell 
 upon the surface of the sea from the ships all 
 around the water took on a hue of vivid green, as 
 the greyest water will when under a searchlight's 
 ray ; and against the green the tops of the breaking 
 waves showed dazzlingly white. The display 
 brightened up the parting, and seemed almost as 
 though made specially to honour the occasion. 
 
 A last grip of the hand all round, a cheery word of 
 farewell, and our messmate through all these long 
 months of war hurried down the gangway and was 
 gone. 
 
 Then we learnt the real reason of the search- 
 lights ; they were lighted up for another farewell 
 a longer one. A man had fallen overboard from 
 one of the other ships, and an effort was being made 
 to discover him. But in that rough sea, and 
 weighted with heavy oilskins and sea-boots, the 
 man never had a chance. The search was hopeless 
 from the first. The searchlights burnt for half an 
 hour longer, and then all was darkness. 
 
 160
 
 XXXVIII. Promotions and Resolutions 
 
 JUST at the close of the year comes a day when 
 a certain number of lucky naval officers 
 awake to find themselves entitled to wear 
 another ring upon their sleeves. Which is very 
 likely the origin of the expression, " Ring out the 
 Old, ring in the New." 
 
 The list of promotions is awaited with the keenest 
 interest, especially by such as consider themselves 
 within the zone, so to speak. It is generally 
 promulgated late at night, by wireless, and begins 
 with the words, " The following promotions are 
 announced by the Admiralty " and then you 
 have to hold your breath and scan rapidly down a 
 list of names to see whether yours is amongst 
 them or not ! 
 
 Only one branch, the executive branch, is affected 
 by this half-yearly promotion-list, In all other 
 branches Accountant, Engineering, and Medical 
 promotion to a higher rank comes automatically 
 with a certain stated seniority, and therefore is not 
 nearly so exciting a matter ; moreover, in these 
 branches promotion does not mean an increase of 
 pay sometimes it means actually a decrease, as 
 in the case of an Engineer-Commander with whom 
 I was once shipmate, who lost sixpence a day by 
 being promoted to Engineer-Captain. 
 
 161
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 As for my own branch, the only promotion that 
 (possibly) lies in store for us is of the nature fore- 
 shadowed some little time ago in the daily list of 
 Admiralty Appointments, which announced 
 " Chaplain the Rev. - , to Glory." 
 
 Promotion to the ranks of Commander and 
 Captain is made not by seniority but by selection ; 
 at the same time, seniority does enter somewhat 
 into the decision, since the selection is made as a 
 general rule from amongst those officers who have 
 served a certain number of years in the preceding 
 rank ; a lieutenant-commander enters the promo- 
 tion-belt at about his third year, and if he is un- 
 fortunate leaves it at, roughly, his sixth ; the zone 
 for " commanders to captains " stretches similarly 
 from the fifth year to the eighth. War promotions, 
 and those made for specially meritorious service, 
 are, of course, exceptions. 
 
 In either case the selection is made entirely 
 according to merit. No favouritism enters into it 
 in spite of the dictum of one of our greatest 
 Admirals, that " Favouritism is the backbone of 
 efficiency " ! 
 
 But how do aspirants for higher rank " acquire 
 merit " ? There are various ways ; and perhaps 
 they can best be differentiated by quoting the 
 saying of another distinguished naval officer : 
 " Some run in ordinary shoes, some in tennis-shoes, 
 and some in spiked shoes " ! 
 
 It is handed down by tradition that in the good 
 old days many a promotion was earned by the 
 lavish expenditure of paint and gold-leaf; but 
 those were the days of spit-and-polish, when for 
 
 162
 
 Promotions and Resolutions 
 
 Admiral's Inspections not the least thing aimed at 
 was to make the ship " look tiddly." Many an 
 interesting tale could be unfolded with respect to 
 moneys advanced to impecunious first-lieutenants 
 for this purpose, if the bumboatmen of Malta and 
 the China Station would reveal the secrets of their 
 account-books ! 
 
 All that is past now ; greatly to the relief, I 
 should imagine, of the many who enter what is 
 proverbially " the poor-man's profession " for a 
 livelihood as well as for a career. Gold-leaf has 
 gone the way of masts -and -yards ; and as for 
 paint, the official allowance of the business-like but 
 unbeautiful " Admiralty grey " is sufficient for 
 even the most confirmed ship's-husband. 
 
 Promotion comes now to the man who does his 
 job well, and the plodding and practical " Salt- 
 horse " man has as good a chance as the spe- 
 cialist. 
 
 Everybody in the Navy looks forward to the 
 publication of the list ; if a man is not directly and 
 personally interested in it he is sure to have friends 
 whom he hopes to see promoted. Certain hot 
 favourites are studied with as much nice judgment 
 as goes to the weighing of the chances of Derby 
 entries, and a Promotion Sweep is a most popular 
 form of amusement at this time of year. 
 
 Every man within the promotion zone is an 
 Ishmael to the others. And even when the victor 
 has won the semi-crown of oak-leaves which adorn 
 a commander's cap-peak the struggle is not alto- 
 gether finished. As I will now proceed to illustrate 
 by an improving story. 
 
 163
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 A young commander of exactly six months' 
 seniority was looking at the new list of officers pro- 
 moted to commander's rank. " A splendid list of 
 promotions," he observed to his wife, " simply 
 splendid ! " " What, are they all friends of yours, 
 dear ? " she asked sympathetically. " Friends of 
 mine ? Friends, did you say ? " exclaimed the 
 horror-struck husband. " No, Heaven be praised, 
 I don't know one of 'em ! The last thing I want to 
 see is any of my friends promoted ! " They were 
 all old " passed -overs," who would not be likely to 
 interfere with him later on. 
 
 Few things, I take it, are more chilling than to 
 look for your name amongst a list of successful 
 candidates and not find it. There will be some 
 unlucky men, you may be sure, who will have this 
 chilly feeling for some few days after the promo- 
 tion-list comes out, and after all their hoping and 
 striving will pessimistically agree that 
 
 " There's a divinity that shapes our ends rough ! 
 Hew them how we will ! " 
 
 But they will soon cheer up again, and look forward 
 to being promoted next June as I hope indeed 
 they will be ! And, be sure, their New Year's 
 Resolution will take the form of a determination 
 to get that " brass-hat " in another six months, if 
 human endeavour can accomplish it. 
 
 I think that we all of us cling, half-ashamed, to 
 the old-fashioned practice of making New Year 
 Resolutions, though it is supposed to have gone out 
 of use laughed out of existence ! 
 
 164
 
 Promotions and Resolutions 
 
 I cannot say that I see any subtle humour about 
 the fact that such resolutions are commonly soon 
 broken. 
 
 Even if they last for one whole day, that is better 
 than nothing. 
 
 Practice before precept ? Certainly here goes ! 
 " Resolved, That next year I will read more of the 
 Writer than I have done this year." During the 
 past twelve months I have only read David Copper- 
 field, Little Dorrit, and part of Martin Chuzzlewit 
 take shame to myself ! 
 
 There is another New Year's Resolution, not of 
 my own invention, which seems so admirable that I 
 may as well put it in the form of an exhortation for 
 general use. It is this : 
 
 If you come down to breakfast and find yourself 
 cross, do nothing : 
 
 But if you come down to breakfast and find every- 
 body else cross 
 
 Then take some medicine. 
 
 165
 
 XXXIX. Warrant Officers 
 
 WARRANT Officers are the backbone of 
 the Navy, as any naval man will tell 
 you. 
 
 Their exact position is a little difficult to define ; 
 in moments of bitterness they will complain that 
 they are " neither officer nor man," while in strict 
 theory they rank inferior to a sub-lieutenant but 
 superior to a midshipman who is inferior to a 
 dog but superior to a weevil ; so there you have it. 
 They get plenty of hard work and responsibility, 
 and very little honour and glory ; but they wear 
 the cocked hat and sword, and are the only officers 
 you should be very careful about this who must 
 always be addressed as " Mister " ; I do not know 
 what would happen if anyone, even the First Lord 
 of the Admiralty, were to omit the " Mister " when 
 speaking to a Warrant Officer ! We of the ward- 
 room may sometimes speak of them in their 
 absence with freedom and familiarity as " old 
 Smith " or " that fellow Brown " much as 
 schoolboys talk airily of their form-masters ; but 
 we should not dare to withhold the rightful dues 
 of the " handle " to the name when speaking face 
 to face with them, whether on service or on those 
 social occasions when they are our guests in the 
 wardroom. 
 166
 
 Warrant Officers 
 
 They are always allotted cabins on board, and 
 well, I have been trying hard to reckon up what 
 other special privileges are theirs, but all I can think 
 of is that they are the only officers who are allowed 
 to take up the daily ration of rum. 
 
 Warrant Officers all come originally from the 
 " Lower Deck," but in our democratic service they 
 figure in the list of officers without distinction of 
 persons. And how very democratic the Navy List 
 is may be seen by opening it at the letter R, where 
 you will find set down : 
 
 *' Russias, His Imperial Majesty 
 Nicholas II., Emperor of all 
 the, K.G. Hon. A. F." 
 
 (i.e., Admiral of the Fleet) ; and immediately 
 following : 
 
 " Ruston, Arthur. Gr." 
 
 which is short for gunner. So that this latter 
 gentleman may rightly claim to be " with but after " 
 our august Ally. 
 
 Many a young midshipman joining his first ship 
 has cause to be grateful to some Warrant Officer 
 who becomes a regular " Sea-Daddy " to him, 
 getting him out of scrapes, teaching him much of 
 his work, and regaling him with wisdom in the form 
 of yarns drawn from his vast experience. The locus 
 classicus is, of course, to be found in " Mr. Midship- 
 man Easy," where the hero's debt to his Warrant 
 Officer friend is probably an affectionate remem- 
 brance of the author's own early days at sea. 
 
 M 167
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 Marryat, in fact, delighted in bringing Warrant 
 Officers into his stories which, alas ! are so little 
 read by this generation of sailors and drew them 
 very skilfully and accurately, if one may judge by 
 their antitypes ; for his " Mr. Dispart, the Gun- 
 ner," " Mr. Chucks, the Boatswain," and the rest, 
 can be matched in every squadron of our present 
 Fleet almost in every ship. 
 
 Practically all the non-consumable stores on 
 board a man-of-war are under the care of Warrant 
 Officers, who are the regular store-keeping officials 
 afloat. How vast a responsibility this is may be 
 gathered from remarking the wide range of such 
 stores, from the ship's anchors, which are under the 
 Boatswain's charge, down to magic-lantern slides, 
 which are under that of the Carpenter. 
 
 All such stores have to be mustered at stated 
 periods of a month or so a fact which has given 
 rise to a proverbial naval expression ; for, although 
 very willing to lend any of his cherished " stores," 
 a Warrant Officer usually accompanies the loan with 
 an injunction to " remember the day of the month," 
 with an eye to the date of the next muster ; so that 
 when you lend anything and do not wish your 
 action to be construed as a deed of gift, it becomes 
 convenient to quote the saying, " Remember the 
 day of the month," thus conveying your meaning 
 by a delicate hint. 
 
 There is another saying, proverbially ascribed to 
 the Gunner and used by him instead of a watch 
 for the purpose of timing a ten-second salute ; 
 mutatis mutandis, it runs as follows : " Twenty 
 years a Gunner, and then to be called the son of a dog I 
 
 168
 
 Warrant Officers 
 
 Well Vm blessed ! Number one gun, fire ! " A 
 shorter sentence, used for a five-second salute, is : 
 " // / wasn't a Gunner I shouldn't be here ! Number 
 one gun, fire! " 
 
 The attitude of the Warrant Officer towards his 
 subordinates is usually of a nature that may best be 
 described as " unbending " ; and a good " War- 
 rant " will get more work out of the men than a 
 whole covey of commanders. Their rigid authority 
 seems to be a tradition passed on from one genera- 
 tion to another ; for our own Boatswain, himself a 
 stern disciplinarian, tells me that when he was a 
 boy he ventured on one occasion to " argue the 
 point " with the Gunner who was giving him 
 instruction. " Boy," said the Gunner, " please to 
 remember this that when I am right, I am right ; 
 and when I am wrong, I am right ! " There was 
 no more to be said. 
 
 The Boatswain has been known from very ancient 
 days as " Tommy Pipes " a name derived, of 
 course, from the silver whistle or " pipe " which he 
 wears slung round his neck for the purpose of 
 sounding various orders. He is, so far as I can 
 remember, the only Warrant Officer to whom 
 Shakespeare has allotted a " speaking part." 
 
 The Gunner's nickname of " Bluelight " is not 
 so obvious ; but " Chippie " for the Carpenter, 
 and " Shovel-Engineer " for the Artificer-Engineer 
 are more self-explanatory. 
 
 These four ranks held undisputed sway for many 
 years ; but latterly their numbers have been 
 added to largely. Warrant Electricians, Ar- 
 mourers, Stewards, Telegraphists, Writers, and 
 
 M2 169
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 Cooks now occupy a place in the Navy List ; and 
 it is pleasing to see such recognition given to men 
 who have thoroughly earned the right to wear the 
 uniform of a King's Officer. For in the Warrant 
 Officer, you must understand, you see the Survivor 
 of the Fittest ; they are good men and true, one 
 and all, and deserve all that they get, and a good 
 deal more besides. 
 
 Give all the praise you like to famous men, 
 Admirals, Captains, and Commodores and their 
 kind ; but remember, when all's said and done, that 
 it is the Warrant Officer who has made the Navy 
 what it is 1 
 
 170
 
 XL. Paper-Work 
 
 IT has to be done, so let us get it over quickly. 
 There is a confession to make. Now 
 stand by We are no better than the Germans 
 in the matter oj ante-bellum miscalculations ! Granted 
 that they excel us in the mere number of their 
 
 unintelligent adumbrations 
 
 One moment, please. This splendid word 
 *' adumbrations " is a gift from the literary gentle- 
 man who composes the Ifcoldhu messages : it came 
 in last night's Press News, and I discovered the 
 P.O.Tel, strafing the wireless operator who took in 
 the message for having muddled up the whole thing 
 by mixing several words together. Adumbrations ! 
 Clearly, the operator must have missed some 
 syllables, and nobody could tell now whether it 
 meant the Argonne, Dr. Dumba, Brazil, or Ratis- 
 bon ! I explained that " adumbration " was a 
 Sunday word for " forecast," and so succeeded in 
 restoring peace. 
 
 But, to go back to the high road again : in the 
 mere matter of number, the Germans excelled us 
 with regard to unintelligent adumbrations : Ire- 
 land was going to be plunged in civil war (I tried 
 once to explain to a German officer that the so- 
 called Sedition of Ireland is on exactly the same 
 footing as the Golf of Scotland, a national pastime 
 
 171
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 to be laid aside when more serious business arises ; 
 but he couldn't see it, poor fellow !) India was 
 going to revolt, the Dominions were going to break 
 away, and so on. 
 
 What are all these lesser miscalculations, how- 
 ever, to the one hideous example which may be laid 
 to our charge ! 
 
 I speak for the Navy alone, be it understood. 
 We said that if ever there should be a war all paper- 
 work would be a wash-out ! 
 
 And, what is more, we believed it ! 
 
 All Reports, Returns, Requisitions, Reference- 
 sheets, were to be done away ; Memos. and Letters 
 were to be heard of no more ; Digests, Notifications, 
 and Schedules were to be reduced to a negligible 
 quantity ; and, in brief, all Papers were to be swept 
 into the rubbish-bin by the cleansing besom of 
 war. 
 
 So we said in our haste. 
 
 But the sad truth is that in the matter of paper- 
 work the little finger of War has proved consider- 
 ably thicker than the loins of Peace. The naval 
 officer's pen may not be mightier than his sword, 
 but it is much more often in his hand. We all spend 
 quite a good portion of each day writing something 
 or other in the official line, and if we are not all of 
 us turned into literary experts by the end of the 
 war it will not be the fault of our betters. 
 
 Speaking for myself alone, I am not troubled 
 with very much paper-work in ordinary peace- 
 times, and have very little more to do in this direc- 
 tion than to fill in the School Report of the ship. 
 There is, however, another Report which I am 
 
 172
 
 Paper-Work 
 
 always careful to fill up myself : it is the Report 
 on " Chaplain's Duties," required at every Inspec- 
 tion, and contains seven questions relating to the 
 assiduity and efficiency of the chaplain. It will be 
 readily understood that by attending to this 
 matter personally I invariably do my bit towards 
 getting a good Inspection Report for the ship. 
 
 There are some classic tales concerning paper- 
 work current in the Navy. The gem of them all, of 
 course, is the incomparable story of The Shove- 
 wood. And there is also the story of Whale Island and 
 the Poker, which any gunnery-lieutenant will tell you. 
 
 Several of such tales relate to ways and means of 
 getting rid of inconvenient papers or of avoiding 
 filling in returns under awkward circumstances, 
 the time-honoured excuses of "Eaten by rats," 
 or " Destroyed by damp," having long ago worn 
 thin, and a suspicion having arisen at headquarters 
 that the latter of these two excuses was no more 
 than a playful euphemism for " Thrown over- 
 board," as indeed was often the case. 
 
 A more original expedient was that of a certain 
 officer in command of a West Coast gunboat. He 
 had several times been politely requested by the 
 Admiralty to send his ship's books and papers 
 home for inspection, and as on each occasion he 
 failed to make any reply, much less send the papers, 
 the request gradually lost more and more of its 
 politeness, until at last it became a peremptory 
 demand. But, unfortunately, all the desired 
 reports were so hopelessly in arrear that it was 
 beyond human ingenuity to compile them with any 
 appearance of verisimilitude. 
 
 173
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 But the lieutenant, being abundantly dowered 
 with that unfailing resourcefulness which has so 
 often in our naval history turned a defeat into a 
 victory, soon hit upon a way out of the difficulty. 
 Having procured a tin-lined case, he bored several 
 tiny holes in it, and placed therein the blank books 
 and papers. Lastly he placed inside a couple of 
 dozen healthy West African cockroaches. 
 
 And when the box arrived at Whitehall there 
 were some small fragments of leather, a mass of 
 infinitesimal scraps of paper, twenty-three plethoric 
 cockroaches the size of frogs, and one who had 
 been cut off in his prime by devouring a binding 
 dyed with arsenical green. 
 
 The lieutenant, of course, was entirely exonerated 
 from all blame. 
 
 174
 
 XLI. Hostility-Men 
 
 A STRANGE tide has flowed from the land 
 to the sea, a stream of fiery voluntaries, 
 with ladies' faces and fierce dragons' 
 spleens or sometimes vice versa who have come 
 from desk and consulting-room, office, farm and 
 pit, to make a hazard of new fortunes here during 
 the period of hostilities. 
 
 Navy Jack calls them, for short, "Hostility-men." 
 Some of them are R.N.V.R. men of many years' 
 standing, brimful of zeal and equally chock-full of 
 knowledge, able to take a part in the more scien- 
 tific work of the ship, and to take it very well, too. 
 Their training has been very thorough, and they 
 brought with them to their apprenticeship an 
 immense enthusiasm which helped them quickly 
 over all its difficulties. Often have I heard them 
 say, " If ever a war comes, we want to be sent to 
 sea ; we don't care in what sort of jobs ; we should 
 be quite content to do the dirty work, the unskilled 
 work, of a ship, and to release better men for better 
 work." A fine spirit ! Though, of course, there 
 is very little unskilled work on board a ship. Well, 
 they have got their way, and have been sent to sea, 
 and the knowledge they acquired ashore has made 
 them far more useful than ever they dreamed of 
 becoming. 
 
 175
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 But these are not the real Hostility-men ; the 
 title properly belongs only to such as never gave a 
 thought before to the service of the sea, yet at the 
 outbreak of a war which appeared naturally des- 
 tined to be a war of sea-fights heard within them 
 the call of the ocean, rose from their places, and 
 came down to the great ships. 
 
 It is, to my mind, astonishing what a great 
 number there has been of volunteers for the Navy. 
 I can understand men joining up with the Army, 
 for, after all, the land is the land, whether it be in 
 Leicestershire or Flanders, and to hunt all day or 
 trudge behind a plough is not so essentially different 
 from riding in a cavalry charge or marching with a 
 regiment. But what brought these, these studious 
 clerks and quiet scientific men, these grimy inland 
 toilers and raw upland youths, to adventure them- 
 selves upon a world of waters as little known to 
 them as the encircling^wmm oceanum to Herodotus? 
 
 Perhaps it was that little drop of sea-water that 
 is said to be in the veins of every Briton. 
 
 From the point of view of the Commander of a 
 ship, Hostility-men are an agglomeration of tearful 
 surprises. Until they have been licked into shape, 
 of course. For you must understand that Com- 
 manders as a class are base material souls who don't 
 care a hang about patriotism or enthusiasm or any 
 rot of that sort. " Point de zele " might well be 
 taken as the motto of their Order. What they 
 look to is, How much work can be got out of any 
 given individual ? So it may easily be understood 
 that the arrival on board of a small batch of 
 Hostility-men is not always the subject of loud 
 
 176
 
 Hostility-Men 
 
 thanksgivings on the part of the Second-in-Com- 
 mand. 
 
 Imagine the despairing sighs of this sorely tried 
 officer when he interviews a handful of such new 
 arrivals to see what use can be made of them. 
 " What were you doing before you joined ? " he 
 asks. " If you please, sir, I was a groom." 
 Heavens ! Does the man think we keep a 
 racing-stable down in the hold ? Or perhaps he 
 wants to join up with the Horse Marines ! " And 
 what were you ? " " Market-gardener, sir." The 
 Commander thinks for a moment, and then inge- 
 niously hitting upon a task that seems to be in the 
 man's own line bids the Master-at-arms to " send 
 him forrard to weigh the potatoes " ! 
 
 A more suitable job was found the other day for 
 a newly joined Hostility-man who came to one of 
 the ships of our Fleet. The usual question was 
 put to him, " What were you before you joined ? " 
 " I was a painter," said the man, and the Com- 
 mander at once heaved a sigh of relief. " Thank 
 Heaven, at last I've found a man who can make 
 himself of some use," he said ; "let him join up 
 at once with the mess-deck painting-party." A 
 couple of hours later the Commander strolled along 
 to see how the work was progressing. He dis- 
 covered the self-styled painter in the midst of a 
 most unholy mess paint on the decks, on the 
 mess-crockery, on himself, everywhere, in fact, but 
 on the bulkhead where it should have been, and that 
 showed nothing but a few feeble dashes of various 
 colours trickling down and blending one into 
 another like a post-impressionist sunset 1 
 
 177
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 " What the deuce do you mean by this ? " cried 
 the irate Commander. " Call yourself a painter ! 
 Why, you don't know the first thing about it ! It's 
 quite evident you've never done anything of this 
 sort before in your life ! Why, bless your pretty 
 eyes, I could paint a bulkhead better than that 
 blindfold ! What did you tell me you were a 
 painter for ? " 
 
 " I'm not used to this sort of work, sir," apolo- 
 gised the man. 
 
 " Then why did you tell me you were ? Didn't 
 you say you had been a painter ? " 
 
 " Well, so I did," explained the other. " You 
 see, I didn't think of putting it any other way. 
 Most of my work I exhibit at the Royal Academy " ! 
 
 For the most part they soon settle down very 
 comfortably to the ship's routine, whether they 
 find themselves on the mess-deck or amongst the 
 " after-guard." There are some who have lived 
 the extremely sheltered life ashore, and must feel 
 themselves in a rough, wild world at first ; but 
 what a lot of good it does 'em ! Others are more 
 nautical than any of their new comrades who have 
 spent their life at sea I know of a certain Hostility 
 officer who always goes about in a pair of sea- 
 boots, though he goes no further than from his 
 cabin to the wardroom ! 
 
 At first, though, there is sometimes a little bash- 
 fulness, especially with such as have offered 
 themselves in a lower capacity than that they held 
 ashore. 
 
 A working-party was marching through one of 
 our dockyards a short time ago consisting of eight 
 
 178
 
 Hostility-Men 
 
 men carrying a copper-punt a thing like a huge 
 butcher's tray and a petty-officer in charge. This 
 latter happened to be a fashionable doctor in the 
 town. All were in working-rig, which is a costume 
 rather resembling that of a dilapidated convict, and 
 even these unbecoming suits had seen decidedly 
 better days. Suddenly there appeared round a 
 corner a party of well-dressed people visitors 
 come to see over the dockyard. On seeing them, 
 the petty-officer in charge of the party imme- 
 diately dived beneath the copper-punt, and was 
 heard to murmur as he disappeared, " Oh, mine 
 offence is Rank ! " It was a struggle for the poor 
 man to keep up with the others on his hands and 
 knees, but he managed it somehow, and at last 
 emerged flushed and breathless, but well pleased 
 at his escape. " You see," he explained, " it 
 wouldn't have done very well for them to see me 
 in this rig ; those were some of my best patients ! " 
 
 179
 
 XLII. Wool and Water 
 
 I STEAL a chapter-heading from that incom- 
 parable book which is as much loved by 
 every naval officer as by any other children ; 
 and then proceed to commit a further crime by 
 calling in Apt Alliteration's 'Ateful Aid to help 
 me in wording to the war-workers in wool-work 
 the well-won thanks of those who wear their wel- 
 come work upon the water. 
 
 Respice finem look to your extremities ; take 
 care of your legs, and your lungs will take care of 
 themselves. It was on this sound medical prin- 
 ciple that I based an appeal for Sea-Boot Stockings 
 for the Fleet a year ago ; for although there is not 
 a man in the Navy who suffers from " cold feet " 
 in the metaphorical sense, yet in the literal signifi- 
 cance this distressing sensation is ever lying in 
 wait to entrap the feet of our sailors, who, if they 
 are protected against the nautical equivalent of 
 " trench-leg," need not fear the most vigorous 
 assaults of a northern winter against the rest of 
 their bodies. 
 
 It is not for nothing that our keen-witted Allies, 
 the Italians, speak of knitted things in general as 
 " Mail " ; for the resemblance to chain-armour 
 lies in its protective results as much as in its out- 
 ward appearance. 
 
 180
 
 Wool and Water 
 
 One can imagine the man who laboriously 
 pieced together the first coat of mail showing his 
 handiwork to his wife, and saying, with triumphant 
 pride : " Look, my dear, what a splendid invention 
 I have hit upon all by myself ! " While she, bend- 
 ing her head to hide a smile, would see at a glance 
 that he had unconsciously been imitating the pro- 
 duct of her busy needles ; though, of course, she 
 would not for all the world let the dear stupid know 
 anything about that ! 
 
 Of this soft armour every needful piece with one 
 exception was provided by gentle fingers in the early 
 days of last winter : helmets, hausse-cols, breast- 
 plates, wristlets, arm-guards, and gauntlets, guarded 
 the naval warrior against the attacks of the 
 fierce enemy. But, like Achilles, he was still 
 vulnerable in the heel and in the leg besides ; 
 greaves were lacking in his equipment of mail. 
 
 It was a new experience for the sailor to find 
 himself the recipient of gifts and attentions from 
 the outside public. This, and the lavishness with 
 which the presents were showered upon him, had 
 the effect, it must be admitted, of making him a 
 little careless and wasteful at first. When, for 
 example, the discovery was made that for brass- 
 cleaning purposes nothing could approach a soft 
 woollen muffler, who could refrain from turning 
 one to such base uses, seeing that mufflers cost 
 nothing, and hah* a dozen more were to be had for 
 the asking ? Or, if applied to its original purpose, 
 and worn till it became dirty, the simplest way to 
 solve the washing-day problem was to burn the 
 thing in the incinerator, and draw a new one. 
 
 181
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 On the top of all these private and unofficial gifts 
 came an Admiralty free issue of warm winter cloth- 
 ing, in some cases supplementing the private gifts, 
 in others merely adding to the existing profusion. 
 Long stockings, however, were still not provided. 
 
 Just at this point a many kind ladies stepped 
 into the breach, aided by the friendly offices of the 
 Westminster, and welcome parcels of long, thick 
 stockings began to arrive on board. 
 
 I wish I could have seen these ladies at work. 
 They hardly knew what was wanted the request 
 was put in such a thoroughly stupid, man-like way, 
 just asking for " sea-boot stockings," with careless 
 disregard of the mysteries of plain and purl, length, 
 breadth, and the turning of the heel, and whether the 
 wool should be double Berlin or plain Scotch winsey. 
 But they worked on in the dark, evolving sea-boot 
 stockings from their inner consciousness, and, of 
 course, intuitively arriving at precisely the very thing 
 needed. And how they must have smiled, at times, 
 thinking how other loving fingers had once knitted 
 wee bootees for the same feet that now required 
 these huge and heavy monuments of wool-work ! 
 
 Not for the first time, surely, the ladies have 
 given an example to the official guardians ; this 
 year quite recently, in fact the Admiralty has 
 made a free issue to the Fleet of these same stockings 
 one pair to a man. In spite of this, there is still 
 a demand for all that are privately sent, for there 
 are limits to the unwashed life of one pair, after all ! 
 
 Many requests have been made for details as to 
 the true nature of the perfect sea-boot stocking. 
 Perhaps it is a little late in the day, but I would 
 
 182
 
 Wool and Water 
 
 answer them all by saying that the only essential 
 qualities are length, roominess, and warmth. 
 Stockings have been sent, some made with heels 
 and some without, blue ones, brown ones, white 
 ones, of weight ranging from one to four pounds. 
 And all were equally acceptable. 
 
 I hope I may be forgiven for doing so, but I must 
 tell the story of a lady who wrote to me saying she 
 had never made such stockings before, but she had 
 modelled the pair she was sending upon the legs 
 of her brother-in-law, who was a bishop, and hoped 
 they would do. The stockings were of such 
 generous proportions that I could not help saying, 
 in my letter of thanks, that if her brother-in-law's 
 legs were really of this mould it was no wonder he 
 had been raised to the episcopate ! 
 
 Possibly those who have worked so hard at these 
 welcome gifts may have now and then tried to 
 picture something of the men who wear their handi- 
 work. Sailors are by no means ungrateful men 
 quite the contrary but they are shy, and extremely 
 diffident about expressing their thanks on paper. 
 Yet their thanks have not been unuttered. Many 
 a time, I fancy, when away in the picket-boat in a 
 heavy sea on a cold winter's night, with the white 
 waves half -burying the tiny craft ; when kneeling to 
 scrub ice-covered decks on a raw morning before day- 
 break ; when away aloft a hundred feet above the deck, 
 where the chill blast tries to benumb a man's feet, 
 and send him headlong down ; or in many another 
 case of the seaman's life, these two war-winters, a 
 grateful thought has come from the sailor's heart for 
 the one who worked that he might be kept warm. 
 
 N 183
 
 XLIII. " Wireless "and a Cat 
 
 HAVE I mentioned that we have a very nice 
 Puss on board ? It is the pet and pro- 
 perty of the Wireless operators' staff, 
 and, on the analogy of most of the books pertaining 
 to this specialised signalling, it is generally de- 
 scribed as " Wireless Cat, with Addendum One." 
 It waves its Addendum when it is annoyed. 
 
 This rightly privileged animal has the free run of 
 the Wireless office ; and, to quote a formula so 
 often used gratefully by naval people when shore- 
 goers make us honorary members of their club, this 
 is " a privilege of which it gladly avails itself " 
 except with regard to a certain portion of the room, 
 where two terminals lie just in a convenient position 
 for the investigations of a creature endowed by 
 Nature with an aptitude for the pursuit of science. 
 The first and last Inquiry into the Practical 
 Uses of Applied Electricity led to such a leap into 
 the air as has not been equalled since first in old 
 Egypt the Cat leapt up to her pedestal in the 
 Pantheon to take her place among the gods. 
 
 To mere humans, however, the Wireless Room 
 is one of the most sacredly secret places in the ship. 
 If you come on board to pay us a visit, when Peace 
 breaks out and we can once more have the pleasure 
 of seeing what ordinary people look like no, I 
 
 184
 
 Wireless " and a Cat 
 
 don't mean " ordinary " people we will show you 
 the inside of the turrets and take you down into the 
 engine-room, and anywhere else you please ; but 
 we shall diplomatically forget to mention the 
 existence of the Wireless room ; and, if by chance 
 you find yourself outside its hallowed portal, we 
 shall point out to you a notice-board hanging 
 thereon, which forbids even the officers of the ship 
 to enter unless required to do so by their duty. 
 
 Without divulging any of its arcane mysteries, 
 I may go so far as to say that it is very different 
 in its general economy from the Wireless room 
 of a dozen years ago. At that period the whole 
 of the apparatus was contained in a couple of small 
 boxes which stood on the desk in an otherwise 
 empty office ; the messages were automatically 
 printed in Morse code by a tape machine which 
 always worked slowly and frequently failed to 
 work at all, being powerless to respond to the more 
 delicate vibrations. At the present time, however, 
 the room is packed full with machinery and com- 
 plicated instruments the nature and uses of 
 which have been carefully explained to me on 
 several occasions by an enthusiastic P.O. Tel. ; 
 but, as the whole business is entirely beyond my 
 comprehension, I always confine myself to the wise 
 policy of replying with a non-committal "Yes,I see." 
 
 But even I can understand that the present 
 achievements are simply marvellous ; and that 
 they are, furthermore, nothing compared to the 
 vast range of its future possibilities, when the 
 experimenter shall have learnt more about what 
 he terms the " Ether," and tamed it to his will. 
 
 N '_' , b.)
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 Personally speaking, the chief use for which I 
 hitch Wireless to my own particular wagon is hi 
 order to make it do duty as a Danger Signal ; for 
 my constant advice to anyone who is interested 
 in spiritualistic or theosophic literature is that he 
 should search and see if his book contains the words 
 " Wireless Telegraphy," or " The Ether " ; and, if 
 it does, pitch it in the fire at once : the book smells 
 of quackery ! Because Wireless certainly affords no 
 proof, and is even only a very poor illustration, of the 
 possibility of communication between the departed 
 and ourselves ; while, as for the Ether, no one can 
 say positively that such a thing exists at all. 
 
 The Wireless room is near my cabin, and the loud, 
 insistent zip -zip-zip when messages are being sent is 
 a disturbing sound that makes itself heard above all 
 other ship-noises and takes a little getting used to. 
 The cat, with that spirit of detachment which is the 
 real halo of this super-animal, preserved from the 
 first a complete imperturbability with respect to this 
 noise. The operation of receiving messages, on the 
 other hand, is a silent process, and I have been trying 
 to deduce an appropriate moral lesson from this, but 
 the only one I can think of is that if you haven't 
 got anything to say you should dry up and keep 
 quiet which, after all, is well worth taking to heart. 
 
 The main principle underlying the whole business 
 of Wireless Telegraphy is exactly the same as that 
 which necessitates having a Double-First to teach 
 the junior form ; namely, that in order to convey 
 knowledge to any desired recipient there must be a 
 highly concentrated and powerful force at the 
 source of information, sine most of it is going to be 
 
 186
 
 Wireless " and a Cat 
 
 dissipated into space. There ought to be great 
 consolation in this thought for all long-suffering 
 schoolmasters although I can't see exactly where 
 it lies. The sending ship, it will be observed, is in 
 the position of a man who wishes to talk to a friend 
 in the middle of a crowd of people half a mile away ; 
 he has to talk very loudly to make himself heard at 
 all, and everybody else in the crowd is going to hear 
 what he says. The receiving ship, therefore, 
 requires very little power indeed, and the only 
 difficulty is that so many people are shouting ; it 
 is rather like being in Hyde Park on a Sunday after- 
 noon, amongst a hundred leather-lunged preachers, 
 each telling you the one and only true gospel of 
 spiritual, political, or social salvation ; or like 
 taking in all the papers there are in order to get a 
 clear idea of the conduct of the War. The only 
 thing to do is to close your ears to everything you 
 don't wish to hear a most pernicious doctrine 
 for a chaplain to preach, but the only practical 
 course for a ship that wishes to receive a wireless 
 message. And so there have been invented many 
 ingenious devices whereby a ship can cut off the 
 sound of all but the one tune it desires to hear : de- 
 vices foreshadowed long ago by the Wanderer in his 
 many-oared ship and in general use from Adam's 
 day till now by men who, finding troublesome the 
 loud, clear calls of Duty, Self-Denial, and Honour, 
 discover means of shutting off those voices and lis- 
 tening only to the call which suits their own desires. 
 I omitted to say that our Wireless Cat (with 
 Addendum One) is of , the gentler sex ; she is at 
 present TeUgraphie sansfille. 
 
 187
 
 XL1V. A Flap 
 
 WE are not always in harbour though you 
 might think we were if you listened to 
 the Germans, who in this as in every 
 other matter act on the good old legal principle that 
 if you have a bad case you should abuse the other 
 side. 
 
 But neither are we always at sea, as some fond 
 parents, unversed in naval ways, appear to imagine. 
 The ship that can keep the seas for ever has yet 
 to be designed ; and, besides, what is the good of 
 playing Prisoner's Base continuously if the prisoner 
 will not leave his base and has no idea of playing 
 the game ? 
 
 So it happens that we are sometimes in harbour. 
 Where, and when, and for how long, wild Tirpitz 
 should not drag from me and he must feel pretty 
 wild, mustn't he ? 
 
 Yet, if anyone should rush to the conclusion 
 that while we are in harbour the safety of the seas 
 and of our shores is left to look after itself, or that 
 we are resting in idle and luxurious seclusion, he 
 may take it from me that he is mistaken. At any 
 time since the first day of the war we have been 
 ready to fight the greatest sea-battle in history 
 before our next meal-time ; ready, to the smallest 
 gun in the smallest ship ; ready and willing. Never 
 
 188
 
 A Flap 
 
 are any sudden preparations needed, nor laments 
 for might-have-beens in the way of equipment or 
 men ; nor is one jot of expectation relaxed on 
 account of being at an anchorage instead of out on 
 the deep. It is difficult to write of such constant 
 and thorough preparedness without the risk of 
 descending to banal verbiage ; but indeed the 
 simile of eager hounds upon the leash, though trite, 
 expresses the situation more completely than could 
 be done by any less threadbare phrase. 
 
 Our comings and goings are, of course, secrets 
 carefully hidden from public knowledge. Whether 
 they are guessed at or discovered by our friends the 
 enemy remains a question one which is answered 
 in the emphatic affirmative by a member of our 
 mess who believes strongly in the resourceful wili- 
 ness of the Teuton. " Why," said he, " it only 
 needs a man to walk along the cliffs wearing a little 
 red cap to give the whole show away at once ! " 
 Which thing has become a proverb to this day, so 
 that whenever we are about to leave harbour we 
 say that " The Man in the Little Red Cap " has 
 been taking a walk. 
 
 Sometimes our departures are more than usually 
 sudden and unexpected. The whole proceeding 
 then becomes what is known amongst us as "A 
 Flap " which I will attempt to describe. 
 
 We have had an unwonted spell at anchor, and are 
 getting a little fed up with it ; the allurements of 
 the beach are entirely absent, and even if they were 
 not we couldn't get at them. It would be far better, 
 we are all feeling, to be at sea. All the papers are 
 stale, and the Russian Kromeskies and Caramel 
 
 189
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 Custards of the messman fail to excite that interest 
 which normally places food on a level with the 
 weather as a topic for discussion. On deck the 
 hands are employed painting ship, making the side 
 look a little less disreputable than when we came in 
 after our last buffeting by the paint-destroying waves. 
 
 Down below, in the ante-room, certain languid 
 forms are reposing in various attitudes of boredom, 
 too weak to stem the tide of the Navigator's flow 
 of reminiscences. He, at this moment, is relating 
 how the Rag, of which he is a member, was on one 
 occasion closed for cleaning and renovating, and the 
 homeless clubmen were offered the hospitality of 
 the Athenaeum. " Well, I went in there," he 
 narrates, " in the middle of one forenoon, and 
 ordered a cocktail. Lord ! I thought the roof 
 would have fallen in ! You never saw such a 
 horror-stricken assemblage in your life ! Several 
 venerable waiters held a ruridecanal meeting to 
 consult as to the form and manner of making a 
 cocktail ; and when they finally brought it I felt 
 so ashamed of myself that I went out and drank it 
 in the hall." 
 
 From this he goes on to recount his experiences 
 out Chinaside, and how he won the Cherry Medal, 
 and still nobody is strong enough to stop him. 
 
 Then there enters a signalman, in dripping oil- 
 skins, with a rain-blurred chit in his hand, which 
 he presents in silence to the Engineer-Commander. 
 This officer as silently took it, and adjusts his 
 spectacles to read the communication. 
 
 " What's the news, Chief ? " comes from several 
 quarters in tones of Dew-found interest. 
 
 190
 
 A Flap 
 
 He informs us that it is an order to raise steam 
 for a hundred knots at five minutes' notice more 
 or less. 
 
 And then the Flap really begins. 
 
 A minor thrill of excitement courses through the 
 whole ship ; a thrill, because the old questions 
 still possess their power " Is it a Stunt this time? " 
 " Shall we have any luck at last ? " But a thrill of 
 the minor kind because of the proverb about Hope 
 Deferred. We have been disappointed so many 
 times. 
 
 On deck the Flap is in full swing. All the 
 painting-stages are got in, and a procession of men 
 shouldering the paint-spattered planks with dang- 
 ling ropes fills the battery. Another crowd 
 jostles them coming from the opposite direction 
 with the tackle for getting in the nets. The order 
 for steam on the capstan has already been given, 
 as also for power on the motors and boat-hoists. 
 And soon all these engines are moaning and hum- 
 ming together, an intricate mass of ropes and wires 
 laid on the deck begins to move and straighten out, 
 the torpedo-booms swing aft, and the nets coil up 
 and repose on their shelves. Then the main derrick 
 is topped up and turned outboard, its guys led to the 
 motor-hoists, and the fifty-foot picket-boat swings 
 high into the air, a shower of drops streaming from 
 its keel along the wind. Other boats follow suit, 
 and all in turn are safely lowered upon the crutches, 
 the sea-boats alone being left to hang from the davits 
 and lashed to their griping-spars. 
 
 All this means a busy time for the Commander, 
 whose chief trouble is not so much to get the right 
 
 191
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 things done as to cater for people whose original 
 sin prompts them to do the wrong things. 
 
 But what really breaks his heart is that the 
 Temporary Surgeon, who hasn't even heard men- 
 tion of the Flap at all, should come to him in the 
 thick of it with the mild request, " Would you 
 kindly arrange for a boat to take five dental cases 
 to the Hospital Ship at eight-thirty to-morrow ? " 
 
 And so the Flap continues, till we are peacefully 
 at sea. And then nothing happens ! The situa- 
 tion is summed up with disgust by someone remark- 
 ing, " I expect some man was reported to be going 
 round oiling the lock-gates of the Kiel Canal 1 " 
 
 192
 
 XLV. The Beach 
 
 I WENT ashore for a walk a few days ago. This 
 would scarce deserve mention were it not for 
 the fact that shore-going has become a rare 
 event with me these days ; it is a good six weeks 
 since I last essayed the terrors of the land previous 
 to this occasion. 
 
 The sage in Rasselas speaks of the " barren uni- 
 formity " of the sea ; and sapiently informs us that 
 " the ocean and the land are very different. The 
 only variety of water is rest and motion. But 
 the earth has mountains and valleys, deserts and 
 cities ; it is inhabited by men of different customs 
 and contrary opinions " ; sentiments in which are 
 reflected the prejudices of the learned author, who 
 declared that a man might as well live in a prison 
 as aboard ship. But I wish that Dr. Johnson had 
 continued his tour to the Hebrides a little further, 
 and had landed where I landed ; he wouldn't 
 have had quite such a lot to say about the diver- 
 sities of the land and its attendant pleasures ! The 
 catalogue of the surrounding scenery was rather on 
 the lines of the schedule of midshipmen's uniform 
 as it used to appear in the Quarterly Naval List, 
 detailing, " Hats : no hat, but a cap ; Swords : 
 no sword, but a dirk." Similarly, enumerating 
 the above-quoted features of the land, I traversed 
 
 193
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 Mountains : no mountains, but a bog ; Cities : 
 no cities, but a hovel here and there, and a wretched 
 and lonely farm ; and amidst the general barren- 
 ness a few rare patches still more bare, where it 
 seemed like expecting a miracle to hope to produce 
 a scanty crop of that tennis avena upon which the 
 natives are reputed to cultivate the Muses. Three 
 miles inland and, thank goodness, the sea was 
 in sight the whole of the way ; it was the only 
 thing worth looking at ; then about turn, down to 
 the boat, and so back to the comfortable and 
 homely ship. Anybody can have my share of the 
 land at any rate, of this land ! 
 
 And, when I got on board, a Hostility officer 
 spread out before me some snapshots he had just 
 received by the day's mail photographs of Ox- 
 ford ! A bit of scenery on Boar's Hill, with a misty 
 glimpse of towers and spires in the distant valley ; 
 the lake in Worcester gardens ; an upper reach of 
 the Cher, reed-fringed, where drooping willows 
 strive to caress the further bank with graceful 
 outstretched finger-tips. Ah ! what a land ! Al- 
 most can one hear the very heart of England beating 
 there. A land where a man might kneel and kiss 
 the clods and not be ashamed ; a land where still 
 applies the verdict passed upon an earlier Paradise, 
 Behold, it is very good ! 
 
 I wished he had not shown me those photo- 
 graphs ! 
 
 But after a while there supervened a feeling that 
 even in the barren scene of my afternoon's peram- 
 bulations Mother Earth still lived, the kindly 
 nurse, ready to add strength to any pygmy Antaeus 
 
 194
 
 The Beach 
 
 who might come to her broad bosom. There was a 
 hurrying together of leucocytes and phagocytes, 
 those cherubim and seraphim of the corporeal 
 cosmos, singing and shouting praises for life given 
 more abundantly, and in a million tiny arteries the 
 rivers thereof began to make the city glad. 
 
 Yes ; on the whole, it is a good thing to take to 
 the Beach. I think I shall go again soon perhaps 
 in another six weeks or so. 
 
 Dr. Johnson was right in likening a ship to a 
 prison to the extent that no one is allowed to leave 
 it without permission, even for an hour. Senior 
 officers, " Heads of Departments," must obtain 
 leave from the captain in person before going 
 ashore though, usually, a general dispensation 
 from this obligation is given at the beginning of a 
 commission. Junior officers, however, have to 
 observe the ritual on every occasion, and must 
 approach the Commander with the set formula, 
 " May I go ashore, sir, please ? " To which the 
 proper response is " Please " : a polite form which 
 gives the desired permission as though it were a 
 favour done to the granter, in the true spirit of 
 ancient chivalry. Young officers of branches other 
 than the executive must also first ascertain from 
 their own immediate superiors whether they can 
 be spared ; so the process of obtaining leave some- 
 times becomes quite elaborate ; the most junior 
 engineer-officer, for example, may be observed to 
 enter the wardroom, cap in hand ; first, he ap- 
 proaches the " Senior," and recites the appointed 
 interrogation. " Please" is returned in a quiet 
 voice. But this is not enough. The youngster 
 
 195
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 steps across to where the Engineer-Commander is 
 sitting, and again asks, " May I go ashore, sir, 
 please ? " once more getting " Please " to en- 
 courage him. Yet once again he stands a sup- 
 pliant, before the Commander now, till a final 
 " Please " sends him away rejoicing to " shift into 
 plain clothes." 
 
 The permission, of course, is readily given, as no 
 officer would think of asking unless he knew that 
 his work was all " clewed up " and his services 
 could be spared. But as a general rule it is not 
 considered good form to go ashore too frequently 
 before about 4 p.m. though now in war-time this 
 unwritten law is repealed, and everyone is allowed, 
 even expected, when possible, to take to the 
 Beach 
 
 " -jor the good of the Service, 
 
 As much and as ojt as may be." 
 There is always a " Boat Routine " posted in some 
 prominent place, telling the times at which one 
 may be prepared to taste the sweets of the shore. 
 When the Officers' Boat is called away by the 
 quartermaster's pipe, notice is given to all intending 
 beachcombers by " sounding one G " ; which is 
 performed by one of the buglers, sometimes on the 
 proper instrument of his office, but more usually by 
 means of a hand fog-horn, which is a thing like a 
 pair of bellows with a long blunderbuss-nozzle of 
 brass. It gives forth a sound which is very 
 raucous and loud, and would be most unpleasant 
 to listen to but for the fact that it conveys the wel- 
 come appeal, " Once more unto the beach, dear 
 friends, once more I " 
 
 196
 
 The Beach 
 
 The desire for going often ashore is one that is apt 
 to wear off with length of service. I have known 
 men, especially men of the lower deck, who have 
 spent a three-year commission on a foreign station 
 without once leaving the ship. The old stager 
 rather affects a sort of good-humoured contempt 
 for anyone who cannot content himself on board, 
 and vents his feelings with the ironical comment, 
 " Anyone would think you had been born on 
 shore ! " Or, again, quoting from some forgotten 
 origin a phrase now become proverbial, " Don't 
 forget, the ship is your home " ! 
 
 Well, a very pleasant home it is, for the most 
 part, and, if one cannot be living the normal life 
 amongst one's family and friends, there is no 
 place better to be in than a ship. Yet, after all, 
 the Beach is the final goal to which every sailor 
 looks ; and in a " Ship of War at Sea " we may be 
 excused for looking forward to its attractions, since 
 we are bidden to pray each morning, " That we may 
 return in sajety to enjoy the blessings of the land." 
 
 197
 
 XLVI. Sunrise and Sunset 
 
 IT is entirely typical of the Navy that not the 
 slightest notice should be taken of the sun's 
 uprising, while his down-setting is attended 
 by a good deal of ceremonial solemnity ; as much 
 as to say " When you've done your job and proved 
 yourself of some good we'll give you all the respect 
 you like, but till then just carry on with your work 
 and don't expect us to treat you like a little tin 
 god, because, if you do, you'll be mistaken." 
 
 So when the sun first peers over the horizon he 
 finds the ship's company all hard at work except 
 at that period of the year when he assumes a vir- 
 tuous fit of early rising and not a man to doff 
 a cap to him ; but when he goes off duty, having 
 placed himself at the service of the Admiralty for 
 the whole of the day, bugles are sounded in his 
 honour, and every man stands to attention as a 
 mark of honour for the occasion. 
 
 Macaulay's schoolboy will deduce at once from 
 this the reason why the Arabians have no Navy 
 and we have. I read once, in an old number of the 
 Quarterly Review, a brilliant article on the Arabs, 
 their extraordinary achievements and marvellous 
 powers, and their inexplicable downfall as a race. 
 But is not the latter feature of their history made 
 obvious by the fact that as sun-worshippers for 
 
 198
 
 Sunrise and Sunset 
 
 this they originally were they paid too much 
 reverence to the sun at his rising ? In many parts 
 of Southern Europe, where traces of sun-worship 
 still exist, though the present population would be 
 horrified at being told so, you may see on many a 
 cottage roof a pair of ox-horns Baal's symbol 
 carefully orientated to catch the first rays of the 
 god at his appearing ; I have seen this myself, as a 
 prevalent custom amongst what is perhaps the 
 strictest Roman Catholic populace in the world. 
 But I have never seen, and do not think that any- 
 one else has, a pair of horns pointed towards the 
 setting sun. 
 
 Over-elation at the promise of endeavour, too 
 little regard to final accomplishment and to the 
 maintained drudgery necessary thereto that is 
 the true explanation of the pathetic limitations 
 of the race that was once nearly master of half 
 Europe ; and the opposite of this, a fine disregard 
 for the most pompous beginnings until they 
 have proved successful endings, accounts for 
 the pre-eminence of our Navy and of our 
 country. 
 
 Many of our new Hostility-men do not under- 
 stand this ; they come to us with an inner know- 
 ledge of their own reputations and attainments, 
 sufficient to give them, " outside," that standing to 
 which they feel justly entitled ; but once " inside," 
 thrown into the Navy's melting-pot, they find that 
 no bugles are sounded to herald their rising ; and 
 some of them do not altogether like it. 
 
 But let them wait. It is the way of the Navy. 
 If an Archangel were to come aboard he would be 
 
 o 199
 
 In the Northern ^ii 
 
 messed with the Ordinary Seamen until he had 
 proved himself good at his job. 
 
 Let me, however, describe a little more fully the 
 complete ritual of Sunset. To begin at the 
 beginning, the correct time is made by wireless 
 from Greenwich each day, and with this to aid him 
 the Navigator of the Flagship works out the exact 
 moment at which the sun is due to set. This is 
 calculated at the Mean Solar Time, not the Appa- 
 rent Time, so that the ceremonies are frequently 
 observed while a part of the sun is still able to 
 watch what is being done in his honour. The idea 
 is that if he hasn't set he ought to have and it is 
 by this obstinate habit of looking at things as they 
 ought to be rather than as they are that (well, any- 
 body that likes can complete this sentence ; I, per- 
 sonally, am not convinced that the moral of it is 
 quite good). Then, five minutes before the time, a 
 preparative flag is hoisted in the Flagship, and 
 certain " repeating ships " do the same for the 
 benefit of such vessels as are not in sight of the 
 Flag. As soon as this is hoisted, there is intense 
 agitation up on the signal-bridge, every signalman 
 having his eyes glued on this " preparative." At 
 the same time one of their number reports the 
 matter to the Officer-of-the-Watch, who in turn 
 reports to the Captain, with the formula, " Five 
 minutes to Sunset, Sir," the Captain replying, 
 " Carry on, please " thus giving the sun the 
 official permission to set by order of the Admiralty. 
 The five minutes pass. Suddenly the Flagship 
 " hauls down " ; the repeating ships do likewise, 
 and in every ship of the Fleet an excited signalman 
 200
 
 Sunrise and Sunset 
 
 bawls loudly to the Officer-of-the-Watch " Sun- 
 set, Sir! " The bugler sounds the " Still" Every- 
 one on deck drops his work or his recreation, and 
 stands strictly to attention, facing The Colours. 
 All officers raise their hand to the Salute. The 
 assembled buglers sound a long call, weird and 
 plaintive, a lament for the dying day, and the 
 White Ensign comes slowly down. Then sound 
 the two sharp notes of the " Carry-on " and sunset 
 is over. 
 
 And when during the summer in Northern lati- 
 tudes the sun takes up the ridiculous attitude of 
 refusing to set till midnight, if at all, the Navy 
 has a Short Way with its recalcitrant god like 
 those West Africans who beat the image of their 
 deity when he refuses to send rain ; the order is 
 issued, " Sunset will be at such-and-such a time " 
 and if the sun will not fall in with the Navy's ideas, 
 well, that is his look-out ! Like many another ser- 
 vant of the Navy, he is told to retire at a time when 
 he feels he has a lot more work in him. But he 
 continues to shine on the ship all the same, just 
 as many a man " retired for age " is now digging 
 out as hard as ever for the good of the Service. 
 
 But when the sun plays tricks like this it is no 
 wonder if he finds himself now and then distrusted. 
 There was a ship " up North " last autumn, in 
 which the men were holding a concert on the upper 
 deck, in the dog-watches. The deck was housed-in 
 with awning-curtains to screen off the chill winds, 
 and inside this the electric lights blazed brightly. 
 The captain and his officers occupied the front row 
 of chairs and watched the performance, which 
 
 o 2 201
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 was timed to finish well before the hour for " dark- 
 ening ship " for, of course, it would not do to 
 have such a glare of light on the upper deck when 
 that time came. It was observed that the captain 
 seemed a trifle uneasy, and kept looking towards the 
 awning-curtains where the sunlight still beat 
 strongly ; but not till long afterwards was the 
 cause of his uneasiness surmised : the cause being 
 that, like an inverted Joshua, he was anxious about 
 the sun, for, although he knew that sunset was not 
 due till eight o'clock, yet well, you never can tell, 
 and it is best to be on the safe side ! 
 
 Sunset is just about to sound off as I write ; let 
 me go on deck and once more see that sight which 
 never loses its impressiveness, and pray while the 
 bugle peals forth its sad notes that the Sun may 
 never set upon our Banner of the Cross the White 
 Ensign. 
 
 202
 
 XLVH. The Acting Sub 
 
 AMONGST the mass of information to be 
 absorbed by the young gentlemen who 
 study navigation under the naval in- 
 structor comes the interesting fact that while the 
 sun moves at a uniform rate it nevertheless appears 
 to travel at a much increased speed at certain 
 periods of its annual course. 
 
 How true this is, if applied to that other curve 
 which the sun also marks the curve of a lifetime ! 
 Those who were on the flat side of the ellipse that 
 is to say, in the period of Middle Age when the 
 War broke out, still find themselves moved onwards 
 so little that they appear to themselves to be prac- 
 tically stationary ; meanwhile, however, their little 
 nieces have developed from unconsidered trifles 
 into Cosmic Forces. 
 
 Yet I doubt whether in their case the flight of 
 time is so marked as it is with those Young Gentle- 
 men mentioned above. At the beginning of the 
 War they were junior midshipmen, mere excres- 
 cences upon the body politic or, to use their own 
 briefer term, " Warts." But now they shine in all 
 their splendour as Acting Subs ! 
 
 For you must understand that to be an Acting 
 Sub is to be at the most glorious period of a naval 
 career. He has two other and distant goals re- 
 
 203
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 maining ; one is reached when he first gets a Brass 
 Hat and is mentioned in the list of promotions 
 to Commander, and the other when he achieves 
 Flag rank ; but neither of these can give him the 
 thrill of exaltation and the happy sigh of satisfied 
 ambition that are his when first he sees himself 
 gazetted Acting Sub-Lieutenant ! 
 
 It marks the transition from childhood to man- 
 hood. When we commissioned, our present Acting 
 Subs were mere squeakers, boys with piping treble 
 voices, accepting the reproach of being youngsters 
 with meek acquiescence. 
 
 But with Time's insidious creep even junior 
 midshipmen pass through stages of evolution ; the 
 white patches on the collar of the monkey-jacket 
 distinguishing marks of midshipmen's rank and 
 relics of an age when the whole collar was white 
 except for a space left blue at the back, so as not 
 to show the soilings of a greasy pigtail these 
 patches grow less and less white ; trouser-legs 
 climb upwards, and there is a distinct suggestion 
 of elbow-sleeves, the growing wearers wandering 
 about like so many Smikes ; then comes the period 
 when they become Senior Midshipmen, holding a 
 high hand over a new generation of " warts," and 
 bearing the wisdom of the world written on their 
 faces and something of the wisdom of the sea 
 besides. 
 
 A brief period of racking tension supervenes, 
 during which their store of accumulated knowledge 
 is tested by heartless officers from other ships, who 
 coldly set them to perform practical tasks in sea- 
 manship and engineering, and the like ; as, for 
 
 204
 
 The Acting Sub 
 
 instance, how to hoist in a picket-boat with the 
 aid of a couple of capstan-bars and a fathom of 
 spun-yarn ; worse still, papers are set on navigation 
 and half a dozen other subjects ; and for a solid week 
 the strafe goes on. 
 
 But if the tortured victim finally hears that he 
 has passed ! 
 
 Not merely is it a matter of transition to estab- 
 lished manhood ; it certainly is this, but in addi- 
 tion it is a glorious sea-change into something most 
 extraordinarily rich and strange ! 
 
 Can you imagine the feelings of a caterpillar when 
 it wakes up and finds itself a butterfly ? They 
 may give you some faint indication of what it is to 
 be suddenly transformed from a midshipman into 
 an Acting Sub ! 
 
 For the first time now he wears upon his sleeve 
 that ring of gold lace which, though but a single 
 one at present, will multiply like ripples on a pond 
 until it becomes the insignia of an Admiral of the 
 Fleet perhaps ! 
 
 Further, he becomes the equal in rank of a First 
 Lieutenant in the Army, and thus possesses a very 
 real standing amongst men of considerably more 
 than his own age. 
 
 For, mark you, the Acting Sub really has his 
 proper dignity, and upholds it exceedingly well 
 as a rule. Do not base your mental image of him 
 upon his portrait as given in the weekly illustrated 
 papers. I do not, of course, deny that there may 
 be a certain solicitousness that the socks should be 
 of exactly the same shade as the eyes or whatever 
 the mode of the moment may be ; but you wouldn't 
 
 205
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 have him otherwise, would you ? Yet there can 
 be no erring greatly on that side when a man has to 
 do a man's work, as the Acting Sub has. Picture 
 him rather as well, let us avoid falling into the 
 opposite error ; here is no hero of short-story fiction, 
 with steely, deep-set eyes, and determined, square- 
 cut jaw, and all that sort of thing ; but just a man, 
 keen as mustard 011 the next thing that may happen 
 to blow along, and only hoping that it may be a 
 chance to do something a bit more exciting than 
 coaling ship or keeping watch on the quarter-deck. 
 Give him the opportunity to go as first lieutenant of 
 a destroyer, or even a torpedo-boat ; he will think 
 himself lucky and you, if you live in a coast-town 
 on his patrol, may sleep at peace, knowing that 
 while the Acting Sub is looking out for you there 
 won't be much going wrong on his particular portion 
 of the ocean i 
 
 206
 
 XLVIII. Storm 
 
 THERE is only one Storm worth considering 
 in all prose literature, and that is, of 
 course, in David Copperfield. This, how- 
 ever, is a storm as seen from the shore, and de- 
 scribes to the landsman something which he 
 already knew ; but would that the Writing-Master 
 had lent his pen to a description of a storm on the 
 high seas ! Then the dwellers in inland cities might 
 have been able to realise something of all its terrible 
 grandeur ; but I do not see how this is possible 
 now. 
 
 Unless someone in a destroyer or a patrol-vessel 
 takes up the task, someone of the hundreds of 
 young officers who have had a daily battle with the 
 elements ever since the first day of the war, up and 
 down off the coast and out in the North Sea, for 
 these men see the works of the Lord and His 
 wonders in the deep ; and, though they may possess 
 but little knowledge of literary conventions, they 
 have the one essential thing knowledge ; not the 
 knowledge absorbed by quiet meditation, but 
 knowledge beaten and buffeted into them, washed 
 into them, blown into them by sweeping seas and 
 shrieking winds. 
 
 The thing could not be done by anyone in a big 
 ship, because from such a point of view a storm is 
 
 207
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 like the one in King Lear not convincing. For, 
 unless the weather is very, very bad, it is quite 
 difficult to realise there is any storm in progress 
 worth calling a storm. 
 
 The other day I watched from this ship a patrol 
 drifter coming towards us with the wind and sea 
 on her beam ; she rolled and played in the tumble 
 of the waves like a gambolling porpoise, now heeling 
 over till her keel was nearly visible, and a moment 
 later turning all her upper deck into view, the while 
 a heavy curtain of white spray dashed funnel-high 
 across her just as though some playful sea-giant 
 were splashing her in fun. Then, to test the 
 amount of motion in my own ship, I went to my 
 writing-table and stood a long lead-pencil on its 
 end : it remained upright, and did not fall for 
 several minutes. 
 
 The biggest ships, however, can be lively enough 
 on occasions, and move about sufficiently to satisfy 
 the veriest sea-dog that dislikes a still ship. Build 
 we our leviathans as big as we may choose, Nature 
 still retains the mastery, and if the mood pleases 
 her is capable of tossing about the hugest battleships 
 as if they were mere cock-boats. There is a theory 
 that the crests of two successive waves can never 
 be more than a definite maximum distance apart, 
 and that therefore you have only to build a vessel 
 long enough to span two wave-crests, and she is 
 bound to remain supported without pitching ; the 
 theory might work out all right if only your vessel 
 would be certain of steering a course at right 
 angles to the long waves but, unfortunately, that 
 is not always the case. Big ships generally take a 
 
 208
 
 Storm 
 
 long time starting to knock about in a storm, but 
 when once fairly on the move they are correspond- 
 ingly long in quieting down again. I have seen a 
 squadron of super-Dreadnoughts giving a very fair 
 imitation of submarines, their decks so swept by 
 the breaking waves that no man was allowed to 
 appear there unless absolutely obliged. Then is 
 the time that newly joined ship's boys find a certain 
 consolation for the horrors of sea-sickness in their 
 pride at being regular deep-sea sailors who can boast 
 of their hardihood to the next batch of raw recruits ; 
 then, too, in the wardroom it is advisable to make a 
 careful choice of seats at meal-times, for there never 
 yet was a man-of-war skylight that did not leak 
 and some leak worse than others, as I have found 
 out by personal experience. 
 
 The worst storm is that which falls upon a flat 
 sea. The " calm before the storm " is no mere 
 figure of speech. The sea appears turned to slug- 
 gish oil, and the air tastes as if it had " gone bad." 
 The sky may be clear, except for a long low line 
 of clouds in one quarter, and there is a sinister 
 silence, a period in which the world seems holding 
 its breath against the great effort which it knows 
 full well is coming soon. Then a slight and steady 
 breeze springs up, and simultaneously those low- 
 banked clouds advance against the wind, and imper- 
 ceptibly thin out and spread a veil of lurid greenish- 
 grey over all the heavens. The surface of the sea 
 becomes disturbed by curious little lines of oncom- 
 ing rollers, which lip and curl and break upon the 
 flat ocean as upon a level beach. Then, while 
 you are watching the sea, you forget the rising 
 
 209
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 wind, till a whistling through cordage and wires and 
 a cold blast upon your face remind you that the 
 powers of heaven are unloosed at last ; and, turning 
 to the sea again, you find that in a few moments 
 it has changed to a welter of heaving, tumbling, 
 leaping billows, confused and disordered as yet, 
 and seeming to be quarrelling for place before 
 they get properly into their stride. An hour later, 
 and they have settled down to their attack, and 
 the massed battalions sweep steadily on, one after 
 the other, hurling themselves against the ship- 
 fortress in endless succession. 
 
 It is all very majestic, and perhaps nowhere 
 better viewed than from a fighting-ship. And the 
 naval officer, who in spite of his professed scorn 
 of the sentimental is quicker than most to perceive 
 the grandeur and the beauty of Nature, probably 
 realises the wonder of it all, though he is silent 
 about it. 
 
 210
 
 XLIX. Ranks and Ratings 
 
 I HAVE been asked for the elucidation of a 
 mystery which seems to have a perennial 
 interest for naval officers namely, the rela- 
 tive ranks, duties, and positions of officers of the 
 Church. I have many times been called upon to 
 explain these unknown quantities, and have found 
 that the easiest way is to give x in terms of y y 
 being the relative position of naval ranks ; and it 
 may possibly prove of some interest to those to 
 whom ranks and ratings are an unknown quantity 
 if I reverse the process and give y in terms of x. 
 
 The Commander-in-Chief, then, is our Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. He is primus inter pares, 
 and may have one or two suffragan admirals on his 
 staff. Under his orders are a number of other 
 admirals in command of squadrons, like bishops in 
 charge of dioceses, the flagship representing the 
 Cathedral, and the flag-captain answering to the 
 dean. At this point the parallel breaks down a 
 little, because although the " private ships " 
 represent the parishes, with their captains as 
 rectors, it is a little difficult to say whether the 
 commander should be classed as a vicar or merely 
 as the senior curate. (By the way, it is curious 
 to the outsider that the commander is not the officer 
 who commands the ship unless he happens to be 
 
 211
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 appointed as captain of a small vessel.) Then the 
 further difficulty comes in that captains, com- 
 manders, and lieutenants are all distinct ranks, 
 whereas the imposingest rector and the mildest 
 curate are both priests of the same order. 
 
 Other naval ranks have their curiosities also ; 
 we have a fleet-surgeon and fleet-paymaster, who 
 have nothing whatever to do with a fleet, and a 
 staff-surgeon and staff-paymaster, who are not 
 on the staff. The same prefixes were formerly 
 applied to engineer officers, before the invention 
 of the terms engineer-commander and engineer- 
 lieutenant ; and now we have yet another name 
 for officers performing engineering duties, since the 
 " New Scheme " has given us " Lieutenants E." 
 
 Two new ranks have quite recently been invented 
 namely, that of Lieutenant -Commander, who is 
 a two-and-a-half striper, and that of Mate. The 
 main advantage to the holder of the former seems 
 to be that if he is court -martialled he cannot be 
 reduced below the lowest of this rank, whereas 
 formerly he was liable to be set back to become 
 a lieutenant of no seniority at all ! " Mate " is a 
 revived term ; at least, there used to be " Master's 
 Mates " in the old days, when the navigating branch 
 was distinct from the executive. Mates are now 
 chosen from the Warrant Officers, or even straight 
 from the Lower Deck. The institution of this rank 
 is a very great privilege to the men, since it leads 
 on to further advancement, and the old dream of 
 " Powder-Monkey to Admiral," unheard of since 
 Nelson's days, has once more become something 
 of a practical possibility. 
 
 212
 
 Ranks and Ratings 
 
 From Ranks let us now turn to Ratings. The 
 next step above Boy is Ordinary Seaman the 
 very last term that ought to be applied to him, for 
 as a rule he is a most extraordinary seaman ! Being 
 newly emancipated from the restrictions which are 
 maintained over the boys, he is apt to misuse his 
 novel privileges at times, before he has learnt 
 enough of his trade to palliate his shortcomings ; 
 so that the " rorty young O.D." is at once a holy 
 terror and an object of scorn to all right-thinking 
 men ; and if you want to flatten out anyone of 
 your acquaintance who brings you a feeble and 
 obviously inadequate plea in mitigation of say, 
 for instance, failing to keep an appointment just 
 remember to make the crushing rejoinder, " Don't 
 come here with any of your Ordinary Seaman's 
 excuses ! " 
 
 Next above him comes the Able Seaman, who 
 represents the splendid rank-and-file of the Navy. 
 
 If you really want to talk to a bluejacket, and 
 don't know his name or rating, you should address 
 him as " Sailor" 
 
 Some of the ratings are redolent of the good old 
 " costume " days. " Master-at-arms," and " Ar- 
 mourer " do they not smack of hauberks and 
 bucklers and jousts ? Alas for those degenerate 
 times ! The former is but the head policeman of 
 the ship, and the latter no more than a glorified 
 blacksmith ! 
 
 As to my own branch, it is easy to state our rank 
 in the Navy. Chaplains have no naval rank.
 
 L. Boy Giblets 
 
 GIBLETS was the "Pusser's Name" with 
 which he joined the Navy; and a vast 
 amount of persuasion was exercised upon 
 him, both at Shotley and when he was drafted to 
 his first ship, to make him pronounce the initial 
 " G " hard " for the sake of euphony," as the 
 old-fashioned French grammars used to say about 
 the interpolated " -t-." Vain, however, were all 
 such efforts. The youthful owner of the anatomical 
 patronymic persisted in pronouncing himself as an 
 important part of a fowl's interior ; in truth, he was 
 a vulgar little boy ! 
 
 After the first fortnight of ship life he decided 
 that the Navy was not all it was cried up to be, and 
 that as a Career it was not sympathetic to his 
 temperament ; so he planned to forfeit his earlier 
 hopes of becoming an Admiral and to deprive the 
 Navy of his services. 
 
 An attempt at getting invalided out by simulating 
 fits with the aid of a piece of pusser's soap proved a 
 lamentable failure, owing to the uncanny knowledge 
 of a brutally suspicious Fleet-Surgeon, and only 
 resulted in six cuts with the cane laid on by p ship's 
 corporal who appeared to take a pride in his job. 
 
 Despairing of any chance of leaving the Service 
 by such a recognised channel, he next made up his 
 
 214
 
 Boy Giblets 
 
 mind to desert ; and seized his opportunity when 
 the boys were landed for a football party. 
 
 Four days later he was ignominiously brought 
 back to the ship by a policeman. Subsequent 
 investigations revealed that the intervening time 
 had been spent in a lively and varied manner, 
 which must have taxed fairly heavily even an imagi- 
 nation nourished on penny " Deadwood Dicks." 
 
 It appears that on the first day he presented him- 
 self at a lonely cottage of an old woman of the 
 labouring classes in the character of a shipwrecked 
 mariner who had swum ashore from a torpedoed 
 merchantman ; but his achievements at supper- 
 time convinced the old lady that feeding distressed 
 seamen was not her metier, and he was shown the 
 door. Exactly how he managed to procure a suit 
 of civvies never leaked out, but he owned up to 
 having condescended to give the Army a trial, 
 though he was refused on the score of size. From 
 the Army proper it was a natural step to the Salva- 
 tion Army, where he posed as a reformed burglar's 
 apprentice, and so procured free meals for a day. 
 His capture took place some few hours after his 
 joining a travelling circus, where he was com- 
 pletely given away by his free use of nautical 
 swear-words, in which part of his professional 
 studies he had from the first proved himself 
 remarkably proficient. The manager of the circus, 
 who didn't want to have trouble with the police, 
 took immediate steps to place his feet once more 
 on the lower rungs of the ladder of naval glory 
 in other words, he handed him over to the local 
 constable* 
 
 * 215
 
 In the Nortfiern Mists 
 
 A wise captain turned a deaf ear to the charge of 
 desertion, and prescribed an outward application, 
 as before. For a few days after this Boy Gib lets' s 
 conduct was exemplary. The only break in his 
 monotonous life was when his messmates jeered 
 at him for getting no letters or parcels a jibe 
 which was true at the moment ; but within three 
 days he rounded on his persecutors by receiving 
 a stupendous mail seventy-eight letters, mostly 
 containing photographs of fair ladies, and nineteen 
 parcels of various kinds of food though there was 
 also tobacco, two mufflers, a bundle of tracts, and a 
 French horn ; the mystery of this embarrassment 
 of riches remained sealed to everyone except the 
 Censor, who could have told of an advertisement 
 inserted in a provincial paper, wherein a certain 
 Lonely Sailor, considered strikingly handsome, pre- 
 sented a moving appeal to the sympathetically 
 minded. 
 
 In the ordinary course of events the tobacco 
 should have been confiscated and doled out on coal- 
 ship days, when alone the boys are allowed to smoke ; 
 but Giblets had a master-mind, and made friends 
 with the mammon of unrighteousness by presenting 
 it all to the ship's corporal, in hopes of getting it 
 laid on more lightly next time. 
 
 The French horn he swapped with a member of 
 the band for a boot-cleaning outfit, with which he 
 set up a little business on the lower deck until he 
 had amassed eleven and ninepence. From this 
 point he changed his views, and came round to the 
 opinion that the Navy was not such a bad place 
 after all ; the boot-cleaning business was changed 
 
 216
 
 Boy Giblets 
 
 for the more lucrative one of snobbing ; out of the 
 proceeds of this he kitted himself up till he was the 
 smartest-dressed boy in the ship invested also in 
 a spelling-book and a Complete Letter- Writer, and 
 shone conspicuous amongst the boys of the inter- 
 mediate class at Ship's School. In fact, he pro- 
 gressed so rapidly that he is now recommended 
 for promotion to Ordinary Seaman at 17| ; and I 
 should not be surprised if one of these days you 
 were to hear of Lieutenant Giblettes with the 
 " G " sounded hard, and the accent on the second 
 syllable, please 1 
 
 P 2 211
 
 LI. Singing Sailormen 
 
 SAILORMEN are always singing Westoes 
 especially ; one passed my cabin door just 
 now, carolling in a way that would make a 
 martinet of the old school say that the Navy was 
 going to the dogs. But you can't stop them 
 even if you wanted to, which no sensible person 
 does ; a sailorman must sing, whether he does it 
 entirely on his own, undisturbed by the clatter 
 and talk around him, or in conjunction with half a 
 dozen others sitting at their mess-table, to the 
 accompaniment of a mouth-organ or a mandoline, 
 or else in the grand style at a shippy concert 'tween 
 decks, with the captain and officers in the front 
 seats of the audience ; the music that is in his soul 
 has to come out somehow ! 
 
 Sea-songs are of two classes : those which are 
 written by landsmen for sailors' use, and those 
 which spring Aphrodite-like from the sea itself. 
 Of the former kind there is nothing to be said 
 except that sailors don't sing them won't look 
 at them, in fact. The smart epigrammatist 
 who announced that, Let him make a nation's songs, 
 and anybody that liked might write its history, 
 might have written sea-songs till he was blue in the 
 face but he would have had to sing them himself ! 
 Dibdin's collection, for example, is very interest- 
 218
 
 Singing Sailormen 
 
 ing ; but you never hear them sung on board 
 ship. 
 
 The real sea-songs are those which grew naturally 
 out of oft-repeated phrases used every day at work, 
 mostly in the old sailing-ship times ; the common 
 expressions of orders, words of encouragement or 
 complaint, uttered at first in an ordinary speaking- 
 voice, taking on a musical form until every part 
 of the day's work had its own appropriate 
 " chanty " ; the leading hand became the choragus, 
 and the other men took up the burden in response. 
 Most of these old chanties are unknown, however, 
 to the seamen of the modern Navy, though I 
 dare say they are still to be heard in " wind- 
 jammers." 
 
 Then there are others of a slightly more ambitious 
 order, such as " Farewell and Adieu " and " Caw- 
 sand Bay." You never hear these on the lower 
 deck, but they are still great favourites in the 
 gunroom. Not many evenings ago I listened to 
 a lusty young giant singing without the least 
 suspicion of tune an endless ballad about the love- 
 affairs of a doAvntrodden pressed man and his 
 ultimate release by his lacly-love, the culminating 
 passage of which appeared to be : 
 
 " And out from her boo-zum she drew his dis- 
 charge ! " 
 
 We all repeated this line at the top of our voices 
 and with great fervour. 
 
 There is not much scope for the spontaneous 
 growth of genuine sea-chanties to meet modern 
 
 210
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 occasions ; not only has machinery replaced 
 manual labour in most of the operations that used 
 to call for vocal encouragement, but in such jobs as 
 are still man-handled it is recognised that noise 
 and efficiency do not usually go hand-in-hand ; 
 singing is a recreation nowadays, not an aid to 
 work. 
 
 Such ditties as are sung mark a very pronounced 
 decline from the simple ballads and chanties of 
 former times. In an annual review of musical 
 production I read lately, " As to the countless 
 ballads and drawing-room ditties which have been 
 published, all one can say in their favour is that 
 they are generally within the vocal means of those 
 who care to sing such things " about as nasty a 
 criticism as could be made, I imagine, but sadly 
 appropriate to the majority of the songs to which 
 the sailor has in these days descended. He delights in 
 the so-called comic song of the halls, and still more 
 in sloshy, sentimental vapidities ; you should hear 
 him, for instance, in " The Pore Blind Boy," with 
 its refrain of " We luv 'im, we luv 'im, we luv 'im 
 bee-coz 'e is blind ! " 
 
 Not for the sailor is that elusive search for The 
 Method which seems to be at once the joy and the 
 despair of so many musical amateurs. He wastes 
 no time in trying to acquire the sensation of a 
 curtain of water falling at the back of his nose, nor 
 in endeavouring to feel as if the top of his head were 
 resting upon his chin. Such a quest akin to that 
 of the good folk who pass delightfully anguished 
 years in trying to " git religion " is unknown to 
 him, with all its bitter-sweets ; as is also the 
 
 220
 
 Singing Sailormen 
 
 triumph of having Got It ; he is a very heathen, a 
 Gallic, with respect to The Method. Only in one 
 particular does he put in any specialised work, and 
 that is in Nasal Resonance ; and how extremely 
 nasal his resonance is must be heard to be be- 
 lieved 1 
 
 221
 
 LII. " Small Cords " 
 
 OUR uncompromising Number One would 
 have it that they were all mealy-mouthed, 
 white-livered swabs. Schooley, more dis- 
 criminating, stood out for the Moral Courage 
 theory : to face public obloquy argued the highest 
 kind of bravery and so on. The First Lieutenant 
 waved this aside with contempt. " Find me," he 
 said, " a single one of 'em who is simply longing to 
 fight, but doesn't on account of his principles, and 
 I'll begin to believe in them ; at present, their 
 opinions square a dashed sight too well with their 
 inclinations ! " 
 
 " But it's absurd to deny that many of them are 
 utterly sincere," retorted the Naval Instructor. 
 
 " So is every self-opinionated blighter that walks 
 this earth ! What you call their Moral Courage 
 is nothing more than just abysmal conceit ! They 
 thoroughly enjoy making martyrs of themselves, 
 so there's nothing in that just as there's nothing 
 particularly brave about the fighting man who by 
 nature revels in a good scrap. No ; these puffed- 
 up cranks won't be content to abide by the decisions 
 of their betters no excitement or self-glorification 
 in that ! They prefer to take their own line, and 
 everybody else is wrong ! " 
 
 Schooley thought this unfair, and said so. Mino- 
 
 222
 
 Small Cords " 
 
 rities, he argued, were not always in the wrong ; 
 these people based their case upon Christianity, 
 and it was notorious that the Christian Church, 
 now as at the beginning, was always a discredited 
 minority. Christ and His disciples made them- 
 selves thoroughly unpopular by running counter 
 to all the received opinions of respectability. 
 
 " Oh," exclaimed Number One, " if you're going 
 to take the argument of Christianity, it's no use 
 my going on ! Especially as the Padre here will 
 chip in to back you up." 
 
 " Nothing of the sort," said I ; "I don't back 
 him up at all ! " 
 
 Incredulous and inquiring looks from both. 
 
 " I don't say that they are not sincere or not 
 brave," I explained ; " they may be both these 
 things ; but what I do most emphatically state is 
 that your Conscientious Objectors so far as their 
 objections are concerned are certainly not Chris- 
 tians." 
 
 " But surely these are their ideas please don't 
 take them for my own altogether," argued Schooley : 
 " Christianity aims as breaking down all barriers 
 of race and nationality. There is neither Jew nor 
 Gentile why not say neither British nor German ? 
 All are meant to be one brotherhood. I read the 
 other day of a magistrate at an Exemption Tribunal 
 who sneered finely at an appellant who said that 
 England was not his country, and he was only 
 passing through it on his way home to Heaven ; 
 but the man was only paraphrasing such phrases 
 as Strangers and Pilgrims, and Here we have no 
 continuing city, but we seek one to come. Christ 
 
 223
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 deliberately stated that His was not an earthly 
 kingdom ; evil was not to be resisted ; blows, 
 theft, and oppression were to be accepted, even 
 gladly accepted. You cannot imagine Christ 
 countenancing fighting and bloodshed. He refused 
 aid for Himself, and gave the final proof of His 
 belief hi the principles of passive non-resistance by 
 allowing His persecutors to kill Him. And no one 
 can deny that if we were all to follow His example 
 there could never be any war. If we were all Con- 
 scientious Objectors to bloodshed not a man would 
 consent to carry a rifle and the world would be at 
 peace. This was what Christ aimed at ; not 
 violent coercion His was the gentler way ; He 
 would draw men with cords of a man, with bands 
 of love." 
 
 " But don't forget the other cords," I said, " the 
 small ones." 
 
 " I don't quite follow," said Schooley ; " you 
 mean " 
 
 " I mean He made a scourge of small cords and 
 drove them all out of the Temple. Brutal violence, 
 wasn't it ? Remember, small cords sting hard. 
 Your Christian exquisite, had he been present, 
 would probably have accused Him of profaning the 
 Temple. O my dear friend, he would have said, 
 how bewtifull is Peace ! What is Peace ? Is it toe 
 beat, is it toe whip, is it toe scourge with small cords ? 
 Schooley, I've no patience with your one-sided 
 travesty of Christianity ! It seems to me just as 
 bad, in the opposite direction, as the doctrine of 
 those German divines who preach the blessed 
 gospel of bloodshed. Christ was frowned upon in 
 
 224
 
 " Small Cords " 
 
 His day for being too thorough-going ; I have no 
 doubt that if He were to reappear He would be 
 treated with great suspicion by many who would 
 consider Him not thorough-going enough. To say 
 that we ought to refrain from all resistance to evil 
 is only a parody of what Christ taught. Non- 
 resistance to wrong-doing very often means acqui- 
 escence in it. It is all very well to turn your own 
 cheek to the smiter ; but if you see a bully ill-treat- 
 ing a little child you are not called upon to grip the 
 child's head and turn his other cheek. 
 
 ' You say that if everyone were to refuse to bear 
 arms there would be an end of warfare. Why not 
 complete your truism, and say that if everyone were 
 kind, unselfish, contented in short, Christlike, 
 there would be no need for a call to arms ? A 
 man ought logically to Conscientiously Object, not 
 to Warfare itself, but to those private and national 
 habits of greed, jealousy, and malice that finally 
 result in warfare as either their consequence or 
 their cure ; just as it is more reasonable to disap- 
 prove of burglary than of a policeman, of a plague 
 than of its resultant furuncles. The real trouble 
 is that a very large number of people deliberately 
 reject the formula of living which Christ enunciated, 
 and in some cases a whole nation does so. Then 
 comes War, which is never anything else but a 
 struggle between Right and Wrong. You always 
 find, on one side, the money-changers and dove- 
 sellers ; and on the other the Man with the scourge 
 of small cords. So I say that to refuse to wield this 
 scourge in flaying greed and thievery, in cleansing 
 the Temple of God from pollution, may be Con- 
 
 225
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 scientious, but certainly isn't Christian unless 
 Christ was no Christian." 
 
 " Then you are on my side," said the First 
 Lieutenant, greatly surprised. 
 
 " On the side of the angels," I answered ; and 
 tried not to make the words sound so priggish as 
 they look when written. 
 
 220
 
 LIU. " TonaV ' 
 
 THROWN into the vast melting-pot of the 
 Navy, and into that particular portion of 
 the crucible wherein our ship's company 
 is collected, came a raw, loose-limbed Hebridean, 
 with flaming hair and high cheek-bones, a wild and 
 rugged son of the Western Isles. 
 
 Donald McLeod was the name on his parchment- 
 certificate, and his birthplace Stornoway, in Lewis. 
 Somehow he had drifted from Ultima Thule to 
 London, and there, at the beginning of the war, had 
 joined the Royal Naval Division, and in course of 
 time was drafted to us. 
 
 Amongst his messmates on the lower deck he 
 became generally known as " Tonal'," because 
 that was how he pronounced his Christian name ; 
 and as in that elementary society any personal pecu- 
 liarities are seized upon as subject-matter for jests, 
 his manner of speech was a godsend to the mess- 
 deck wits. " I haf not the Engliss not ferry well at 
 all," he would plaintively say ; and, indeed, when he 
 talked which was not frequently he reminded you 
 of one of the characters in William Black's novels. 
 
 For the other Scotsmen in the ship he had nothing 
 but a withering contempt, because it so happened 
 that they were all Lowlanders, from Glasgow and 
 Dundee mostly. 
 
 227
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 It was quite early discovered that Tonal' claimed 
 to have the gift of second sight. With some of the 
 men this created an atmosphere of superstitious awe; 
 others, however, ridiculed the matter, and made 
 it another opportunity for provokingly pointed 
 jests. They besought him to foretell when the 
 'Uns would bring their Canal Fleet out when the 
 end of the war would come and, with greater in- 
 terest still, when they were going to get some leave. 
 
 These requests angered Tonal' very greatly. 
 Vainly he tried to explain to his tormentors that 
 " the Sicht " was in the nature of things sacred, and 
 not to be lightly considered as a mere method of 
 fortune-telling jugglery that it could not, in fact, 
 be exercised save when the proper mood was on, 
 a mood not under human control. When such 
 explanations were useless, as they always were, he 
 would turn upon the mockers and curse them 
 roundly in a flood of what was presumably Gaelic ; 
 this caused much delight, and was regarded as part 
 of the entertainment. 
 
 A tragedy very nearly resulted from one of these 
 occasions. Having baited the angry Highlander 
 to the limit of his endurance, a certain Simpkins 
 committed the final act of unseemly levity by 
 asking which cutter would win in a race taking 
 place next day " because I want to 'ave a dollar 
 on it with Nobby Clarke, an' I'd like to make certain 
 of it first ! " 
 
 Tonal' rounded on the wretched Simpkins 
 fiercely : " I haf the Sicht on me now," he roared, 
 " and I tell you this in three days you will pe a 
 dead man 1 " 
 
 228
 
 i4 Tonal' ' 
 
 For the rest of that day Simpkins walked deli- 
 cately ; the next morning he was sickly white and 
 trembling, growing visibly worse towards the evening. 
 
 A sense of dread and mystery spread over the 
 ship. Men talked in hushed voices, and always 
 on the one topic, and stole away from their work 
 every now and then to note how Simpkins was 
 getting on. For the victim had not reported himself 
 sick, and, in fact, denied with several forcible 
 expressions, that there was anything the matter 
 with him. For all that, he was obviously getting 
 very near to a state of collapse. The Fleet-Surgeon 
 talked learnedly about hypnosis for all the officers, 
 of course, knew about the affair and was for 
 ordering the man to the Syck-Bay, to be kept under 
 observation. But the First Lieutenant asked to 
 be allowed to try a different treatment, and got 
 his own way. The First Lieutenant, you under- 
 stand, was not a sympathetic soul. He had also 
 been on the West Coast, and said that he wasn't 
 going to have any of this qualified Voodoo business 
 going on in the ship, not if he could help it ! 
 
 He sent for Simpkins, and, as the Corporal of the 
 Gangway expressed it, " proper rattled him." 
 " You just dare to die, that's all," was the end of 
 his discourse ; " you just try it on, and I'll make 
 your life a perfect misery to you ! " He also sent 
 for Tonal', and said several things to him. 
 
 What the outcome would have been will never 
 be known, because Simpkins, doing some job on the 
 foc'sle, and being uncertain-footed through failing 
 nerve, fell overboard, and was picked up after some 
 little time unconscious and with his lungs half-full 
 
 229
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 of water, developing pneumonia before he recovered 
 his senses. And when he eventually came to 
 himself he was so pleased to find that the three days 
 were gone and he was still alive that he made a very 
 rapid recovery. 
 
 Tonal's reputation was much enhanced by this ; 
 some arguing that Simpkins would have died if it 
 hadn't been for an unfortunate accident ; others 
 crediting the accident itself to Tonal' as a very 
 sporting attempt which nearly succeeded. 
 
 But a short while after, Tonal' himself went sick 
 canteen salmon being the immediate cause. He 
 suffered very severe pain, and voiced his griefs in 
 tones which, to put it mildly, caused much astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 " Ow, the pyne, the pyne ! " he wailed ; " fer 
 Gawd's syke give me somefink to stop it wiv, Doc- 
 tor, carn't yer ? " 
 
 " The man's pure Cockney," the Fleet-Surgeon 
 reported to the Wardroom, " no more Highlander 
 than I am ! " 
 
 " But what on earth possessed the man to act 
 like that ? " we asked. 
 
 " Your own question supplies the answer," said 
 the man of science ; "it was just simply acting, 
 right through. A desire for notoriety, perhaps, 
 coupled with the aids of his appearance and name 
 though even the name may not be genuine. A 
 little abnormal streak some men are built like 
 that ; it comes out in different ways." 
 
 But the First Lieutenant said, " I always knew 
 the man was an epithetical impostor ; all the 
 McLeods are black, not red ! " 
 
 230
 
 LIV. The Advantage-Party 
 
 THE practice of giving leave to men in small 
 batches applies, fortunately, to sailors as 
 well as to soldiers ; no appreciable loss of 
 efficiency is felt by the absence of a small number 
 over a short period, and to the actual pleasure of 
 going on leave is added the anticipatory excitement 
 of wondering when it may be your luck to go. 
 
 Those who are chosen to be the first to proceed 
 upon this pleasurable errand are termed, officially, 
 the Advance-Party ; but unofficially they are more 
 generally known as the Advantage-Party because 
 when they go they do go, therein having the advan- 
 tage over those who have not yet gone and don't 
 know when they may go or even if they will go 
 at all. 
 
 " Are you going on leave with the Advantage- 
 Party ? " " Don't know, yet ; it hasn't been 
 settled at present at least, so far as I know ; have 
 you heard anything ? " So might the expectant 
 Aristocrats of the Bastille have questioned one 
 another with regard to the next day's proceedings 
 in which they calculated on playing so prominent a 
 part only, in our case, the release is less permanent 
 and more agreeable. 
 
 Not the least unpleasing feature of the whole 
 business to those who are not amongst the chosen 
 
 Q 231
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 ones is to see coming alongside the small vessel 
 detailed to transport the Advantage-Party to the 
 beach. She remains alongside perhaps for some 
 hours ; we look well over her, possibly go aboard 
 her, and note curiously upon the tablets of our 
 mind that these very decks on which we are now 
 treading will presently be a magic carpet to waft a 
 certain number of people exactly where they wish 
 to go, and we shall not be there then. We 
 never quite realised before what it must feel 
 like to those boys who are left at school during 
 the holidays when they stroll down to the sta- 
 tion and watch the outgoing trains poor little 
 blighters ! 
 
 These pioneers, about to break into an almost 
 forgotten land, are charged with any number of 
 commissions for the far country. There is, it 
 seems, one special kind of trout-fly that can only be 
 procured at one special shop in London ; a zealous 
 watch-keeper has compiled a book of notes for the 
 guidance of the officer-of-the-watch, a monumental 
 liasse pasted on the back of old charts, which he 
 desires to have taken to the one and only book- 
 binder who can be trusted not to make a pot-mess 
 of the whole caboodle ; the members of the 
 Gourmet Club draw up an order for peaches and 
 oysters, to be purchased at the latest possible 
 moment ; and our most musical member begs as 
 a friendly act that his 'cello may be brought back 
 from Herefordshire : " It won't take you long to 
 nip down there, old man, and my people will be 
 awfully glad to see you ! " all these commissions, 
 and many more in addition, are undertaken with 
 
 232
 
 The Advantage-Party 
 
 the utmost light-heartedness ; and, strange to say, 
 are most of them carried out faithfully. 
 
 Next to going on leave oneself the best thing is 
 to try to take a vicarious pleasure in another 
 man's prospective pleasures, to pick out his theatres 
 for him, to select little dinners even to wrestle 
 with Bradshaw on his behalf. Many are the ques- 
 tions as to the locality in which the few brief days 
 are to be spent ; though, generally speaking, to all 
 such queries may be applied the answer given by a 
 young lieutenant of our ship, who explained : 
 " Well, it doesn't make much difference where I 
 make up my mind to go when on leave somehow 
 or other I always manage to foul London ! " 
 
 On the analogy of men returning from a visit to 
 the trenches, the suggestion was made that those 
 who went on leave with the Advantage-Party should 
 give a lecture, on coming back to the ship, and relate 
 their experiences. The idea was received with 
 marked coolness ; particularly by one whose alter- 
 native sobriquets are The Roue and Flaming Bill ; 
 yet I feel sure that his narrative would have proved 
 of enthralling interest. 
 
 However, in spite of the absence of any formal 
 discourses on the subject, one was able never- 
 theless to glean a good deal not of news about 
 the war, for that appears to be almost as much a 
 minus quantity in England as it is in the Grand 
 Fleet but of our messmates' doings, and still more 
 of their impressions. 
 
 These latter prove most extraordinarily in- 
 teresting to us, penned up in our ships and 
 largely cut off from the world. Anyone who 
 
 Q 2 233
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 goes from us goes into a strange and unknown 
 country, and it is just possible that the 
 relation he brings back with him of the facts and 
 ideas prevailing in the places he visits may seem, 
 when written down, not more novel to us than to 
 the inhabitants of that land who may be so habi- 
 tuated to them as not to be aware of them. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking impression was that of 
 a strange kind of rivalry of pride which is springing 
 up in so many homes. Everywhere one goes 
 so it was reported one sees people dressed in 
 mourning clothes (what must it be, though, in Ger- 
 many !) ; elderly people, for the most part, com- 
 paring notes ; in the parks, at restaurants, in 
 shops, they meet one another : " My boy was killed 
 at Gallipoli," says one ; " Mine was killed in France 
 last week," says his friend ; " and my second lad was 
 badly wounded in Mesopotamia." Only a couple of 
 years ago, such announcements would have been 
 made, if made at all, with a choking voice and after 
 much hesitation ; but now they are issued with an 
 abruptness which would almost seem callous, were 
 it not that there rings in the words the resounding 
 note of pride in a sacrifice gladly borne, a gift 
 freely given. We might have imagined, up here, 
 that our losses would have made a melancholy 
 England, with dark sorrow brooding everywhere ; 
 and no doubt the sorrow exists, but to us, at least, 
 it is a revelation to find it gilded with such a 
 glorious spirit. 
 
 It was said, also, that it is very much rarer now 
 than it was a year ago to see a man of military age 
 in plain clothes. Obviously, of course, this must 
 
 231
 
 The Advantage-Party 
 
 be so, after all the enlistment which has been going 
 on continually ; but none the less, it was much 
 more striking to see the change made than to watch 
 it in the making ; possibly the enemy would not 
 talk quite so glibly about our " phantom armies " 
 if he could have the veil lifted after many months, 
 and see our towns as they were seen by the Advan- 
 tage-Party ! 
 
 Yet another impression, lamentable or the 
 reverse, according as one looks at the matter, was 
 that there appears to be no appreciable tightening 
 of the purse-strings amongst the generality of 
 people. Not only were the shops crowded, but all 
 theatres and places of amusement of every kind 
 were doing a roaring trade. Very wrong, per- 
 haps, in face of the urgent appeals to economise ; 
 but, on the other hand, surely it shows that the vast 
 spending power of our country has barely been 
 touched yet. A psychologist may object that 
 luxuries and amusements are the very last things 
 on which people exercise economy ; but though 
 they may not do so spontaneously, they can be 
 made to do so when necessary, and it is a comforting 
 thought that the money is there, ready to take. If 
 good Dr. Helfferich imagines that we have come to 
 the limit of our resources, let him procure a safe- 
 conduct, and come and see for himself, under the 
 auspices of our next Advantage-Party. 
 
 235
 
 LV. An Indeterminate Equation 
 
 NAVVY would have it that the whole thing 
 could be done on the back of a visiting- 
 card ; but, then, Navvy has been to 
 China, where visiting-cards are measured by the 
 square foot. 
 
 Schooley had not at this time joined the ship, so 
 we had no professional mathematician to whom to 
 refer ; nevertheless, we all agreed that Navvy's 
 statement was wrong, simply because on general 
 grounds we saw no reason why he should be right. 
 
 Upon this, he shifted his ground at once, and 
 offered a mild wager to each and all of us that we 
 could not do it in an hour ; to which we replied 
 in that monosyllabic expression of offended pride 
 and confident assertiveness generally written as 
 " Huh I " and at once produced our pencils and 
 hunted around for signal-pads, old band-pro- 
 grammes, or the fly-leaves of those innumerable 
 letters in which kindly-disposed gentlemen plead 
 with us to accept anything up to fifty thousand 
 pounds on our note of hand alone ; any bit of paper 
 would do to figure out this simple calculation. 
 
 What diabolical motive induced the disturber 
 of our peace to spring this problem upon us I cannot 
 say ; unless the moving cause may be sought in the 
 fact that Satan finds some mischief still for navi- 
 
 236
 
 An Indeterminate Equation 
 
 gating-lieutenants to do ; but when once the 
 apple of discord was thrown in our midst no, it 
 was not an apple really, it was a nut. The odd 
 nut was the crux of the whole matter. 
 
 Perhaps I had better explain at this point exactly 
 what the problem was. 
 
 We were informed that a band of robbers had 
 stolen a large bagful of nuts ; which seems a silly 
 sort of thing for robbers to do, because they 
 couldn't have been satisfied with a nut-diet ; who 
 ever heard of vegetarian robbers ? 
 
 Anyhow, they did. There were five of them in 
 this silly business and they also had a pet mon- 
 key ; destroyer officers frequently keep a pet of 
 the same species on board their pirate craft, so there 
 appears to be some verisimilitude about this part 
 of the story. 
 
 The robbery having taken place late in the 
 evening, the five agreed to defer till next morning 
 the sharing of the spoil, and went to bed. 
 
 In the night, however, one of the robbers, having 
 the astute foresight of a company-promoter, arose 
 stealthily and divided the nuts into five equal 
 portions one nut being left over, which he tossed 
 to the monkey. Then he put his twice-stolen nuts 
 under his pillow and went to sleep again. And the 
 same brain-wave occurred to each of the remaining 
 four robbers in turn ; on every occasion one nut 
 being left over for the monkey. In the morning, 
 the residue of the nuts was shared equally amongst 
 the five, and an odd nut still remained for the 
 monkey. What, we were asked to discover, is the 
 least number of nuts that meets the case ? 
 
 237
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 It looks easy, doesn't it ? 
 
 At the end of an hour the wardroom was strewn 
 with papers all covered with algebraical fractions, 
 longer than any fraction has a right to be in these 
 days, when everything is being cut down and 
 strict economy practised in all directions ; and the 
 worst of it was that these fractions were obviously 
 only stepping-stones to larger fractions still. 
 
 Some of the struggling competitors gave in at 
 this point, and weakly alleged that pressing duties 
 claimed their presence elsewhere. Those who 
 remained tore up their calculations and announced 
 that of course this wasn't the proper way to work 
 it ; they should have tackled it from the other 
 end, working backwards, which would make it 
 quite a simple matter. 
 
 After another long interval the bravest of us said 
 what we all wanted to say, but were ashamed of 
 saying : " Of course, it's easy enough," he ex- 
 claimed ; " anybody could do it if he cared to give 
 the time to the thing ; but it isn't worth while to 
 waste hours over a stupid problem like that ! " 
 Whereupon he left the ward-room. 
 
 We would gladly have followed his example, but 
 another suggestion held us. " Let's work it out 
 practically," urged a persistent member. " Not 
 enough nuts in the ship," was objected to this. 
 " Never mind, we can get some haricot beans from 
 the ship's steward ; there are six of us here. You 
 can be the monkey, young feller-me-lad, and we'll 
 be the robbers ! " 
 
 But the officer familiarly addressed as " young 
 feller-me-lad " took umbrage at being cast for the 
 
 238
 
 An Indeterminate Equation 
 
 monkey's part ; expressed his objections not alone 
 in words but in deeds ; and leapt across the ward- 
 room table upon the suggester's stomach with an 
 agility that went far to justify his selection for the 
 simian r61e. 
 
 The proceedings then took a livelier turn, and 
 proved an agreeable diversion to the mathematical 
 discussion. 
 
 The problem itself, needless to state, remained 
 not only indeterminate, but undetermined ! 
 
 I should like to thank my unknown correspon- 
 dent at the Admiralty who sent me a solution oj 
 the " nuts " problem, giving 15,484,371 as the 
 answer; this Admiralty estimate, however, is a 
 little extravagant. The correct answer, as kindly 
 supplied by a chaplain and naval instructor, is 
 15,621. 
 
 239
 
 LV1. Aftermath. 
 
 Written a few days ajter the Jutland Battle 
 (June, 1916). 
 
 THE next morning broke misty and dull as 
 the evening before ; the noise of gunfire 
 which had resounded at intervals during 
 the night had died away ; a light breeze was 
 beginning to spring up, and already stirred the 
 waves to leap mercifully upon all the flotsam, 
 human and other, and sink it down to its long 
 quiet rest. Fitful clouds spread and broke across 
 the sky, with gleams of brightness in between, 
 and lights and shadows chased one another over 
 the surface of the leaden waters like the sad 
 thoughts and the cheery satisfaction that swept 
 across the minds of all of us. 
 
 So many gallant men and gay comrades gone ! 
 Men to whom we had been talking only a few days 
 before, when we went aboard their ships or they 
 visited us. Old shipmates, old station-mates ; 
 men who had pulled in boatraces against our men ; 
 partners at golf, people of the same term at Osborn 
 or the Britannia, of the same lot at Key ham, 
 students at the same hospital. 
 
 And all men of the same loves and hatreds as 
 ourselves, the same tastes and ways, the same 
 weaknesses, and the same joy in living : what 
 
 240
 
 Aftermath 
 
 had we done that they should be taken and 
 we left ? 
 
 Yet could we feel now more fit to take our stand 
 beside our brothers of the Army who lose as many 
 as this in a day's land fighting that is scarce judged 
 important enough to put in the communiques ; that 
 was our unspoken pride not altogether, I think, an 
 ignoble boast. 
 
 And we had won the day. Though at first we 
 hardly knew what we had done, until reports began 
 to filter through, and rumours one after another 
 became confirmed as facts. Our own losses we 
 knew, as the world knew them very shortly after ; 
 but not, at that time, our gains. Each ship, indeed, 
 knew what it had contributed to the victory, but 
 the fleet as a whole could not know so soon ; and, 
 indeed, had to bear the bitter comments of certain 
 journals which in their omniscient wisdom ad- 
 judged the Navy to have failed. But this flickering 
 shadow soon passed, when the true tale was told ; 
 or, more correctly, half-told, for not till the war 
 is over shall we know how very much greater were 
 the German losses in that sea-fight than even our 
 most optimistic estimate of them. I should very 
 much like to know how many undamaged ships of 
 the line the " Admiral of the Atlantic " could show 
 at this present moment. 
 
 It was left for the Kaiser, of all people, to provide 
 the inevitable Comic Relief ! We had smiled very 
 contented smiles before, but we laughed for the first 
 time the whole British Navy rocked with laughter 
 when the Kaiser made his famous speech, and 
 said that " the nimbus of British naval supremacy 
 
 241
 
 In the Northern Mists 
 
 has departed." Why does the dear man say these 
 priceless things ? Isn't it simply splendid of him 
 to do it ? He is surely about the last man in the 
 world you would pick out to add to the gaiety of 
 nations ; and yet he has succeeded in doing it ! 
 Who now will dare to say that he is not superman ? 
 We are still enjoying the joke. One of our lieu- 
 tenants was discovered wandering disconsolate 
 about the wardroom, wearing a worried look and 
 apparently searching for something. When asked 
 what was the matter, he replied complainingly, " I 
 cannot find my nimbus anywhere ! " 
 
 Another aftermath, again a most sad one, when, 
 in addition to the great harvest of the sea, a scantier 
 reaping was laid up on shore, in a wild spot within 
 sound of the waves, where, however, they that 
 rest beneath the coarse grass and the brown turf 
 shall rest tenderly, and their honoured graves shall 
 be cared for, for they lie in consecrated ground 
 consecrated not so much by that episcopal act 
 which set apart that place for ever, as by their own 
 hallowed and hallowing bodies, cast willingly off in 
 God's service and the King's. 
 
 Such sacred thoughts are not for us to dwell on 
 overlong, though doubtless their impression is one 
 that will recur constantly to us. For the present, 
 it is perhaps the reaction that helps us to utter 
 our comments in a lighter style. " We had," says 
 one of our sailors, " a bit of a spring-cleaning last 
 week, and started to tidy things up a little." 
 
 THE END.
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY 
 W. H. SMITH & SON. THE ARDEN 
 PRESS. STAMFORD STREET. S.E.