Chapter XVI

DINNER in the long, antler-hung mess-room of the Naval Barracks had come to an end. Here and there along the table, where the shaded lights glinted on silver loving-cups and trophies, a few officers lingered in pairs over their coffee. Presently the band moved down from the gallery that overlooked one end of the Mess, and began playing in the hall. This was the signal for a general move to the smoking-room, where a score of figures in mess undress uniform were grouped round the fire, lighting pipes and cigars and exchanging mild, after-dinner chaff:

A few couples of dancing enthusiasts were solemnly revolving in the hall. Others made their way up the broad staircase to the billiard-room, or settled down at the bridge tables.

"Come on,"shouted a tall Commander seated on the"club"fender in the smoking-room,"what about a game of skill or chance? Come up to the billiard-room, and bring your pennies!"He stirred a form recumbent in an arm-chair with the toe of his boot."What about you, young feller ? Are you going to play pool?"

The young Lieutenant shook his head."Not to night, sir, thanks. I'm going to bed early: I've got the Night Guard trip."

Gradually the room emptied. The figure in the arm-chair finished the paper he was reading, glanced at the clock and rose, knocking the ashes out of his pipe."Call me at 1.15,"he said to the hall porter as he passed him on his way to his room.

An officer, immaculate in evening dress, who was putting his overcoat in the hall, overheard the speaker, and laughed."That's the spirit ! Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise!"

"More'n you'll ever be, my sprig o' fashion,"grumbled the Lieutenant, and passed on.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Lieutenant of the Night Guard went cautiously down the wooden steps of the Barracks' Pier that led to the landing-place, Cautiously, because the tide was low, and experience had taught him that the step would be slippery with weed. Also the night was very dark, and the lights of the steamboat alongside showed but indistinctly through the surrounding fog. At the bottom of the steps one of the boat's crew was waiting with a lantern. Its rays lit for a minute the faces of the two men, and gleamed on the steel guard of the cutlass at the bearer's hip.

"Infernal night!"said the Lieutenant from the depths of his overcoat collar. He had just turned out, and there was an exceeding bitterness in his voice. The lantern-bearer also had views on the night - possibly stronger views - but refrained from any reply. Perhaps he realised that none was expected. The other swung himself down into the stern-sheets of the boat, and, as he did so, the Coxswain came aft, blowing on his hands.

"Carry on, Sir ?"

"Please. Usual rounds: go alongside a Destroyer and any ship that doesn't hail, Fog's very thick: got a compass?"

"There's a compass in the boat, sir."The Coxswain moved forward again to the wheel, wearing a slightly ruffled expression which, owing to the darkness and the fact that there was no one to see it, was rather wasted. For thirty years he'd known that harbour, man and boy, fair or foul, and his father a waterman before him . . . . He jerked the telegraph bell twice, gave a half-contemptuous turn to the wheel, and spat overside.

"Compass!"he observed to the night.

The boat slid away on its mission, and the shore lights glimmered wan and vanished in the fog astern. A clock ashore struck the hour, and from all sides came the answering ships' bells - some near, some far, all muffled by the moisture in the heavy atmosphere.

Ding-ding! Ding! Half-past one.

He who had borne the lantern deposited it in the tiny cabin aft, and with a thoughtful expression removed a frayed halfpenny paper from the inside of the breast of his jumper. To carry simultaneously a cutlass and a comic paper did not apparently accord with his views on the fitness of things, for he carefully refolded the latter and placed it under the cushions of the locker. Then he unhooked a small megaphone from the bulkhead, and cane out, closing the sliding-door behind him. Finally he passed forward into the bows of the boat, where he remained visible in the glare of the steaming light, his arms crossed on his chest, hands tucked for warmth one under each arm-pit, peer peering stolidly into the blackness ahead.

Once in mid-stream the fog lessened. Sickly patches of light waxed out of indistinctness and gleamed yellow. Anon as they brightened, a human voice, thin onto lonely as a wraith's, came abruptly out of the night.

"Boat ahoy!"The voice from nowhere sounded like an alarm. It was as if the darkness were suddenly suspicious of this swiftly-moving, palpitating thing from across the water. The figure in the bows removed his hands from his arm-pits, picked up the megaphone, and sent a reassuring bellow in the direction of the hail.

"Guard Boat!"he answered, and as he did so a vast towering shape had loomed up over them."Answer's, `Guard Boat"sir,"said the faint voice somewhere above their heads, addressing an unseen third person. A dark wall appeared, surmounted by a shadowy superstructure and a giant tripod mast that was swallowed, long before the eye could reach its apex, in vapour and darkness. The sleek flanks of guns at rest showed for an instant . . . . A sleeping"Super-Dreadnought"It faded into the darkness astern; then nothing but the mist again, and the throb of the boat's engines.

Another, and another, and yet another watchful Presence loomed up out of the night, hailed suspiciously, and, at the megaphone's answering bellow, merged again into the silent darkness. A figure stepped aft in the Guard Boat and adjusted the tarpaulin that covered the rifles lying on top of the cabin: moisture had collected among the folds in little pools. Then the engine-room gong rang, and a voice quite near hailed them. A long black shadow appeared abreast, and the Guard Boat slid alongside a Destroyer at anchor. The dark water between the two hulls churned into foam as the boat reversed her engines. A tall figure holding a lantern leaned over the destroyer's rail.

"Night Guard,"said the Lieutenant curtly. As he came forward, three men climbed silently up from below and stood awaiting orders at his side. The lantern shone unsteadily on their impassive faces.

"Are you the Quartermaster?"

"Yessir."The tall man in oilskins leaning over the Destroyer's rail lowered his lantern.

"All right, I won't come inboard. All correct ?

"Right. Put it in the log that I've visited you. Good-night."

"Good-night, sir."

The gong clanged, and the Guard Boar slid away into the mist again. The figure in the bows was relieved by a comrade, and together with the remaining two vanished down the foremost hatch. The faint reek of Navy tobacco drifted aft to the stern-sheets, where the Lieutenant of the Night Guard had resumed his position, leaning against an angle of the cabin with his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat. He was reflecting on the strangeness of a profession that dragged a man from his bed at one o'clock in the morning, to steam round a foggy harbour in the company of armed men, these times of piping peace.

Once a night throughout the year, in every Dockyard Port in the kingdom, a launch slid away from the Depot jetty, slipped in and out among the anchored ships, and returned to her moorings when the patrol was completed. Why? Some grim significance surely lay in the duty, in the abrupt hails that stabbed the stillness, greeting the throb of her engines: in the figure of the armed man in the bows with the megaphone, ready to fling back the reassuring answer .. . .

He shifted his position and glanced forward. The bowman was chewing tobacco, and every now and again turned his head to spit overside. Each time he did so the port bow-light lit his features with a ruddy glare. It was a stolid countenance, slightly bored.

The Lieutenant smiled gravely. Did the figure wonder why he wore a cutlass in peace time? Did he realise the warning it embodied - the message they conveyed night by night to the anchored ships? His thoughts took a more sombre turn. Would the night ever come just such a night as this - and under the fog a Menace glide in among the blindfold Fleet? To the first hail of alarm answer with a lever released, a silvery shadow that left a trail of bubbles on the surface . . . . And then-the fog and silence riven to the dark vault of heaven.

Ha raised his head."All right, Coxswain, enough for to-night. Carry on back."Over went the helm: the boat swung round on a new course, heading whence she had come as hour before.

Carry on back! It was so easy to say.

His thoughts reverted to the grim picture his imagination had created. How would that shadowy Terror, her mission fulfilled,"carry on back"? Wheel wrenched over; funnels spouting flame, desperate men clinging to the rail as she reeled under the concussion, racing blindly through the outraged night for safety.

Thus had a warring Nation written a lesson across the map of Manchuria for all the. world to read-and, if they might; remember.

Where did he come in, then - this figure leaning thoughtfully against the angle of the steamboat's cabin? What was his mission, and that of the steamboat with its armed crew, night after night, in fog and by starlight, winter and summer . . . ?

A chord of memory vibrated faintly in his mind. There was a phrase that summed it up, learned long ago . . . . He was a cadet again on the seamanship-deck of the old Britannia, at instruction in a now obsolete method of sounding with the Deeps Sea Lead and Line. They were shown how, in order to obtain a sounding, a number of men were stationed along the ship's side, each holding a coil of the long line. As the heavy lead sank and the line tautened from hand to hand, each man flung his coil overboard. As he did so he called to warn the next

"Watch there, watch!

The steamboat slowed as she passed close under the stern of a battleship. The fog had lifted, and the Officer of the Middle Watch was leaning over the quarter-deck rail. The Lieutenant of the Night Guard raised his head, and in the gleam of the ship's stern light the two officers recognised each other. They had been in the Britannia together. The former laughed a greeting.

"Go back to bed, you noisy blighter ?"

The cloaked figure in the boat chuckled."That's where I am going,"he called back.

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