Part 17 (1/2)
”What did the Buccaneer say when you nailed his nose to the flying jibboom?”
”Please make me a good boy,” replied Torps, somewhat at random.
”Oh, same's I do,” said Cornelius James.
”More or less; isn't that sword very uncomfortable?”
But no answer came back, for Cornelius James, the hilt of the sword grasped firmly in two small hands, had pa.s.sed into the Valhalla of Childhood.
VIII
THE MUMMERS
The sun had not long set, and its afterglow bathed the bay in pink light. It was a land-locked harbour, and the surface of the water held the reflections of the anch.o.r.ed Battle-fleet mirrored to its smallest detail. So still was the evening that sounds travelled across the water with peculiar acute distinctness.
On the quarter-deck of the end s.h.i.+p of the lee line a thousand men were trying to talk in undertones, lighting and relighting pipes, rallying their friends on distant points of vantage, and humming tunes under their breath. The resultant sound was very much like what you would hear if you placed your ear against a beehive on a summer day, only magnified a million-fold.
The s.h.i.+p's company of a super-Dreadnought, and as many men from other s.h.i.+ps as could be accommodated on board, were gathered on the foremost part of the quarter-deck, facing aft. They sat in rows on mess stools, they were perched astride the after-turret guns, on the s.h.i.+elds of the turrets, clinging to rails, stanchions and superstructure, tier above tier of men clad in night-clothing--that is to say, in blue jumper and trousers, with the white V of the flannel showing up each seaman's bronzed neck and face. Seamen and marines all wore their caps tilted comfortably on the backs of their heads, as is the custom of men of H.M. Navy enjoying their leisure. Above them all the smoke from a thousand pipes and cigarettes trembled in a blue haze on the still air of a summer evening.
They were there to witness an impromptu sing-song--a scratch affair organised at short notice to provide mirth and recreation for a s.h.i.+p's company badly in need of both. It was a s.h.i.+p's company hungry for laughter after endless months of watching and waiting for an enemy that was biding his time. Their lungs ached for a rousing, full-throated chorus (”_All_ together, lads!”). They were simply spoiling to be the most appreciative audience in the world.
On the after-part of the quarter-deck a stage had been hurriedly constructed--a rude affair of planks and spars that could be disposed of in a very few moments if necessity arose--that supported a piano. A canvas screen, stretched between two stanchions behind the stage, did duty as scenery, and afforded the performers a ”green-room”--for, of all the ritual connected with appearing upon a stage, the business of ”making-up” lies nearest to the sailor's heart. Provide him with a lavish supply of grease-paint, wigs, and the contents of the chaplain's or the officer of his division's wardrobe, and the success or otherwise of his turn, when it ultimately comes, matters little to the sailor-man. He has had his hour.
In front of the stage, a little in advance of the men, rows of chairs and benches provided sitting accommodation for the officers. They came up from dinner, lighting pipes and cigars, a full muster from Wardroom, Gunroom and Warrant Officers' Mess. The Captain came last, and his appearance was the signal for a great outburst of cheering from the closely packed audience. They had been waiting for this moment. It gave them an opportunity of relieving their pent-up feelings; it also gave them a chance to show the rest of the Fleet their att.i.tude towards this Captain of theirs.
It was something they were rather proud that the rest of the Fleet should see.
Moreover, the rest of the Fleet, leaning over the forecastle rails and smoking its evening pipe, did see, and was none the worse for it.
A man might have been excused if he betrayed some self-consciousness at finding himself thus suddenly the cynosure of a thousand-odd pair of eyes whose owners were doing their best to show him, after their fas.h.i.+on, that they thought him an uncommonly fine fellow. The atmosphere was electrical with this abrupt, boyish ebullition of feeling. Yet the Captain's face, as he took his seat, was as composed as if he were alone in the middle of his own wide moors. He lit a pipe and nodded to the Commander beside him to signify that as far as he was concerned the show could start as soon as they liked.
All happy s.h.i.+ps own a sing-song party of some sort or another. It may be that the singers are content to sit pipe in mouth in the lee of a guns.h.i.+eld and croon in harmony as the dusk settles down on a day's work done. Other s.h.i.+ps' companies are more ambitious; the canteen provides a property-box, and from a flag-decked stage the chosen performers declaim and clog-dance with all the circ.u.mstance of the drama.
In days of piping peace, the Operatic and Dramatic Company of this particular s.h.i.+p had known many vicissitudes. Under the guidance of a musically inclined s.h.i.+p's Steward, it had faced audiences across impromptu footlights as ”The Pale Pink Pierrots,” and, as such, had achieved a meteoric distinction. But unhappily the s.h.i.+p's Steward was partial to oysters, and bought a barrelful at an auction sale ash.o.r.e.
On the face of things, it appeared a bargain; but the s.h.i.+p's Steward neglected to inquire too closely into the antecedents of its contents, and was duly wafted to other spheres of usefulness.
The Chaplain, an earnest man but tone-deaf, rallied the leaderless troupe of musicians. During the period of his directors.h.i.+p they were known to fame as ”The Musical c.o.o.ns.” Musical in that each one wielded a musical instrument with which he made bold to claim acquaintance, c.o.o.ns because they blacked their faces with burnt cork and had ”corner-men.” The corner-men were the weak spots in an otherwise well-planned organisation.
A sailor can be trusted with the integrity of a messmate's honour or the resources of the mint, conceivably with the key of a brewery cellar, and justify the confidence reposed in him. But he cannot be trusted to be a corner-man, ”gagging” with a black face and a pair of bones. The Musical c.o.o.ns dissolved after one performance, during which the Captain's brow grew black and the Chaplain turned faint, and an ecstatic s.h.i.+p's company shouted itself hoa.r.s.e with delirious enjoyment.
Thereafter, for a period, the breath of rebuke and disrepute clung to the songsters; but a s.h.i.+p without a sing-song party is like a dog without a tail. A committee of Petty Officers waited upon the First Lieutenant, as men once proffered Cromwell the Protectors.h.i.+p of England, lest a worse thing befell them. The First Lieutenant, with a reluctance and a full sense of the responsibilities involved, that was also Cromwellian, finally consented to become the t.i.tular head of the sing-song party.
He it was, then, who rose from his chair, holding a slip of paper, and faced the great bank of faces with one hand raised to enjoin silence.
The cheering redoubled.
For perhaps fifteen seconds he stood with raised hand, then he lowered it and the smile left his eyes. His brows lowered too. The cheering wavered, faltered, died away. They knew what Number One meant when he looked like that.
”The first item on the programme,” he said in his clear voice, ”is a song by Petty Officer Dawson, ent.i.tled, 'The Fireman's Daughter,'” and sat down again amid loud applause.