Part 19 (2/2)

”Where're they going to sit?”

”Who asked them?”

”Why?”

”Are drinks going down to the mess?”

And then the door opened and the guests arrived, smiling, a little shy, as the naval officer is wont to be when he finds himself in a strange mess.

They were relieved of caps and cloaks, and, under the mellowing influence of sherry and bitters, began to settle down.

”Jolly good of you fellows to ask us to dinner,” said the First Lieutenant, an officer with a smiling cherubic visage and a choleric blue eye. ”We were getting a bit bored with our hooker. A fortnight of looking for _Der Tag_ gets a bit wearisome. D'you think the devils are ever coming out?”

”We didn't want to ask you a bit, really,” explained one of the hosts (the advantage of having a chummy-s.h.i.+p is that you can insult them in your own mess). ”It's only a scheme of Bunje's for drinking intoxicating liquor to excess at the expense of his messmates.”

The guests grinned sympathetically. As a matter of fact, most of the company drank little else than water during those days of strain and vigil. Frequent references to indulgence might, therefore, be regarded as comic, in a sense.

”We thought of bringing our own chairs,” added one, ”in case you'd landed all your spare ones.”

”Yes,” chimed in a third politely. ”We didn't expect to find such a wealth of furniture--it's like a Model Homes Exhibition. You should see our mess!”

The Gunnery Lieutenant made a gesture of deprecation. ”The watchkeepers insist on keeping the settee to caulk on in the intervals of hogging in their cabins. The piano was retained for the benefit of the Young Doctor. He can play _Die Wacht am Rhein_ with one finger--can't you, Pills?”

The Young Doctor beamed with simple pride. ”My sister's German governess taught me when I was a kid,” he explained. ”We have it every night--it's the only tune I know.”

”The sideboard is to support the empty gla.s.ses of the bridge-players after the Padre has put down one of his celebrated 'no-trumps'

hands--we had to keep the sideboard. The arm-chair is for Number One to sit in and beat time while his funny party chip paint off the bulkheads.” The Gunnery Lieutenant looked round. ”And so on, and so on--oh, the gramophone? Bunje bu'st all the records except three, and we're getting to know those rather well. But as you're a guest, old thing, would you like 'Tipperary,' Tosti's 'Good-bye,' or 'A Little Grey Home in the West'?”

The corporal of the ward-room servants interrupted these amenities with the announcement that dinner was ready, and a general move was made to the table.

Thereafter the conversation flowed evenly and generally. It was not confined to war. The men who make war, either afloat or ash.o.r.e, do not talk about it over-much. There are others--even in this England of ours--by tradition better qualified to do the talking, in that they see most of the game. . . . On the whole, perhaps, more ”shop” was discussed than would have been the case in peace-time, but for the most part it eddied round much the same subjects as Wardroom conversation always does, with the Indiarubber Man's Puck-like humour and gay mock-cynicism running through it like a whimsical pattern in an otherwise conventional design.

War had been their trade in theory from earliest youth. They were all on nodding terms with Death. Indeed, most of the men round the long table had looked him between the eyes already, and the obituary pages in the Navy List had been a reminder, month by month, of others who had looked there too--and blinked, and closed their eyes--s.h.i.+pmates and fleetmates and familiar friends.

War was the Real Thing, that was all. There was nothing about it to obsess men's minds. You might say it was the manoeuvres of 19-- all over again, with the chance of ”b.u.mping a mine” thrown in, and also the glorious certainty of ultimately seeing a twelve-inch salvo pitch exactly where the long years of preparation ordained that it should.

A submarine specialist, whom the war caught doing exile in a ”big s.h.i.+p,” dominated the conversation for a while with lamentations that he was constrained to dwell in the Tents of Kedah. Two minutes of his talk having nearly convinced everyone that the sole _raison d'etre_ of the big s.h.i.+p was to be sunk by submarine attack, he and his theories pa.s.sed into a conversational siding. The watchkeepers exchanged mutual condolences on the exasperating tactics of drift-net trawlers, notes on atmospheric conditions prevalent in the North Sea, methods of removing nocturnal cocoa-stains from the more vital portions of a chart, and other matters of interest to watchkeepers.

The Commander and the First Lieutenant of the _What Ho's_ discussed the training of setters. The Young Doctor and his opposite number, and those near them found interest in morphia syringes, ventilation of distributing stations, and--a section of the talk whirling into a curious backwater--the smell of cooking prevalent in the entrance halls of Sheerness lodging-houses. . . .

The dinner went its course: they drank, sitting (as was their privilege and tradition), the King's health. Then the cigarettes went round, chairs turned a little sideways, the port circulated a second time.

The conversation was no longer general. In pairs or by threes, according to taste, temperament or individual calling, the members of the mess and their guests settled down to a complacent enjoyment of the most pleasant half-hour in a battles.h.i.+p's long day.

Presently, while the bridge-table was being set out, the Indiarubber Man rose from the table, and, crossing to the piano, began to vamp lightly on the keys, humming under his breath. A chorus quickly gathered round. A battered Naval Song Book was propped up on the music-rest--more from habit than necessity, since the Indiarubber Man could not read a note of music and everybody knew the words of the time-honoured chanties. The pianist's repertoire was limited: half a dozen ding-dong chords did duty as accompaniment to ”Bantry Bay,” ”John Peel,” and ”The Chinese b.u.mboatman” alike; but a dozen l.u.s.ty voices supplied melody enough, the singers packed like herrings round the piano, leaning over each other's shoulders, and singing with all the strength of their lungs.

They exhausted the favourites at length, and the player wheeled round on his stool.

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