Part 20 (2/2)

Overhead there was a thud of feet and ropes ends and the shrilling of pipes as the watch fell in. A Mids.h.i.+pman thrust his head inside the door of the Wardroom. ”Boat's alongside, sir!” he said, and vanished.

The First Lieutenant of the visitors flung his boat-cloak over his shoulders. ”Well,” he said, ”we've had a topping evening. S'long, and thanks very much.”

Their hosts helped the departing ones into their great-coats. ”Not 't all,” they murmured politely in return. ”Sorry to break up a cheery evening. Let's hope they've really come out this time!”

The Indiarubber Man slid on to the music-stool again, put his foot on the soft pedal, lightly touched the familiar chords, and began humming under his breath:

”We don't want to lose you---- But we _think_ you ought to go . . .”

There are many ways of saying _Moriturus te saluto_.

X

THE HIGHER CLAIM

1

All night long the wind, blowing in across the dunes from the North Sea, had brought the sound of firing.

At times it was hardly perceptible: a faint reverberation of the ether that could scarcely be defined as sound; it would resolve itself into a low, continuous rumble, very much like distant thunder, that died away and recommenced nearer and more distinct. Then the sashes of the open window trembled, and Margaret, who had lain awake all night, every nerve strained to listen, leaned on one elbow to stare from her bed out into the darkness.

She had tried not to listen. For hours she had lain without moving, with limbs tense beneath the coverings, the palms of her hands pressed against her ears. But imagination sped through the dark pa.s.sages of her mind, brandis.h.i.+ng a torch, compelling her at length to listen again.

She had no very clear idea, of course, what a naval action was like. A confused recollection of pictures seen in childhood only suggested stalwart men, stripped to the waist and bare-footed, working round the smoking guns of s.h.i.+ps whose decks blazed up in flame to taunt the quiet heavens; while the s.h.i.+ps' scuppers ran red.

Modern naval warfare could be nothing like that, though.

She had only seen the results of modern warfare. Men tortured till they came near to forgetting their manhood; burnt, deaf, scalded, torn by splinters, blinded; she had seen them smiling under circ.u.mstances that thrilled her to feel they shared a common Flag.

On the outbreak of war the training inst.i.tute on the East Coast, of which Margaret was the matron, had, on account of its position near the coast and other advantages, been converted into a Naval Hospital. Miss Dacre, the princ.i.p.al, Margaret, and a few others who had already qualified in nursing, were retained as Red Cross sisters, and it was not long before the cla.s.srooms and dormitories were occupied by very different inmates from those for whom they were intended. Only the more serious cases reached these wards. The less dangerously hurt pa.s.sed by rail or hospital s.h.i.+p to the base hospitals in the South.

All night long the wounded men in the long wards stirred fretfully under the white counterpanes, each man translating the sounds according to his own imagination or experience. The night-sisters moved softly to and fro on the beeswaxed boards, smoothing tumbled pillows, adjusting a splint or a bandage, calming the bearded children who fretted because they were hopelessly ”out of it.”

Towards the dawn the sounds of firing gradually grew fainter, and died away as the first pale bands of light appeared in the east. The sparrows under the eaves stirred and commenced a sleepy twittering.

Margaret rose as soon as objects in her room were discernible, bathed her face and hands in cold water, and stood awhile at the window watching the day growing over the sea and sombre sky.

The sounds of the battle that pa.s.sed away to the northward had shaken her nerves as had nothing else in all her experience. Standing there by the open window, drinking in the indescribable freshness of the dawn, she despised herself. She, who had devoted her life to a Purpose, should be above the petty weakness of her s.e.x. Yet the cold fear that had been her bedfellow throughout the night, and was concerned with neither defeat nor victory, haunted her still.

She closed the window, lit a small spirit-lamp on a side table, and, while the kettle boiled, dressed in riding things. The earliness of the hour made it improbable that she would meet a soul, and yet she dressed carefully, coiling her soft hair, with its silver threads, on the nape of her neck, fastidiously dusting riding boots, and giving a brisk rub to the single spur before she strapped it on. She was adjusting her hard-felt hat before the gla.s.s when someone knocked at the door.

She turned questioningly, with hands still raised. ”Come in!”

A girl was standing in the doorway; she wore a dressing-gown, and beneath it her slim ankles peeped out of a pair of the felt slippers nurses wear at night.

”Betty! What's the matter?”

”Did you hear the firing?”

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