seemed to be about six hundred yards on the starboard bow of the flagship, travelling down the line of battleships in an opposite direction to that in which the latter were steaming, and so brilliantly were they illuminated in the glare that even the figures of the men crouching on deck round the torpedo-tubes were clearly visible through glasses. The water was washing knee-deep over their decks as they rolled, but it was not until they were nearly abeam of the flagship that a ball of red fire shot up into the air from each of them. This indicated the moment at which, if it had been the real thing, their torpedoes would actually have been discharged.
'That pair were sunk all right,' muttered Captain Spencer, watching them through his glasses as they swept past barely three hundred yards off. 'They were under fire for quite half-a-minute before they let go their torpedoes. Poor devils! they're having a pretty rotten time. Great Scott! just look at that sea!'
The leading destroyer had put her helm over to alter course outwards. It brought her nearly head on to the sea, and she had shoved her nose straight into the heart of an advancing wave. It was not really rough, as seas go, but the speed with which she was travelling caused the mass to break on board until she seemed literally to be buried in a smother of gray-white water, while sheets of spray swept high over her mastheads and funnels. For quite an appreciable time she was hidden, but then slid back into sight on the crest of a sea, with her twin propellers revolving wildly in the air, to disappear in the darkness as suddenly as she had come, with her consort still in close station behind her.
'Thank the Lord I'm not in a T.B.D.!' muttered the officer of the watch to the navigator.
Martin shared his feelings.
For the next forty minutes the guns' crews in the battleships were very busy; for, having sighted the searchlights during the first attack, the remainder of the flotilla, attracted to the spot like wasps to a honey-pot, came dashing in from all directions to deliver their assaults. They came on gallantly, some singly, others in pairs or fours at a time; and though, naturally enough, the battleships claimed to have sunk every mother's son of them long before they had had a chance of getting home with their torpedoes, the destroyers themselves thought otherwise.
The attacks were over by two A.M., and at this time the weary men at the guns and searchlights were free to go to their hammocks, the scattered destroyers were collected by their senior officer, and attackers and attacked, with navigation lights burning, turned their bows homeward.
By eight o'clock the battleships had moored in Portland Harbour, and the destroyers, in a long single line, headed by their light cruiser, came silently in through the northern entrance on their way to the pens. Their funnels were caked white with dried salt, but they steamed past jauntily, showing few traces of their buffeting.
Martin watched them with a new interest, for to him it seemed nothing short of miraculous how such slender-looking vessels could stand the weather he had seen them in a few hours before.
'Wot yer lookin' at, Pincher?' asked Billings, stopping on his way to his mess for breakfast.
'Them,' said Martin, jerking his head in the direction of the destroyers.
'Them!' said Joshua, rather surprised. 'Wot's up wi' 'em?'
'I wus thinkin' it must be a dawg's life to be aboard one o' 'em. They looked somethink horful larst night.'
Billings, who had served in a destroyer himself in his young and palmy days, grinned broadly. 'They ain't so bad,' he murmured. 'You gits a tanner a day,8 'ard lyers in 'em, an' that's a hextry three an' a tanner a week. It's werry welcome in these 'ere 'ard times.' The old reprobate smacked his lips longingly, for three-and-six a week meant many pints of beer.
'I reckons they deserves it,' Martin remarked.
'I reckons all matloes deserves double wot they gits,' laughed his companion. 'But larst night weren't nothin'. You wait till yer sees 'em in a gale o' wind; then they carries on somethin' horful. Larst night it weren't blowin' nothin' to speak o'. They 'ad a bit o' a dustin' p'r'aps, an' got their shirts wet, but that ain't nothin'!'
Martin gasped. He had seen the destroyers plunging about like maddened racehorses, with water breaking over their decks; but yet Billings referred to it casually as a 'bit o' a dustin'.' If their behaviour of last night was nothing out of the ordinary, he prayed his gods he might never serve in one of them. 'A bit o' a dustin',' indeed! What must they be like in a gale of wind? It nearly made him seasick to think of it.
II
As a start to his seagoing training, Martin found himself put in the gunnery-training class with eleven other youngsters like himself; and here, under the expert guidance of Petty Officer Samuel Breech, he was soon being initiated into the mysteries of squad drill, the rifle and field exercise, the various parts of a rifle and their uses, gun drill, the anatomy and interior economy of lighter weapons and machine-guns, and their ammunition. Much of it he had already learnt before, during his period of preliminary training at the barracks, and the instruction, essentially practical, did not overtax his intelligence.
Petty Officer Breech, a fully qualified gunner's mate, was a strict disciplinarian and something of a martinet. He was a short, burly little man, with a bull-neck and a rasping voice; and the former, combined with a closely clipped red beard and a pair of piercing gray eyes, gave him an air of ferocity which he really did not possess. He was naturally kind-hearted, and the buxom Mrs Breech could twiddle him round her little finger. But on board ship he upheld his dignity with firmness. After long experience with ordinary seamen and their ways, he had come to the conclusion that the only way of getting them thoroughly in hand was to frighten them at the start, and to keep them frightened; so he invariably commenced operations by giving each new class a short lecture.
'You 'ave joined the navy,' he used to say, glaring fiercely, 'to learn discipline, an' you've come to me to learn somethin' about gunnery, or as much of it as I can drive into your thick 'eads. The sooner we understand each other the better; an' before we start work I warns you that I'll stand no sauce from the likes o' you, so just bear it in mind. W'en I gives you an order I expects it to be obeyed at once, an' at the rush. I don't want no shufflin' about in the ranks, nor skylarkin' neither,' he added, gazing ferociously at Martin, who was endeavouring to remove a spot of moisture from the end of his nose without using a handkerchief.
'I wants to blow me nose,' murmured the culprit, reddening.
'An' I wants no back answers unless I asks you a question,' Breech went on, wagging an admonitory finger. 'Wen you're standin' at attention you must keep still, no matter whether a moskeeter's bitin' you 'longside the ear'ole, or a wild monkey's chewin' your stummick. I wants you to look like a squad o' Henglish sailors, not a party o' mourners at a Hirishman's funeral, nor yet a gals' school out for a airin.' It's no laughin' matter, neither,' he continued, eyeing one of his pupils who had a suspicion of a smile hovering round the corners of his mouth. 'Wen I makes a joke you can laugh – bu'st if you like; but if I sees you laughin' w'en I'm not, that's hinsolence, an' you knows wot to expect.'
The smile vanished.
'I'm 'ere to enforce discipline,' the petty officer resumed, 'an' discipline I'll 'ave. I wants you to be smart, an' if I sees you're tryin' to learn I'll do my best for you. If I sees any one skylarkin' or talkin' in the ranks I runs 'im in at once, so don't forget it. To start with, I'm goin' to teach you the parts o' the rifle; an' w'en you knows that, we passes on to squad drill with an' without arms. Squad! – stand easy! This 'ere,' he explained, balancing a Lee-Enfield in his hand, 'is a magazine rifle, Lee-Enfield, Mark 1 star. Its weight is a trifle over nine pounds, as you'll find w'en you 'ave to carry it; an' its length, without the bay'nit, is four foot one an' a narf inches. This 'ere's the bay'nit, with a blade
Men serving in destroyers receive sixpence a day extra pay. It is known as 'hard-lying money.'
