Part 5 (1/2)
The coastguard drew near, wiping his face with a vast blue and white spotted handkerchief, for he had been running. ”Beg pardon, sir,” he called as he came within earshot, ”but would you be a naval officer?”
”I am,” replied Torps. ”Why?”
The man saluted. ”There's a telephone message just come through, sir, 'Prepare to mobilise. All officers and men are recalled from leave.'”
Torps stared at him. ”Where did it come from--the message?”
”From the port, sir. I was to warn anyone I saw out this way . . .”
”Right; thank you. I'm going back now.” He turned towards Margaret.
”Did you hear that?” There was a queer note of relief in his voice.
”Yes,” she replied quietly. ”The Drum.”
III
A CAPTAIN'S FORENOON
The Captain came out of his sleeping-cabin as the last chord of the National Anthem died away on the quarter-deck overhead with the roll of kettledrums.
”Carry on!” sang the bugle; and the s.h.i.+p's company, their animation suspended while the colours crept up the jackstaff, proceeded to ”breakfast and clean.” The signalman whose duty it was to hoist the Ensign at 8 a.m. turned up the halliards to his satisfaction, and departed forward in the wake of the band.
The Captain had ”cleaned” already, and his breakfast was on the table in his fore-cabin. He sat down, glanced at the pile of letters beside his plate, propped the morning paper against the teapot, and commenced his meal. He ate with the deliberate slowness of a man accustomed to having meals in solitude, who has schooled himself not to abuse his digestion.
As he ate his quick eye travelled over the headlines of the paper, occasionally concentrating on a paragraph here and there. Ten minutes sufficed to give him a complete grasp of the day's affairs. The naval appointments he read carefully. His memory for names and individuals was unfailing; he never forgot anyone who had served under his command, and followed the careers of most with interest. His daily private correspondence, which was large, testified to the fact that not many forgot him.
Breakfast over, he laid aside the paper, lit a cigarette, and turned over the little pile of letters, identifying the writers with a glance at the handwriting on each envelope. Only one was unknown to him: that he placed last, and carried them into the after-cabin to read, leaning his shoulder against the mantel of the tiled and bra.s.s-bound fireplace.
The first letter he opened was from his wife, and, in consequence, its contents were n.o.body's affair but his own. He read it twice, and smiled as he returned it to the envelope.
The next, written on thick notepaper stamped with the Admiralty crest, he also read twice, and mused awhile. Apparently this also was n.o.body's concern but his, for, still deep in thought, he tore it up and put the pieces in the fire before taking up the third. This was an appeal for a.s.sistance from a former watch-keeper who aspired to the Flying Corps. The next was also a request for a.s.sistance from a young officer, who, having recently taken a wife to his bosom, apparently considered the achievement a qualification for the command of one of H.M. torpedo-boat destroyers.
The Captain rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ”I sent him a silver photograph frame. . . . He'll want me to be G.o.dfather next.” He occasionally spoke aloud when alone.
An appeal for funds for a memorial to someone or another followed.
Then two advertis.e.m.e.nts from wine merchants and a statement of his account with his outfitter were consigned in turns into the fire. The last envelope, in the unknown hand, he scrutinised for a moment before opening. The postmark was local, the caligraphy illiterate. He opened the letter and read it with an inscrutable face. Then, with a quick movement as of disgust, he crumpled it up and threw it into the flames.
It was anonymous, and was a threat, couched in lurid and ensanguined terms, to murder him.
Judges, and post-captains of the Royal Navy, perhaps as a reminder of their great responsibilities, occasionally receive communications of this nature. Their life insurance policies, however, appear to remain much the same as those of other people.
The after-cabin, where the Captain perused his correspondence, was an airy, chintz-upholstered apartment leading aft through two heavy steel doors on to the stern-walk. The doors were open on that particular morning, and the high, thin cries of seagulls quarrelling under the stern drifted through almost unceasingly.
Forward, the white-enamelled bulkhead was pierced by two entrances.
One led from a diminutive sleeping-cabin and bathroom, the other from the fore-cabin, which the Captain had just quitted, and which in turn communicated with a lobby where a marine sentry paced day and night.
The after-cabin was lit by a skylight overhead and scuttles in the s.h.i.+p's side. The sunlight, streaming in through the starboard ones, winked on the b.u.t.terfly clamps of burnished bra.s.s and small rods from which the little chintz curtains hung. A roll-topped desk occupied a corner near the fireplace, and round the bulkheads, affixed to white enamelled battens, hung water-colour paintings of his s.h.i.+ps. A sloop of war under full sail; a brig, close-hauled, beating out of Plymouth Sound; a tiny gunboat at anchor in a backwater of the Upper Yangtse.