

E-text prepared by Al Haines



Transcriber's note:

   "Bartimeus" is the pseudonym of Captain Lewis Ritchie, R.N.





A TALL SHIP

On Other Naval Occasions

by

"BARTIMEUS"

Author of "Naval Occasions"







 ... "All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
        *      *      *
  And a laughing yarn from a merry fellow rover,
  And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over."
        JOHN MASEFIELD




Cassell and Company, Ltd
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

First published September 1915.
Reprinted September and October 1915.




To

H. M. S.




PREFACE

It is almost superfluous to observe that the following sketches contain
no attempt at the portrait of an individual.  The majority are etched
in with the ink of pure imagination.  A few are "composite" sketches of
a large number of originals with whom the Author has been shipmates in
the past and whose friendship he is grateful to remember.

Of these, some, alas! have finished "the long trick."  To them, at no
risk of breaking their quiet sleep--_Ave atque vale_.

"Crab-Pots," "The Day," and "Chummy-Ships" appeared originally in
_Blackwood's Magazine_, and are reproduced here by kind permission of
the Editor.




CONTENTS


  1. CRAB-POTS
  2. THE DRUM
  3. A CAPTAIN'S FORENOON
  4. THE SEVEN-BELL BOAT
  5. THE KING'S PARDON
  6. AN OFF-SHORE WIND
  7. THE DAY
  8. THE MUMMERS
  9. CHUMMY-SHIPS
 10. THE HIGHER CLAIM




A TALL SHIP


I

CRAB-POTS

1

In moments of crisis the disciplined human mind works as a thing
detached, refusing to be hurried or flustered by outward circumstance.
Time and its artificial divisions it does not acknowledge.  It is
concerned with preposterous details and with the ludicrous, and it is
acutely solicitous of other people's welfare, whilst working at a speed
mere electricity could never attain.

Thus with James Thorogood, Lieutenant, Royal Navy, when he--together
with his bath, bedding, clothes, and scanty cabin furniture, revolver,
first-aid outfit, and all the things that were his--was precipitated
through his cabin door across the aft-deck.  The ship heeled violently,
and the stunning sound of the explosion died away amid the uproar of
men's voices along the mess-deck and the tinkle and clatter of broken
crockery in the wardroom pantry.

"Torpedoed!" said James, and was in his conjecture entirely correct.
He emerged from beneath the debris of his possessions, shaken and
bruised, and was aware that the aft-deck (that spacious vestibule
giving admittance on either side to officers' cabins, and normally
occupied by a solitary Marine sentry) was filled with figures rushing
past him towards the hatchway.

It was half-past seven in the morning.  The Morning-watch had been
relieved and were dressing.  The Middle-watch, of which James had been
one, were turning out after a brief three-hours' spell of sleep.
Officers from the bathroom, girt in towels, wardroom servants who had
been laying the table for breakfast, one or two Warrant-officers in sea
boots and monkey jackets--the Watch-below, in short--appeared and
vanished from his field of vision like figures on a screen.  In no
sense of the word, however, did the rush resemble a panic.  The
aft-deck had seen greater haste on all sides in a scramble on deck to
cheer a troopship passing the cruiser's escort.  But the variety of
dress and undress, the expressions of grim anticipation in each man's
face as he stumbled over the uneven deck, set Thorogood's reeling mind,
as it were, upon its feet.

The Surgeon, pyjama clad, a crimson streak running diagonally across
the lather on his cheek, suddenly appeared crawling on all-fours
through the doorway of his shattered cabin.  "I always said those
safety-razors were rotten things," he observed ruefully.  "I've just
carved my initials on my face.  And my ankle's broken.  Have we been
torpedoed, or what, at all?  An' what game is it you're playing under
that bath, James?  Are you pretending to be an oyster?"

Thorogood pulled himself together and stood up.  "I think one of their
submarines must have bagged us."  He nodded across the flat to where,
beyond the wrecked debris of three cabins, the cruiser's side gaped
open to a clear sky and a line of splashing waves.  Overhead on deck
the twelve-pounders were barking out a series of ear-splitting
reports--much as a terrier might yap defiance at a cobra over the
stricken body of its master.

"I think our number's up, old thing."  Thorogood bent and slipped his
arms under the surgeon's body.  "Shove your arms round my neck....
Steady!--hurt you?  Heave!  Up we go!"  A Midshipman, ascending the
hatchway, paused and turned back.  Then he ran towards them, spattering
through the water that had already invaded the flat.

"Still!" sang a bugle on deck.  There was an instant's lull in the
stampede of feet overhead.  The voices of the officers calling orders
were silent.  The only sounds were the lapping of the waves along the
riven hull and the intermittent reports of the quick-firers.