I descended; Pyecroft, by a silent flank movement, possessing himself of all the provisions, which he bore to some hole forward.

"Have you known Mr. Pyecroft long?" said my host.

"Met him once, a year ago, at Devonport. What do you think of him?"

"What do _you_ think of him?"

"I've left the _Pedantic_--her boat will be waiting for me at ten o'clock, too--simply because I happened to meet him," I replied.

"That's all right. If you'll come down below, we may get some grub."

We descended a naked steel ladder to a steel-beamed tunnel, perhaps twelve feet long by six high. Leather-topped lockers ran along either side; a swinging table, with tray and lamp above, occupied the centre. Other furniture there was none.

"You can't shave here, of course. We don't wash, and, as a rule, we eat with our fingers when we're at sea. D'you mind?"

Mr. Moorshed, black-haired, black-browed, sallow-complexioned, looked me over from head to foot and grinned. He was not handsome in any way, but his smile drew the heart. "You didn't happen to hear what Frankie told me from the flagship, did you? His last instructions, and I've logged them here in shorthand, were"--he opened a neat pocket-book--"_'Get out of this and conduct your own d.a.m.ned manoeuvres in your own d.a.m.ned tinker fashion!

You're a disgrace to the Service, and your boat's offal.'"_

"Awful?" I said.

"No--offal--tripes--swipes--ullage." Mr. Pyecroft entered, in the costume of his calling, with the ham and an a.s.sortment of tin dishes, which he dealt out like cards.

"I shall take these as my orders," said Mr. Moorshed. "I'm chucking the Service at the end of the year, so it doesn't matter."

We cut into the ham under the ill-trimmed lamp, washed it down with whisky, and then smoked. From the foreside of the bulkhead came an uninterrupted hammering and clinking, and now and then a hiss of steam.

"That's Mr. Hinchcliffe," said Pyecroft. "He's what is called a first- cla.s.s engine-room artificer. If you hand 'im a drum of oil an' leave 'im alone, he can coax a stolen bicycle to do typewritin'."

Very leisurely, at the end of his first pipe, Mr. Moorshed drew out a folded map, cut from a newspaper, of the area of manoeuvres, with the rules that regulate these wonderful things, below.

"Well, I suppose I know as much as an average stick-and-string admiral,"

he said, yawning. "Is our petticoat ready yet, Mr. Pyecroft?"

As a preparation for naval manoeuvres these councils seemed inadequate. I followed up the ladder into the gloom cast by the wharf edge and the big lumber-ship's side. As my eyes stretched to the darkness I saw that No.

267 had miraculously sprouted an extra pair of funnels--soft, for they gave as I touched them.

"More _prima facie_ evidence. You runs a rope fore an' aft, an' you erects perpend.i.c.k-u-arly two canvas tubes, which you distends with cane hoops, thus 'avin' as many funnels as a destroyer. At the word o' command, up they go like a pair of concertinas, an' consequently collapses equally 'andy when requisite. Comin' aft we shall doubtless overtake the Dawlish bathin'-machine proprietor fittin' on her bustle."

Mr. Pyecroft whispered this in my ear as Moorshed moved toward a group at the stern.

"None of us who ain't built that way can be destroyers, but we can look as near it as we can. Let me explain to you, Sir, that the stern of a Thorneycroft boat, which we are _not_, comes out in a pretty bulge, totally different from the Yarrow mark, which again we are not. But, on the other 'and, _Dirk, Stiletto, Goblin, Ghoul, Djinn_, and _A-frite_--Red Fleet dee-stroyers, with 'oom we hope to consort later on terms o' perfect equality--_are_ Thorneycrofts, an' carry that Grecian bend which we are now adjustin' to our _arriere-pensee_--as the French would put it--by means of painted canvas an' iron rods bent as requisite. Between you an'

me an' Frankie, we are the _Gnome_, now in the Fleet Reserve at Pompey-- Portsmouth, I should say."

"The first sea will carry it all away," said Moorshed, leaning gloomily outboard, "but it will do for the present."

"We've a lot of _prima facie_ evidence about us," Mr. Pyecroft went on. "A first-cla.s.s torpedo boat sits lower in the water than a destroyer. Hence we artificially raise our sides with a black canvas wash-streak to represent extra freeboard; _at_ the same time paddin' out the cover of the forward three-pounder like as if it was a twelve-pounder, an' variously fakin' up the bows of 'er. As you might say, we've took thought an' added a cubic to our stature. It's our len'th that sugars us. A 'undred an'

forty feet, which is our len'th into two 'undred and ten, which is about the _Gnome's,_ leaves seventy feet over, which we haven't got."

"Is this all your own notion, Mr. Pyecroft?" I asked.

"In spots, you might say--yes; though we all contributed to make up deficiencies. But Mr. Moorshed, not much carin' for further Navy after what Frankie said, certainly threw himself into the part with avidity."

"What the d.i.c.kens are we going to do?"

"Speaking as a seaman gunner, I should say we'd wait till the sights came on, an' then fire. Speakin' as a torpedo-c.o.xswain, L.T.O., T.I., M.D., etc., I presume we fall in--Number One in rear of the tube, etc., secure tube to ball or diaphragm, clear away securin'-bar, release safety-pin from lockin-levers, an' pray Heaven to look down on us. As second in command o' 267, I say wait an' see!"

"What's happened? We're off," I said. The timber ship had slid away from us.

"We are. Stern first, an' broadside on! If we don't hit anything too hard, we'll do."

"Come on the bridge," said Mr. Moorshed. I saw no bridge, but fell over some sort of conning-tower forward, near which was a wheel. For the next few minutes I was more occupied with cursing my own folly than with the science of navigation. Therefore I cannot say how we got out of Weymouth Harbour, nor why it was necessary to turn sharp to the left and wallow in what appeared to be surf.

"Excuse me," said Mr. Pyecroft behind us, "_I_ don't mind rammin' a bathin'-machine; but if only _one_ of them week-end Weymouth blighters has thrown his empty baccy-tin into the sea here, we'll rip our plates open on it; 267 isn't the _Archimandrite's_ old cutter."

"I am hugging the sh.o.r.e," was the answer.

"There's no actual 'arm in huggin', but it can come expensive if pursooed."

"Right-O!" said Moorshed, putting down the wheel, and as we left those scant waters I felt 267 move more freely.

A thin cough ran up the speaking-tube.

"Well, what is it, Mr. Hinchcliffe?" said Moorshed.

"I merely wished to report that she is still continuin' to go, Sir."

"Right-O! Can we whack her up to fifteen, d'you think?"

"I'll try, Sir; but we'd prefer to have the engine-room hatch open--at first, Sir."

Whacked up then she was, and for half an hour was careered largely through the night, turning at last with a suddenness that slung us across the narrow deck.

"This," said Mr. Pyecroft, who received me on his chest as a large rock receives a shadow, "represents the _Gnome_ arrivin' cautious from the direction o' Portsmouth, with Admiralty orders."

He pointed through the darkness ahead, and after much staring my eyes opened to a dozen destroyers, in two lines, some few hundred yards away.

"Those are the Red Fleet destroyer flotilla, which is too frail to panic about among the full-blooded cruisers inside Portland breakwater, and several millimetres too excited over the approachin' war to keep a look- out insh.o.r.e. Hence our tattics!"

We wailed through our siren--a long, malignant, hyena-like howl--and a voice hailed us as we went astern tumultuously.

"The _Gnome_--Carteret-Jones--from Portsmouth, with orders--mm--mm-- _Stiletto_," Moorshed answered through the megaphone in a high, whining voice, rather like a chaplain's.

"_Who_?" was the answer.

"Carter--et--Jones."

"Oh, Lord!"