Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (497 page)

“
The
mote
on
their neighbour’s beam, of course,” said Pyecroft, and read syllable by syllable: “‘Captain Malan to Captain Panke. Is — sten — cilled frieze your starboard side new Admiralty regulation, or your Number One’s private expense?’ Now
Cryptic
is saying, ‘Not understood.’ Poor old
Crippy
, the
Devolute’s
raggin’ ‘er sore. ‘Who is G.M.?’ she says. That’s fetched the
Cryptic
. She’s answerin’: ‘You ought to know. Examine own paintwork.’ Oh, Lord! they’re both on to it now. This is balm. This is beginning to be balm. I forgive you, Morgan!”

Two frantic pipes twittered. From either cruiser a whaler dropped into the water and madly rowed round the ship: as a gay-coloured hoist rose to the
Cryptic’s
yardarm: “Destroyer will close at once. Wish to speak by semaphore.” Then on the bridge semaphore itself: “Have been trying to attract your attention last half hour. Send commanding officer aboard at once.”

“Our attention? After all the attention we’ve given ‘er, too,” said Pyecroft. “What a greedy old woman!” To Moorshed: “Signal from the
Cryptic
, Sir.”

“Never mind that!” said the boy, peering through his glasses. “Our dinghy quick, or they’ll paint our marks out. Come along!”

By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft’s bending back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as we skimmed the
Cryptic’s
ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman in her whaler when we barged fairly into him.

“Mind my paint!” he yelled.

“You mind mine, snotty,” said Moorshed. “I was all night putting these little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave ‘em alone.”

We splashed past him to the
Devolution’s
boat, where sat no one less than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer.

“What the deuce is the meaning of this?” he roared, with an accusing forefinger.

“You’re sunk, that’s all. You’ve been dead half a tide.”

“Dead, am I? I’ll show you whether I’m dead or not, Sir!”

“Well, you may be a survivor,” said Moorshed ingratiatingly, “though it isn’t at all likely.”

The officer choked for a minute. The midshipman crouched up in stern said, half aloud: “Then I
was
right — last night.”

“Yesh,” I gasped from the dinghy’s coal-dust. “Are you member Torquay
Yacht Club?”

“Hell!” said the first lieutenant, and fled away. The
Cryptic’s
boat was already at that cruiser’s side, and semaphores flicked zealously from ship to ship. We floated, a minute speck, between the two hulls, while the pipes went for the captain’s galley on the
Devolution
.

“That’s all right,” said Moorshed. “Wait till the gangway’s down and then board her decently. We oughtn’t to be expected to climb up a ship we’ve sunk.”

Pyecroft lay on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan, full-uniformed, descended the
Devolution’s
side. With due compliments — not acknowledged, I grieve to say — we fell in behind his sumptuous galley, and at last, upon pressing invitation, climbed, black as sweeps all, the lowered gangway of the
Cryptic
. At the top stood as fine a constellation of marine stars as ever sang together of a morning on a King’s ship. Every one who could get within earshot found that his work took him aft. I counted eleven able seamen polishing the breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four marines zealously relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine midshipmen of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the higher ranks past all census.

“If I die o’ joy,” said Pyecroft behind his hand, “remember I died forgivin’ Morgan from the bottom of my ‘eart, because, like Martha, we ‘ave scoffed the better part. You’d better try to come to attention, Sir.”

Moorshed ran his eye voluptuously over the upper deck battery, the huge beam, and the immaculate perspective of power. Captain Panke and Captain Malan stood on the well-browned flash-plates by the dazzling hatch. Precisely over the flagstaff I saw Two Six Seven astern, her black petticoat half hitched up, meekly floating on the still sea. She looked like the pious Abigail who has just spoken her mind, and, with folded hands, sits thanking Heaven among the pieces. I could almost have sworn that she wore black worsted gloves and had a little dry cough. But it was Captain Panke that coughed so austerely. He favoured us with a lecture on uniform, deportment, and the urgent necessity of answering signals from a senior ship. He told us that he disapproved of masquerading, that he loved discipline, and would be obliged by an explanation. And while he delivered himself deeper and more deeply into our hands, I saw Captain Malan wince. He was watching Moorshed’s eye.

“I belong to Blue Fleet, Sir. I command Number Two Six Seven,” said Moorshed, and Captain Planke was dumb. “Have you such a thing as a frame- plan of the
Cryptic
aboard?” He spoke with winning politeness as he opened a small and neatly folded paper.

“I have, sir.” The little man’s face was working with passion.

“Ah! Then I shall be able to show you precisely where you were torpedoed last night in” — he consulted the paper with one finely arched eyebrow — ”in nine places. And since the
Devolution
is, I understand, a sister ship” — he bowed slightly toward Caplain Malan — ”the same plan —  — ”

I had followed the clear precision of each word with a dumb amazement which seemed to leave my mind abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan’s eye turn from Moorshed and seek that of the
Cryptic’s
commander. And he telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: “My dear friend and brother officer,
I
know Panke;
you
know Panke;
we
know Panke — good little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke will make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things straight, unless you who are a man of tact and discernment —  — ”

“Carry on.” The Commander’s order supplied the unspoken word. The cruiser boiled about her business around us; watch and watch officers together, up to the limit of noise permissible. I saw Captain Malan turn to his senior.

“Come to my cabin!” said Panke gratingly, and led the way. Pyecroft and I stayed still.

“It’s all right,” said Pyecroft. “They daren’t leave us loose aboard for one revolution,” and I knew that he had seen what I had seen.

“You, too!” said Captain Malan, returning suddenly. We passed the sentry between white enamelled walls of speckless small arms, and since that Royal Marine Light infantryman was visibly suffocating from curiosity, I winked at him. We entered the chintz-adorned, photo-speckled, brass- fendered, tile-stoved main cabin. Moorshed, with a ruler, was demonstrating before the frame-plan of H.M.S.
Cryptic
.

“ — making nine stencils in all of my initials G.M.,” I heard him say. “Further, you will find attached to your rudder, and you, too, Sir” — he bowed to Captain Malan yet again — ”one fourteen-inch Mark IV practice torpedo, as issued to first-class torpedo-boats, properly buoyed. I have sent full particulars by telegraph to the umpires, and have requested them to judge on the facts as they — appear.” He nodded through the large window to the stencilled
Devolution
awink with brass work in the morning sun, and ceased.

Captain Panke faced us. I remembered that this was only play, and caught myself wondering with what keener agony comes the real defeat.

“Good God, Johnny!” he said, dropping his lower lip like a child, “this young pup says he has put us both out of action. Inconceivable — eh? My first command of one of the class. Eh? What shall we do with him? What shall we do with him — eh?”

“As far as I can see, there’s no getting over the stencils,” his companion answered.

“Why didn’t I have the nets down? Why didn’t I have the nets down?” The cry tore itself from Captain Panke’s chest as he twisted his hands.

“I suppose we’d better wait and find out what the umpires will say. The
Admiral won’t be exactly pleased.” Captain Malan spoke very soothingly.
Moorshed looked out through the stern door at Two Six Seven. Pyecroft and
I, at attention, studied the paintwork opposite. Captain Panke had dropped
into his desk chair, and scribbled nervously at a blotting-pad.

Just before the tension became unendurable, he looked at his junior for a lead. “What — what are you going to do about it, Johnny — eh?”

“Well, if you don’t want him, I’m going to ask this young gentleman to breakfast, and then we’ll make and mend clothes till the umpires have decided.”

Captain Panke flung out a hand swiftly.

“Come with me,” said Captain Malan. “Your men had better go back in the dinghy to — their — own — ship.”

“Yes, I think so,” said Moorshed, and passed out behind the captain. We followed at a respectful interval, waiting till they had ascended the ladder.

Said the sentry, rigid as the naked barometer behind him: “For Gawd’s sake! ‘Ere, come ‘ere! For Gawd’s sake! What’s ‘appened? Oh! come ‘
ere
an’ tell.”

“Tell? You?” said Pyecroft. Neither man’s lips moved, and the words were whispers: “Your ultimate illegitimate grandchildren might begin to understand, not you — nor ever will.”

“Captain Malan’s galley away, Sir,” cried a voice above; and one replied:
“Then get those two greasers into their dinghy and hoist the blue peter.
We’re out of action.”

“Can you do it, Sir?” said Pyecroft at the foot of the ladder. “Do you think it is in the English language, or do you not?”

“I don’t think I can, but I’ll try. If it takes me two years, I’ll try.”

* * * * *

There are witnesses who can testify that I have used no artifice. I have, on the contrary, cut away priceless slabs of
opus alexandrinum
. My gold I have lacquered down to dull bronze, my purples overlaid with sepia of the sea, and for hell-hearted ruby and blinding diamond I have substituted pale amethyst and mere jargoon. Because I would say again “Disregarding the inventions of the Marine Captain whose other name is Gubbins, let a plain statement suffice.”

THE KING’S TASK

  After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name,
  In the years when the Lights were darkened, or ever Saint Wilfrid came.
  Low on the borders of Britain, the ancient poets sing,
  Between the cliff and the forest there ruled a Saxon king.

  Stubborn all were his people, a stark and a jealous horde —
  Not to be schooled by the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword;
  Blithe to turn at their pleasure, bitter to cross in their mood,
  And set on the ways of their choosing as the hogs of Andred’s Wood …

  They made them laws in the Witan, the laws of flaying and fine,
  Folkland, common and pannage, the theft and the track of kine;
  Statutes of tun and of market for the fish and the malt and the meal,
  The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.
  Over the graves of the Druids and over the wreck of Rome
  Rudely but deeply they bedded the plinth of the days to come.
  Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Northman’s ire,
  Rudely but greatly begat they the body of state and of shire.
  Rudely but greatly they laboured, and their labour stands till now
  If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.

THE COMPREHENSION OF PRIVATE COPPER

Private Copper’s father was a Southdown shepherd; in early youth Copper had studied under him. Five years’ army service had somewhat blunted Private Copper’s pastoral instincts, but it occurred to him as a memory of the Chalk that sheep, or in this case buck, do not move towards one across turf, or in this case, the Colesberg kopjes unless a stranger, or in this case an enemy, is in the neighbourhood. Copper, helmet back-first advanced with caution, leaving his mates of the picket full a mile behind. The picket, concerned for its evening meal, did not protest. A year ago it would have been an officer’s command, moving as such. To-day it paid casual allegiance to a Canadian, nominally a sergeant, actually a trooper of Irregular Horse, discovered convalescent in Naauwport Hospital, and forthwith employed on odd jobs. Private Copper crawled up the side of a bluish rock-strewn hill thinly fringed with brush atop, and remembering how he had peered at Sussex conies through the edge of furze-clumps, cautiously parted the dry stems before his face. At the foot of the long slope sat three farmers smoking. To his natural lust for tobacco was added personal wrath because spiky plants were pricking his belly, and Private Copper slid the backsight up to fifteen hundred yards….

“Good evening, Khaki. Please don’t move,” said a voice on his left, and as he jerked his head round he saw entirely down the barrel of a well-kept Lee-Metford protruding from an insignificant tuft of thorn. Very few graven images have moved less than did Private Copper through the next ten seconds.

“It’s nearer seventeen hundred than fifteen,” said a young man in an obviously ready-made suit of grey tweed, possessing himself of Private Copper’s rifle. “Thank
you
. We’ve got a post of thirty-seven men out yonder. You’ve eleven — eh? We don’t want to kill ‘em. We have no quarrel with poor uneducated Khakis, and we do not want prisoners we do not keep. It is demoralising to both sides — eh?”