Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (702 page)

‘That’s what I mean,’ said the carrying voice of the foreign actress, whom Henri had just disabused of the idea that she had been promised the pink alcove. ‘They ain’t alive to the war yet. Now, what’s the matter with those four dubs yonder joining the British Army or-or doing something?’

‘Who’s your friend?’ Maddingham asked.

‘I’ve forgotten her name for the minute,’ Portson replied, ‘but she’s the latest thing in imported patriotic piece-goods. She sings “Sons of the Empire, Go Forward!” at the Palemseum. It makes the aunties weep.’

‘That’s Sidney Latter. She’s not half bad.’ Tegg reached for the vinegar. ‘We ought to see her some night.’

‘Yes. We’ve a lot of time for that sort of thing,’ Maddingham grunted. ‘I’ll take your oysters, Portson, if you don’t want ‘em.’

‘Cheer up, Papa Maddingham! ‘Soon be dead!’ Winchmore suggested.

Maddingham glared at him. ‘If I’d had you with me for one week, Master Winchmore — ’

‘Not the least use,’ the boy retorted. ‘I’ve just been made a full- lootenant. I have indeed. I couldn’t reconcile it with my conscience to take Etheldreda out any more as a plain sub. She’s too flat in the floor.’

‘Did you get those new washboards of yours fixed?’ Tegg cut in.

‘Don’t talk shop already,’ Portson protested. ‘This is Vesiga soup. I don’t know what he’s arranged in the way of drinks.’

‘Pol Roger ‘04,’ said the waiter.

‘Sound man, Henri,’ said Winchmore. ‘But,’ he eyed the waiter doubtfully, ‘I don’t quite like...What’s your alleged nationality?’

‘‘Henri’s nephew, monsieur,’ the smiling waiter replied, and laid a gloved hand on the table. It creaked corkily at the wrist. ‘Bethisy- sur-Oise,’ he explained. ‘My uncle he buy me all the hand for Christmas. It is good to hold plates only.’

‘Oh! Sorry I spoke,’ said Winchmore.

‘Monsieur is right. But my uncle is very careful, even with neutrals.’ He poured the champagne.

‘Hold a minute,’ Maddingham cried. ‘First toast of obligation: For what we are going to receive, thank God and the British Navy.’

‘Amen!’ said the others with a nod toward Lieutenant Tegg, of the Royal Navy afloat, and, occasionally, of the Admiralty ashore.

‘Next! “Damnation to all neutrals!”‘ Maddingham went on.

‘Amen! Amen!’ they answered between gulps that heralded the sole a la Colbert. Maddingham picked up the menu. ‘Supreame of chicken,’ he read loudly. ‘Filet bearnaise, Woodcock and Richebourg ‘74, Peaches Melba, Croutes Baron. I couldn’t have improved on it myself; though one might,’ he went on-’one might have substituted quail en casserole for the woodcock.’

‘Then there would have been no reason for the Burgundy,’ said Tegg with equal gravity.

‘You’re right,’ Maddingham replied.

The foreign actress shrugged her shoulders. ‘What can you do with people like that?’ she said to her companion. ‘And yet I’ve been singing to ‘em for a fortnight.’

‘I left it all to Henri,’ said Portson.

‘My Gord!’ the eavesdropping woman whispered. ‘Get on to that! Ain’t it typical? They leave everything to Henri in this country.’

‘By the way,’ Tegg asked Winchmore after the fish, ‘where did you mount that one-pounder of yours after all?’

‘Midships. Etheldreda won’t carry more weight forward. She’s wet enough as it is.’

‘Why don’t you apply for another craft?’ Portson put in. ‘There’s a chap at Southampton just now, down with pneumonia and — ’

‘No, thank you. I know Etheldreda. She’s nothing to write home about, but when she feels well she can shift a bit.’

Maddingham leaned across the table. ‘If she does more than eleven in a flat calm,’ said he, ‘I’ll-I’ll give you Hilarity.’

‘‘Wouldn’t be found dead in Hilarity,’ was Winchmore’s grateful reply. ‘You don’t mean to say you’ve taken her into real wet water, Papa? Where did it happen?’

The other laughed. Maddingham’s red face turned brick colour, and the veins on the cheekbones showed blue through a blurr of short bristles.

‘He’s been convoying neutrals-in a tactful manner,’ Tegg chuckled.

Maddingham filled his glass and scowled at Tegg. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and here’s special damnation to me Lords of the Admiralty. A more muddle- headed set of brass-bound apes — ’

‘My! My! My!’ Winchmore chirruped soothingly. ‘It don’t seem to have done you any good, Papa. Who were you conveyancing?’

Maddingham snapped out a ship’s name and some details of her build.

‘Oh, but that chap’s a friend of mine!’ cried Winchmore. ‘I ran across him-the-not so long ago, hugging the Scotch coast-out of his course, he said, owing to foul weather and a new type of engine-a Diesel. That’s him, ain’t it-the complete neutral?’ He mentioned an outstanding peculiarity of the ship’s rig.

‘Yes,’ said Portson. ‘Did you board him, Winchmore?’

‘No. There’d been a bit of a blow the day before and old Ethel’s only dinghy had dropped off the hooks. But he signalled me all his symptoms. He was as communicative as-as a lady in the Promenade. (Hold on, Nephew of my Uncle! I’m going to have some more of that Bearnaise fillet.) His smell attracted me. I chaperoned him for a couple of days.’

‘Only two days. You hadn’t anything to complain of,’ said Maddingham wrathfully.

‘I didn’t complain. If he chose to hug things, ‘twasn’t any of my business. I’m not a Purity League. ‘Didn’t care what he hugged, so long as I could lie behind him and give him first chop at any mines that were going. I steered in his wake (I really can steer a bit now, Portson) and let him stink up the whole of the North Sea. I thought he might come in useful for bait. No Burgundy, thanks, Nephew of my Uncle. I’m sticking to the Jolly Roger.’

‘Go on, then-before you’re speechless. Was he any use as bait?’ Tegg demanded.

‘We never got a fair chance. As I told you, he hugged the coast till dark, and then he scraped round Gilarra Head and went up the bay nearly to the beach.’

‘‘Lights out?’ Maddingham asked.

Winchmore nodded. ‘But I didn’t worry about that. I was under his stern. As luck ‘ud have it, there was a fishing-party in the bay, and we walked slam into the middle of ‘em-a most ungodly collection of local talent. ‘First thing I knew a steam-launch fell aboard us, and a boya nasty little Navy boy, Tegg-wanted to know what I was doing. I told him, and he cursed me for putting the fish down just as they were rising. Then the two of us (he was hanging on to my quarter with a boat-hook) drifted on to a steam trawler and our friend the Neutral and a ten-oared cutter full of the military, all mixed up. They were subs from the garrison out for a lark. Uncle Newt explained over the rail about the weather and his engine-troubles, but they were all so keen to carry on with their fishing, they didn’t fuss. They told him to clear off.’

‘Was there anything on the move round Gilarra at that time?’ Tegg inquired.

‘Oh, they spun me the usual yarns about the water being thick with ‘em, and asked me to help; but I couldn’t stop. The cutter’s stern- sheets were piled up with mines, like lobster-pots, and from the way the soldiers handled ‘em I thought I’d better get out. So did Uncle Newt. He didn’t like it a bit. There were a couple of shots fired at something just as we cleared the Head, and one dropped rather close to him. (These duck-shoots in the dark are dam’ dangerous, y ‘know.) He lit up at once-tail-light, head-light, and side-lights. I had no more trouble with him the rest of the night.’

‘But what about the report that you sawed off the steam-launch’s boat- hook?’ Tegg demanded suddenly.

‘What! You don’t mean to say that little beast of a snotty reported it? He was scratchin’ poor old Ethel’s paint to pieces. I never reported what he said to me. And he called me a damned amateur, too! Well! Well! War’s war. I missed all that fishing-party that time. My orders were to follow Uncle Newt. So I followed-and poor Ethel without a dry rag on her.’

Winchmore refilled his glass.

‘Well, don’t get poetical,’ said Portson. ‘Let’s have the rest of your trip.’

‘There wasn’t any rest,’ Winchmore insisted pathetically. ‘There was just good old Ethel with her engines missing like sin, and Uncle Newt thumping and stinking half a mile ahead of us, and me eating bread and Worcester sauce. I do when I feel that way. Besides, I wanted to go back and join the fishing-party. Just before dark I made out Cordeilia-that Southampton ketch that old Jarrott fitted with oil auxiliaries for a family cruiser last summer. She’s a beamy bus, but she can roll, and she was doing an honest thirty degrees each way when I overhauled her. I asked Jarrott if he was busy. He said he wasn’t. But he was. He’s like me and Nelson when there’s any sea on.’

‘But Jarrott’s a Quaker. ‘Has been for generations. Why does he go to war?’ said Maddingham.

‘If it comes to that,’ Portson said, ‘why do any of us?’

‘Jarrott’s a mine-sweeper,’ Winchmore replied with deep feeling. ‘The Quaker religion (I’m not a Quaker, but I’m much more religious than any of you chaps give me credit for) has decided that mine-sweeping is life-saving. Consequently’-he dwelt a little on the word-’the profession is crowded with Quakers-specially off Scarborough. ‘See? Owin’ to the purity of their lives, they “all go to Heaven when they die-Roll, Jordan, Roll! “‘

‘Disgustin’,’ said the actress audibly as she drew on her gloves. Winchmore looked at her with delight. ‘That’s a peach-Melba, too,’ he said.

‘And David Jarrott’s a mine-sweeper,’ Maddingham mused aloud. ‘So you turned our Neutral over to him, Winchmore, did you?’

‘Yes, I did. It was the end of my beat-I wish I didn’t feel so sleepy- and I explained the whole situation to Jarrott, over the rail. ‘Gave him all my silly instructions-those latest ones, y’know. I told him to do nothing to imperil existing political relations. I told him to exercise tact. I-I told him that in my capac’ty as Actin’ Lootenant, you see. Jarrott’s only a Lootenant-Commander-at fifty-four, too! Yes, I handed my Uncle Newt over to Jarrott to chaperone, and I went back to my-I can say it perfectly-pis-ca-to-rial party in the bay. Now I’m going to have a nap. In ten minutes I shall be on deck again. This is my first civilised dinner in nine weeks, so I don’t apologise.’

He pushed his plate away, dropped his chin on his palm and closed his eyes.

‘Lyndnoch and Jarrott’s Bank, established 1793,’ said Maddingham half to himself. ‘I’ve seen old Jarrott in Cowes week bullied by his skipper and steward till he had to sneak ashore to sleep. And now he’s out mine-sweeping with Cordelia! What’s happened to his-I shall forget my own name next-Belfast-built two-hundred tonner?’

‘Goneril,’ said Portson. ‘He turned her over to the Service in October. She’s-she was Culana.’

‘She was Culana, was she? My God! I never knew that. Where did it happen?’

‘Off the same old Irish corner I was watching last month. My young cousin was in her; so was one of the Raikes boys. A whole nest of mines, laid between patrols.’

‘I’ve heard there’s some dirty work going on there now,’ Maddingham half whispered.

‘You needn’t tell me that,’ Portson returned. ‘But one gets a little back now and again.’

‘What are you two talking about?’ said Tegg, who seemed to be dozing too.

‘Culana,’ Portson answered as he lit a cigarette.

‘Yes, that was rather a pity. But...What about this Newt of ours?’

‘I took her over from Jarrott next day-off Margate,’ said Portson. ‘Jarrott wanted to get back to his mine-sweeping.’

‘Every man to his taste,’ said Maddingham. ‘That never appealed to me. Had they detailed you specially to look after the Newt?’

‘Me among others,’ Portson admitted. ‘I was going down Channel when I got my orders, and so I went on with him. Jarrott had been tremendously interested in his course up to date-specially off the Wash. He’d charted it very carefully and he said he was going back to find out what some of the kinks and curves meant. Has he found out, Tegg?’

Tegg thought for a moment. ‘Cordelia was all right up to six o’clock yesterday evening,’ he said.

‘‘Glad of that. Then I did what Winchmore did. I lay behind this stout fellow and saw him well into the open.’

‘Did you say anything to him?’ Tegg asked.

‘Not a thing. He kept moving all the time.’

‘‘See anything?’ Tegg continued.

‘No. He didn’t seem to be in demand anywhere in the Channel, and, when I’d got him on the edge of soundings, I dropped him-as per your esteemed orders.’

Tegg nodded again and murmured some apology.

‘Where did you pick him up, Maddingham?’ Portson went on.

Maddingham snorted.

‘Well north and west of where you left him heading up the Irish Channel and stinking like a taxi. I hadn’t had my breakfast. My cook was seasick; so were four of my hands.’

‘I can see that meeting. Did you give him a gun across the bows?’ Tegg asked.

‘No, no. Not that time. I signalled him to heave to. He had his papers ready before I came over the side. You see,’ Maddingham said pleadingly, ‘I’m new to this business. Perhaps I wasn’t as polite to him as I should have been if I’d had my breakfast.’