THE WARD-ROOM.
TT is easier to get the Ward-Room in right perspective from this comfortable armchair in a shore billet. It is blowing from the south-west, in fact it is a poisonously dirty night, and yet in face of all this, to soy intense astonishment, I am thinking of my old Ward-Room and it occupants with a kind of real regret. I can hear the lap of the water against the aide, the noise of the wind rushing through the wireless aerials like an express train, the grinding of the cables in the looker near by, sounds that for many months had filled my soul with longing for this identical billet I am in ; and now, with the usual human lack of gratitude, I am longing for the noise and cheeriness of the Ward-Room. Heavens ! look at that " dug-out " Lieutenant-Commander over there, ensconced behind the Times, with the Financial Times ready to be picked up at once if curious eyes are oast on it. I suppose I should be reported to the Mess Committee if I turned his chair over on top of him and sat on it, and yet that is what I could do in the Ward' Room if I felt like it, and did not mind a "rough-house" afterwards. The truth is that I, a respectable young.middle-aged, married man, want a "scrap " for the good of my health and my own enjoyment. I want the companionship of those furniture-breaking, noisy soma of Ham whom I left in the old 'C--.'
They were a great crowd. Three years I lived with them, worked with them, moaned with them, ragged with them, and now, with three musia.halla and two theatres under my lee, I want to be back with them in that God-forsaken harbour where the Fleet lies. The irony of it is that if this ever caught their eye, I should get no sympathy from them. They would look up from their reading in front of the Stove and say " What an ass the fellow is I He must be ' wet.' " (Some day I will write a monograph on the subtle distinctions of meaning conveyed in this warn.) They would put me down as the gentleman in a yachting cap who smells of whisky, and writes Naval News for a local paper. Still, there you are ! The fact remains that I am thinking of them this evening and regretting them as I never thought I should. can see the old Ward-Room dead lights down, a bluish haze of smoke over all, and through the door the little anteroom with
the "Pay "grinding out tunes on the piano. There is the billiard- table in the corner with the same four enthusiasts round it, making a new rule to fit the emergency, as the roll of the ship, oven in harbour, sends the red ball drunkenly sliding from the spot, "Guns." as usual, is in the best chair in front of the stove, giving his con- sidered opinion on the quickest route from the Gaiety to Euston. The young Surgeon hotly contests every yarn of the way, but is finally silenced by the imperious " Guns " with the broadside of "flow should you know anything about the decent parts of London. seeing you were broughtup in a beastly hospital in Whiteehapel " Note our delicate tactful way of arguing in this Service. That young Surgeon, newly joined, never could get a grip of the Navy and its manners. I think with a spasm of laughter of the famous afternoon when " Guns " and I, in the joy of our hearts and from sheer exubemnee of spirits, started to insult each other at tea. "You're a liar," says " Guns " to me, quiet like. "I'd rather ho that," says I, "than a broken-down Gunnery Jack who's been prominent in every seoond-rate divorce suit for the last five yams." " Guns " is an exquisite with very particular views on women, so the insult was apparent. Shortly after this we hurled ourselves on each other, and the much-tried furniture had a further test. Amid teacups, bite of chairs, and the plaudits of the crowd, the scrap was waged. To the Surgeon all this was terrible. Grins visions of brain-storms, following on the monotony of the life in tho North Sea, passed through his professional brain. With cries of "Separate them!" "Cali the others from the Anteroom!" lie rushed for help. The chance was too good to be missed by tho other ocoupanta. Taking their cue from the startled Surgeon, they simulated extreme enthusiasm for separating the combatants, the results of which resembled finally nothing so much as a dog-fight. It was a glorious time, and ended as usual in the complete physical prostration of all participants.
What rot it was, and yet how the memory of it all warms one's heart I The Cinema evenings, too, were good fun. We did not depend entirely on the films for our amusement, as home-made slides were also thrown on the soreen,bearing messages of sarcasm or intended humour. "Will the officer who took three and a hail hours to do nine holes this afternoon, and during that tune held up two Vies-Admirals, a Rear-Admiral, and five Post-Captains, kindly burn his clubs ? It gives the ship a bad name. Draughts arc evidently his game," ran the message one evening. Such shafts of
through crude, are hailed with pleasure, especially as you never know whether the next slide will not be a biting criticism of your own tender spot. The show was further lightened always by two young " Watohkeepens " who took the part of mother and child at the Cinema, and whose comments on things in general and the pictures in particular were racy in the extreme.
As my thoughts flit to the Watehkeepers I think again of the perennial amazement they were to me. Youngsters of twenty-two or so, one saw them nightly, clad in lammy suits, amending to the Forebridge perched high over the ship, where for the spew of four hours at a time, on an inky-black night, with the fleet man- oeuvring as usual without lights, they bore on their shoulders the weight of nine hundred lives and two million pounds' worth of property. I have been up there with them and, marvellin,g, watched them—one quiet figure without a trace of fuss or nervousness directing and controlling that twenty-five thousand tons, keeping station in that black line of ships, where too many or too few revolu- tions meant disaster. Then listen when they return to the Ward- Room after four hours of this. "Hello, old Hero, any sport ?"-- " No, Jimmy, deadly dull I That old muck-barge ahead dropped astern of station and I nearly nudged her. I'll take my oath Fatty Stuart must be on watch in her ; he never could keep station."— " What did you alter course for so suddenly about ten 7 "—" Oh, that I Yee, an old windjammer ran amok and tried to embrace the flagship. Put us in a proper heap for a minute or two, I can tell you, my lad. I gums the crew were singing the Norwegian for 'Those in peril on the sea' before we finished with her." Heavens a dull watch The rest of the conversation drifts into the eternal Watchkeepers' theme of whose afternoon it is Wednesday, and who will take the drifter patrol Thuisday, and so on. Why, I have seen many a motor.'bus driver coming off duty looking more care- worn than them young gentlemen.
Aim, there is the dear old Fleet Surgeon sitting quietly in the corner ! He is loved by every one fore and aft of the ship. If there ever was a gentle soul and a white man, it is he. He is no fool for all his gentleness, as our Weary Willies know to their east, but in any real trouble there is no man better to turn to. I wish I had him here now sitting in front of me, rolling his eternal cigarette. He is the best of messmates and—greatest attribute of a doctor—all trust him. I see him slip out of the Ward-Room and whiatlehis way along the flat, bending as he passes under the row of hammocks slung outside his cabin, and cursing as his head butts one and the occupant titters. In a minute comes the tap, tap from his cabin as he settles down to the hobby which holds him in thrall. Good old "P. M. 0.," long may you live!
A crash of china behind the curtain of the Ward-Room, and there comes out with red, beaming face, Hobson, a three-badge Marine, one of that long-suffering and excellent department, the Ward-Room servants. He smashes about a pound's-worth of china a month,and occasionally gets, as he euphoniously describes it, " tin-'ats," but you cannot look Hobson in the face and curse him. Good nature beams from every comer of him, and his red face looks out on the world with an air as if to say : "My, but it's a good place !" He was my servant for three years, and what a loyal chap he was ! It will he a bad day for our Service if ever the Royal Corps is taken from us. What advice and experience he used to provide me with in confidential moments ! His chief study was women and how to manage them. I can remember, as I sit here, one of his addresses to me : "What I says is, treat 'em as they should be treated and all's well. Now my niissus she talks 'asty. Do I answer her back ? No. I just lets 'Cr talk, and when she chews up, I says : Well, 'ere's one orf for a wet,' and out I goes till late. Preps I'm tin2ats when I gets 'ome, pmps I ain't, but she don't talk to me again for a bit." Poor old Hobson, I can still see his face as he stands at the other end of the cabin and instructs me in womencraft.
Ah, well ! Here I am and there they are. But memory bridges great distances. I see you all, old friends, to-night, with very clear eyes. You am a great lot of sportsmen, a big bunch of children, and wonderful pals. Cheeriohl Beni.
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