"Can't be a circle – because that's progression. You've got to get to a smash in time."
"Yes, it means there'll be just as much cash in the world, but every one will be poor. Cash isn't wealth – work is wealth, and all work nowadays is wasted. We're chucking it into the air in Flanders."
"Well, we'll last out this war, and then have to lash out."
"Oh yes – there'll be room to lash out in, too. We'll be back in Elizabeth's days – lots of room for every one, but no capital."
"So long as there are no Huns we'll be happy, so what's the odds? Give us a match."
"Well, I want a few Huns left to compare notes with after this. It would be dull to hear our own side only. One couldn't meet their Army, of course, but their Navy's not so bad. They've tried to fight clean, at any rate, and they fight good and 'earty. Yes, I know about Fritz, but if you had orders to torpedo liners, wouldn't you do it? 'Course you would, if you were told they were carrying munitions and you were saving your country by it. There are Fritzes who like it, certainly, but we have to give the others the benefit of the doubt."
"Well, I'd like to read their logs and so on after the war, though we'll be so damn sick of all the truck they'll publish here when the Censor pays off that we wont want to read much of anything."
"It isn't the stuff just after the war one would like to read. I'd like to be alive in a hundred years to read the truth."
"Well, you wont be if you knock my drink over with your hairy hoofs – sit still!"
"It'd do you good if I did knock it over – your hoary-headed old rip. Guns, do you think they'll have raised our pay in a hundred years' time?"
"I doubt it. They'll pay off the Navy and economise as soon as peace is signed – "
" – And we'll have another war on our hands inside six months – we always do; we've always retrenched after a war, and then had to give bonuses to get the men back inside a year."
"Well, they'll pay off the battleships, anyway – and only keep the fast cruisers and the submarines."
"You and your submarines! Have you heard from your brother lately?"
"Yes, he tells me if I'm going to join I've got to remember it's the greatest honour to be – half a sec., I've got the letter here – to be alive and able to get into the greatest and most efficient Service of the Greatest Navy the world has ever seen, in the Greatest event in History since the Moon broke off."
There was a two seconds' silence (which is long for a Naval discussion), then —
"Well, cutting out the swollen-headed tosh about the Greatest Service, which I take it he means to refer to submarines, I don't know that he's far wrong."
"Well, I suppose we shall have our pasts and presents all looked up, and that people at the U.S. Institution will argue about us like they did a few years ago about Trafalgar."
"No fear. They'll all be peaceful then, and we'll be barbarians, and not to be spoken of."
"Barbarian, my foot! We're the cleanest lot in England, and the English are cleaner than most races."
"Do you think there'll be another battle?"
"Oh, help! If that cag's going to start, I'm off. Good-night, sir."
"I must go too, Jim," said the guest, with a startled glance at the clock. "Where did I leave my coat?"
The Senior Engineer rose and followed them out, hearing as he passed through the door an unwearying voice by the stove – "I know a chap on Beatty's staff, and he says they'll fight next spring or summer."
THE GUNLAYER
"Hit first – hit hard – and keep on hitting, is a good rule, but what I want to impress on you is that in this war the last part of that rule is the most important. The enemy shoots remarkably well – at a target – but he does not appear to stand punishment well himself. It is remarkable how the German shooting falls off once he gets a few big shells aboard him, and up to date it has been noticeable that our own practice is, up to a certain point, improved by our being hit. It is just a matter of sticking power…"
The Gunnery Lieutenant paused in his lecture and sighed. "Would these pasty-faced beggars stick it?" He had had a week to train the crew – most of them raw hands – of the latest and fastest light cruiser, into a semblance of war efficiency, and the effort was tiring him. They were so very new and unintelligent, and he had had to go over the A B C of gunnery with them as if they had never been through their course before joining. Seven bells struck, and he dismissed the class and sent them shuffling and elbowing out of the flat.
They had been stationed at the guns three hours and had seen nothing. This was their second day out, and the first nervousness and feeling of shyness at being in enemy waters was wearing off. The mist that had been with them since dawn was clearing away too, and the gunlayer of No. Five straightened his back and stretched himself against the shield. This was a silly game, he decided. Two cables astern the knife-edge stem of a sister ship was parting their wake into two creamy undulating waves which seemed to spoil the mirror-like surface of what the German wireless has with inimitable humour termed "The fringe of the English barred zone," or as their Lordships more drily put it, "The mouth of the Bight."
The gunlayer spat carefully over the side and felt in his cap-rim for a cigarette. He calculated that he would make the "fag," with care, last till breakfast. Fourteen days in commission had at any rate taught him that the art of shortening up the frequent spells of boredom consisted in a judicious mixture of tobacco and thinking, and as smoking was barred under heavy penalties during the dark hours, his brain had been somewhat overworked since four. As he fumbled for his matches he froze suddenly still as a bugle blared "Action stations!" from the bridge above him. He heard the beginnings of the clatter of men closing up and the hum of activity along the deck, but till the cold shiver had passed from him he could not move. His one idea was that this was real, and he would give anything to be out of it. Then in a flash he was at his sights, his hands on the focussing-ring and his head close up to the telescope, in fear that others might see something in his face that he did not want them to see. For exactly the same reasons some hundred other men on the upper deck were becoming feverishly busy, but before the last note of the bugle had died the guns' crews were over their stage fright, and were, with perhaps a little more care and intelligence than they had shown at drill, closing up to their guns.
The gunlayer of No. Five stepped to one side and looked out on the beam. The mists had cleared, and far to the east he could see a line of little smoke puffs that could only mean one thing – ships in station and burning high-speed fuel. The cruiser heeled a little, and the smoke dots swung from abeam to nearly ahead as she turned, and he lost sight of them behind the shield of the next gun. He wanted to go forward and watch them. It seemed worse to have it hanging over him like this. He did not know if he would be quite ready if the ship turned suddenly to bring his gun to bear and he should see the enemy at close range, and no longer as little brown smoke blurs.
The sight-setter, a boy of seventeen, spoke to him and he looked round. The boy's face was rather white, and his lips trembled a little. The gunlayer woke up at the sight, and broke into a pleased grin.
"Only little beggars," he said, "hardly enough to make a mouthful. Don't you make no blinkin' errors this morning, my lad, or I'll land you one you'll be proud of!"
The speech cheered him up, and he began to believe he might come out of it alive – with luck. The ship was travelling now. The white water raced past at a dizzy speed, and a great sloping V of bubbling foam followed them fifty yards astern. Every few seconds a quivering vibration started from forward and travelled through the hull – reminding him of a terrier waiting at a rat-hole. He wanted to smoke – there would be just time for a cigarette – but although he was afraid of death, he was afraid of the Gunnery Lieutenant more. He snuggled down to the shoulder-piece and began working his elevating wheel slowly. There was little roll on the ship, and he realised thankfully that there was going to be no difficulty about keeping his sights on. The oblong port in the