Without mishap the two pinnaces ranged up alongside the jetty and disgorged their human cargo. There were no water police in Mautby to harry the liberty men and for some reason the customs boatmen were absent.
“No bloomin’ water-rats about this time, Joe,” Kenneth overheard the coxswain of one of the liberty boats remark to his “opposite number”. “What’s the lay? Have they got the Christmas feeling?”
“Not they,” replied the other, “I heard as a Frenchie’s trying to run a cargo up-along and the water-rats are off to nab him—if they can.”
“Well, s’long as they don’t get us on that lay, I hopes the Frenchie’ll kipper their bloomin’ Christmas,” rejoined the first speaker, who, having been caught by the Customs while in possession of a couple of plugs of smuggled tobacco, had no love for the members of His Majesty’s Preventive Service.
“Well, mine’s kippered any old way,” thought Midshipman Raxworthy. “But, by Jove! it would be a bit of excitement if there’s anything in the yarn, and I’m sent away to capture a French smuggler!”
There was very little respite for Midshipman Raxworthy. His next duty—for the commander meant to keep him busy—was to take ashore the junior officers and midshipmen who had been given leave.
“Bung-ho, Rax!” was Jimmy Whitwell’s final greeting as the boat with its load of exuberant snotties ran alongside the jetty. “I’ll write and tell you what you’ve missed if I have time!”
That seemed about the limit—to bear the brunt of a running fire of more or less sympathetic remarks from his fortunate messmates, and then to watch their disappearing forms as they scampered up the steps of the jetty and hurried to the railway station with hardly a backward glance or a farewell to the luckless victim of the commander’s ire.
Christmas Eve came round—as depressing a day as one could imagine. A biting nor’-easterly wind accompanied by a flurry of snow had sprung up during the night. The glass was rising rapidly—a sure sign of a gale from some northerly point.
Almost as soon as Midshipman Raxworthy came on duty the officer-of-the-watch hailed him.
“Commander wishes that q.d. awnings and curtains be furled immediately,” he ordered. “Look lively, or something will carry away in a brace of shakes.”
The order was certainly necessary. Already the canvas was bellying upwards and flogging under the onslaught of the rising gale.
Turning out the duty sub-division of his watch the midshipman superintended the task, the while fearing the commander’s ire should the stubborn canvas “take charge and carry away”, through the careless handling of the men engaged upon the job.
At length the awnings were furled and the hands trooped for’ard, leaving the officer-of-the-watch and Midshipman Raxworthy in sole occupation of the wind-swept quarter-deck. Now that the curtains were removed there was nothing to shelter the two officers from the icy blast that swept unrestrainedly across the exposed deck.
Drifts of snow accumulated against hatchway coamings. Raxworthy was young enough to revel in a snowballing contest, but by virtue of the dignity of his minor authority such delights were denied him. Dejectedly he paced the deck in company with the distinctly morose officer-of-the-watch who, upon his own admission, was “fed up to the back teeth”, because duty held him back from Christmas festivities ashore.
There was nothing to do, no signals to be given or received. Everything beyond a radius of about a hundred yards was hidden in swirling flakes of snow. As it was between half ebb and low water the entrance to Junk Harbour was impassable and in consequence no vessel would be entering or leaving. According to custom look-outs were posted both on the bridge and in the eyes of the ship, but in the circumstances their task, like that of the watch-keeping officer was a mere matter of form.
“And this is a Merry Christmas—I don’t think!” thought Raxworthy, as the morning wore on in freezing inactivity.
His trick over, the midshipman ate a sorry meal in solitary state in the deserted gun-room. To make matters worse, the stove was behaving abominably, giving out hardly any heat and sending out clouds of smoke.
Ringing the bell the midshipman summoned the gun-room messman.
“See that that cowl is trimmed properly, Jones,” he ordered. “I’m being smoked out!”
“Very good, sir,” replied the messman, at the same time placing a book upon the table.
Raxworthy glared banefully at the unwanted gift. He knew perfectly well what it was—the commander’s night-order book.
As soon as the door closed, the midshipman opened the book, eager to know the latest blow that fate had dealt him. He was not mistaken in his forebodings. In the commander’s small and clear handwriting appeared:
“Motor-picket-boat will proceed to Mautby at 23.30 to bring officers off to the ship.”
Raxworthy glanced at the clock on the bulkhead. It was now 11.30 a.m. In twelve hours—thirty minutes before midnight—he would have to make another hateful run into Mautby to fetch the surgeon-commander and the engineer-lieutenant who apparently had found sufficient attraction ashore to spend an evening either in or on the outskirts of that desolate town.
“I believe the Bloke persuaded them to go so that he’d get the chance of sending me to bring them off,” ruminated the midshipman. “If this isn’t a dog’s life, what is?”
By ten in the evening the gale had moderated somewhat, although the sea ran high. Rigged out in oilskins and sea-boots, Raxworthy came on deck and went to the side.
The picket-boat was straining at the lower boom, shipping it green as the bow-rope took the strain. In the sickly gleam of the starboard navigation lamp the sea looked particularly forbidding and the boat herself a mere cockleshell.
“All correct, sir,” reported the coxswain.
“Plenty of fuel?”
“Paraffin tank full, sir, and a gallon of petrol for starting up.”
“Good!” ejaculated Raxworthy. “Lead on, coxswain!”
With an agility born of long practice, the petty officer made his way out along the lower boom and, watching his opportunity, dropped upon the fore-deck of the heaving motor-picket-boat.
The midshipman followed. Encumbered as he was with board-stiff oilskins and heavy sea-boots his movements were slower. He knew perfectly well that a slip would mean almost certain death—with the choice of being crushed between the boat’s and the ship’s side or of being carried down by the weight of his boots. Even if he found himself in the ditch and were able to kick off his boots, he could not keep himself afloat for more than a few seconds in the piercingly cold water.
At the end of the boom Raxworthy groped for the jacob’s ladder, descended three or four rungs and then hung on—waiting.
A dozen feet below him was a smooth triangular patch upon which the rays of the red, white and green navigation lamps blended in a weird colour scheme. That patch was the motor-picket-boat’s fore-deck, and upon it he must drop or pay the penalty for failure.