‘I’ll get those holes patched in a jiffy,’ said the Commander to Jerningham. ‘Report that to the Captain.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Jerningham, remembering the need to salute only in the nick of time as he turned away.
The Commander promptly forgot Jerningham in the happier business of organizing. He was calling up in his mind where he had stored the rubber slabs, the battens and timbers that he would need for patching the holes, the ratings whom he would detail for the work. He had in his mind a clear picture of the things he had to do and the order in which he would do them as he ran down to the upper deck and set about the work, while Jerningham made his way back from the boat deck to the bridge and delivered his message to the Captain.
It had been rank bad luck that Artemis had been hit at all, but on the other hand the bad luck was balanced by the good luck that dictated how little damage had been done. A shell in the wardroom, with only the most minor damage below the main deck, would do the ship less harm practically than if it had burst in any other spot. No damage had been done to the ship’s main armament, and the casualty list was small. The wardroom flat would flood and flood again as Artemis manoeuvred, before the Commander could get his patches into place, but (the Captain worked out the problem roughly in his head) her stability would not be greatly endangered by the weight of that mass of water above the water line. She had plenty of reserve to deal with that, despite the shifting of weights as a result of firing off thirty tons of shells. A pity about the Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander and his men.
‘The port-side pompom’s crew’s wiped out, you say?’ said the Captain.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then Harris has gone.’
‘Yes, sir.’
So Artemis had lost her phenomenal pompom gunner. Probably he was irreplaceable – the ship would never see his like again.
Jerningham thought of Presteign. He knew – he felt in his bones – that the Gravesend barmaid had crumpled up and thrown away each of those sonnets as they had reached her. And he had never got from Presteign that complete copy of his work. Something had been lost to civilization. Jerningham had been shaken by the explosion into a numbed state of mind; that part of him which had been trained into a naval officer was functioning only dully and semi-automatically, and it was strange that the other part of him should have this piercing insight and feel this bitter sense of loss. He would tell the Captain about Presteign some day if they ever came out of this battle alive.
Four destroyers were racing alongside of Artemis, overhauling her as they dashed to head off the Italian line. Signal flags went fluttering to the masthead of the leader, and the Chief Yeoman of Signals began to bellow his interpretation of them.
18
From the Captain’s Report
…without serious damage…
The ship’s company of Artemis knew the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate to be a misanthrope – they had suffered for long under his misanthropy – and it may have been that which led the lower deck to believe him to be a bigamist. Certainly the most circumstantial stories were told about the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate’s matrimonial affairs, of the grim wife he had in Pompey, a wife apparently as repellent as himself, and of the charming young girl he was reputed to be bigamously married to in Winchester. Some went as far as to say that this new wife was his first wife’s niece, or some blood relation at least, and there was always much speculation about the occult power by which he had contrived to win her affection and induce her to be an accessory in that particular crime of all crimes. He was an old man, too, as sailors count age, called back into service after retiring on pension, and the wags would raise a laugh sometimes by wondering what Nelson had said to the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate when they last met.
Whatever might be the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate’s matrimonial vagaries on shore, at sea he was a single-minded man, a man with only one interest, which probably accounted for the ship’s company’s jests – a single-minded man is a natural butt. He was engrossed, to the exclusion of all other interests, in the ship’s electricity supply and distribution. All his waking thoughts and most of his dreams dealt with electricity, as a miser can only think of his hoard. According to the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate, no one else in the ship knew anything worth knowing about electricity; the Torpedo Lieutenant might be able to work out the text-book problems about inductance and hysteresis, but that sort of theoretical nonsense was of no use to a man confronted with the necessity of supplying electricity to every nook and cranny of a ship in every condition. The Torpedo Lieutenant certainly could not shut his eyes and count slowly along the main port-side distributing main, ticking off one by one every branch, every fuse-box, and every switch, but the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate could do that, and he could do the same for the accessory port-side distributing main, and then pass over to the starboard side and do it all over again.
The Torpedo Gunner’s Mate had the loftiest contempt for anyone who could not do that, which meant that he had the loftiest contempt for everyone in the ship. And because nothing in the ship could operate properly without electricity everybody on board, the Captain, the Commander, whose word was law, the Commander (E), the Torpedo Lieutenant, the Gunnery Lieutenant whose guns’ crews considered themselves the most important people in the ship, every man Jack of them, in the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate’s mind, was a mere puppet dependent upon him for everything beyond the mere breath of life – and, considering the number of electrically operated fans, they were dependent on him for that as well. He knew, even although no one else knew it, that he was lord and master of HMS Artemis; that by opening or closing a few switches he could cut the thread of her life just as the Greek Fates cut the thread of the lives of mankind. He hugged that knowledge to himself secretly, as passionately as he hugged to his bosom the fair-haired charmer of Winchester. It was a constant source of secret gratification to him, not realizing in his blindness that at the same time the power was quite useless to him in consequence of his fixed determination to keep the electricity supply of Artemis functioning perfectly – he could no more have flouted that determination than he could have cut off his own nose.
The Torpedo Gunner’s Mate’s action station was beside the great switchboard, deep down in the bowels of the ship, and that was the place where he would rather be than anywhere else in the world – with the occasional exception of Winchester. He could feast his eyes on the dials and the indicator lights, run them once more over the huge wiring diagram, enjoying every moment of it – like a miser with his hoard again, fingering the coins and adding up the totals for the thousandth time with as much pleasure as the first. He took a glance at the specific gravity of the acid in the storage batteries; there was enough electricity there to fill the demands of. the whole ship for three hours if necessary should the generators be damaged, and in three hours either the poor fools could get the generators working again or the damage must be such that the ship was lost. He was checking over the switchboard again when the shell struck and burst, and the deck beneath his feet heaved and flung him crashing down. He was on his feet again directly, disentangling himself from the rating who was stationed there with him to take his place if he became a casualty – as if the miserable ignoramus could possibly take his place! – and turned his eyes at once to the switchboard, to the dials and the indicator lamps. His assistant got to his feet beside him, but the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate jealously elbowed him back; no man while he was on duty would touch that switchboard except himself.
Some of the lamps were out; some of the needles on the dials were back to zero. The Torpedo Gunner’s Mate ran his hands over the switches like a pianist trying out a piano. He played a scale on them, switched over to the alternative main, and played the scale again, never having to take his eyes from the indicators as he did so – he could lay his hands blindfolded on any switch he chose. The lighting circuit to the after-mess flat was broken, and the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate restored it; he did the same for other parts of the ship, for all except the wardroom fla
t. The indicator here remained obstinate. Nothing he could do could restore the flow of electricity in the wardroom flat. As far as the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate was concerned, the wardroom flat had ceased to exist. He grunted as he reached this conclusion; not even his assistant, who was looking now at him instead of at the board, and who had borne with his moods for two and a half years, could tell what that grunt meant, or could interpret the stony expression in his face.
The Torpedo Gunner’s Mate grunted again, and let his hand fall from the switchboard. He walked forward, rolling a trifle stiffly with the motion of the ship – he was a little troubled with rheumatism in the knees – and passed through the door into the telephone exchange. Here he surveyed the scene with a jealous eye, for only very partially was the telephone exchange under his charge. He supplied it with electricity, but Seamen Howlett and Grant who manned the telephone switchboard were not under the orders of his department, and the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate strongly believed that they would be more efficient if they were. He did not like the fact that men who dispensed electricity – even in the minute quantities necessary to actuate a telephone receiver – should not be under his supervision, and the work they were doing now, of testing the circuits and ascertaining which ones were still functioning, was so like the duty he had just completed as to rouse his jealousy still further.
He watched their deft motions for a brief space – he knew as much about their duty as they did themselves – and ran his eye over the telephone switchboard to check what they were doing. Here and there the board was spanned criss-cross by wires plugged in for the duration of the action, completing circuits which enabled the Gunnery Lieutenant to speak at will with his turrets and magazines, the boiler-room with the engine-room, and so on. The Torpedo Gunner’s Mate was a little disappointed to see that the permanent circuits were correct; he could tell by the set of their shoulders that Howlett and Grant, despite the earphones on their ears and their preoccupation with their duty, were aware of his entrance and of the fact that he was brooding over them.
A light glowed on the switchboard and Howlett plugged in.
‘Exchange,’ he said.
The Torpedo Gunner’s Mate could not hear the murmur in Howlett’s earphone, but he saw where he plugged in the connection. Forebridge wanted to speak with sick bay – nothing very remarkable about that.
‘One of you lads get me the Damage Control Officer,’ said the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate, picking up the telephone receiver beside him. ‘This is a priority call.’
That was a gratifying thing to be able to say; during his brief watch over the switchboard he had been able to see how much in demand was the Damage Control Officer’s telephone, and the fact that he could claim priority and insist on his own call being put through next, was a most satisfactory tribute to the importance of electricity. He heard the Commander’s voice, and proceeded to report the result of his tests at the main switchboard.
‘Very good,’ said the Commander. ‘Yes. Yes, the wardroom flat’s been burnt out.’
The Torpedo Gunner’s Mate put back the receiver and eyed again for a moment the unresponsive backs of Howlett and Grant. He was jealous of these two. They could listen to the telephone conversations, and even if they were too busy to do that they could still guess, from the origins and destinations of the calls coming through, what was going on in the ship. They shared his knowledge about the wardroom flat, and it was not fair – it was actually indecent – that it should be so. What he knew and ought to know by virtue of his position as dispenser of electricity they knew because they could take advantage of the duty to which they happened to be assigned. It was not consistent with the dignity of the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate, in charge of the main switchboard – no, much more than that, it was not consistent with the dignity of electricity itself – that he should not be solitary on a pinnacle of exclusive knowledge. He saw Howlett dart a glance at Grant, and he read amusement in it, something almost approaching insolence; what mollified the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate and distracted him from taking instant action in defence of his dignity was the sight of the left side of Grant’s face – so far he had seen only the back of Grant’s head. Grant’s left eye was blackened and puffy, the lids swollen and gorged. There was a contusion on his cheekbone which would probably turn black as well, and the cheek itself showed a faint bruise which reappeared lower down over the jawbone in more marked fashion.
‘That’s a rare shiner you’ve got there, Grant,’ said the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate.
‘It is an’ all,’ said Grant, who despite his name, was born and bred in Manchester. Another light glowed on the switchboard, and Grant plugged in. ‘Exchange.’
The explosion of the shell must have lifted Grant up from his chair and dashed him, face foremost, against the switchboard.
‘Exchange,’ said Grant and Howlett simultaneously, plugging in.
It was a trifle of a pill for the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate to swallow for him to acknowledge to himself that the telephone switchboard was being properly looked after without his supervision, that these children of twenty or so would do their duty whether he kept his eye on them or not. The Torpedo Gunner’s Mate had little faith in the young. He sighed and turned away, walking out of the telephone room back to his own treasured switchboard; his rheumatism gave him an old man’s gait. He ran his eye over the dials and indicator lights; all was still well here; even his fool of an assistant rating had not managed to do anything wrong. The Torpedo Gunner’s Mate continued to walk aft, through another door and into the most secret part of the ship.
He closed the door behind him and looked round. This was the Transmitting Station; the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate knew that any foreign power, even in time of peace, would pay a King’s ransom for the chance of having one of their experts stand for half an hour where he stood now. All about him were the superhuman machines upon which the best brains of the Navy had laboured for years in search of perfection, the machines which solved instantaneously the differential equations which would occupy a skilled mathematician for a couple of days or more, the machines which correlated half a dozen different sets of data at once, the machines which allowed for barometric pressure and for gun temperatures, machines that looked into the future and yet never forgot the past.
It was comforting to the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate to know that these superhuman things were dependent on him for the supply of electricity which alone allowed them to function; the only crony he had in the ship, Chief Electrical Artificer Sands (another man with proper ideas regarding the importance of electricity), spent most of his waking hours adjusting them and tuning them, pandering to their weaknesses and being patient with them when they turned obstinate.
In the centre of the room, ranged round a table large enough for a Lord Mayor’s banquet to be served on it, sat the Marine band. In the old days travelling theatrical companies expected their players to do a double job, and take their places nightly in the orchestra preliminary to appearing on the stage; there would be advertisements in the theatrical papers for a ‘heavy’ who could ‘double in brass’. Similarly, in Artemis, the musicians had a double duty, and the provision of music was the less important. The time they spent rehearsing ‘Colonel Bogey’ and ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’ was only the time that could be spared from rehearsals of a more exacting piece of teamwork. The machines all round them, the superhuman machines, even when the Torpedo Gunner’s Mate had supplied them with electricity and Chief Electrical Artificer Sands had tuned them to perfection, were still dependent upon human agency to interpret and implement their findings. Under the glass top of the table there were needles which moved steadily and needles which moved erratically, needles which crept and needles which jumped, and each needle was watched by a bandsman who had his own individual pointer under his control which had to keep pace with it, creep when it crept, jump when it jumped, utterly unpredictably. At the Transmitting Station table every item the Marine band played was unrehearsed and without score; the instrumentalists could
never look ahead and find that some individuals among them had been allotted twenty bars’ rest by the composer. There was no looking ahead, and each bandsman was obeying a different baton which might at any moment leap into activity and summon him to action.
At the head of the table, sitting on a higher chair which gave him a view over the whole expanse, sat the Commissioned Gunner, Mr Kaile, his telephone instrument clasped over his head, the other telephones within reach. In one sense, Mr Kaile was conductor of this mad hatter’s orchestra. He had no control over what air should be played, nor when it should begin or end. He was rather in the position of a band leader who may find his instrumentalists suddenly striking up together at any moment without agreeing on the tune. He had to see that at least every instrument was in the same key and kept the same time, and, in accordance with the orders that came down from the bridge and from the Gunnery Lieutenant, and guided by the triple reports of the spotting officers, he was also expected – to continue the analogy – to swell or diminish the volume of sound as might be considered necessary; in other words, to send the range up or down the ladder, deflect to right or to left, as the direct observation of the fall of the shells might dictate.
However perfect the machines, war in the last analysis is fought by men whose nerves must remain steady to direct the machines, whose courage must remain high when they, as well as their machines, are in danger; whose discipline and training must be such that they work together. Every improvement in the machines does not dispose of this problem, but only pushes it one remove farther along. The Paleolithic man who first thought of setting his flint axe in a haft instead of holding it clumsily in his hand still had to face and fight his enemy. Nelson’s gunners had their ammunition brought to them by powder monkeys instead of by an automatic hydraulic hoist like the gunners in Artemis, but in either case the gunners had to stand by their guns to achieve anything.