A SPECK ON THE HORIZON.

Otago Witness, Issue 3339, 13 March 1918, Page 55

A SPECK ON THE HORIZON.

HOW THE SAILORMAN GETS HIS LETTERS. " We ain't got much money, but we do see life." The bo'sun's mate pokes his nose into the cook's galley as, like a motor corkscrew, he moves along the upper deck of H.M.S. Steerwell. The cook is cursing his obstinate fire, and hanging on to the steel guard for safety. In a corner, curled up and asleep ' with mouth gaping like an expiring cod, lies an offwatch able seaman. The Steerwell swings along her beat. She is a clean-cut craft, swift, and powerfully armed, and the pride of her captain and crew. Dawn has -just broken, disclosing a great waste of tumbling grey and white. Through the long, dark hours the Steerwell has battled her way over a prescribed course, with never a light showing, save that which faintly fell in a narrow radius from the binnacle on the bridge. It has been a rough night—windy and wet, —and a dirty head sea makes the taut, trim packet cut fantastic capers. The water streams from the upper deck and rushes into the scuppers, and break o' day brings no prospect of better weather. From horizon to horizon stretches a pall of grey. The wind cuts like a whetted knife, and thrusting her shapely nose into it, the Steerwell lurches and pitches on her way. Behind the Weather-dodgers.— On the bridge, behind the weatherdodgers, the officer of the watch, clad in oilskins and sou'wester, peers anxiously ahead, turning now and again to note the course, and to drop a word to the man at the wheel. The wind whistles among the cordage. Grey seas strike the vesserviciously, the broken wator pouring over the fo'c's'le in great cascades. Trembling under the blows, tho Steerwell lifts oh the slope of a steep, slate-coloured swell, raising her stern high out of the sea as she slips into the trough, while her pro-

pellers, showing clear and clean, race like mad. One feels the feverish throb of her engines, beating out so many revolutions per minute, which indicates over 20 knots, and wonders at the precision of it_all in the wicked welter of wind and water. Land is out of sight, and the Steerwell is all alone on the tossing, trackless waste, ever driving ahead, with guns' crews at their guns, and every righting man fit. She looks a perfect picture as, cleared for action, she noses through the spume and spindrift, the spray flying over the weather screens, behind which the skipper now shelters and commands. The Look-out. — Up in the foretop the look-out glues a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He has caught a speck on the horizon —a speck of smoke, faint and far away, like a tiny thread. He peers for a full minute, never taking his eyes off the spot. Then he sings out, " Ship on the port bow, sir." Instantly the Steerwell is agog with excitement. Sure enough, there is a speck on the horizon —a filmy thread of smoke. Is it friend or is it foe, or is it a neutral ship? Doubt adds to the excitement. A rapid, clear-cut order from the bridge is as rapidly repeated by the leather-lunged bo'sun's mate, and as rapidly executed by the ship's company. There is no confusion. Everything goes with machine-like precision- Every man is at his station, and there is a 'station for every man. The speck on the horizon grows. On the bridge the captain watches and waits, as cool as a cucumber. A word to the helmsman, another to the navigating officer, who has joined him from the chart-house, issue from his lips, while his glasses are fixed tight on the port bow. The bunting tossers stand bv the halyards. The Steerwell still smashes on at oyer 20, the seas thundering upon her fo'c's'le, swirling and leaping along her counters, and racing away to join the white, hissing smother astern. Rapidly the distance lessens. The speck on the horizon is now a cloud of smoke. Soon funnels and masts dance into view. High up, the yeoman of signals has his telescope riveted on the craft. The Mails. — "She's British, sir," he says, addressing the captain. "I can make out her lines, and she's flying the white ensign." "You're right, yeoman," replies the skipper after" a minute's steady watching. " Sne's making a signal." " It's the Bulldog with our overdue mail, sir," eagerly cries the yeoman, whose eye has remained fast to his glasses. ' In a brace of shakes a flutter of flags is aloft on the Steerwell's halyards. "Glory be!" exclaims the bo'sun's mate. The news spreads like wildfire, and is joyously greeted by all hands: Our sailormen do love to hear from home. And in these dread days of constant danger, when punctual delivery is exceedingly difficult, and mails are often belated and sometimes lost altogether, the arrival of letters and papers from the loved'ones excites exceptionally eager interest on board every man o' war. and is, without any doubt, looked forward to with an intense, longing. The skipper shoves over the handle of the engine-room telegraph, far below an electric bell tinkles, the Steerwell eases to 15 knots, and -for the next half-hour ship speaks to ship, the distance ever lesseninc? between them, until they are almost within voice-hailing distance. It is too rough for a boat to bring the mails from the Bulldog, so a line is fired from the Steerwell and made fast aloft between the ships, and over it the bags are sent, while the vessels dip and roll and swing in the surge. The sailormen watch the proceedings with the deepest interest, especially those who are longing for news from the outside world. And a little later the ships are off on different courses, the Steerwell to her patrol on the pathless sea; the Bulldog to pick up another sentinel whose mail is overdue. "Hands of the mess for letters is a welcome pipe in the Steerwell that grey, cold day; and that night the sailormen, in the long, lone, dark watches, when the wind blows chill, and the seas heavily pound the steel sides of the little, lurching eraft, give more than a casual thought to°the latest news brought by the Bulldog from their dearest and best in the old homeland.—R. W. M.