as though they were grooms and
stable-boys and jockeys performing similar services for the Derby winner
just led back to his stall.

"There's not another such four-inch gun's crew as that one in any ship
in the Mediterranean," he said, "which makes it all the greater pity
that they have never once had a chance to fire a shot at anything of the
enemy's any larger than that Bulgar bombing plane they cocked up and
took a pot at after he had gone over yesterday. I mean that they never
had a chance as a crew. Individually, I believe there are two or three
of them that have been through some of the hottest shows in the war.
That slender chap there in the blue overall was in the _Killarney_ when
she was shot to pieces and sunk by German cruisers at Jutland, and I
believe his Number Two--that one in a singlet, with his sleeves rolled
up and just a bit of a limp--was in the _Seagull_ when she was rammed,
right in the middle of an action with the Huns, by both the _Bow_ and
the _Wreath_. A number of ratings from the _Seagull_ clambered over the
forecastle of the _Bow_ while the two were locked together, evidently
because they thought their own ship was going down, while two or three
men from the _Bow_ were thrown by the force of the collision on to the
_Seagull_. When the two broke loose and drifted apart men from each of
them were left on the other, and by a rather interesting coincidence, we
have right here in the _Spark_ at this moment representatives of both
batches. They, with two or three other Jutland 'veterans' who chance
also to be in the _Spark_, call themselves the 'Black Marias.' Just why,
I'm not quite sure, but I believe it has something to do with their all
being finally picked up by one destroyer and carried back to harbour
like a lot of drunks after a night's spree. And, to hear them talk of it
when they get together, that is the spirit in which they affect to
regard a phase of the Jutland battle which wiped out some scores of
their mates and two or three of the destroyers of their flotilla.
Talking with one of them alone, he will occasionally condescend to speak
of the serious side of the show, but their joint reminiscences, in the
constant by-play of banter, are more suggestive of tumultuous 'nights of
gladness' on the beach at Port Said or Rio than the most murderous spasm
of night fighting in the whose course of naval history. You've got a
long and probably tiresome day ahead of you. Perhaps it might ease the