rimming, and, once he was warmed up to it, with little prompting
or questioning from myself. Much of it was punctuated with frequent
stabs and slashes with one of the short-handled pokers which perform for
the stoker of an oil-burner a service similar to that rendered his
brother of the coal-burner by his mighty "slice" of iron.

"Big as the difference is between being on deck and in the stokehold at
ordinary times," said Prince, turning round with glare-blinded eyes
closed to narrow slits after cracking off the accumulating carbon from
an oil-sprayer with his poker, "it is ten times more so when a fight is
on, and I'll always be jolly thankful that it was my luck not to be
caged up down here during the daylight part of the Jutland show. I had
my turn of it at night, and it was bad enough then, even though I knew
it was blacker'n the pit above; but, in daylight, with everything in
full view outside, I'm not sure I wouldn't have gone off my chuck if I'd
had to go 'squirrel-caging' on here with one eye on the fires and the
other on the Kilroy. But I didn't. It was my luck to be off watch when
the ball opened, so that my 'action station' was just loafing round the
deck and keeping a stock of leak-stopping gear--mushroom-spreaders and
wooden plugs--ready to use as soon as we got holed. Not having anything
to do with navigating the ship, or signalling, or serving the guns or
torpedo tubes--though I did get a bit of a chance with a mouldie as it
turned out--I not only had time to see, but also to let the sights 'sink
in' like. For that reason, when it was all over, I was probably able to
give a more connected yarn of what happened than anyone else in the
ship, not excepting the captain. They'll take a lot of forgetting, some
of the things I saw that day."

Prince went over and settled down at ease on the steel steps of the
ladder. "The worst grudge I had against Jutland--save for the way it
whiffed out the lives of some of my friends in some of the other
destroyers--" he continued with a grin, "was for making me miss my tea
that afternoon. We left base the night before, and about daybreak joined
up with the 'battlers,' which was our way of speaking of the First
Battle Cruiser Squadron, to which the flotilla was attached. It was a
fairly decent day, and we were able to make good weather of it with the
light wind and easy swell. I had stood the forenoon watch, had a bit of
a doss in my hammock in the early part of the afternoon