Pincher Martin, O.D.: A Story of the Inner Life of the Royal Navy

II

To this day Pincher never really remembers how he got into the water. The events of that night still seem like some ghastly nightmare, a horrible dream in which incidents and impressions succeeded each other with such rapidity that the memory of them seems almost unreal. He recollects standing on the boat-deck with a group of other men and divesting himself of his thick duffel coat. He did it reluctantly, for it was bitterly cold. Then, after inflating the rubber swimming-collar round his neck, he waited. The ship lay over at an alarming angle, and it was all he could do to stand upright.

'Jump, men! jump!' an officer kept on shouting. 'For God's sake, save yourselves!'

A few, nerving themselves for the effort, cast themselves overboard, and were lost to sight in the raging sea; but Pincher and many others, eyeing the tumult with horror, instinctively hung back. Life was very dear at that moment, and it seemed sheer madness to cast one's self into that seething maelstrom of one's own free-will. Then it was that he remembered his heavy sea-boots. Fool! They would infallibly drag him under if he had to swim for it; and, bending down, he kicked and wriggled his right foot free. He was repeating the process with the other when the end came. The ship lurched horribly to starboard, and flung him to the deck with a shock which jarred every bone in his body. The next instant he started slithering and sliding down a steep slope, to bring up with a thud against a projection on the deck. The impact nearly knocked the wind out of his body; but, stretching out his arms with an instinct of self-preservation, he grasped something solid with both hands, and clung madly on to it with all his strength. For a second or two he hung there, gasping for breath, with sheets of spray flying over his head. Then something soft cannoned into him and tore him from his hold. He felt himself sliding again, then falling, falling.

Next a feeling of bitter cold and utter darkness as a sea snatched him in its grasp and flung him away. He went down and down until his lungs seemed on the point of bursting for want of air; but the swimming-collar was still round his neck, and with a swift upward rush he felt himself borne to the surface. On opening his mouth for air a gigantic white-cap promptly broke over his head and left him spluttering and gasping. At one moment he was carried high on the crest of a sea, and the next he was deep down in a hollow; but by some miracle he still managed to breathe, and retained sufficient presence of mind to strike out away from the sinking ship.

He could see nothing, but the sea all round him was dotted with the heads of other swimmers. Some had life-belts, some swimming-collars or flotsam, and, like Pincher, were making the best of their way from the scene of the disaster. Others had no life-saving appliances at all, and were drowning in dozens.

Twice was Pincher clutched round the body, but each time he fought with the mad energy of despair, and wrenched himself free of the suffocating embrace of a shipmate less lucky than himself. He was no coward, but it was a case of each man for himself, and his desire to live was overwhelming.

How long he was in the water he never knew. He merely battled on, fighting for breath. Presently, when all but exhausted and numb through and through with cold, he was carried to the summit of a huge wave to see the dark shape of a boat barely twenty feet from him. In the dim half-light he could see it was crowded with men, and raising his voice, he tried to shout for help. He emitted no sound but a feeble croak, and the next time he was borne aloft the boat had vanished. Then it was that Pincher commended his soul to his Maker. He could do no more.

He seemed to have been swimming for hours, and was breathless and very weary. His limbs felt incapable of further movement, and it was with almost a feeling of relief that he gave up the struggle as hopeless. But for his swimming-collar he would have sunk then and there. How long he remained quiescent he could not tell; but during this awful time his senses never left him, and he found himself wondering how long it would take him to die. He did not dread the prospect; anything seemed better than this awful shortness of breath and the constant buffeting by the seas. The most trivial events and the most important happenings of his short life crowded into his overwrought brain. His thoughts travelled to his home, and he pictured his mother the last time he had seen her, framed in the doorway of her cottage. He almost laughed when he remembered himself tearing down the road to catch the train. He must have looked funny, excruciatingly funny, but he felt a slight pang of regret on thinking that he would never tread that road again. Next his mind reverted to Billings, and he wondered hazily what had become of him. Poor Joshua, he had been a good friend to him! He hoped he was not drowned. What was Emmeline doing at this moment? The recollection of her seemed indistinct and shadowy, somehow. He could not picture her face, merely remembered that she was pretty and fascinating. What would she say when she heard he had been drowned? Would she go into mourning and cry her pretty eyes out? Perhaps she would marry some one else.

Then, quite suddenly, he heard a voice. ''Ere's another on 'em!' it said gruffly. He felt his head come into violent contact with something solid and unyielding, and the next moment he was seized by the hair. The pain of it hurt him abominably, but he was far too weak and short of breath to expostulate. Then he was grasped under the armpits, and, after describing what seemed a giddy and interminable parabola through the air, heard himself descend with a crash on to something very hard. The impact should have hurt him, but he felt nothing, and merely realised in a hazy sort of way that he was in the bottom of a boat.

It was bitterly cold. He shivered as with ague, while constant showers of spray left him coughing and gasping for breath. Water washed over him perpetually, and a horrible, never-ceasing oscillation flung him violently to and fro. It was almost as bad as being in the water. But he was past caring. Then came a feeling of terrible nausea, and, rolling over abjectly, he was violently sick. Next, darkness, the utter blackness of absolute oblivion. Pincher Martin had fainted.

When he recovered his senses some hours later he could not for the moment recollect where he was or what had happened. He felt chilled through and through with the cold, but some kind Samaritan had removed his sodden garments, and had left him lying in the bottom of the boat covered with a portion of the sail and its tarpaulin cover. Several other men lay there with him. Then he remembered. He felt bruised all over, stiff, miserable, and very weak; but he could breathe, and found, on trying to shift his position, that he had recovered the use of his limbs, though the effort caused him agony. Glancing round, he saw he was in the stern-sheets of the Belligerent's forty-two-foot launch, the largest pulling-boat she had carried.

The sea was still running very high, and the boat pitched and rolled violently and unceasingly, while constant showers of spray came driving aft as her bluff bows plunged into the waves. At one moment he found himself watching the dark clouds chasing each other across the gray sky overhead; and the next, as the boat rolled, he was vouchsafed momentary glimpses of a heaving expanse of gray-green sea, lashed and torn into white, insensate fury by the wind. It was blowing a full gale.

The boat was half-full of water, and amidships some men were busy bailing, one with a bucket, and others with boots and caps. Crouching down under the thwarts, with the water washing over them, were many more men in the last stages of misery. Some showed signs of life; some looked almost dead. Another melancholy party were clustered in the stern, huddling together to get some warmth into their numbed limbs. All sorts and conditions of men were there – stokers in their grimy flannel shirts and fearnought trousers, just as they had come up out of the stokehold; bluejackets in jerseys and blue serge trousers; some marines; and a ship's steward's assistant with nothing but a swimming-collar and a sodden white cotton shirt. Their lips were blue with cold, their teeth were chattering, they looked abject and utterly forlorn, but they were still alive. One or two of them were actually talking.

Standing up in the stern with the gunner and the boatswain was Petty Officer Bartlett. The last-named was attired in his undergarments, a cholera-belt, and one blue stocking, and in the intervals of gazing anxiously round the horizon he was flapping his arms to restore his circulation. How he managed to keep on his feet at all was a marvel.

'Anythink in sight?' somebody asked in a husky whisper.

'Not a ruddy thing!' Bartlett returned. 'I thought I seen somethin' 'bout ten minutes since, the smoke of a steamer on the 'orizon, but she ain't there now.'

The questioner, an able seaman, cursed under his breath. ''Ow long's this – show goin' ter last?' he queried plaintively. 'I'm so – cold. Such a – picnic I never did see. Gawd! why didn't I join th' ruddy army? They kills yer quick there, not like this 'ere. I'll be a gonner in another hour, see if I ain't,' he added weakly, trying to get a little sympathy. 'Carn't feel me bloomin' legs no'ow; ain't got none p'r'aps.'

'Cheer up, Joe!' said the man alongside him, who seemed a little happier; 'we ain't dead yet. Like me ter give yer another rub dahn?'

Joe nodded wearily and closed his eyes.

Pincher, unwilling to leave the shelter of his canvas, tried to attract some one's attention. He endeavoured to speak, but could get no more than a husky, almost inaudible, whisper; so, withdrawing one arm from its covering, he moved it feebly up and down. After a lengthy pause one of the marines noticed him.

''Ere,' he said, patting Petty Officer Bartlett on the leg, 'one o' them 'ere deaders 'as come back ter life!'

Bartlett turned round. 'Deader!' he said. 'Which one?'

'One o' them 'ere blokes yer pulled out o' th' ditch,' the marine answered.

'Blimy! So 'e 'as!' the petty officer exclaimed, rather surprised. 'I thought 'e'd chucked 'is hand in long ago. – 'Ere, me son,' he added, coming across to where Martin lay, ''ow goes it?'

Pincher smiled wearily.

'Carn't talk, eh?' Bartlett remarked with rough kindliness. 'Like a drop o' rum³² an' a bit o' somethin' t' eat?'

Martin nodded.

'Hand us that there rum-jar,' the petty officer said over his shoulder. 'Easy now – easy!' as the man he had spoken to nearly let it fall. 'That there may 'ave to last us for days!' He extracted the cork from the wicker-covered jar and poured some of the spirit into a small tin mug. 'Damn me eyes!' came an angry ejaculation, as the boat gave a particularly violent lurch and a few drops of the precious liquid slopped over the edge. He replaced the cork carefully, and, putting one arm under Pincher's head, held the pannikin to his lips. 'Try to swaller it,' he said. 'It'll do you good.'

Martin obeyed; and, though a certain amount of the liquor trickled over his face, the greater proportion went down his throat. The burning fieriness of the neat spirit made him choke and splutter, but the feeling of warmth it induced was very comforting.

''Ere's a bit o' biscuit,' said Bartlett again, extracting a broken fragment from the waistband of his nether garments, where he had been keeping it dry. 'Put that inside you, an' w'en you've finished it I'll come along an' give you a bit of a rub down like to warm you up – see?'

Pincher, still too weak to bite, consumed the flinty fragment by nibbling round its edge until he could nibble no more, and then, when the petty officer had rubbed his numbed and aching body with a pair of horny hands, which rasped him like a file and threatened to take every inch of skin off his long-suffering limbs, he felt tolerably warm and much better. The blood coursed through his veins. Life was again worth living.

'Thanks!' he was able to murmur feebly when the painful ordeal was over.

'That's all right, me son. See if you carn't git a bit of a caulk,' said Bartlett, getting up from his knees.

It may have been the dose of rum, a spirit to which he was entirely unaccustomed, which had the desired effect, but five minutes later Pincher Martin was asleep.

Immediately on being hoisted out, the launch had been dashed bows on into the ship. She had been badly damaged; but men, stripping themselves, had stuffed their clothes into the rents to keep the water out. Time after time breaking seas had nearly swamped her; but by dint of constant bailing with boots, caps, and anything they could lay their hands upon, they had somehow managed to keep her afloat.

Most of the oars had been broken in frantic efforts to fend the boat off from the ship, and none remained to keep her head on to the sea when they finally got clear of the wreck. Then they had lashed all the boat's lumber together, and had dropped it overboard to form a floating sea-anchor; and the launch, secured to it by a rope, rode head on to the waves. But still the wretched survivors were in a bad way. They had yearned, with all the longing their souls possessed, that a ship would be in sight when morning came. They had practically pinned their faith to it, for they were aware that they were in a part of the English Channel where traffic was constant. But when the night lifted and the gray dawn gave way to full daylight there was nothing in sight. Not the least vestige of a steamer or the welcome gleam of a rescuing sail; only the gray-white expanse of the raging sea, and the sombre, wind-driven clouds chasing each other across the gray void overhead. Then a faint feather of smoke had shown up over the rim of the horizon to the southward. It was fully ten miles off, but they all thought for one wild moment that salvation was at hand. Their drooping spirits revived; but a minute later the smoke had disappeared, and their hopes were dashed to the ground.

They were exhausted, wet through, chilled to the bone, and utterly miserable, and some of that little band of two warrant-officers and seventy odd men resigned themselves to their fate. They could not last much longer. And so the launch, with a woollen scarf lashed to an oar amidships fluttering as a mute signal of distress, drifted on at the mercy of the wind and sea. Her crew were past caring.

III

Early in the morning of that fateful New Year's Day the Brixham trawler Providence was running back to her port for shelter from the gale; but when she was off Start Point the wind and sea had increased to such an extent that there was nothing to be done but to heave-to and ride out the storm. Between eleven o'clock and noon the smack was hove-to on the starboard tack, when the third hand, who was on deck, saw a large gray open boat to leeward. She was full of men, and was flying a muffler tied to an upright oar as a signal of distress; but so heavy was the sea that she was obscured for minutes at a time in the trough of the waves.

The smack's crew of three men and a boy, Little Dan, were soon on deck, and promptly got to work to take another reef in the mainsail and to set their small storm jib. It was a hard tussle, for the wind was blowing with hurricane force, and seas were constantly breaking over the deck; but it was the only thing to be done if a rescue was to be effected.

The Providence was on the starboard tack, let it be understood. This meant that the wind was blowing from her starboard side; but, to reach the launch at all, she had to pass round on to the port tack. There are two ways of manœuvring a sailing-vessel from one tack to the other. The first, the shortest method, is by 'going about,' or turning the vessel round head to wind, and then allowing her sails to fill on the other side. The second way, a longer method, in which more ground is lost, is by 'gybing' or 'wearing,' in which the ship passes from tack to tack by turning her stern to the wind. Both are comparatively simple evolutions in calm weather, but any sailor will say that in a small fore-and-aft rigged craft both are dangerous in a heavy sea and a gale of wind. Of the two, however, gybing is by far the more hazardous, even perilous, for there is a grave risk of the craft being pooped by a heavy sea, or of her being dismasted when the large mainsail swings across the deck and suddenly bellies out on the other side. But Captain Pillar, the skipper, realised it was the only thing to be done. He was a thorough seaman, who knew his craft well, and he decided to take the risk.

The helm was put hard up, and the Providence paid off gradually until her stern was in the wind's eye, and then, sweeping round on the crest of a gigantic billow, came on to the port tack. An enormous sea broke on board as she did so, and the heavy mainsail came across with a crash and a jerk which nearly wrenched the mast out. But the men who had built the sturdy Providence knew their work, and the mast was a good sound stick, and the rigging honest steel wire. It was a good test of their workmanship, for by some miracle the gear held.

Drawing close to windward of the launch, the smacksmen hove a rope across as they drifted by. It missed. Another attempt, and yet another, but on each occasion the line fell short. Then, when those in the boat had almost given it up as hopeless, a fourth heave was successful. The rope was caught by the bluejackets, held, and belayed, and slowly but surely the launch was hauled toward the stern of her rescuer. Then the warp was passed forward along the lee side of the Providence, and the man-of-war's boat was drawn cautiously ahead until her bows were level with the lee quarter of the smack.

The exhausted bluejackets were ordered to jump on board, and one by one they obeyed. It was a perilous business, for the waves were running twenty to thirty feet high, and at one moment both craft were lifted high in the air, while the next they were deep down in a hollow, with an awful, roaring breaker threatening to overwhelm them. It took half-an-hour before the whole seventy of them reached their haven of refuge; but the work was accomplished without the loss of a single soul; while the senior officer present, the torpedo gunner, true to the traditions of the service, was the last man to leave. Then the launch was cast adrift. She had served her purpose, and was never seen again.

The rescued men, many of them in the last stages of exhaustion and numbness after their frightful ordeal, were accommodated wherever room could be found for them. What food and tobacco the smack carried were shared out equally, and hot coffee was served out all round.

The Providence then shaped her course for home, and, after being taken in tow by another vessel when close to her destination, eventually berthed alongside the quay at Brixham at eight o'clock in the evening. And so, from the very jaws of death, Pincher Martin stepped ashore.

CHAPTER XII
H.M.S. 'MARINER.'

I

Your modern destroyer differs from her prototype of twenty years ago in much the same way as the present-day Rolls-Royce differs from the early motor-car of 1895. She is just about four times as large, is infinitely more seaworthy, is much faster, and better armed. She is an ocean-going craft which, with judicious handling, can keep the sea in practically any weather, whereas her more elderly sister usually had to run for shelter in a really bad gale of wind, and was unfit for constant work in the North Sea except in summer.

Pincher had seen destroyers at work, and had heard a great deal about them in one way and another; and when, in the first week of February, he found himself detailed as one of the crew of a new craft of this type on the verge of completion in a northern port, he was happy. True, he knew he 'wouldn't be 'arf seasick,' as he put it, and did not at all relish the idea, though the extra sixpence a day 'hard-lying money' was always something to be grateful for. He was aware, moreover, that life in a destroyer in war-time was considered rather a hard and risky existence; but he would probably be in the thick of anything which took place in the North Sea, and he owed 'them 'Uns' something for sinking his first ship and drowning many of his shipmates.

He wondered why he had been sent to a destroyer at all, however, for he knew that as a rule ordinary seamen were not eligible. As a matter of fact, it was Peter Wooten, the late senior watch-keeper of the Belligerent, who had worked the oracle. Wooten was the sort of person whom nothing could kill. I don't know how many times he had been wrecked, or how often his life had been in danger; but after the battleship sank he had been in the water for half-an-hour in nothing but a singlet and a pair of socks, in one of which was stuffed his last five-pound note. He had been picked up by a boat from one of the cruisers at the last moment, and purely by a lucky accident; but even then he had been rather annoyed with his rescuers because they laughed at his scanty and unofficer-like attire. He also had a grievance because he had lost his best uniform cap, a brand-new article which, he informed any one who cared to listen, had cost him the sum of twenty-two shillings and sixpence, and had last been on his head when he jumped overboard. Incidentally he had saved the lives of two men by helping them to reach pieces of wreckage; but, being as hard as nails himself, he was not one whit the worse for his aquatic adventures.

He eventually got ashore in a borrowed overcoat, proceeded on a fortnight's leave, and then, as the result of a visit to a friend at the Admiralty, found himself appointed to the Mariner, a new destroyer. Naturally he was delighted, and at once set about collecting a good ship's company for his new ship. He far preferred having men he knew to strangers who had never served with him before; and, by dint of a little judicious conversation with the officer in charge of the drafting-office at the barracks, Petty Officer Casey, Billings, M'Sweeny, and Pincher were officially detailed for his ship. It was Casey himself who had suggested Martin's inclusion, though that youth was unaware who had caused a point to be stretched in his favour.

Pincher was not really a nervous, highly strung individual with a vivid and preying imagination; but even so, five weeks had elapsed before the doctors consented to allow him to go to sea again. His nerves had been badly shaken, and the sudden banging of a door or unusual sounds of any kind brought him out in a cold and horrible perspiration. Crossing a street through traffic or entering a boat was an ordeal which caused him many moments of poignant mental agony.

They had sent him on three weeks' leave, and the twenty-and-one days of blissful ease, during which he saw nothing of the sea, and was treated as more or less of an invalid and as very much of a war-worn hero, helped to restore him to his normal self. The presence of Emmeline, by special request, also had its effect, for with the girl as his constant companion he was able to forget many painful incidents which it was as well should be forgotten.

But the advent of Emmeline certainly did involve him in complications of another kind. A porter had told the stationmaster that he had seen Mrs Martin embrace the girl when she arrived at the railway station. The stationmaster imparted the information to his wife; and that lady, an inveterate gossip, spread the news far and wide. It caused no small flutter among the maidens of Caxton. It was neither correct nor proper for the mother of an eligible youth to go kissing a girl in public unless the youth himself regarded the maiden as his 'intended,' on approval, as it were; so Mrs Martin, quite inadvertently, put her foot in it, and caused the cat to leap out of the bag in one act.

Not that Emmeline or Pincher cared a jot who knew. It was bound to come out sooner or later, and each found the company of the other quite sufficient and pleasant enough to make life well worth living. The fact that the village girls were bitterly incensed and obviously jealous was rather amusing than otherwise. Though not admitting it, they would have regarded it as an honour to be seen about with a sailor or a soldier in uniform now that it was war-time. They considered that Pincher had played them a low-down trick in ignoring their charms and in going elsewhere for an object for his affections, and they did not hesitate to say so. They took the precaution of making their remarks in private, however, for with their parents Pincher was something of a hero. Their mothers knitted him socks and comforters, and at the 'Bull and Bottle' he could, if he had wished it, have absorbed sufficient malt liquor at the fathers' expense to float a battleship. So when he heard that busy tongues were wagging in his direction he laughed happily and said nothing. Emmeline, wise girl, did the same.

Some of the Mariner's ship's company and all the officers had been sent up north beforehand to become acquainted with their new ship; but at last came the day when the remainder – some sixty odd seamen and stokers – were put into a train with their bags, hammocks, and some mascots, in the shape of a monkey, two cats, and one small goat, for which they had not taken tickets.

The goat, Pompey, was young, but had a voracious appetite, for before they got to London he had eaten two pork-pies, the property of Pincher Martin, three packets of Wild Woodbine cigarettes of M'Sweeny's, and half a magazine belonging to some one else, while the respective owners slumbered peacefully. On arrival in the Metropolis he was so overcome by his miscellaneous diet as to be violently and unexpectedly ill in the omnibus on the way to King's Cross; whereupon the conveyance was stopped for brandy to revive him. As a consequence, they very nearly missed their train to the north; while Pompey, unused to potations in any form, spent the remainder of the journey in a state of coma.

The two cats behaved well; but, in the small hours of the morning, just before the train was due to start from one station, Jane the monkey was discovered to be missing. The whistle had already blown, but the train was stopped, and forty-three bluejackets, vowing that nothing on earth would induce them to be parted from their pet, swarmed from their carriages and went off in search of the truant. Ten minutes later, Jane, gibbering like a lunatic, but with absolutely no malicious intent, was discovered chasing a middle-aged, portly, highly respectable, and very terrified female round and round the table in the third-class waiting-room. The monkey was enjoying herself hugely; not so the lady.

'Such goin's on didn't oughter be allowed, young man!' she panted breathlessly when Billings stormed her retreat, and Jane abandoned the pursuit.

'Lor' bless yer, marm!' laughed Joshua, helping her to collect her scattered parcels, 'she's that tame she'd feed out o' yer 'and. – Come 'ere, Jane,' he added coaxingly. 'Come an' show th' lady 'ow nice ye kin be'ave.'

The animal, busily investigating the contents of the water-carafe on the table, clucked twice, and evinced no further interest.

'Them wild hanimals didn't oughter be allowed!' the woman retorted nervously. 'An' you, young man,' she went on, fixing Joshua with a horny eye, 'is a disgrace to your uniform! You oughter be fightin' them Germans instead o' chasin' monkeys round railway stations at this time o' night. I'm a respectable married woman, I am, an' if my 'usband knoo o' these goin's on 'e'd be very angry. My 'usband's a foreman bricklayer' —

'I'm sorry yer takes it that way, marm,' said Joshua apologetically, picking up the protesting animal by the scruff of her neck, and then touching his forelock. 'I'm sure our Jane didn't mean no 'arm. I'm a respeccable married man meself, an'' —

'Married man, are you?' interrupted the lady, with a snort, as the seaman, with Jane perched on his shoulder, prepared to take his departure. 'Married? Shame on you! What'd your poor wife say if she see'd you be'avin' like this, an' chasin' respectable women with your wild hanimals instead o' fightin' for your country? I've a good mind to 'ave the lor on you! The wild beast nearly bit me; would 'ave done if I 'adn't run' —

There was no pacifying her, and Joshua, smothering his amusement, beat a hasty retreat. Her strident remarks followed him down the platform.

It took some time to collect the others, who had scattered all over the station in search of the deserter; but eventually, after a long and heated altercation with two ticket-collectors and three porters, reinforced by the guard and a sleepy station-master, the train was suffered to proceed on its journey twenty minutes late. The travellers, hungry, irritable, and very peevish, arrived at their destination at six o'clock in the morning, in a thick fog and a depressing north-country drizzle, to discover, on disembarking with their menagerie, that half-a-dozen hammocks and three kit-bags had, by inadvertence on some one's part, been left behind in London.

But all's well that ends well; and, two hours later, after breakfast, the party, slightly more cheerful, arrived at the shipyard where the Mariner was being completed. They found the workmen still busy upon her; and as she would not be ready for commissioning for another week, the men were billeted in lodgings for the time being.

But they were not allowed to kick their heels in idleness. There is always plenty to be done before a new ship is ready for sea; while in war, when every one is working at full pressure, the labour of a fortnight has often to be crammed into three or four days. Ammunition had to be transferred from railway trucks to the magazines and shellrooms; torpedoes had to be placed in their tubes; and a whole trainload of stores unloaded, sorted out, checked, and carried on board – dozens of drums of oil, tons of paint, bolts of canvas, bundles of cotton-waste, coils of wire and hemp rope, broomsticks and boat-hook staves, oars, cooking utensils, crockery, knives, spoons, forks, bedding, provisions, rum, and many other things too numerous to mention! It was like furnishing a new and empty house, except that a dwelling is not expected to cruise about the countryside at something over thirty knots, and does not as a rule contain sufficient in the way of lethal weapons and explosives to sink a squadron of battleships. Neither does the average residence accommodate eighty odd people. It was hard work, for the men were busy all day and every day, from early morn till dewy eve.