IT was Thursday afternoon—Make and Mend Clothes Day as it is known in the Royal Navy. H.M.S. "Royal Oak," a Super-Dreadnought now relegated to the second class, lay at moorings off Singapore. Two cables' length ahead of her swung her sister ship the "Repulse," flying the flag of Admiral Maynebrace commanding the Special Squadron, now on a cruise round the world in order to display the White Ensign in foreign waters as a gentle reminder to petty potentates that the British Lion's tail could not be twisted with impunity.
The heat was terrific. The sun's scorching rays beat down with relentless violence upon the white awnings that shrouded the warships from bow to stern. The glare, reflected from the oily sea, seemed to penetrate everywhere on board in spite of electric fans and the latest type of ventilators. Officers and men, used though they were to the heat of the Tropics, were reduced to a state of perspiring listlessness. Alacrity seemed for the time being no longer the characteristic of the British seamen. One and all they barely existed in Nature's stew-pan and waited for the sun to set.
To add to the discomfort the crew of the "Royal Oak" were rankling under a grievance. Hitherto first in the list for prize-firing, they had been ousted from their proud position by the flagship: and the flagship didn't forget to crow over her success. Had the contest been carried out under equal conditions and the "Royal Oak" had "gone under" the disappointment would not have been so great; but the "Repulse" had gained the position of "top-dog" more by a fluke than anything else.
"Makes one feel jolly rotten," remarked Eccles, the "Royal Oak's" gunnery jack. "The Service papers at home will publish the results and add a lot about the superb efficiency of the flagship and the lamentable falling-off of the 'Royal Oak's' gun-layers. All that sort of twaddle, you know: penny-a-line stuff from a fellow who does not know a fifteen-inch from a seven-pounder."
"You'll bet your bottom dollar, Eccles, there won't be a word said about the flagship making her record with the Beaufort Scale logged as O (a flat calm), while our packet was shoving her nose into it with the fo'c'sle awash and everything battened down. Ugh! It makes me wild," rejoined Commander Bourne. "Healthy rivalry is all very well, but——"