Part 6

There are many traditions to which the Royal Navy still clings, and there are messes afloat and ashore where it is manifest that time has not withered impressive and picturesque features of the days of the wooden warships. For instance, no layman can help being struck by the British naval officers' toast to the King. And the other toasts are offered with such splendid solemnity and grace that it makes one wish that something of the sort could be done at even the minor affairs where civilians are gathered. Of course, the Londoner and the man from Manchester offers his toast at a great banquet, as they do in New York and other American cities to the President of the United States. But although it takes no longer at a naval mess, there is a something about it which places the civilian in the shade. With the Navy it is a mess, and not a dinner where there are many strangers, and every officer has been doing this since he was a boy.

John Bull's naval officers are men who admit the faults of their country. They have travelled, and have seen a good many other countries and peoples. From Osborne and Britannia days sincerity seems to have been inculcated into them. The discipline is inflexible, but kindly. The captain of a "Dreadnought" will take pains to ask a young midshipman to dine with him, and there exists a wonderful thoughtfulness on the part of the officers for the men. British naval officers are lovers of sports, and, having believed the Germans good sports before August, 1914, they cannot condone attacks on non-belligerents or the shooting of nurses. His Majesty's naval officers do great things without talking about them, and at dinner one of the star heroes of the war may be in the next chair to you, but you certainly will not hear it from him.

Opposite me sat a man who had faced death with Scott on the Polar expedition. It was after I had left the mess that I learned this from one of his friends. But at a mess you may hear stories of men who are absent. It was at dinner aboard one of the great, grey sea-fighters that we laughed at the yarn of a young middy, in charge of one of the cutters off Gallipoli when the Turks were sending shells like rain. This midshipman ordered his men to take cover. His men included bearded fellows twice his size and age. They obeyed, as they always obey. Then the youthful fearnought, to show his contempt for danger, stood on one of the cutter's cross-seats, pulled out a cigarette-case almost as large as himself, and puffed rings of smoke skywards.

"I made a jolly fine set of rings that time," he told one of the men.

Another of this tribe was in Cairo on leave when he received word that his ship was to leave sooner than expected. She was in Alexandria. Not having sufficient money to pay his train fare, he requisitioned a motor-bicycle and sped on to Alexandria. From his youthful eyes there welled tears when he was informed that his ship was weighing anchor. Nothing daunted, however, he commandeered a fast motor-boat, and swept out after the warship, which he caught on the go. This is the man who in later years you are apt to meet at the officers' messes--a man full of information and wonderfully versatile. He may have ploughed the seas for many years, and dwelt in his steel home in the baking heat of tropical suns, and waited for the enemy for many a day. Hence conversation never lags at these dinners. The meals are comparatively plain in these days; but most of the officers stick to the delight of a cocktail before dinner, and after the pièce de résistance they have their glass of port.

Just before the dessert the port is poured into glistening glasses, and the table is cleared.

"Table cleared, sir," announces the steward to the president of the mess; and a second later one hears: "Wine passed, sir."

"Thank God," is the brief grace of the chaplain; or, if one is not present, the head of the mess says it. This is followed with a rap on the table, and from the president of the mess:--

"Mr. Vice, 'The King.'"

"Gentlemen, 'The King,'" speaks out the vice-president of the mess, who is seated at the other end of the table opposite to the head of the mess.

Conversation, which a second before had been filling the place, is silenced by the grace, and the stranger may be somewhat startled by the suddenness of the proceedings. It is the privilege of these officers to drink the King's health seated. This is an old custom, which came about through the sovereign realising that ships are not the steadiest places always, and the fact that the ward-rooms are sometimes not constructed so that a tall man can always stand erect.

Immediately "Gentlemen, 'The King,'" is uttered by the mess's vice-president each officer repeats in an undertone: "The King." The glasses after being held aloft come to the table as one, and the conversation is resumed. Garbed in their immaculate monkey-jackets, with the glistening gold braid on the cuffs, the men at the carefully set and beflowered table make a scene long to be remembered.

Incidentally, there is a marine officers' mess at a certain port which naval officers are always ready to talk about. In that place they are proud of a wonderful mahogany table which has been polished for many years until it is now like a black mirror. The band of this mess is one of the best in England; and it is the privilege of the bandmaster to play at concerts and in theatres, the proceeds being divided among charities, the bandmaster and his men. Hence the leader of this band probably had an income of $7,500 a year.

Here, before the toast to the King is offered, servants come along each side of the great table and, at a given word, whisk the tablecloth from the shiny mahogany. The bandmaster is invited to have a glass of port by the president of the mess. The band leader seats himself, and sips his wine. Follows then the toast to the King.

At the mess of the largest Royal Naval Air Station in England they have, by good fortune, obtained the services of a chef who formerly was of the Ritz Hotel in London; and especial attention is given to this mess. No matter how hard may have been the day's work or how many men have been forced to leave for other billets, the dinners there are a sight for the gods. More than 150 expert seaplane pilots from all over the world sit down.

It is like a bit of history of olden days to hear: "Gentlemen, 'The King,'" with its charm and ceremony.

VIII. THE ROYAL NAVAL AMBULANCE TRAIN

Ready to speed to any accessible port on telegraphic or telephonic orders from the Admiralty Medical Transport Department are Royal Naval Ambulance trains. They are always on the move, picking up wounded or sick officers and bluejackets at Scotch and English ports, bearing them to stations where there are great hospitals, to relieve the coast institutions likely to receive wounded in the event of a North Sea Fleet engagement. These grey-painted trains, with the Red Cross and the "R.N." on each coach, are the outcome of a great deal of study, and they are now run with remarkable efficiency. No millionaire could receive better care when wounded or ill than do John Bull's naval officers and seamen.

Sir James Porter, the head of this service, whose pen sends a train to all parts of England and Scotland, has a loyal staff, which devotes remarkable zeal to their share of the work. They take pride in making a time-record in disembarkation and entraining of patients. Naval surgeons at each railroad station watch the work of the stretcher-bearers to be sure that every cot has the gentlest possible handling when being carried from the train to the ambulance which is to take the patient to the local hospital.

The "stepping" of the stretcher-bearers seems a trifling thing, but it is surprising to note the attention given to this point in the first days of the war. Dr. A. V. Elder, staff surgeon of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and the right bower of Sir James Porter, practised for weeks the carrying of patients, getting into cots to ascertain the most comfortable step for the wounded. Prizes were even given to the men who carried a pail of water on a cot and reached a fixed point with the most liquid in the receptacle. By this means the best method of "stepping off" was evolved. There are hundreds of these stretcher-bearers--volunteers without compensation--who now perform the task so well that it attracts even the attention of the casual observer. The cot-bearers are doing their "bit"; they get to the railroad stations at all times to meet the ambulance trains, and often have to wait hours and give up their usual business.

It may also be interesting to some that in those August days the Naval Ambulance trains were not much more than a series of box-cars. The present cot--an ingenious arrangement by naval surgeons--was used in the naval hospitals and aboard the warships. But the fixtures on the train for carrying this cot were far from perfection. The patient was tossed about by the movement of the train, and it was realised that in the event of hundreds of patients being carried something would have to be discovered to steady the beds. Dr. Elder invented a clip-spring to be attached to the cot and the side of the coach. It held the bed, and had sufficient "give" to make it steady. In lieu of the box-cars, there are now coaches of the American type, with windows and great sliding doors which permit of easy ingress or egress.

The railroad officials have listened to the bidding of the Medical Transport Officer of the Admiralty and have attached some of the best locomotives to these trains, usually of twelve coaches. Even when there has not been an action, and the trains are bearing mostly medical cases, all passenger and freight traffic gives way to the ambulance trains. If the surgeon in charge of the train decides that he has a case which should be hastened to a hospital he wires ahead, so that when he reaches that point the surgeon or the agent there is on hand with an ambulance to rush the patient to a local hospital.

Where it is possible, red tape has been eliminated. The cots in which the patients are carried are sent with the patient from a hospital or ship, and the patient is only taken out when he arrives at the hospital of his destination. For the cot bearing the patient, the train surgeon receives in exchange a clean cot. This cot has been laundered and fumigated, and is kept on the train so that when only patients are entrained the surgeon gives a cot for each case taken aboard. Hence the surgeon always has the same number of cots on his train, and through this means paper and pencil work is avoided. The patient's clothes are packed in a bag, and all the valuables of one batch of patients are sealed up in one envelope, which is receipted for by the surgeon of the hospital to which the patients are sent.

No patient is transferred from a hospital in a critical condition if it can be avoided. But sometimes this is necessary, as it was following the Jutland Battle. Then the most serious cases were held in the hospitals; while, where it was possible, hundreds of cases were despatched to institutions at other ports.

The route of these ambulance trains may differ every round trip. One ambulance train may go to the North of Scotland, while the next one will only go to Glasgow or Edinburgh if there is no call further north. The wonderful organisation not only undertakes to relieve hospitals, but also to ship the patients to institutions unlikely to be suddenly burdened with many cases; and consideration is also given as to where the patient can receive the best attention, such as in southern hospitals.

Fleet-Surgeon A. Stanley Nance is the Medical Transport Officer for Scotland. He is ever on the alert for what is going on in the hospitals in his territory. In the event of a great sea conflict, he receives orders from Sir James Porter and information concerning all the trains which are by that time racing to the ports nearest to the scene of the engagement.

In London, the Medical Transport Officer can place his finger on a railroad map at any time and tell within a mile or so where his trains are. If by any possible chance they are delayed he receives word from the train surgeons.

Knowing the probability of further engagements in the North Sea, quite a number of wealthy private individuals have interested themselves in the hospitals on the East Coast from north to south. And these persons take especial interest in the trains, many of them making it a point to be at the railroad station whenever a Royal Naval Ambulance train pulls in. What with sick men and accidents, the trains now and again may have a full quota of patients without there having been a fleet engagement. In war time no man who is not physically fit is kept aboard ship, for he may not take up another man's place without being able to perform his work.