This narrowing point of view may be
geographical. Papers in England are not avidly seized, and as one gets down to
the coast where some action is going on all the time, the discussion of the war
dwindles until it almost disappears. It is further interesting how completely
civilian ferocity disappears from the soldier or the sailor close to action or
in action.
In the concrete wardroom over the berths of the
motor torpedo boats the young men gather to drink beer. They are very young
men, but there is an age in their faces that comes of having put their lives
out at stake too often. The dice have rolled right for some of these young men
so far, but a seven has turned up for too many of their friends for them to
take the game or their luck for granted. The little boats are not heavily armed
for defense, but they carry terrible blows in their torpedo tubes. They are the
only lightweights in the world that can deliver a heavyweight punch. For their
own safety they have only their speed and the cleverness of their crews.
Tonight they are going out on what the men call
a Thing. A Thing is something bigger than a Scramble, but slightly less large
than The Thing. A Thing is likely to be an attack on a German convoy, slipping
secretly in the night through the Channel, but heavily armed and heavily
guarded and, moreover, hugging the coast so that they are under the shore guns
most of the time. And against them these tiny ships are going to dodge in under
the shellfire, twist and turn in the paths of the tracers, and, finally, shoot
their torpedoes into the largest ship they can find and then race for home.
In the wardroom the men speak with a kind of
intense gaiety. You never hear the enemy discussed. By unstated agreement or
because there has just been too much war they do not discuss war. The enemy is
Jerry, or the Boche, and his name is spoken as something disembodied and vague.
Jerry is a problem in navigation, a job, a danger, but not much more
personalized than any other big and dangerous job. The men suffer from strain.
It has been so long applied that they are probably not even conscious of it.
It isn’t fear, but it is something you can feel, a bubble that grows bigger and
bigger in your mid-section. It puffs up against your lungs so that your
breathing becomes short. Sitting around is bad. You have a tendency to think
that everything is very funny. This is the time to bring out the frowsy story
that wouldn’t do so well at any other time. It will get a roar of laughter now.
