As she passed the hawsers came with her, transferred from bollard to bollard by gangs of staggering men. The passage of her stern past the outer entrance seemed to break a spell, as if the hypnotism of hundreds of staring eyes had passed away. The caisson gates ground to with almost indecent haste behind her, as some castle portcullis might do as the last prisoner was dragged through. Whistles blew, answering each other across the oily, rain-pitted water of the basin, and to the _weeep we-ooo_ of pipes and the roar of the boatswains mates' voices, the lines of rigid men on the great ship's side broke up and fell back. She had left the open sea and had become "Number 955--for refit--in Dockyard hands."
The grey-haired officer turned: "No, only eight. They want her back as soon as possible. Four days' leave to each watch and she'll be off again. You're looking cold, boy--come up to breakfast. That malaria hasn't left you yet."
"I wish it would, sir. I want to get to sea again.
"I know. It's not so bad to watch them come in, but it makes me feel old when I see them leaving again. But you needn't worry, the War's going on a long time yet."
Up the well-remembered fairway, past the buoys and forts we drifted-- Saw the houses, roads, and churches, as they were a year ago. Far astern were wars and battles, all the dreary clouds were lifted, As we turned the Elbow Ledges--felt the engines ease to "Slow."
Rusty side and dingy paintwork, stripped for war and cleared for battle-- Saw the harbour-tugs around us--smelt the English fields again,-- English fields and English hedges--sheep and horses, English cattle, Like a screen unrolled before us, through the mist of English rain.
Slowly through the basin entrance--twenty thousand tons a-crawling With a thousand men aboard her, all a-weary of the War-- Warped her round and laid alongside with the cobble-stones a-calling-- "There's a special train awaiting, just for you to come ashore."
Out again as fell the evening, down the harbour in the gloaming With the sailors on the fo'c'sle looking wistfully a-lee-- Just another year of waiting--just another year of roaming For the Majesty of England--for the Freedom of the Sea.
When the galleys of Ph[oe]nicia, through the gates of Hercules, Steered South and West along the coast to seek the Tropic Seas, When they rounded Cape Agulhas, putting out from Table Bay, They started trading North again, as steamers do to-day. They dealt in gold and ivory and ostrich feathers too, With a little private trading by the officers and crew, Till rounding Guardafui, steering up for Aden town, The tall Ph[oe]nician Captain called the First Lieutenant down. "By all the Tyrian purple robes that you will never wear, By the Temples of Zimbabwe, by King Solomon I swear, The ship is like a stable, like a Carthaginian sty. I am Captain here--confound you!--or I'll know the reason why. Every sailor in the galley has a monkey or a goat; There are parrots in the eyes of her and serpents in the boat. By the roaring fire of Baal, I'll not have it any more: Heave them over by the sunset, or I'll hang you at the fore!" "What is that, sir? _Not_ as cargo? _Not_ a bit of private trade? Well, of all the dumbest idiots you're the dumbest ever made, Standing there and looking silly: _leave the animals alone_." (Sailors with a tropic liver always have a brutal tone.) "By the crescent of Astarte, I am not religious--yet-- I would sooner spill the table salt than kill a sailor's pet."