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LAND & WATER 
June 
1917 
Motherbank 
By the Author of Ji Qrand Fleet Chaplains Note ^ook 
JOHN WILMOT TALLIS, retired Conunander R.N.. 
stood at a window in his house near Cowes, and swore 
saftly to himself as he looked down upon the ancient 
ships lying in the Motherbank. 
Tlu'v reminded him too forcibly that his own day, like 
theirs," was done : the Navy had no more use for him than 
it had for these vessels whose names appeared only at the end 
of the Navy list under the heading of Obsolete and for sale. 
Moreover, the bitterness was increased by the fact that at least 
two of the craft beneath his eyes were ships in which he had 
served years before ; and smart ships too, they had been 
in their liay. 
But theirday was over, long ago. Row after row ef such 
obsolete vessels lay bnnched together in the Motherbank ; 
old battleships, old cruisers, old gunboats and torixido-craft ; 
vessels, in short, of iilmost every typ)e— a complete, if small, 
iiavv in themselves ; and all of them hopelessly out of date. 
There was surely some kindly sentiment that suggested the 
Motherbank as a' last, jesting" place for these ancient ships. 
The verv name seemed to promise a peaceful shelter for them 
—as thiiugh a tender mother were gathering her tired children 
to rest in her arms after a long, long day. 
Commander Tallis. however, was not deceived by any such 
seniiment ; lit- knew that the old ships, rotting and rusting 
in the Motherbank, were in a like case with those old worn- 
out j'.orscs that wait for the knacker's yard. From time to 
t.ra; a ship would disappear, sold to be broken up ; and it 
was rather ghastly to look at the ever dwindling remainder 
and wonder\vhich' would be the next to be led away. 
As a mitter of fact, both ideas were quite mistaken — 
the dismal idea equally with the sentimental one. Ships are 
very much alive, and have very highly developed personali- 
ties of their own, as every sailor knows ; and their being placed 
on the Retired List, so to sjx^ak, had no more effect on these 
old Salts than on Ccmmandcr Tallis himself. 
.\live they were, and all their old characteristics still clung 
to them, accentuated even by increasing years. Brought 
together by chance, and doomed to long companionship 
with one another, the sliij)s constituated a sort of Club : a club 
into which all sorts of incongruous members liad obtained 
entran -e, and where even ladies had gained a footing. 
Oh, the times that have been ! And Ah, the days that 
we've seen ! That formed the subject-mittcr of most of 
the converse on tlie Motherbank. Wild days, too, some of 
them, by all accounts ; as the ground-swell gently rocked the 
\cterans you. could have sworn they were shaking their 
great sides and chuckling over their rerriiniscences ! 
" You mustn't judge me by what I am now," said the 
great battleship Hood ; — " you should have seen me in my 
old Channel Fleet days ! My sides were as black as your hat 
then, and shining like a dollar — none of your nasty- grey 
])aint that they spoil ships with nowadays ! And. as for my 
bright work — why, it positively made you winls ! Oh, I tell 
you, 1 was some ship in those days !" 
This remark was intended for the' benefit of a little knot 
of smaller ships lying near. 
" 1 shouldn't be surprised," growled the old admiral Anson, 
" if we wera to get a look in, even yet. They may. be glad of 
us before things are finished with !" 
" I shouldn't be surprised," growled retired C6mmander 
John Wilmot Tallis as he stood at his window and swore 
softly to himesif — " I shouldn't be surprised if some of .us 
retired fellows were to get a look in yet . They may be glad of us 
before it is all over." Then he held forth for quite a long 
tiinc on the degeneracy of naval men of the present time as 
compared with those of his own day. There was nobody to 
listen to him, but it relieved his mind. 
At least, he thought there was no one to listen to him. 
Gillian, his daughter, coming up behind him quietly, put 
a soft hand over his mouth. 
I regret to say she giggled. " It ought to be ashamed of 
itself, so it did, saying all those naughty words," she ad- 
monished him. as she tucked her arm into his and led him out 
through the French window on to the lawn. 
Gillian, I am afraid, did not take her father very seriously. 
To do her justice, however, she was always ready to make 
excuses for liim. " Vou can't blame him, after all," she used 
to say. " if he does get a bit qiiarter-decky at times, after the 
poor darling has sfjcnt all tho.se years at sea !" 
Lieutenant Dane agreed on this jwint with Gillian. Though, 
to tell the truth, there were very few points on which he did not 
agree with her, because he lifted her very much indeed - 
as you would have done too, if you had known her. Jack 
Dane, having lately obtained his lieutenant's stripe, and ser- 
ving as he was in one of the newest and fastest light cruisers, 
could afford to be indulgent towards those who were un- 
fortunate enough to have Ix-en left out of the war. 
" It must be awfully rough on your Governor," he said, 
" being stuck on the be^ch and obliged to watch us other 
blighters getting all the fun. Doesn't he hate it ? Why 
doesn't he try to get taken on again ?" — "As if he hasn't 
tried !" Laughed Gillian. " Why, the poor dear has been 
badgering the Admiralty to give him a job since the very day 
the war broke out !" 
" Well it seems jolly hard lines," commented Jack. " lie 
might do very well — not of course, in a modern ship, but 
there's many a billet that would suit him. Why, \» might 
cover himself with glory and medals — you never Jknow !" 
Again this undutiful daughter giggled. "Fancy Dad being 
a Little Hero!" she replied; "can you imagine it?" 
By a curious coincidence it happened that just about that 
very time a rumour became current amongst the ships of the 
Grand Fleet to the cft'ect that some of the ancient vessels 
in the Motherbank were to be put into commission. Jack 
Dane's ship, the Caroline — (an inveterate gossip, Caroline)^ 
came alongside the Iron Duke one day and spread the yarn. 
" Have you heard the news ?" she sniggered ; — " they 
are actually going to comniisiion old Hecuba ! What good can 
she be ? Why, she has been out of the Navy for yeais and 
years, laid up at the Motherbank !" 
The majestic Iron Duke looked down upon the little chatter- 
bo.x with a slight frown. It was, he felt, somewhat lowering to 
his flignity even to permit himself to be addressed in such a 
frivolous manner. So he replied, courteously yet conclusively, 
" The older vessels are by no means to be despised." And 
Caroline flicked her screws and sheered off with a hoity- 
toity bows-in-the-air attitude. 
It was a great day for Commander Tallis when he received 
an appointment to the Hecuba, in command. Not so for 
Jack Dane, sent to the same ship and taken out of his modern 
cruiser-; though the fact that tlie Hecuba was cummissionod 
" for special service " hel])3d to mitigate his chagrin, since 
the termri of such a commission seemed to hold out Iioikjs of 
something (jut of the ordinary —peiiiap> the chance of a scrap. 
And now behold the old Hecuba renewing the days of her 
youth ! True, she felt strange at first in her ncwgrey dress — 
but—if one may express it thus coarsely — she had a very 
satisfied feeling below the b'.'lt, now that her magazines and* 
storerooms were filled as of olden days. And it was good 
also to feel the deep Atlantic beneath her keel. So she 
flung up her head coquettishly on meeting the long rollers, 
old acquaintances of the bygone days, and tossed the white 
spray aside in her playfulness. Oh, it was a fine thing to be 
a "Ship of War at Sea " again, and not a sheer hulk lying 
helpless and useless at the Jlotherbank ! 
Commander Tallis had veiy much the same sort of feeling. . 
But the greatest day of all, both for ship and ship's company 
was the day that they met the German raider and fought 
that description of fight which is the highest ambition of a 
sailor — a single-ship action. 
For full three hours they kept at it, hammer and tongs, 
ding-dong, up and dowii, manceuvring for position, and 
blazing away for all tliev were worth. The German was a 
much larger vessel and carried a heavier armament, but the 
old Hecuba stood up to her and gave as good as she got. She 
was badly knocked about ; already several fires had been 
extinguished with difficulty and at the same time the carpenters 
had to cope with the water that poured in at the watcrlinc. 
Casualties were many, and TaUis himself was carrying his 
left arm in an improvised sling. But the German ship was in 
no better case, and had received just as severe a hammering. 
Neither vessel, however, had-been ]iut out of action even after 
all this fighting, and it looked as though the engagement 
might continue for many hours more at this rate. 
"There came a time, though, when the raider's fire began 
to slacken. And just about the same period of the action 
Lieutenent Dane, who was in the battery, dashed up to the 
captain with a ruuful face to report that all the ammunition 
was expended : the last round had been fired, and the guns 
were now useless ! 
lividently the raider was fast approaching the same con- 
dition ; but she had not (luilc arrived at it yet, and was still 
liring, though only intermittently. 
Now, th(v//('f»/;rt had been doing a power of thinking iluriiig 
all these strenuous hours. Something about her opponent 
\aguely recalled a dim memory, and she racked her brains 
in vain to try and recollect it. 
Ub yes, it dawned on her after a while ; she had met 
