January lo, iqiS 
LAND & WATER 
13 
Christmas on a ''Happy'' Ship 
By Lewis R. Freeman 
Mr. Lcit'is R. Freeman, the distinguished American 
jcyiirnalist, ivkose writings are familiar to readers of 
Laxd & Water;' is now ifilh the British Grand fket. 
THERE was a hint of Christmas in the long stacks of 
parcels mail on the station platform and the motley 
array of packages in the hands of the waiting sailors, 
but for the rest there was nothing to differentiate 
the " Flcetward "-bound train from the same train as one 
might have seen it on any other day of the year. There is 
only a certain small irreducible minimum of men which can 
be spared from a fighting sliip at any time that it is liable to 
be sent into action, and the season sacred to the Prince of 
Peace is no exception. 
To the average land-lubber nothing could appear nearer 
to the height of misfortune than the lot of the sailor who has 
to leave a nice, warm, comfortable hearthside in the south 
of England and return to his unceasing vigil in the storm- 
tossed northern seas at the one time of year set apart above 
all others for the family and the home, and I did my best to 
introduce a note of sympathy into my voice when I tried to 
condole with the ruddy-faced man-o'war's man who had 
kindly volunteered to help me find my compartment. 
" 'Ard to be goin' back abord on Crismus Day, you think, 
sir ? " he asked with a grin. " P'haps it is jest a bit 'ard 
to leave the missus jest now, but — ther' ain't no qu'ues in 
Scarpa Flow, an' I've got a jolly good lot o' mates waitin' 
fer me on the ol' . She's a happy ship if ther' ever wu/, 
an, an' Crismus at sea ain't 'arf so bad as you mite think, 
sir." 
That there were several \hundred similar-minded philoso- 
phers travelhng by that train became evident at a point 
where they met and mingled for a space with some of the 
" lucky " ones who were gathering there to go home on a 
leave which had providentially coincided witli the holiday 
season. Scan as closely as I would the men in the long blue 
lines, there was nothing to distinguish the " returning from " 
to the " going on " save the fact that the former were bulging 
with Christmas parcels. 
Nor was there about any of the officers I met in the course 
f>f my northward journey any suggestion of an air of martyr- 
dom on account of the' fact that it was their lot to spend 
Christmas afloat instead of ashore. One of them was going to 
join a Destroyer Flotilla leader, and was too busy con- 
gratulating himself on the fact that he was to be second to a 
commander who had the reputation of having a'" nose for 
trouble," and the faculty of always being " among those 
l)rescnt " when anything of inten?st occurred in the North Sea 
to have time to lament the fact that he was missing— this 
time by only a couple of days— his eighth consecutive Christ- 
mas with his family. Another had equally high hopes of the 
life of adventure which awaited him on the light cruiser h(^ 
had been ordered to report to, and a third entertained me for 
an hour with yams of Ward Room pranks on a battleship 
to which he was returning after a special course in gunnery 
at a south-coast port. It was the latter who used the identical 
expression in describing his ship as had been employed by the 
sailor I have quoted above. 
" She's a happy ship, is the old ," he said with an 
affectionate smile, " and it's glad I am to b? getting back to 
her again." 
The only man I met on the whole journey who seemed in 
tJie least sorry for himself was a thing's Messenger — he was 
carrying a turkey under one arm and a dispatch box under 
the other— who complained that his schedule would not take 
him back to London until Christmas afternoon. 
On the battleship to which I reported about the onlv 
evidence of Vule-tide obser\-ablc on mv arri\al was the huge 
accumulation of " home-bound " letters which the Ward 
Room officers were engaged in censoring. The day before 
Christmas was distinctly " routine," with just a suggestion of 
festivity beginning to become manifest toward evening. 
The loungers by the Ward Room fire smoked, chatted and read 
the paper for an hour after dinner was over, but showed no 
disposition to melt away to bed as in the usual order of things. 
.\bout ten o'clock a violin, banjo and a one-stringed fiddle 
with a brass horn attached made their appearance, and upon 
these never entirely harmonising instruments their owners 
began inconsequentially to strum and scrape. As fragments 
of familiar airs became faintly recognisable, the loungers 
began to lay aside papers and cigars and to join in the choruses 
in that half-furtive manner so characteristic uf the Briton 
in* his first forc-ninning essays at " close harmony." Until 
lie is assured of the vocal support of his neighbour, "there is no 
sfiund in the worifl— from tlic ni;ii of Du- lion t" tin- ni:ir of 
the cannon— which the average Enghshman dreads so much-as 
that of liis own voice raised in song. 
Volume increased . with confidence, and it was not many 
minutes before the choruses were booming at full blast. . For 
a while it was the more popular numbers from the late London 
re\ues which had the call, but these soon ga%-e way to rag- 
time, and that in turn to those old familiar songs which liavo 
warmed the hearts and bound closer the ties of comradeship 
of the good fellows of the .'^nglo-Saxon world since ships first 
began to set sail from the shores of England to people tlie 
ends of the earth. From " Clementine " and " Who Killed 
Cock Robin ? " to " S^fanec River," and " ^My Old Kentucky 
Home," there was not a song that I had not heard — and even 
boomed raucously away in the choruses of myself — a hundred 
times in all parts of America. Every one of them is in the 
old " College Song Book," not a one of them, but which 
ever^• man of the miUion America is training for the Grcit 
Fight could have joined in without faking a word or a note. 
k slight shifting of the gilt braid on the blue sleeves, a re- 
shuffling of the papers and magazines on the table, and the 
Ward Room of the might have passed for that of any 
-Vmcrican battleship. The interposing of four poster and 
pennant peppered walls, the placing of the lounging figures in 
proper mufti, and you would have had a room in an .\merican 
college " frat house " or club. The men, the songs, the 
\ibrant spirit of good fellowship would have done for either 
of the settings. 
Poignantly suggestive of the thi — '•f bygone college days 
was the change which came over i rit of the scene wlien 
an exuberant young sub-lieutenant oegan doing stunts by 
trying to climb round a service chair without touching the 
deck. His inevitable fall upset the tilted chair of a visiting 
" snotty," who was playing his mandolin, and an instant 
later the two were rolling in a close embrace. Suddenly sonu; 
one shouted " scrum !", and with an impetuous rush the 
singers ranged themselves into two rival " Rugby " te^ms, 
each trying to push the" other against the wall. 
Twitching at the stir of long dormant impulses, I restrained 
myself with an effort from mixing in the joyous melee, and 
maintained my dignit}- as a newly-arrived visitor by backing 
into a corner and erecting a sofa barricade against the swirling 
human tide. 
" Shades of Stanford and old Encina Hall " (I found myself 
gasping), " it's a ' rough-house,' a real college ' rough-house.' " 
While it lasted that " scrum " had all the fierce abandon of a 
F'reshman-Sophomorc " cane rush," but even at its very 
climax (when it had apset the electric heater and was threaten- 
ing to engulf the coal stove) there was a differentiation. One 
sensed rather than saw the thread of control restraining it, 
and knew that e\-ery pushing laughing player of the game was 
subconsciously alert for a signal that would send him, tense 
and ready, to the performance of tho'ie complexly-simple duties 
training for which he had given the l)est part of his life. 
" Rugger " gave place to " chair polo," and that highly 
diverting sport in turn to comparati\-ely " formal" bouts of 
wrestling and feats of strength and agility. It was while a 
row of shirt-sleeved figures were at the height of a " bat " 
competition (which consisted of seeing which one could hang 
the longest by his toes from a steel beam of the ceiling) that 
the Fleet Surgeon edged gingerly in behind my barrier and 
remarked that it was " funny to think how that up-ended 
line of young fighting cocks might be tumbling from their 
roost to go to action stations at the next tick of the clock. 
.\nd they'd fight just like they play," he went on, fingering a 
sprained wrist that was proffered for diagnosis. " We'\e 
not a single case of any kind in the hospital to-day, and the 
men are just as healthy in mind as they are in body. It's 
half the battle, let me tell you, to live on a happy ship." 
Christmas morning broke cold and clear, with a royslering 
wind from the north furrowing the Flow with translucent, 
ridges of white-capped jade and chrysoprase. AU but the 
imperative routine cluties of the ship were suspended and the 
men spent many hours decorating the m»ss deck for their 
mid-day feast. When all was ready the band, its variou.? 
members masquerading as everything from Red Cross nurses 
and ballet girls to German naval prisoners and American cow- 
boys, came to lead the Captain and Ward Room officers on 
their ceremonial Christmas \isiting round. F'rom mess to 
mess we marched, the capering liand leading the way and a 
policeman with a " sausage ' club sheplierding the 
stragglers at the rear. Flvery table was loaded not only with 
its Christmas dinner, but also with all the gifts received by 
those who sat then-, as well as with any trinkets or souvenirs 
they had jiicked up in the course of their foreign cruises. 
i';-.l)e<iaH\- and iiitciitiniKilK- coiispicnous were numerous 
