The Project Gutenberg eBook, Stand By!, by Henry Taprell Dorling

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Title: Stand By!
Naval Sketches and Stories

Author: Henry Taprell Dorling

Release Date: July 13, 2008 [eBook #26049]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STAND BY!***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

Transcriber's note:

"Taffrail" is the pseudonym of Henry Taprell Dorling.

The book from which this etext was prepared was missing the leaf
containing pages 41 and 42.

STAND BY!

Naval Sketches and Stories

by

"TAFFRAIL"

Author of "Carry On!" "Pincher Martin O.D., Etc."

London
C. Arthur Pearson, Limited
Henrietta Street, W.C.
1916

TO
THE SHIP'S COMPANY
WHO ARE SECOND
TO NONE

PREFACE

It seems almost unnecessary to remark that the characters and ships
figuring in the sketches throughout this book are entirely fictitious.

"Bunting," "The Acting Sub," "Our Happy Home," "The Lost Sheep," "The
'Muckle Flugga' Hussars," and "The Mother Ship" appeared in the _Daily
Mail_, and "The 'Pirates'" in the _Weekly Despatch_. They are here
reprinted, with minor alterations, by kind permission of the Editors.

TAFFRAIL.

1916.

CONTENTS

THE "ACTING SUB"
THE MOTHER SHIP
OUT HAPPY HOME
BLOODLESS SURGERY
"BUNTING"
THE LOST SHEEP
A NAVAL MENAGERIE
THE "MUCKLE FLUGGA" HUSSARS
THE "PIRATES"
A MINOR AFFAIR
THE FOG
THE TRADERS
POTVIN OF THE "PUFFIN"

STAND BY!

THE "ACTING SUB"

He was a very junior young officer indeed when the powers that be first
gladdened his heart and ruined his clothes by sending him to a
destroyer. A mere sub-lieutenant with "(acting)" after his name,
which, as any proper "sub" will tell you, is a sign of extreme
juniority. Moreover, the single gold stripe on his monkey jacket was
still suspiciously new and terribly untarnished.

Not so very long before he had been a "snotty" (midshipman) in a
battleship, a mere "dog's body," who had to obey the orders of almost
every officer in the ship except those few who happened to be junior to
him. It is true that he e