Chapter XVI Captain Helston’s Indecision
A Weary Blockade—Getting Impatient—The Prisoner’s Story—A Willing Prisoner—The Pirates’ Cunning—Ping Sang Excited—News from Home—Helston’s Ill Health—Cummins Indispensable—A Gun-room Scrap—Now to Business
The few days which followed after the events narrated in the last chapter were days of peace and devoid of excitement. Well, they were needed, too, to allow the crews of the destroyers to recuperate after their exertions and want of sleep, and to repair the minor damages incurred by the fast steaming of the squadron from Hong-Kong.
The two poor fellows who had been killed were buried at sea with all the solemnity possible under the circumstances, all the ships stopping their engines and lowering their ensigns to half-mast, the crews standing bareheaded whilst the service was being read, and remaining “at attention” till, sewn up each in his hammock, the two bodies plunged overboard and sank out of sight.
The Strong Arm rejoined from Hong-Kong after having buried her men in the Happy Valley cemetery, and she, too, added to Captain Helston’s anxieties by developing considerable engine-room defects, and by having eaten up half her coal.
Hunter, eager to arrive at the scene of action and not to miss any of the fighting, had pressed her through head seas at the greatest speed he could get out of her, with the result that for six days she was practically useless, with every artificer in the squadron tinkering away at her bearings and condensers.
Fortunately the weather held fair, and by repairing only one main engine at a time she was able to crawl away from the island each night and crawl back in the morning, lying most of the day utterly unable to assist in a fight if the pirates had come out.
Each night the destroyers “No. 2” and “No. 3” crept inshore to cut off any issuing torpedo-boats, but, after their first fatal attempt, none attempted a sortie, and, save that on occasions when Mr. Lang or Mr. Parker ventured within gunshot during daylight and drew a sulky warning fire from the batteries on each side of the entrance, there were no signs of life and nothing to remind them that, hidden behind those rocks and wooded slopes, hundreds of cunning, slit-like eyes were keeping watch.
With the weather fair and the sea calm the destroyers coaled without difficulty from the little Sylvia, and in four days of arduous work the Laird and the Strong Arm also filled up their bunkers.
It can easily be imagined how difficult, how dangerous, and how slow was this operation in an open sea, with the chance of the pirates coming out at any time to interrupt it, or the wind and sea rising and making it impossible.
However, Captain Helston’s luck held, and in six days’ time he had all his bunkers full, and the Strong Arm repaired sufficiently well to rely upon getting sixteen or seventeen knots out of her.
But he had no definite plans to act upon.
After seven months’ hard work, during which he had overcome a thousand difficulties, he had brought his little squadron to the scene of action, but, once having reached his goal, he seemed to lose his power of initiative, and instead of making the first move himself, he waited for the enemy to do so.
Day succeeded day and nothing was done.
Each night, with lights out, the Laird, Strong Arm, and Sylvia vanished into the darkness, rejoined each other at a given rendezvous next morning at earliest daybreak, and moved in towards the island.
The destroyers sleepily would join them after their night’s watching, and there the squadron would lie till sunset came, and the same routine commenced again.
To the Commander of the squadron and to all his officers, to say nothing of the men, it became very apparent that events had reached an impasse.
If the enemy chose but to lie quiet in their island stronghold and wait, a time would surely come when the blockading squadron would have to depart. No ships, however stoutly built, can stand constant work for any length of time in those stormy seas without a refuge in which occasionally to shelter, coal, revictual, and give their crews a “run ashore”. Men and officers, too, become “stale”, dispirited, and discontented with the monotony of blockade-work and the monotony of an unvarying and not too palatable diet.
Once this “staleness” develops, the sick-list grows apace, and general slackness makes itself felt.
There was no doubt whatever that the clever schemers in that little island had laid their plans accordingly, and were quite content to allow Captain Helston and his ships to wear themselves out in a wearisome blockade, probably conjecturing that, with the dislike of prolonged inaction, the Englishmen would throw their cards on the table and make a combined attack on the island, which they considered—and justly, as events turned out—was impregnable to sea attack.
Nor were they wrong in their supposition, for at the end of ten days’ monotony, ten days during which not a sail nor the smoke of a steamer had broken the empty circle of the horizon, everyone became impatient, and no one more so than the nervous, highly-strung Helston.
He knew well enough that every day which elapsed meant a further encroachment on the funds of the China Defence Association, and if he had perchance forgotten this fact, Ping Sang was there at his elbow to jog his memory and counsel a more active policy.
“My dear Captain,” he would say, patting Helston’s still empty sleeve, “we can’t remain here for the remainder of our lives. I’ve already spent nearly a million and a half, and we seem as far off as ever from securing these pirates. With all your guns and with all your fine English sailor men, you surely ought to be able to knock the pirate syndicate and their Chinese bandits on the head.”
Nothing that Helston or anyone else could tell him would make him understand the rashness of opposing ships to forts, especially ships with but scanty reserves of ammunition (in the hold of the stout little Sylvia), and with no place of refuge in case of damage.
Hunter, the lion-hearted, was also for trying the weight of his metal against the shore guns.
“As a preliminary to what?” Helston would ask.
“Well, you see, sir, we’d batter their forts to pieces, and then we’d land and secure them, and possibly might be able to turn any guns left in them on the blackguards down below.”
Helston’s own ideas, if he could have put them in definite form, were probably to try and starve the pirates into making a desperate sortie, and, if this should happen, he was perfectly confident of the result. This may have been the soundest scheme, but success depended on so many factors. First, it meant time—possibly a considerable time—and time meant money, and Ping Sang was already inclined to draw tight the purse-strings. Secondly, it meant a sufficient force to blockade, and that, Helston ruefully confessed, he did not possess; and thirdly, and most important of all, was the question whether the island could be starved out in, say, two months, or possibly three at the most.
On this last point the two Chinese captured from the sunken torpedo-boat were able to give information which effectually dispelled this hope. For the first day or two after their capture they had preserved a sullen silence, and expected instant death. As day after day went by, and they received food and blankets to sleep in, it dawned upon them that they were not being reserved even for torture, and they gradually became more communicative.
A Tsi, the silent, inscrutable, right-hand man of Ho Ming, interviewed them every day, at first with no success, but eventually he was able to bring them into a more amiable frame of mind, and they promised to give what information they possessed.
When their leg-irons were removed, and they were marched up on deck and taken aft between a file of marines, their thoughts again flew to death, and their terror was great, in spite of A Tsi’s assurances that did they but speak the truth they need fear nothing.
Each one was separately examined in Captain Helston’s cabin before the Captain, Dr. Fox, and Ping Sang.
The first, a tall Tartar of fine physique, was only held upright by the vigorous support of A Tsi, who bundled him into the cabin, his knees bending and knocking together under his huge body. Looking from one to another like a hunted animal at bay, he salaamed, with both hands to his forehead, to each one in turn, and a second time to Captain Helston.
His story, drawn out of him with difficulty, was this. He had been a sailor aboard a merchant ship captured by the pirates, and, on the promise of his life, had taken service with them, being sent aboard one of the old torpedo-boats on account of his knowledge of seamanship.
He had no complaint of his masters’ conduct towards him, and they paid him two or three dollars a month, with which to buy tobacco and sweetmeats.
“He looks half starved. Ask him if they get enough to eat,” asked Helston.
“He says they get plenty,” answered A Tsi, smiling, “but North Chinaman he never gets fat.”
“What does he know about the store of provisions on the island?”
He seemed to know a good deal about these. He had formed one of a working-party a fortnight ago to unload a captured ship laden with tinned meat and flour, and they had to leave a large part of it in the open, covered with tarpaulins, because the go-downs were already full.
“At the end of the time each man was allowed to take away what he wanted,” finished A Tsi, whilst the Chinaman spread his hands apart and tried to express a vast quantity.
At each question there would be a rapid flow of queries and answers in Chinese between A Tsi and the prisoner, the latter gesticulating excitedly to explain his answers, and, whilst the former was interpreting, he would try to follow him with pantomimic gesture and alterations of expression, looking from one to another in an imploring manner.
He was asked the number of men on the island. He could not tell.
“Many?”
“Yes, a great many.”
“A thousand?”
“Yes, more than a thousand.”
“Two thousand?”
He screwed up his face and evidently did his best to calculate.
No, he could not tell; a thousand, yes; but two thousand he could not say, and solemnly shook his head long after A Tsi had finished.
Being a sailor, he could give more definite information about the ships. There were four cruisers and eight or nine torpedo-boats, not counting the one to which he had belonged nor the two that were wrecked.
“Has he seen the two destroyers, and are they damaged?”
Yes, he had seen them come into the harbour, and many men had been sent aboard them, but he did not know whether they were damaged.
The names of three of the cruisers were Yao Yuen, Mao Yuen, and Tu Ping. These were the three of which Ping Sang had originally informed Helston. Another he mentioned, the Hong Lu, was evidently the cruiser which had beaten off “No. 2” and “No. 3”.
“Ask him if they are very fast.”
“Yao Yuen, Mao Yuen?” and he shook his head. “Tu Ping?” he shook his head still more vigorously. “Hong Lu?” and he opened his hands quickly and nodded, nodding so fast that Cummins, who had just entered the cabin, with the inevitable toothpick in his mouth, chuckled “He! he! he! you’ll lose your pigtail, old chap, if you aren’t more careful.”
“What speed can she go?”
No; he did not know.
“As fast as a torpedo-boat?”
He drew in his breath with a whistling noise, and tried to show by gestures her extreme speed.
“What size is she?”
He did not know, nor what guns she carried. He was taken on deck to look at the Strong Arm, lying quietly half a mile away, and then brought down again.
No; she was not so large, but how large he could not say.
As to the forts, all that could be got out of him was that there was one on each side of the entrance, and, as far as he knew, none anywhere else.
He did not even know how many guns they had.
“Have they done much practice firing from them?”
Yes; he had heard them many times lately, but his knowledge on all these points was vague in the extreme.
He could rattle off the names of all the merchant ships there, and seemed to have a sneaking regard for his old ship, for he plucked A Tsi nervously by the sleeve and talked excitedly to him, pointing to the Captain.
“What does he want?” asked Helston.
“He says, sir, that if you recapture the Tsli Yamen, the ship he belonged to formerly, he wants you to say a good word for him to the owners.”
“Tell him that if he answers all our questions truthfully we will not forget him.”
When this was explained to him he salaamed very vigorously, bending his long body three times to Helston.
“How many white men are there on the island?” asked Cummins.
He could not say. “Three?”
No, there were more than three—four, five, or six, maybe, but he could not say.
Asked as to the events just previous to the arrival of the squadron, he did not know much. Some two or three ships had been captured lately, no big ones, and the Hong Lu had come in the same day as the destroyers, only early in the morning, from the south, he knew, for a friend of his was aboard her and had told him.
She had brought two white men with her.
“Could he describe them?”
He pretended to limp. Evidently one was Hamilton, the lame Englishman, and the other, from his description, might have been Hopkins.
“Are there any white men prisoners on the island?” It was Cummins who asked this, and he, in fact, had asked most of the questions since he had come down to the cabin, Captain Helston almost unconsciously giving way to him.
“No prisoners, only engineers and soldiers. One white man in charge of the forts, two others in charge of all the ships’ engines.
“They keep no white men prisoners. If they find one aboard a captured steamer they send him to the mainland in a junk.”
“Are there any white women on the island?”
“No. Once there were two, but he thinks the white men began to quarrel amongst themselves, so they sent them away very quickly.”
“No chance of winning a wife here, sir,” added Cummins, chuckling.
“I’m not so certain about that,” replied Helston, the hard lines on his careworn face softening.
“Still thinking of that little minx Milly,” growled Dr. Fox to himself.
Cummins then showed the prisoner a rough plan of the island, copied from Ping Sang’s original chart, and, after A Tsi had explained it, the Chinaman roughly indicated the position of the forts, go-downs (warehouses), the white mens’ houses, the anchorage of the men-of-war and the captured merchant ships.
“I think that we have obtained all we want to know from this man,” Helston concluded. “Except about the amount of food on the island, he does not seem to know much. Does anyone want to ask him any further questions?”
Cummins wanted to know what stock of coal there was on the island.
As far as the man knew, there were enormous stacks of it on shore, and several ships laden with coal.
“Does any ship ever leave the harbour by the small channel at the back of the island?”
“Only small steam-boats and junks,” the prisoner said.
“I’ve nothing more to ask him,” said Cummins, so the man was marched away and given a cigar to smoke as a reward.
“We shall not starve them out, sir,” was Cummins’s only comment.
Helston shrugged his shoulders.
The second man was brought in, a cunning-looking rascal with unshaven head, his repulsive face made still more hideous by several scars. More scars were visible on his sunken-in chest, and altogether he was a most disagreeable-looking specimen of the human race.
He talked more freely than the other man, and told his story very volubly.
He had been a “boss” workman in the engine works at the Foochow Arsenal, and had been recruited with many others by the German Schmidt, and shipped to Hong Lu without any knowledge of the character of the employment.
“Does he complain?”
“Oh no, rather not!” He was paid well, spent nothing except a little on tobacco, and had not much work to do. After working for some months on board the merchant steamers, he was put in charge of the engines of the ill-fated torpedo-boat, and that was why he was aboard her that night.
“What did he do aboard the merchant ships?”
He seemed to have been a leading hand of shipwrights, and had had many men under his orders. He quite warmed to the subject, and told of all the jobs he had done for the last six months.
He had lengthened the funnel of one steamer, added a fo’c’stle to another, altered the bows of a third, and the masts of a fourth.
“My aunt!” chuckled Cummins, as A Tsi interpreted this, “I see now how these people make their fortune. They capture a steamer, bring her in here, alter her so that her own builders would not recognize her, and then take her down to some quiet port on the mainland and sell her. Ask him, A Tsi, if that is so.”
Yes, that was so; and the Chinaman looked surprised at their ignorance.
The syndicate, it appeared from what he said, had constructed a ship-repairing yard, and kept it most of the time working at high pressure. Sometimes they kept a ship as long as six months, but whenever a ship did leave, no one could possibly recognize her as the one which had been brought in.
On all other points this prisoner corroborated the first, and dotted down on another rough plan of the island the positions of the forts, ships, &c., very much as he had done it.
As to food and coal, they had enough to last “many moons”.
“Mountains of coal” was his description.
Asked by Cummins why the other torpedo-boats had not come out, he promptly replied that their engines were unfit for any speed, and that their crews were probably frightened.
Directly Ping Sang heard the man’s statement about reconstructing steamers captured and altering their appearance, he went away to his cabin, and returned carrying some papers.
At the first opportunity he asked the prisoner, speaking in Chinese, and with very unusual excitement, if ever he remembered the capture of a ship named the Fi Ting.
He remembered her quite well; had worked aboard her. “She had one funnel and three masts (‘Yes,’ nodded Ping Sang), and they built a covered-in fo’c’stle, took out one mast, and shortened the other two.”
“Yes, yes,” nodded Ping Sang excitedly; “anything else?”
“We altered the bridge, built it ten or twelve feet farther forward, and put up several cabins between it and the funnel.”
“You did! you did! And what name did you give her?” shrieked Ping Sang.
The man thought a little and shook his head, evidently in some fear of the fat little merchant.
“He won’t say, sir; says that he cannot remember; he only did what he was told; it was not his fault,” said A Tsi, to whom the man had turned.
Another flow of language came from Ping Sang, before which the wretched Chinaman flinched, and eventually he gave the name Ling Lu Ming.
“I knew it! I knew it!” roared Ping Sang, rolling from side to side, and getting red in the face with indignation, which just as suddenly turned to a broad smile, and with a twinkle of his eyes he told Captain Helston that he had bought the Fi Ting for £150,000, lost her six months later, and then bought the Ping Lu Ming cheaply for £120,000 in Amoy.
“I always suspected she was the same,” he added cheerfully.
It was one of the amusing characteristics of this little man that his wrath always vanished as quickly as it grew, and was followed by envy of the “cuteness” which had got the better of him, and he bore not the least malice, only looking forward to a future opportunity of “squaring the account”.
The prisoner, seeing Ping Sang’s benign, amused expression, took courage and ventured a smile too—a cunning, treacherous enough smile; but it quickly died away, and the colour fled from his yellow skin, for Ping Sang, catching sight of it, jumped from his chair, and shaking a fat little finger at him, let flow a torrent of words which left him speechless with anger, only to recover his usual urbanity a moment later when Captain Helston asked him what he had said.
“Nothing, nothing, Captain; only assured him that I would have his liver torn out and make him eat it if he did not stop grinning.”
He meant it, too, for, if half the stories which were told of Ping Sang were to be credited, although he was as gentle as possible under the British flag, yet woe to anyone who crossed his path when not under that protection.
At this moment the signal midshipman came running down from the bridge in a state of great excitement, and reported smoke on the horizon coming from the south-east.
The prisoners were sent away, and everyone immediately went on deck.
On deck all was animation. It was about half-past four—the men’s supper-hour—all being below except the watch-keepers; but directly the word had flown round the mess-decks that a steamer had been sighted, every man Jack poured up to see and hear news of the approaching stranger.
Already signals had been made to “No. 2” to steam to meet her, and leisurely she gathered way, though by the little puffs of black smoke that came from her funnels quickly, one after another, one knew that her stokers were shovelling coal on her furnace gratings for all they were worth.
Gradually the column of smoke mounted up over the horizon, and from the foremast-head a sharp-eyed signalman sang out that she was a man-of-war with fighting-tops, and was making straight for the island.
If she was a man-of-war she might be yet another of the pirate ships, and there was the welcome chance of a “scrap”; but even if this did not turn out to be true, there was something else almost as welcome: she might bring a mail, and it is only those who “go down to the sea in ships” who know what that means.
Then “No. 2” began to signal, and the yeoman of signals, saluting, reported to Captain Helston “The Undaunted, sir!” (The Undaunted was one of the armoured cruisers of the British China Squadron.)
“Can’t capture her, I suppose?” suggested Ping Sang, with a smile.
“She may be coming up here to capture us, though,” answered Helston, looking worried. “The Admiral would hardly have sent her out of her way unless he had important communications to make. I trust sincerely that she brings no bad news.”
“Cheer up, old croaker!” said Dr. Fox; “we’ll get some mails at any rate.”
By this time the naked eye could easily identify her white side and yellow funnels and cowls glistening in the setting sun, and the white ensign flying at her gaff, as fair a sight as any British naval man ever wants to see.
“No. 2” was following her towards the squadron, looking like some disreputable little terrier keeping a respectful distance from a stately St. Bernard. More signals flew backward and forward, presently the semaphores began to jerk their arms up and down, and the Undaunted slowed as she came abreast the Laird, and stopped her engines.
“Away first cutter! Away galley!” yelled the bos’n’s mate, and rapidly these boats were lowered, and in a couple of minutes Captain Helston was being pulled across to the Undaunted by six strong pairs of arms, whilst the cutter, with that signal flying from the Undaunted, “Send boat for mails”, was not much behind-hand. In half an hour both boats were back again, and the bulky mail-bags hauled aboard by willing hands. Then letters for home, already written and only waiting for closing up, were sent across, and the Undaunted slowly began to move away.
As she steadied on her course her crew “manned and cheered ship”, three ringing cheers coming across the water, and one cheer more for luck.
The Laird’s were not slow to answer, and the crew ran aloft, crowded along the port side, and, taking time from little Cummins, who, with his cap in his hand, yelled as best he could with a toothpick in his mouth, sent back cheer for cheer.
The Strong Arm sent her cheers, too, and the Sylvia, “No. 2”, and “No. 3” joined in with their more feeble shouts.
Down they poured out of the rigging, eager to get their mail, which the Master-at-Arms was already distributing, the Undaunted slipped away on her errand to the north (a mission-house had been burnt down somewhere or other, somebody or other had to suffer for the deed, and she was away to see that somebody or other did suffer for it), and the little squadron was left alone again with its pirate island—a lonely-looking island and a rather lonely little squadron after its fleeting glimpse of its own white ensign, reading its letters from home in the failing daylight, with a job to do which seemed too big for it.
As Dr. Fox rather vulgarly expressed it to Helston, “You’ve bitten off a bigger piece than you can chew, old chap.”
“Well, perhaps so, Fox; we’ll see.”
Captain Helston’s letters—his official ones, at any rate—were certainly a worry to him. He had hardly finished reading them when sunset was reported, and up he had to go to superintend the scattering of the squadron for the night, and to make the rendezvous for the early morning.
He came down to dinner, but let it go untouched.
“Come up on deck, Fox, and get some exercise on the quarter-deck,” he said at length. “I want a yarn with you.” (Dr. Fox usually dined with him.)
“Never take a man away from his food to tell him bad news,” growled the Doctor, after they had paced the quarter-deck twenty times without saying a word. “Let me know the worst.”
“My arm’s hurting me, Doc. Can’t you ease it?” exclaimed Helston in his most worried expression of voice.
“Well, well, stay still, and I’ll just rearrange it, old chap. Now, that’s more comfortable, eh? Hand a bit too low; blood too much in the fingers, eh? Have it in the sleeve in another week. Feel better now?” And Dr. Fox made him more comfortable, speaking as if his patient were a little petulant child. “Now, tell me all about it.”
“It comes to this,” began Helston, wheeling round and rapidly walking up and down. “The Admiral is going to communicate with me in one month from this date, and, in case I cannot report any material progress, he has orders from home to assist me.
“You know very well what that means. My chance of promotion is gone unless I manage to capture the island in four weeks.”
Dr. Fox was well aware that a month was all too short a time. He knew only too well Helston’s limitations as a commander, and his inability to formulate or to adhere to any plans involving grave issues. He knew, too, the bad effect of this mental indecision and anxiety on his health, his growing inability to sleep, and his increasing irritability of temper, yet he could not, merely as senior doctor of the expedition and old friend of its commander, accept the responsibility of making any suggestion either for further delay or for immediate action.
“It is not my job, and I will not originate anything.”
But one thing he did know, and that was that if anybody could do the work it was Cummins, and to Cummins the decision should and must be left.
“Send for Cummins, Helston; tell him what you have told me; give him twenty-four hours to arrange a course of action; don’t attempt to influence him in any way, and act upon his advice. On no account ask either Bannerman, who is a mere talker and a braggart, or Hunter, who is a magnificent, a splendid man, but a fool.”
Now, as has been said before, Captain Helston was jealous of his Commander. He would have been the first to resent the imputation; but there it was, call it what you may, the necessary sequence of a feeble will hardly yet conscious of its weakness in the presence of the strong and overmastering will of a junior officer.
“You’re right, Fox, I know you’re right. I’ll send for him and see what he suggests.”
“That is not enough, Helston, you must decide to act upon his suggestions.” And Dr. Fox argued with him for half an hour or more as they paced that deck. At last Helston agreed, and Cummins was sent for.
He came shuffling aft, a queer, grotesque little figure in the darkness (no lights were burnt or shown at night-time), took a glowing cigar from his mouth, and saluted.
Helston told him of the admiral’s letter.
“That means all U.P. with us, unless we do the trick in a month; eh, sir?” he chuckled. “They are not any too liberal at home, are they?”
“I have sent for you,” continued Helston, and Dr. Fox noticed a constrained tone in his voice, “to ask you for your advice as to what is to be done.”
“Do you intend only to consider my suggestions, or do you intend to act upon them, sir?” replied Cummins, and Dr. Fox saw his figure stiffen to attention, could almost hear his jaws clench together, and saw his cigar go whizzing overboard and extinguish itself in the sea.
“I—I—intend—to—to—follow them,” said Helston nervously, “and I’ll give you twenty-four hours to formulate them.”
“I do not require twenty-four hours, sir. Two days I want to examine the coast-line of the island more thoroughly. If I obtain no accurate information as to the position of the guns and other defences they have, I want you to bombard the entrance on the third day, and at the end of the third day I will give you my further plans, which depend on the result of the information I can gain during that time; that is, sir, if you require them.”
“But what then?” asked Helston nervously.
“I cannot say, sir. All depends on what we discover by the end of that time.”
“Very good, Cummins; you can make what dispositions you choose.”
“It all depends on the weather, sir, and I must have calm days—the first two calm days.”
“All right! Come down and look at that chart again.”
“Thank you, sir, and I’ll have another cigar as well.”
The visit of the Undaunted and the mail which she had brought were perhaps more welcome to the gun-rooms of the Laird and Strong Arm than to anyone else, for monotony palls more readily on youngsters than it does on men, and certainly they become more rapidly home-sick.
Dinner that night in the Laird’s gun-room, though it did consist chiefly of corned meat and sardines, was a joyous meal.
Every one of them had heard from home, everyone had something to talk about, and the gun-room, littered with piles of newly opened newspapers, illustrated weeklies and magazines, was like a bear-garden.
Books, boots, telescopes, school-books and midshipmen’s logs, papers, uniform caps, sextant boxes, and oilskins lay in confused heaps on the deck and on the tops of the midshipmen’s lockers, where they had been swept off the table during the progress of laying it for dinner.
Several rapid and vigorous passages of arms had already delighted everybody, except, of course, the seniors, who did not appreciate the damage resulting to crockery and glasses, of which they were already running short.
Glover himself, forgetting for a moment his wounded leg (it was now perfectly healed), had thrown himself with unaccustomed vigour into a mêlée at the lower end of the table—the end farthest from where Jeffreys the Sub (the reigning monarch) and the two Assistant Engineers sat—and had disappeared from view under it. Here he was passed from one to another by the gentle process of being kicked from side to side, and his only chance was to hug the first pair of feet he could get hold of and drag the owner down with him.
This he did, and there they lay and struggled as to who should gain the vacant place, whilst their chums joyously drummed on their ribs indiscriminately and laid odds on one or the other appearing first.
Eventually Glover’s head did appear first, but a glass of water poured over his head by a chum who was backing the other, and a vigorous pull from below by his opponent made him disappear again, and the table-cloth went with him, dragging with it knives and forks, glasses and plates, in a mighty cataract.
This was too much for the onlookers, and with one accord they disappeared under the table and fought, while the domestics, perfectly accustomed to such a scene, jumped nimbly round, saving plates and glasses as these came to sight amidst the struggling jumble of arms and legs.
Those at the upper end of the table, which fortunately had its own separate cloth, went on with their meal undisturbed—all except Dumpling, who, seizing the mess extras-book, dealt vigorous blows on any undefended portion of anatomy which disclosed itself from beneath the table.
That was Dumpling “all over”. Was there a fight or a “scrum”, he was always near at hand, whacking indiscriminately, but never venturing a “rough and tumble” himself.
By this time the uproar was so great that Jeffreys, Ogston, and the other Assistant Engineer could literally not hear themselves speak, and the table, heaving once or twice as the midshipmen fought and struggled beneath it, gave ominous signs of capsizing.
“Stop it, you young idiots!” roared Jeffreys, smiting the table with his open hand and calling the senior midshipman by name.
In a minute they were back in their places, flushed and happy, with collars gone, coats torn, and here and there small gashes on their faces, which their nearest chums wiped affectionately with the crumpled table-cloth.
Order once restored, they fell to with redoubled vigour, and sardines disappeared like magic—sardines, tinned butter and biscuits.
“Well, I can’t get over that news from home,” said Dumpling for about the fourth time since the mail had come aboard.
“Whatever is it, Dumpling?” they all chorused. “Your old cat had kittens?”
“No, you chaps, didn’t I tell you? My sister is engaged to the son of a duke. I simply can’t get over it.”
“Can’t you, really! Then try if that will help you,” sang out Mellins, and he heaved a sea-boot at Dumpling’s head. Dumpling was much too nimble, and it only crashed into the helpless Mess steward, who was doing his best to serve them all, smashed to smithereens a jug which he was carrying, and caught him fair and square on the chest.
“Awfully sorry, Watson,” said Mellins apologetically.
“Put Mr. Dunning down for six jugs, Messman,” said Jeffreys—“six for sky-larking.”
“But I didn’t throw it; it wasn’t my fault,” stammered Dumpling.
“Your fault, be hanged! you deserved it.”
“But my sister is engaged to the son of a——” he began again.
“Come here, Dunning!” Jeffreys yelled. “Now, stand at my side here; give me your arm. No, I’ll be quite gentle with you,” as he twisted it slightly and Dumpling winced. “Now, tell us all very nicely about your sister. Whom is she going to marry?”
“The son of a du——” began Dumpling.
“No, no, she isn’t, my friend. Just repeat after me: My sister—is—going—to marry—a—broken-down—drunken—cab-driver. Now do as I tell you,” as Dumpling became defiant, “or before you know where you are you shall have a dozen of the best across your back.” And he twisted his arm till he writhed with pain.
“My sister is—going—to—marry a cabman,” he stuttered, red in the face.
“A—broken-down—drunken cab-driver,” Jeffreys roared; but Dumpling was spared the indignity of repeating that, for a messenger put his head in at the door and sang out that the midshipmen of the picket-boat and second cutter were wanted in the Commander’s cabin immediately, and as Dumpling had the second cutter, he wriggled himself free and escaped.
Mellins was the proud “owner” of the picket-boat, and, with their recent animosities forgotten, both boys bolted like rabbits to the Commander’s cabin.
“Mr. Christie” (Mellins’s real name), he began, as they both stood to attention, “you will have your boat ready, with steam up, to hoist out at five o’clock to-morrow morning. See that her tanks and bunkers are full. You, Mr. Dunning, are the duty cutter for to-morrow, I believe. You will also be ready to lower into the water at five o’clock, and be prepared to be taken in tow. You can provide rifles and pistols for your men, and sling the former under the boat’s thwarts. Ammunition will be given you in the morning. Both of you will see that your crews’ food is prepared overnight, and that your boats’ breakers (water-barrels) are full of drinking-water. Go away and make your preparations at once.”
Both boys slipped away with eager faces, but with this difference, that whilst Mellins went off to find his coxswain, and was clambering into his boat two minutes afterwards to make certain that all was correct, Dumpling first went down to the gun-room to pose as a hero, specially selected by the Commander, and, with a lot of unnecessary fuss, found his dirk, and took it for’ard to sharpen it on the grindstone.
“That youngster wants kicking badly,” said Ogston.
“He shall get it when he comes back,” answered Jeffreys nonchalantly.