Pincher Martin, O.D.: A Story of the Inner Life of the Royal Navy

'But did the rebels retire?' asked the commander.

Wooten nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'They left the place like lambs, and the Imperialist colonel inside nearly fell on my neck and wept. The two shopkeepers gave me a box of a hundred cigars between them! Damned nasty cigars, too!'

His listeners laughed.

'And what happened to you?' asked Chase.

'Oh,' smiled Wooten, 'I sent the document to the admiral, with a covering letter, and jolly nearly got badly scrubbed for exceeding my duty and abducting the General. However, it was all right in the end, and I believe the old man was secretly rather pleased with what I'd done.'

'So he jolly well ought to have been,' remarked one of the watch-keepers.

'M'yes, but he was a man who didn't say much. However, a month later a British colonel and a couple of other officers came down from Pekin to confer with me about putting Kiang-fu in a state of defence in case the rebels came again, for by that time the powers that be had come to the conclusion that if they did capture it, it wouldn't do us any good. The colonel and I went ashore together, he with his two officers, and I with a sheet of paper and a pencil.

'"You'd better loophole that wall," he started off, pointing at a solid stone affair about three feet thick. "This house had better be demolished, and you'll have to dig a trench along here, with decent sand-bag head-cover. I should think a hundred and fifty rifles will be enough to man it, provided you have a couple of Maxims at each corner. Over there we'll have an emplacement for a field-gun, and there another trench."

'He went on like that the whole of one grilling forenoon, and by the time he'd finished I'd totted up my figures, and found he'd used the best part of a thousand men.

'"That's all right, sir," said I; "and when may I expect the regiment?"

'"Regiment!" he said, rather surprised. "What regiment d'you mean?"

'"The regiment for doing all this work and garrisoning the place, sir," said I innocently. "You've been talking about knocking down houses, erecting barricades, and digging trenches right and left. I've only got thirty men."

'"The deuce you have!" he said thoughtfully. "We'd better" —

'"Go and have lunch, sir," I chipped in.

'"Excellent idea," said he, mopping his face.

'So off we went, had a top-hole tiffin, and that was the last we ever heard of it. Kiang-fu never was put in a state of defence so far as I know. However, the rebels never came there again, so every one was quite happy. I tell you,' Wooten concluded with a grin, 'one occasionally has some pretty rummy times up the Yang-tse.'

One had, apparently, and Peter Wooten was an officer of great initiative and resource, who had served his country well, and had upheld the dignity of her flag on more than one occasion. Chinese generals, mandarins, and other Celestial potentates were nothing to him. He bullied or bluffed them all into doing what he wanted, and they used to walk in terror of 'the red-faced devil with the loud voice,' as they called him. No wonder, then, that Peter felt himself tied by the leg in a battleship, where, to use his own expression, he was a 'mere dog's body.'

The watch-keeping lieutenants were George English, Aubrey Plantagenet Fitz-Johnson (usually known in the wardroom as 'the Dook'), Henry Archer Boyle, and Tobias Tickle.

English was a mild, inoffensive little man, whose chief ambition in life was to retire from the navy while he was still young, marry a wife, live in a small whitewashed cottage miles away from any sea, rear pigs and chickens, and collect butterflies. For all his lack of ambition, however, he was a good and zealous officer. He never made a bad mistake; but never, on the other hand, did anything very brilliant. He was a conscientious plodder.

'The Dook' was a tall, dashing, immaculate person, with sleek and shiny hair. He had a wonderful taste in dress, and how many different suits of plain clothes he possessed nobody but himself and his servant knew. How much he owed his tailor and his haberdasher nobody was aware of but those long-suffering tradesmen themselves, for Fitz-Johnson cast all his bills into the fire immediately on their receipt. His garments were always fashionable and well cut; his ties, collars, shirts, and socks of the newest and most exclusive pattern. His uniform frock-coat fitted his svelte figure like a glove; his trousers were always perfectly creased; and on Sundays he always appeared at 'divisions' with a brand-new pair of kid gloves – he never wore the same pair twice. The men called him Algy. He looked it. He was essentially a lady-killer. His cabin was full of autographed photographs of feminine admirers and mementoes in the shape of faded dance-programmes and little knots and bows of ribbon. His bedspread, a wonderful creation in blue silk, embroidered with his crest and monogram, had been worked by one set of fair fingers; his door and scuttle curtains, of chintz, by some one else; and a little bag for his hairbrushes by a third lady. When the mail arrived his letter-rack in the wardroom was crammed with bills, and letters in feminine handwriting. He kept up a voluminous correspondence, but was wise enough never to have more than one ardent admirer in any one place. He was a regular 'devyl with the girls,' there was no doubt about that; and if the ship arrived at some new place, and the wardroom took it into its head it would like to give a tea-fight, 'the Dook' was immediately sent ashore to prospect. How he did it nobody quite knew; but at the end of twenty-four hours he would be on friendly terms not only with all the young and pretty girls in the place, but also with their mothers, aunts, and female cousins. He was always on the verge of being engaged to be married, but never quite pulled it off. His host of unpaid bills, and the fact that he had little or no money besides his pay, probably frightened him. But, at any rate, he was a valuable acquisition as a messmate, for he sang well, and could play almost any musical instrument under the sun.

His chief failing was that he was never less than a quarter of an hour late for his watch. 'I'm deuced sorry, old chap,' was his usual excuse to the officer he had to relieve. 'The fella didn't call me properly.'

'Oh, to hell with you and your rotten excuses!' would growl the irritated watch-keeper who had been kept up. 'You're about the frozen limit! The corporal of the watch was hammering on your cabin door for at least a quarter of an hour!'

'It really wasn't my fault, though,' Fitz-Johnson would protest mildly. 'Please don't get shirty, old chap.'

It was impossible to be really angry with him; but he continued to relieve late until the other watch-keepers hit upon a scheme of keeping him up for an extra half-hour at the end of his own watch. That cured him eventually.

Boyle, the next in seniority, was a young, enthusiastic, and very energetic officer, who wished one day to become a gunnery officer. He had charge of the after-turret, with its pair of twelve-inch guns, and spent much of his time in a suit of oily overalls scrambling about in the depths of the hydraulic machinery. He was of an inventive turn of mind too, and even at the comparatively early age of twenty-four had already designed a self-stabilising seaplane, a non-capsizable boat, a patent razor-stropper, and an adjustable chair. This last, which he used in his cabin, was really most ingenious. It had hidden springs all over it, and you pushed a button and it did the rest. You could use it for anything, from an operating-table to a trousers-press; and it was often brought into the wardroom after dinner on guest-nights for its various uses to be demonstrated. It worked beautifully, until one night the padre, who was reclining gracefully at full length, pressed the wrong button in a sudden fit of exuberance. The chair promptly bucked like a kicking mule. The front shot up and the back fell down, and the reverend occupant hurtled adroitly backwards straight into the arms of an astonished marine servant with a tray full of whiskies and sodas. He came to the ground with a crash, with the marine and the liquid on top of him, and everybody laughed.

The servant, drenched through, retired grumbling to change his garments; and the Rev. Stephen Holiman scrambled to his feet, surveyed the mess of broken glass and liquor on the deck, and then felt his pulped collar and examined his clothes.

'Boyle, you silly ass!' he expostulated, justifiably annoyed, and trying to mop himself dry with a handkerchief, 'why the d-dickens couldn't you tell me the thing was going to pitch me over backwards like that?'

'I'm awfully sorry, padre,' spluttered the inventor, weak with laughing. 'You must have pressed the wrong button; but even then I've never known it do that before. Perhaps it wants oiling.'

'Take the rotten thing away and drown it!' retorted the padre, as angry as he ever got. 'It oughtn't to be allowed on board. It's ruined my clothes!' But the padre was a sportsman with a sense of humour, and after a little more grumbling, during which he got no sympathy from his messmates, cheered up and went off to change. Ever afterwards, when the chair appeared, he endeavoured to make it play the same trick on some unsuspecting guest. But it never would.

Tobias Tickle, commonly known as 'Toby,' was the officer of Martin's division, whom we have already met. He had married very young, and had a rich and pretty wife, who was as popular as himself; but this did not prevent Toby from being a very riotous member of society on occasions. He was loved by his men; for, while very strict, he took a great interest in them and their affairs. He knew the surname and Christian name of every bluejacket in his division; knew whether they were married, engaged to be married, courting, or single; and always gave them good advice when they asked for it. They often did. On more than one occasion he or his wife had helped them in other ways.

Once, when Mrs Buttings, the wife of an able seaman, had been ailing, and had had to undergo a rather serious operation, Mrs Toby heard of it through her husband. She promptly visited the patient, found her living in a miserable little dwelling in a back street in Landport, with four children between the ages of six months and five years, and nobody to look after her except the neighbours. This would not do for Mrs Tickle. She promptly engaged a trained nurse, sent the children off to a farmhouse in the country, visited the invalid daily, saw that she had a proper diet, and provided her with many sovereigns' worth of coal and luxuries.

Buttings himself, when he went ashore and saw the transformation in his usually rather slovenly home, was furious. Like most bluejackets, he hated the idea of charity in any form, and went straight off to see Tickle.

'Look 'ere, sir,' he said; 'with orl my doo respects to you, it ain't playin' the game!'

'Not playing the game!' answered the lieutenant, quite at a loss to understand what the man was driving at. 'What d'you mean?'

'Well, sir, it's like this 'ere. I goes 'ome an' finds my 'ouse rigged up like a bloomin' 'orspitle, an' the missus lyin' in bed with flowers, an' beef-tea, an' port wine, an' sich like. I finds another 'ooman there a-lookin' 'arter 'er – dressed up like a 'orspitle nurse, she wus – an' w'en I arsks 'er wot she done with the kids, she sez as 'ow they'd bin sent to the country. W'en I wants to know 'oo's done it, she sezs Mrs Tickle. It ain't fair on a man, sir, doin' a thing like that, an' habductin' of 'is kids. S'welp me, it ain't!' Buttings paused for breath.

'I'm sorry you think that, Buttings,' said Tickle gently. 'Your wife has been very ill, and what she wants is good food and proper treatment. She's getting that now. The children, too, are out in the country having an excellent time. After all, my wife didn't do it without asking Mrs Buttings.'

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

1

'The Straits' = the Mediterranean.

2

'In the rattle' = in trouble.

3

O.D. = the slang term for 'ordinary seaman.' 'O.S.' is one official naval contraction, and 'Ord.' another. 'O.D.' is derived from the latter, in the same way as an able seaman is known as an 'A.B.'

4

The term 'matlo,' derived from the French for 'sailor,' is always used by bluejackets in referring to themselves.

5

E.R.A. = engine-room artificer.

6

A 'killick' is an anchor, which is the badge worn by a leading seaman. 'Dipping the killick' means that the badge is removed, and that its wearer has been disrated to A.B.

7

'Pompey' is the naval slang term for Portsmouth.

8

Men serving in destroyers receive sixpence a day extra pay. It is known as 'hard-lying money.'

9

K.H.B. = King's hard bargain, a term used in connection with a man who is an undesirable character.

10

The commanding officer of a man-of-war is frequently referred to as 'the owner,' or 'the old man.'

11

Weighed anchor.

12

A fraction of a knot.

13

A 'godown' is a warehouse.