Stand By! Part 10

Pardoe merely gasped, for the idea that the Almighty might be unduly influenced by the sight of the three gold stripes and curl on his captain's shoulder-straps was quite beyond his comprehension.

Nevertheless, Commander Potvin was quite serious, and on leaving his presence Pardoe repaired to his cabin, and wrote a fervent appeal to a former captain of his, asking that officer to use his influence to have him removed from his present appointment. He loved his little _Puffin_, it is true. He would be very sorry to leave her; but anything was better than serving in a ship commanded by a lunatic.

For a week the gunboat's officers and men endured the new routine with what fort.i.tude they could muster. On Monday they had their progressive games, when the watch on board,--the watch whose turn it was to go on leave had gone ash.o.r.e to a man,--were compelled, much to their disgust, to squat round on the upper deck with draughts, halma, and picture-lotto boards spread out before them. The proceedings were not exactly jovial, for the men looked, and were, frankly bored, while a party of four able seamen, finding the innocent attractions of Happy Families hardly exciting enough, were subsequently brought up before the First Lieutenant on a charge of gambling.

Half an hour after the games started, moreover, two other men, one a marine and the other the ship's steward's a.s.sistant, fell in to see him.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Well, sir," the marine explained. "It's like this 'ere. I was told off to play draughts along o' this man, an' all goes well until I makes two o' my men kings an' starts takin' all 'is. Then 'e says as 'ow I've been cheatin', so I says to 'im, polite like, as 'ow I 'adn't done no such thing, an' wi' that 'e ups an' 'its me in the eye, sir, which isn't fair."

"He hit you in the eye?" asked Number One.

"Yes, sir," said the sea-soldier, exhibiting a rapidly swelling cheek.

"What have you to say?" the First Lieutenant asked the alleged a.s.sailant.

"What he says isn't true, sir. I did say he had been cheatin', becos he had, becos he was movin' all his other pieces over the board how he liked. I says he mustn't do that, becos it isn't the game, but he says that as he's been told off to play, he'll play how he bloomin' well likes. I says it's cheatin', and he hits me on the nose, so I hits him back, and we has a bit of a dust up." He exhibited a gory handkerchief as proof of his injuries.

"Do either of you men bear any grudge against the other?" asked Pardoe, knowing that they had often been ash.o.r.e together.

"No, sir," came the immediate reply.

"Well, go away, and don't make such fools of yourselves again. We can't have all this bickering and fighting over a simple game of draughts."

The two combatants retired grinning, and Pardoe, sighing deeply, walked up and down the deck wrapped in thought. One fact was quite patent, and that was that if the innocent amus.e.m.e.nts for the ship's company were suffered to continue, he would require the wisdom and patience of a Solomon to arbitrate between the disputants.

On Tuesday they had a reading from Shakespeare, conducted by the Captain, and, to judge from the _sotto-voce_ remarks of the audience, they were neither amused nor instructed.

"'E must be wet if 'e thinks we liken listenin' to this 'ere stuff!"

muttered Able Seaman McSweeny dismally. "'E talks abart 'is ruddy merchant o' Venice, but I doesn't want to 'ear nothin' abart a....

Eyetalian shopkeeper. I expec's 'e was one o' these 'ere blokes wot wheeled an ice-cream barrer. S'welp me I do!"

A loud t.i.tter greeted his utterance, and Commander Potvin stopped reading for a moment, and glanced round with a fierce expression, without being able to see whence the sounds of merriment emanated.

No, judging from the trite remarks from the men, the reading from the works of England's most famous poet and playwright was not an unqualified success.

On Thursday came the Captain's lecture on the effects of alcohol, at which, to Pardoe's great astonishment, there was an unusually full attendance. Even men belonging to the watch ash.o.r.e were present, some of them bringing friends from other ships with them.

The audience, suspicious at first, eventually became strangely enthusiastic, loud cheering, much stamping on the deck, and even shrieks and cat-calls completely drowning the lecturer's voice for moments at a time. The applause became more vociferous still when the man attending the magic lantern inadvertently placed his hand on its almost red-hot top, and interrupted the proceedings with a loud and very startled: "Ow! The bloomin' thing's burnt me!"

Anyone but the Commander might have detected something sarcastic and ironical in the excessive applause, but he, the possessor of a skin like unto that of an armadillo, was very pleased with the reception of his discourse.

"I told you I had an interesting subject," he said afterwards to the First Lieutenant. "The hearty applause was very gratifying, and it is wonderful how a little straight talk goes down with the men."

"I only hope my lecture will be an equal success, sir," answered Pardoe, rather at a loss what to say.

His subject was "Cities of Ancient Greece."

But at last came the time when the _Puffin_ was ordered to sea, and at 8.30 on that fateful morning the gunboat, with her gallant commander standing on the p.o.o.p in the att.i.tude of Sir Francis Drake starting on his circ.u.mnavigation of the world, paddled gently down the crowded harbour and out through the Lye-mun pa.s.s. It was in this narrow pa.s.sage that they had their altercation with a lumbering Chinese junk tacking slowly to and fro against the tide.

"Hard a-port!" ordered Falland, who was conning the ship.

"Hard a-starboard!" contradicted the Commander excitedly. "What are you thinking about, Mr. Falland?"

The Navigator's order would have taken the ship well clear, but the helmsman, perplexed by having two diametrically opposite commands hurled at his head simultaneously, and not knowing which to obey, did nothing.

There came a howl from the gunboat's forecastle and a frantic, blasphemous yelling from a party of Chinamen cl.u.s.tered on the junk's high p.o.o.p.

"Full speed astern!" roared Potvin.

But it was too late, for a moment afterwards the _Puffin's_ flying jib-boom slid neatly through the very centre of the matting sail on the junk's mizzen mast. More shrill cursing and strident execration from the junk, followed by a series of b.u.mps and crashes as the two vessels collided, bow to stern. A large pig, suspended, according to the pleasant habit of the Chinese, in a wicker-work basket over the junk's quarter, also two similar baskets filled with fowls, became detached from their moorings and fell overboard. Then the junk's mizzen-mast began to bend ominously, and before long, amidst more shrieks and yells, it snapped off short and collapsed on the p.o.o.p, knocking one elderly Chinaman and two children into the water as it fell. It was followed almost immediately afterwards by the _Puffin's_ flying jib-boom.

The gunboat's engines were stopped and the two vessels drifted together side by side, while a party with axes set to work to clear away the wreckage.

"Why on earth don't you look where you're going?" the Commander bawled at the junkmaster.

"Yah me ping wi taow!" howled the Chinaman, which, being interpreted, means, "You tailless son of a devil," the greatest possible insult.

It was followed by more mutual abuse and recrimination, but the gentleman in the junk, since Commander Potvin could not understand a word he said, was popularly supposed to have got the best of the wordy encounter.

But the skipper was quite determined to have somebody's blood, and seeing he could make no impression on the junk, vented his spleen on the Navigator.

"Mr. Falland!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing and his heart full of rage. "The collision was entirely your fault. I shall report the matter to the Admiral, and meanwhile you will remain in your cabin under arrest!"

"But, sir. I really----"

"I require no explanations, sir. You are guilty of gross neglect and carelessness!"

Falland left the p.o.o.p.

The damage was not sufficiently serious to delay the ship, and, having chopped herself free, she proceeded on her journey, her Commander taking upon himself the duties of the deposed Navigator.

It was unfortunate that, in calculating the course to be steered, he applied 3 deviation the wrong way. It was equally unfortunate that he miscalculated the set of the current, since it was these two things which, at 11.53 a.m. precisely, caused the gunboat to come into violent contact with a ledge of rocks with barely six feet of water over them at high water.

"Good heavens! What's that?" shouted the skipper, as there came a series of m.u.f.fled, grinding crashes under water and the ship stopped dead.

"We've hit something, sir," said Pardoe, who was on the p.o.o.p. They had, and for some hours remained stuck fast. In fact, the _Puffin's_ bones would have been there to this day if she had not been steaming at her leisurely, economical speed of 7 1/2 knots, and it was only by sheer good luck, and with the a.s.sistance of salvage tugs and appliances from Hong-Kong, that she was ever got off at all. As it was she was merely badly damaged, and came back into harbour in tow of one tug, while a couple of others, with their pumps working at full speed and gushing forth streams of water, were lashed alongside her.

Falland was not court-martialled, but a week later Commander Potvin, after an interview with the Admiral and certain medical officers, found that the climate of Hong-Kong was too rigorous for his const.i.tution, and embarked on board a P. and O. steamer for pa.s.sage home to England _en route_ for Yarmouth.

The gunboat's officers watched her until she was out of sight, and then repaired to the wardroom and indulged in c.o.c.ktails.

"I'm sorry for him," said No. One, lifting his gla.s.s with a grin.

"Here's luck to him, and to us."

"Salve," nodded the doctor, swallowing his potion at a gulp.