"What's the _Bunder Abbas_?" I asked the porter outside.
"The _Bunder Habbas_!" he corrected me, repeating the name to give
himself time to think.
"Something in the Persian Gulf?" I said, to aid his memory.
But he didn't know--none of the other porters knew; so he rang up some
mysterious individual on the telephone.
"There's a gen'l'man 'ere wants to know what the _Bunder Habbas_ his.
_Habbas--Bunder Habbas_--hout in the Persian Gulf."
He had a slight argument about pronunciation and spelling, and then
turned to me triumphantly. "She's a harmed launch, sir, that's what she
his, a-looking out to stop them Arabs a-gun-running," and hastened to
answer a bell, pocketing the half-crown I gave him.
I hurried away down the corridor, and was so excited that I did not
notice my former captain until he tapped me on the shoulder.
"I've just come round," he said; "will see the Second Sea Lord
myself--put in a word for you--thought I might fix it up at once--good
luck to you if you get it."
"Thank you very much, sir," I said gratefully, and hurried out into
Whitehall.
"Armed launch! Skipper of an armed launch--Collingwood dead of
sunstroke--gunner gone mad," and I grinned to myself and walked along
like a bird.
"Fancy getting away from all this!" I thought, and looked round at the
babel of traffic and the throngs of people. Fancy getting away from the
Channel Fleet for a time! I thought of my ship, the _Russell_, lying
under Portland Bill, with other huge grey monsters; and thought of the
tense readiness for war aboard them, and the strain of it, month after
month. In a few weeks, with luck, I might be three thousand miles away,
patrolling the Persian Gulf--free as air--with a good launch under me,
and probably a 4.7-inch gun in her bows, ready to tackle any gun-running
Arab dhow which came along. Prize money, too--there'd be a chance of
that as well.
It was grand.
Collingwood, poor old Collingwood--I'd known him in the
_Britannia_--dead of sunstroke, and the gunner gone mad! That didn't
sound as if the job was exactly a bed of roses. But Copeland had put my
name down--the die was cast; I didn't mind if the whole crew had died of
sunstroke and plague combined. I rather hoped that they had, and that
any other chap who applied for the _Bunder Abbas_ would--well--feel a
little less keen about her when he heard.
I didn't notice the rain or the mud splashed on my trousers from the
roadway. I could have whooped with joy.
All these silly clothes my tailor bothered to make tight here or loose
there, to show more or show less of the waistcoat, as silly fashion
changed--why, with luck, in a month's time, a pair of flannel trousers
and a cricket shirt would be all the wardrobe I should want. I'd be my
own skipper, with a dozen blue-jackets, and a stout launch under us;
that 4.7-inch gun--or perhaps it would be a twelve-pounder--shining in
the bows under the awning. Wouldn't it shine, too! There'd be nothing
much else to do but burnish it, and burnished it should be till I could
shave by it.
All that afternoon I waited patiently at the club for the evening paper,
and directly the waiter brought it into the smoking-room I pounced on
it.
Sure enough, under "Naval Appointments" was my name--"Paul R. Martin
appointed _Intrepid_" (she was one of the cruisers on the East Indies
Station) "for armed launch _Bunder Abbas_".
I gave a shout of delight, which rather startled some old fogies there;
and a man sitting near--a naval doctor whom I knew slightly--laughed at
me, wanting to know what was the matter.