"My dear chap, you've slept solidly for nearly three days. I've seen to
that."
Popple Opstein came in, looking anxious, until Nicholson told him that I
was as "right as rain". "Man, you are lucky!" he cried, his face growing
violet with excitement; "she had nearly four hundred rifles on board.
Look! I've brought you one," and he held up a brand-new Mauser rifle.
I handled it lovingly--my first capture. "You won't 'pot' at any poor
wretched sentry on the Indian frontier, my beauty," I thought.
"How did you find the _B.A._?" I asked; and my chum explained that the
_Intrepid_ had taken my dhow in tow, steaming to the north'ard; that at
daybreak the launch had been sighted, and though she had raised steam
again she could not use her engines as something had fouled her
propeller, below the waterline of course, where Mr. Scarlett could not
get at it.
"The result was," old Popple Opstein went on to tell me, "that we had to
tow her as well, and when we anchored here sent our divers down to clear
it."
Later on Nicholson allowed me to dress, Percy smiling out of his great
eyes when he brought me some clean clothes. Afterwards I went aboard
the _Bunder Abbas_ to hear Mr. Scarlett's account of what had happened
and to see what repairs were still necessary. I found people from the
_Intrepid_ busily straightening the bent stanchions and fitting a new
after-awning cut from an old awning belonging to the cruiser.
"She'll look all right in a couple of days," Mr. Scarlett said, as he
and I watched the last few boxes of ammunition being hoisted up through
the dhow's hatches and transferred to the _Intrepid's_ battery deck. It
was a most comforting sight.
"Thought I'd seen the last of you, sir, when that big squall struck the
dhow, and thought you'd seen the last of the _Bunder Abbas_ when she
half-filled herself with water, her fires had been put out, and that
hawser coiled itself round the screw.
"My, sir, but I was being sick every few minutes with pure fright--I was
that frightened that I wanted to jump overboard and get the drowning
over quietly, without a lot of lascars howling and clawing round me--as
I was waiting for 'em to do when she did sink. We made some kind of a
sea-anchor with what was left of that awning and some spars, got her
head to the wind, and baled her out with buckets--with buckets, sir!
Three mortal hours that took, and another six to raise steam again, the
lascars all preferring to drown up on deck, so not a blessed one would
go below.
"We never noticed that hawser round her screw till we let the steam in
her engines, wound a few more turns round her screw, and brought them up
all standing. Thank God! we hadn't cast off our sea-anchor, or we'd
have had all the making of another over again--and dead tired, tired as
dogs, we all were."
There was this to say for Mr. Scarlett--I never doubted him. Whenever
he told me of anything, I felt perfectly sure that he had told me all.
However, I was inquisitive to know how he himself had actually behaved,
so could not help asking Corporal Webster later on what kind of a time
they had had, hoping that he might have something to say about him.
"Awful weren't the word for it, sir; the worst time I've ever had in my
life. We none of us thought she'd float, and she wouldn't have but for
the gunner--sick one moment, working like half a dozen men the next.
Why, sir, when we steadied her into the wind, an' baled her out, he laid
the fires in the boilers himself, no one else knowing how to do it, them
lascar chaps funking going below, and we chipping up a mess table (the
only dry bit of wood on board) and passing the bits down to him."
I learnt still more of that extraordinary man by watching Percy, the
Tamil boy. His eyes showed the most unbounded admiration for the
gunner. He simply slaved for him all day long, and seemed to be
perfectly happy so long as he was doing something for him: pipeclaying
his helmet, or washing out his vests--anything, in fact.
I don't pretend to be a judge of character--luckily--and he certainly
puzzled me. That gale had told me more about Mr. Scarlett, Dobson, and
Jaffa than I should have learnt in six months of ordinary cruising.
*CHAPTER VI*
*The Edge of Civilization*
For two more days the _Intrepid_ remained at anchor, three miles off
Sheikh Hill, within sight of the open shallow creek running up to Bungi
village and of those cliffs from which the Afghan, a week before, had
wasted ammunition on the _Bunder Abbas_. The launch remained alongside
of her and the dhow astern. Why we were thus delayed I am not certain,
but from the many curious and inquisitive questions Nicholson
continually asked me, and from the many times I caught him watching me,
I imagine that it was principally on my account, and that Commander
Duckworth would not send me away cruising by myself until Nicholson had
reported favourably.
At the end of this time both the _Bunder Abbas_ and I were in
first-class condition: the bandage which covered my wounds had been
replaced by what Nicholson called a collodion dressing, and the _Bunder
Abbas_ showed no signs whatever of her recent hard usage. I was ordered
to tow my empty dhow out to sea, set her on fire, and sink her. This I
did with very great regret, for, although she was old and rotten, she
was my first capture, and I wanted her to be condemned and sold properly
by a prize court. However, it was not to be; so she was burnt to the
water's edge, and her stone ballast quickly sank her.
We all knew that her cargo of arms and ammunition represented not a
tenth of the great number reported to have been brought down to Jeb for
shipment to the Makran coast, and everybody felt certain that sooner or
later--probably sooner--more dhows would endeavour to run across.
We were therefore very grateful when we did at last receive orders for
patrolling between the two inlets.
Two cutters belonging to the _Intrepid_, with a Maxim gun in the bows of
each, had to patrol the creeks, keeping out of rifle shot from shore
during the day and running close in at night. My chum, Baron Popple
Opstein, commanded No. 1; and Evans, a little rat of a lieutenant, full
of "go", but all nerves, No. 2.
I was ordered to patrol from one to the other, backwards and forwards,
on a line about six miles from the shore, during the daytime, and to
close to within a mile of the shore at sunset. I was also ordered to
communicate with both cutters each morning, as soon after daylight as
possible, to receive reports of any happenings during the preceding
night. Still farther out to sea the _Intrepid_ herself would patrol a
line twenty miles long, also closing at dusk to within sighting distance
of a Very's light, should we want to communicate with her by firing one.
All being ready, Evans, Popple Opstein, and I went aboard the cruiser,
fully expecting that Commander Duckworth would give us a great deal of
unnecessary advice, as though we were a lot of babies, not to be trusted
a hundred yards from him; instead of which he simply asked us if we
understood his written orders, and when we answered that we did, merely
said: "Right you are! You can get away as soon as you like. Good
night!"
"He's a splendid chap to serve under," Evans said in his nervous,
hurried way of talking. "He's always just like that."
It was grand to be sent away entirely on one's own, without being tied
down this way and that before ever the conditions which might
conceivably happen had happened.
"Imagine anything like this in the good old Home Fleet!" my chum said as
we parted. "We should be fathered and mothered day and night."
So, an hour before the sun set, I took the two cutters in tow, dropped
_Intrepid_ No. 1 close under Sheikh Hill, and steamed down to
Kuh-i-Mubarak with No. 2, leaving her there in the mouth of the deep
creek running up to Sudab, the village where I had seen the camels.
"Good night and good luck!" I shouted, as I steamed off to sea to
commence my own job.
No one expected a dhow to slip across during those first days, because
there were so few hours of darkness; but the moon, of course, was rising
later each night, and every twenty-four hours increased our chances.
However, nothing came in sight, and on the seventh day--a Thursday it
was--according to my orders, I fetched _Intrepid_ No. 2 back to the
anchorage off Sheikh Hill, and found the _Intrepid_ herself anchored
there, with my chum's boat already alongside.
I made fast to her, and immediately began the job of filling up with
coal, water, and provisions; whilst the crews of the two cutters went
inboard in order to get a good meal and a comfortable sleep whilst their
boats were being revictualled. Sleep in a cutter crammed with gear is
not a success. It does not matter how comfortable you try to make
yourself, there is always something sticking into your back; and a
chum's foot in your face, though quite an unimportant detail, does not
induce slumber, especially if the owner happens to be restless.
I went aboard to have my wounds dressed. Nicholson took out the
stitches, and said that both gashes were healing well. I wanted him to
let me take Wiggins back again. I had had to leave him behind with his
broken ribs (very much against his wish), but he was not yet well enough
to rejoin.
Then my chum came aboard the _Bunder Abbas_ and smoked his dirty old
pipe with me on the little platform deck outside my cabin. We sat in
those two easy canvas chairs under the awning and had a good time.
"Enjoyed the week?" I asked.
"Splendid," he said, beaming and showing his white teeth. "Splendid."
"Did that Afghan chap have a shot at you?"
"Once or twice," he nodded. "He's a rattling poor shot."
"Shoot back?"
"Once or twice; never hit him."
He was on board for three hours, and I don't believe he said another
word (as a matter of fact he slept most of the time); but as he was
going away he wanted to know whether I had seen Mr. Scarlett's snake
again.
I had not. He kept a bandage round it now. If he did uncover it, he
did so at night.
Popple Opstein was evidently still very interested in it.
"I wish he'd let me try that dodge of a pair of pincers and a bit of tin
slipped under it, or wiring its head or something," he said.