Lying lazily at anchor off the reeking beach of Adra Bight, the Puncher
looked peaceful and complacent--which is altogether opposite to what she
and her commander were, or had been, for a month. The ship hummed her
shut-in discontent, as a hive does when the bees propose to swarm, and
her commander--who never, be it noted, went to windward of the one word
“damn”--used that one word very frequently.
He sat “abaft the mainmast” at a table that was splotched already with
abundant perspiration, and the acting engineer who stood in front of him
shifted from foot to foot in attitudes expressive of increasing agony
of mind. It grew obvious at last that there was a limit to Mr. Hartley's
store of courteous deference.
There had been news, red hot but wrong, of dhows loaded to the
water-line with guns and ammunition somewhere up the Gulf. India, ever
fretful for her tribes beyond the border, had borrowed Applewaite and
his destroyer by instant cablegram, and jealously held records had been
broken while the Puncher quartered those indecent seas and heated up her
bearings. It was almost too much to have to come back empty-handed. It
was quite too much to have to run for shelter under the lee of Adra's
uninviting coral reef. And to be told by an acting engineer that
he would have to stay a week was utterly beyond the scope of polite
conversation.
“Why a week?” asked Commander Applewaite, with eyebrows raised to the
nth power of incredulity.
“Why a week?” asked Mr. Hartley, breaking down the barrier of
self-restraint at last. “I'll tell you why. Because, although the guts
of her are so much scrap-iron, you've a crew of engineers who could
build machinery of hell-slag--build it, mind--and could get steam out o'
the Sahara, where there isn't any water at all.
“Because--conditional upon the act o' God and your permission--I'm
willing to perform a miracle. Because the whole engine-room complement
is dancing mad for shore leave, and there'll be none this side o'
Bombay; and because, in consequence o' that, creation would be a mild
name for what's about to happen under gratings until the shafts revolve
again. Man, I wish ye'd take one peep at her bearings, though ye
wouldn't understand.
“Because you're lucky; any other engineer in all the navies o' the world
would take a month to tinker with her, even if he didn't have to send to
Bombay for a tow. Because--”
“That'll do!” said Applewaite, his mind wandering already in search
of suitable employment for the crew. “Get the repairs done as soon as
possible; we stay here until you have finished what is necessary.”
It looked like an evil moment for asking favors, but it was the time
laid down in Regulations when such things as favors may be had; and
it was the moment Curley Crothers had picked out for asking for shore
leave.
“Come 'ere, Scamp. Come along, Scamp. Come along 'ere--good boy!” he
coaxed, dragging by a short chain in his wake the sorriest-looking
bull terrier that ever acted mascot in the British or any other navy.
Courteous and huge and cap in hand, his weather-beaten face smiling
respectfully above a snow-white uniform, he took his stand before the
little table. His outward bearing was one of certainty, but his
shrewd, slightly puckered eyes alternately conned the expression of his
commander's face and watched the dog.
The lee, scuppers were the goal of the dog's immediate ambition, for he
was a well-brought-up dog and such of the decencies as were not his by
instinct he had learned by painful and repeated acquisition. But at the
moment Curley Crothers showed a wondrous disregard for etiquette.
“He's very sick, sir,” he asserted, tugging a little at the chain in
the hope of producing instant proof of his contention. But the dog was
gamiest of the game, and swallowed hurriedly.
“Well? I'm not a vet. What about it?”
“The whole ship's crew 'ud be sorry, sir, if 'e was to lose 'is number.
He's the best mascot this ship ever had, by all accounts.”
“He hasn't brought us much luck this run!” smiled Applewaite,
remembering a long list of “previous convictions” and wondering what
Crothers might be up to next.
“No, sir? We're still a-top o' the water, sir.”
“Oh! He gets the credit for that, eh? But for him, I suppose we'd have
piled up on the reef yesterday?”
“Saving your presence, sir.”
Curley Crothers made a gesture expressive of a world of compliment and
praise, but he kept one eye steadily on the dog; he seemed to imply
that but for the presence of the dog on board the commander might have
forgotten his seamanship.
“Well? What do you suggest?”
“Seeing the poor dog's sick, sir, and you and all of us so fond of him,
and all he needs is exercise, I thought perhaps as 'ow you'd order me
an' Byng, sir, to take 'im for a run ashore. There'd be jackals and
pi-dogs for 'im to chase. A bit o' sport 'ud set 'im up in a jiffy. He's
languishing--that's what's the matter with him.”
There were almost tears in his voice as he tugged at the chain
surreptitiously, in a vain effort to produce the cataclysm that was
overdue. But for all his efforts to appear affected, his eyes were
smiling. So were his commander's.
“Why Byng?” he asked.
“Byng cleans him, sir. He knows Byng.”
“Then, why you?”
“Why; he knows me too, sir, and between the two of us, we'd manage him
proper. S'posin' he was to get huntin' on his own and one of us was
tired out chasin' him, t'other could run and catch him. If there was
only one of us, he couldn't.”
“I see. Well? One of the other men might take him on the chain. A
good-conduct man, for instance.”
Crothers tugged at the chain, and the unhappy dog drew away toward the
scuppers with all his remaining strength.
“He's cussed about the chain, sir--apt to drag on it and try to chaw it
through. Besides, sir, when a dawg's sick, he's like a man--same as me
an' you; he likes to 'ave 'is partic'lar pals with 'im. Now, that dawg's
fond o' me an' Byng.'
“I see. But supposing exercise isn't what he wants after all? Suppose he
needs a long rest and lots of sleep? How about that?”
The argument had reached a crisis, and Curley realized it. Joking or
not, when the commander of a ship takes too long in reaching a decision
he generally does not reach a favorable one. The leash was tugged
again, this time with some severity. The martyred Scamp was drawn on
his protesting haunches close to the official table, that the commander
might have a better view of his distress. And then the expected
happened--voluminously.
Curley stood with an expression of wooden-headed, abject innocence on
his big, broad face, and looked straight in front of him.
“He certainly is sick, sir,” he remarked.
“Sick. Good heavens! The dog's turning himself inside out! That's the
last time a thing like this happens; he's the last dog I ever take on
a cruise. Take him away at once! Bosun--call some one to wipe up that
disgusting mess!”
“Take him ashore, did you say, sir?”
“Take him out of this! Take him anywhere you like! Yes, take him ashore
and lose him--feed him to the sharks--give him to the Arabs--take him
away, that's all!”
“Me and Byng, sir?”
“Yes, you and Byng! Did you hear me tell you to take him away?”
“Very good, sir; thank you!”
Curley Crothers saluted without the vestige of a smile, and hurried
off before the dog could show too early signs of recovering health and
strength or the commander could change his mind.
“Come on, Scamp,” he whispered. “That was nothing but a temporary
disaccommodation to your tummy, doglums; we'll soon have you to rights
again.”
He dived into the fo'castle with the dog behind him, and there were
those who noticed that the terrier's whip-like tail no longer hugged his
stomach, but was waving to the world at large.
And thirty minutes later, as the Puncher's launch put off with Curley
and Joe Byng comfortably seated in the stern, it was obvious to any one
who cared to look that Scamp was the happiest and healthiest terrier in
Asia.
“Now, I wonder what they did to him,” mused the Puncher's commander,
watching from beneath his awning. “Those two men live up to the name
they brought aboard! I believe they'd find means and a good excuse for
walking to windward of a First Sea Lord!”