[Illustration: MAP ILLUSTRATING THE OPERATIONS AGAINST THE PIRATES]
*CHAPTER I*
*The Luck of Midshipman Glover*
Ordered Abroad. Hurrah!
_Midshipman Glover explains how Luck came to him_
It all started absolutely unexpectedly whilst we were on leave and
staying with Mellins in the country.
When I say "we", I mean Tommy Toddles and myself. His real name was
Foote, but nobody ever called him anything but "Toddles", and I do
believe that he would almost have forgotten what his real name actually
was if it had not been engraved on the brass plate on the lid of his sea
chest, and if he had not been obliged to have it marked very plainly on
his washing.
We had passed out of the _Britannia_ a fortnight before--passed out as
full-blown midshipmen, too, which was all due to luck--and were both
staying with Christie at his pater's place in Somerset.
It was Christie whom we called Mellins, because he was so tremendously
fat; and though he did not mind us doing so in the least, it was rather
awkward whilst we were staying in his house, for we could hardly help
calling his pater "Colonel Mellins".
You see, he was even fatter than Mellins himself, and the very first
night we were there--we were both just a little nervous--Toddles did
call him Colonel Mellins when we wished him "Good-night", and he glared
at us so fiercely, that we slunk up to our room and really thought we'd
better run away.
We even opened the window and looked out, feeling very miserable, to see
if it was possible to scramble down the ivy or the rusty old water-spout
without waking everybody, when Mellins suddenly burst in with a pillow
he had screwed up jolly hard, and nearly banged us out of the window. By
the time we had driven him back to his room at the other end of the
corridor, and flattened him out, we had forgotten all about it, and we
crept back like mice, and went to sleep.
It was just at this time that the papers came out with those
extraordinary yarns about the increase of piracy on the Chinese coast,
and how some Chinese merchants had clubbed together to buy ships in
England and fit out an expedition to clear the sea again.
You can imagine how interested we three were, especially as fifty years
ago Toddles's father had taken part in a great number of scraps with the
Cantonese pirates, and Toddles rattled off the most exciting yarns which
his father had told him.
We saw in the papers that the Admiralty was about to lend naval officers
to take command, but it never struck us that we might possibly get a
look in, till one morning a letter came for me from Cousin Milly, whose
father is an old admiral and lives at Fareham, and isn't particularly
pleasant when I go to see him.
My aunt! weren't we excited! Why, she actually wrote that if I wanted
to go she thought she could get me appointed to the squadron, as the
captain who was going in charge was a great friend of hers.
You can imagine what I wrote, and how I buttered her up and called her a
brick, and said she was a "perfect ripper". I ended up by saying that
"Mr. Arthur Bouchier Christie, midshipman, and Mr. Thomas Algernon
Foote, midshipman, chums of mine, would like to go too".
I was very careful to give their full names to prevent mistakes, and put
"midshipman" after their names just to show that they had also passed
out of the _Britannia_. near the top of the list, and so must be pretty
good at chasing "X and Y", which, of course, is a great "leg up" in the
navy.
Two mornings after this Milly sent me a postcard: "Hope to manage it for
the three of you".
We were so excited after that, that we did nothing but wait about for
the postman, and even went down to the village post-office and hung
about there, almost expecting a telegram.
Well, you would hardly believe it! The very next morning our
appointments were in the papers.