"
"Then do it!"
"Why?"
"Because, Joe Byng my boy, you and I want shore leave; and the pup--
and he's a decent pup--must suffer for to make a 'tween-deck holiday.
Get my meaning? I've a propagandrum that'll work this tide. You
go and set the fuse in the pup's inside; and mind you, time it right,
my son--for two bells when the old man's in the chair!"
So Joe Byng, who was something of an expert in the way and ways of
dogs, departed in search of an oiler with whom he was on terms of
condescension; and he returned to the fo'castle a little later with
the nastiest, most awful-smelling mess that ever emanated even from
the engine-room of a destroyer in the Persian Gulf (where grease and
things run rancid.)
II.
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.
Pages:
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297