WORKS BY 
 
 MAJOR W. P. DRURY 
 
 MEN AT ARMS 
 
 THE TADPOLE OF AN ARCHANGEL, THE 
 PETRIFIED EYE, AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 THE PERADVENTURES OF PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 BEARERS OF THE BURDEN 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE FLAGSHIP 
 
 THE SHADOW ON THE QUARTER-DECK 
 
 LONG BOW AND BROAD ARROW 
 
 LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, LTD.
 
 The Peradventures of 
 Private Pagett 
 
 BY 
 
 MAJOR W. P. DRURY 
 
 ROYAL MARINE LIGHT INFANTRY 
 (RETIRED) 
 
 NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, LD. 
 
 1915
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BT 
 
 RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST. S.B., 
 
 AND BUNGAY. SUFFOLK.
 
 PR 
 
 IcOOJ 
 
 To 
 
 THE RANK AND FILE 
 OF MY OLD REGIMENT (AND PRIVATE PAGETTS) 
 
 3 fceMcate tbis JBoofc
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAOi: 
 I THE DECORATION OF DREADNOUGHT PKBCIOUS I 
 
 II. IN THE MA'JTER OF A GUNBOAT . . 33 
 
 III. " HIS IRREVERENCE " . . .65 
 
 IV. THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB . . 97 
 V. THE SIGNAL GU&S OF GDNGAPORE . .129 
 
 VI. HOW PRIVATE PAGETT AVERTED WAR WITH 
 
 RUSSIA ..... 163 
 
 VII. THE UNPOPULARITY OF PRIVATE PAGETT . 191 
 
 VIII. IN THE BAG FLAT . 215 
 
 A 2
 
 THE DECORATION OF 
 DREADNOUGHT PRECIOUS
 
 I 
 
 " IF there was one thing more'n another," 
 observed Mr. Pagett, landlord of the " Coach 
 and Horses," parish councillor, vicar's warden, 
 and late private in the Marines, " if there was 
 one thing more'n another that Commander 
 John Dreadnought Precious, R.N., ab'orred, it 
 was to see or hear 'imself addressed by his 
 middle name. Considerin' the oncommonness 
 of his surname, John Precious, or John D. 
 Precious, or even J. D. Precious he held to be 
 a sufficient tally for all practical purposes. But 
 'uman nature, especially naval 'uman nature " 
 Mr. Pagett used the spittoon with vigour 
 " bein' what it is, he was invariably known 
 throughout the service as Dreadnought Pre- 
 cious, with the accent circumgrave, as a parley- 
 voo would say, on the Dread." 
 
 3
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " The nickname " I began. 
 
 " Wrong," he interrupted, " utterly and 
 'opelessly wrong. It was no nickname at all, 
 Mister, bein' give him by his gawdfathers an' 
 gawdmothers in his baptism, wherein he was 
 made but there, it ain't my pidgin to learn 
 you the church catechism, to say nothin' of its 
 bein' superterial to this story." 
 
 " But how could any clergyman ?" 
 
 Mr. Pagett, his canteen pocket-handkerchief 
 rolled into a ball, waived the objection aside as 
 though he were window cleaning. 
 
 " I 'aven't been churchwarden all this time," 
 he retorted severely, " without knowin' that a 
 shoregoin' parson may objec to christen a 
 infant by any tally that ain't in Crockford's 
 Clergy List. But with a naval chapling it's 
 different. His bishop, in a manner o' speak- 
 in', is the capt'in of his ship ; and if that bishop 
 orders him to christen a infant on the 'igh seas 
 by a name out o' the Navy List instead of out 
 o' Crockford, how is the chapling to refuse 
 without breakin' the Articles o' War and ren- 
 derin' himself liable to court-martial ? " 
 
 " So Commander Precious was born at sea," 
 4
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 I murmured, evading an expression of opinion 
 on so delicate a point of law. 
 
 " On board o' the old line-o'-battleship 
 Dreadnought" explained Mr. Pagett, " of 
 which his father was capt'in, and which ac- 
 counts, as the sayin' is, for the milk in the 
 bloomin' cokernut. But if the Commander 
 was aggrieved at 'aving eleven letters too 
 many before his patronymic, he was still more 
 sick at the paucity o' capitals abaft it. With 
 the exception of the ' R.N.,' which every 
 second-class stoker or gunroom cook's mate 
 was equally entitled to write after his tally, 
 Dreadnought Precious hadn't a single letter o' 
 the Roman alphabet to top-up his signature 
 with. He'd nothing but his middle name 
 and that 'e detested to distinguish him from 
 the great majority of orf'cers o' that period. 
 For I am speakin' of yesterday, when the 
 most valued decoration after the V.C. was a 
 war medal with its clasps, and not of to-day, 
 when every village grocer is a ' Colonel V.D.' 
 and is 'ung round with trinkets like a walkin' 
 Christmas tree." 
 
 Mr. Pagett paused, partly to shake his head 
 5
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 over the degeneracy of the times, and partly to 
 empty the tumbler which, as a guest in the 
 private bar, it was my proud privilege to keep 
 plenished. 
 
 " When me an' Capt'in Precious first 'ad the 
 honour of servin' together," continued the ex- 
 private presently, " he'd been 'ankerin' for a 
 bit o' ribbon and a letter or two o' the alpha- 
 bet for nigh on twenty years. And you may 
 lay to it that it was a lucky day for 'im when 
 Private Pagett was detailed to join the 'Ermi 
 One. For although it is the lower deck in 
 gen'ral (when it isn't a petticoat at White- 
 hall) which really works the commandin' 
 orfcer's promotion, it stands to reason that a 
 onassuming yet 'ighly gifted man like me 
 must be a special blessing to the capt'in with 
 whom he is brought in contac'. The 'Ermi 
 One " 
 
 " The Hermione got it at last ! " I ex- 
 claimed involuntarily, after a mental run 
 through the Navy List. 
 
 Mr. Pagett eyed me over his pipe-bowl with 
 the seafarer's indulgence for longshore pre- 
 sumption. 
 
 6
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 " I won't deny," he said kindly, " but what 
 you might be justified in correctin' me as 
 regards public-'ouses or even churches. But 
 when it comes to ships' names, Mister, you can 
 'ardly expec' ME to accept the pronounciation 
 of a shore-goin' civilian. Any'ow, as I was 
 about to say, the the well, you 'eard was 
 a twin-screw sloop of six guns, nine 'undred 
 and eighty tons, and fourteen 'undred indi- 
 cated horse-power. We were commissioned 
 for that ex'ilarating job known as pertic'lar 
 service on the West Coast of Africa, and, 'av- 
 ing in consequence nothing pertic'lar to do, 
 when we weren't dawdlin' between the mud 
 banks o' pestilential rivers we were rollin' our 
 nettings under the oily ground-swell o' the 
 Bights. I give you my word it was dull, an' 
 if I wasn't a churchwarden I'd put another 
 adjective before the dull. But what was even 
 worse, from the skipper's point of view, than 
 the dulness, an' the heat, an' the fever, an' 
 the cockroaches, an' the empty-belly pangs of 
 'alf the year, was the 'opelessness on that 
 gawd-forsaken strip of red-'ot globe of pickin' 
 up so much as a F.O.S. (Friend o' Sloper), to 
 
 7
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 say nothin' of a C.M.G., C.B., or D.S.O. Yet 
 it was up one o' the onlikeliest of them muddy 
 rivers that Dreadnought Precious got 'alf the 
 letters in the bloomin' alphabet. It was this 
 way, look. 
 
 " One day, as we were slowly steamin' past 
 the river's mouth I misremember its tally, but 
 it was somewhere near the Gold Coast the 
 look-out reported a surf boat coming through 
 the breakers on the bar. As she was obvi- 
 ously endeavourin' to intercep' the ship, and 
 as there was a white man franticlly wavin' his 
 'at in the stern-sheets, the skipper stopped the 
 injins and ordered the starboard accommoda- 
 tion ladder to be lowered. But when he 'ad 
 bowed the white man into his after cabin 
 under the impression he was a consul and 
 found he was a mission'ry, the langwidge he 
 used was a revelation even to his Maltese cook. 
 For experience 'ad taught Dreadnought Precious 
 that the appearance of a mission'ry upon the 
 quarter-deck usually meant the turning of the 
 long-sufferin' native worm, and a distasteful 
 job for the Navy in the shape of a punitive 
 expedition. 
 
 8
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 " Five" minutes later, 'owever, he rang for 
 his stooard, and 'alf-an-hour after that the 
 mission'ry's back teeth were awash with cham- 
 pagne wine. For a harrowin' tale 'ad been 
 told of a little bando' brother workers stranded 
 on a sandbank up the river and surrounded 
 by onconverted cannibals, and the skipper at 
 last saw his opportoonity of of " 
 
 "Of getting the D.S.O.," I suggested with 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 "Of helpin' the great mission'ry cause," 
 corrected Mr. Pagett severely, "and so im- 
 patient was he to begin that he would not 
 even wait for the top o' high water the only 
 state o' the tide when a ship of the of our 
 tonnage could cross the bar. The nat'ral con- 
 sequence was that she took the ground 
 though fortunately before she'd got much way 
 on. Even as it was she stopped so dead that 
 the projectiles jumped out o' the ready-racks 
 on deck and the wine decanters out o' their 
 sockets on the wardroom sideboard below, and 
 we were pooped by a muddy sea that stained 
 the sacred quarter-deck till the end o' the 
 commission. 
 
 9
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " For one swelterin' hour the First Loo- 
 tenant kep' the entire ship's company jumpin* 
 in time to the sergeant-major's walkin'-out 
 stick, while Precious 'imself 'eld on to the 
 poop rail and said things what made the 
 mission'ry shiver in spite o' the heat and 
 stuff 'is fingers in 'is ear'oles. At the top o' 
 high water, not a minute before, we got her 
 off again, and makin' up for lost time by 
 lightin' another boiler, we entered the bloomin' 
 river. 
 
 " My word ! but it was a dismal enough 
 spot for a' undertaker-mute's 'oneymoon. 
 It 'minded me at first of a sloppy road be- 
 tween two squeegeed banks o' mud waitin' for 
 the County Council's muck cart that never 
 'urries. But 'ere and there we presently see 
 upon the mud a fallen log, which sometimes 
 came to life and split open at one end into 
 a double row o' pointed teeth, and waddled 
 into the water as though it 'oped the bo'sun's 
 mate might be goin' to pipe ' 'Ands to 
 bathe ! ' The dense forests which backed the 
 mudbanks each side, and which the look-out 
 on the fore-topmast cross-trees judged to be 
 
 10
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 a trifle larger than England, were also full 
 of devils as bloodthirsty as the wrigglin' logs. 
 For somethin' too much mission'ry-meetin', 
 maybe had set most o' the nobility an* 
 gentry of the neighbour'ood by the ears, and 
 the air was full o' the muffled thunder of 
 'undreds of invisible mallets tappin' on the 
 perforated 'eads o' their wooden war drums. 
 At nightfall we anchored, settin' a double 
 watch in case we should be attacked. But 
 nothin' 'appened, and next day was as dull 
 as any in that exasperatin'ly dull commission 
 till one bell in the first dog, which you 
 would call 'alf-past four p.m. of the after- 
 noon." 
 
 I admitted the soft impeachment (with a 
 mental reservation) and again availed myself 
 of the proud privilege already referred to. 
 
 "For at that hour," continued Mr. Pagett, 
 dabbing his lips with the cotton ball in his 
 palm, " we opened out a long reach o' river, 
 the far end o' which was as black with niggers 
 as a Donegal lough with wild duck in the 
 autumn. Some were in canoes, but most 
 were crowded round a fire on a sandbank in 
 
 ii
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 inid-stream, at sight o' which the mission'ry, 
 who was watchin' from the t'gallant fo'c'sle, 
 give a deep groan and sat down 'eavily on 
 the slide of the four-inch Q.F. gun. 
 
 " ' Too late ! ' he moans, wringin' his 'ands, 
 ' too late ! My pore feller-labourers 'ave been 
 cooked an' swallered, and I alone am left to 
 tell the bloomin' tale ! ' 
 
 " ' Clear away that there bow-chaser, 1 
 bellows the skipper from the poop, ' and give 
 the sons of 'Am a round o' blank ! ' 
 
 " When the mission'ry onderstood what 
 was goin' to 'appen, he jumped up from the 
 slide quicker even than what he'd sat down, 
 and sprinted below to the sick-bay for all he 
 was worth to borrow a bit of cotton wool 
 from the stooard to put in his ear'oles. 
 
 " I give you my word that a lyddite shell 
 could 'ardly have scared them cannibals worse 
 than that 'armless blank charge did. They 
 were in their canoes and paddlin' for the bank 
 before the report 'ad ceased echoin' in the 
 woods, and by the time the smoke 'ad cleared 
 away there wasn't so much as a square inch 
 of loin cloth to be seen. Apparently, too, 
 
 12
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 they'd taken no mission'ry with them inside 
 o' their stummicks; for, although a great 
 cookin' kettle 'ung over the fire from a try- 
 pot, it evidently belonged to the three white 
 men who we were partic'larly pleased to see 
 standin' on the right side of it." 
 
 " Why the right side in particular ? " I 
 asked weakly, as Mr. Pagett paused for re- 
 freshment. 
 
 " Because it was the outside," he grinned, 
 " and one doesn't like to think of even a 
 mission'ry bein' boiled. 
 
 "With the injin-room telegraph at dead 
 slow, we crept on till the leadsmen in the 
 chains got soundin's that warned the skipper 
 to stop the ship and let go an anchor. Then 
 the first cutter was called away to fetch off 
 the castaway mission'ries ; and me, and 'alf- 
 a-dozen other privates, and the sergeant- 
 major were sent with the cutter in case the 
 cannibals should take it into their 'eads to 
 return. 
 
 "As we pulled towards the three pore 
 fellers on the sandbank we noticed that they 
 were walkin' about wildly, an' kickin' up the 
 
 13
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 sand, and flingin' their arms to the sky, an' 
 rantin' in the best platform manner. Our 
 mission'ry, who 'd come with us in the boat, 
 explained that they were singin' 'ymns of 
 thanksgiving for their deliv 'ranee. But when 
 we could 'ear more distinctly, he buried his 
 face in his hands and said he hoped they'd be 
 forgiven them words, as their narrow escape 
 from the cookin' pot appeared to have turned 
 their brains. And it certainly seemed as if 
 it 'ad. For although two o' them, bein' 
 parley-voos, were screechin' the onintelligible 
 gibberish of their respectful countries, the 
 third was a 'omely Englishman, and he was 
 cursing the British Navy in adjectives that 
 it would be onbecomin' of a churchwarden to 
 repeat. 
 
 " As soon as the boat's forefoot touched the 
 sand the First Lootenant, who was in command, 
 jumps out and takes his 'at off to the pore 
 mad mission'ries. 
 
 " ' Good-afternoon/ he says, ' glad we turned 
 up in time. I'll send 'alf-a-dozen o' my boat's 
 crew,' he says, 'to 'elp you down with your 
 five-o'clock tea kettle yonder.' 
 
 H
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 " ' Tea-kettle be 'anged ! ' says our country- 
 man, chokin' with rage. ' Can't the British 
 Navy find nothin' better to do/ he says, ' than 
 to blunder into commercial circles where it 
 ain't wanted, and fire blank charges to scare 
 pore 'armless niggers, and knock the bottom 
 out of a deal that don't occur once in fifty 
 years? And before foreigners, too,' he says. 
 ' Why, I'm ashamed of my bloomin' country, 
 I am, and I don't mind tellin' you so, 
 neither ! ' 
 
 " ' And I don't mind tellin' you,' says the 
 First Lootenant, very 'aughty, ' that I'm 
 ashamed of it too, when I hear a English 
 mission'ry swearin' like a drunken bargee ! ' 
 
 '"A English what ! ' shouts the other, 
 jumpin' up from the sand where he'd that 
 moment sat down. 
 
 " ' Mission'ry,' repeats Number One, shakin' 
 his 'ead at him. 
 
 " ' Who says so ? ' demands the castaway, 
 very fierce. 
 
 " ' The gentleman 'urrying back to the boat,' 
 replies the First Lootenant, pointin' to our 
 mission'ry. 
 
 15
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " ' Then I'll wring his bloomin' neck,' says 
 the other, startin' to run after him. 
 
 " But before he'd gone a yard Number One 
 'ad him by the collar. 
 
 " ' Look 'ere,' he says, ' I'm blessed if I can 
 make out who you are, or why you are, or 
 what your little game is, and in spite o' my 
 nat'ral masculine curiosity,' he says, ' I can't 
 stay to find out. But my orders are clear 
 enough, and they are to take you an' your 
 brother mission very well, don't excite your- 
 self, you're not mission'ries, then on board 
 'er Majesty's sloop 'JErmi One yonder. And 
 as orders are orders/ he says, lookin' round at 
 several open boxes full o' coloured beads, ' I'll 
 trouble you to pack up your fal-lals and 
 gew-gaws with as little waste o' time as 
 possible.' 
 
 " ' And what if we refuse to go ? ' gasps 
 the other, as soon as his feelin's would let 
 him. 
 
 " * I've a Marine in that there boat,' begins 
 the First Lootenant, lookin' in my direction, 
 1 to say nothin' of 'alf-a-dozen others nearly as 
 
 good as what he is ' 
 
 16
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 " ' We'll pack,' says the castaway 'urriedly, 
 after eyeing the man referred to. ' But if 
 your skipper ain't made to sit up over this 
 little 'Abeas Corpus job, I'll deserve,' he says, 
 ' to be hanged for a jubilee juggins.' 
 
 " ' Write pirate for juggins,' returns the 
 First Lootenant pleasantly, ' and you'll pro- 
 bably get your deserts. As for the 'Abeas 
 Corpus Act, the skipper's the biggest sea- 
 lawyer I've ever served with, and you'll have 
 plenty o' time to argue it out with him between 
 this place and Cape Coast Castle, where you're 
 goin' to be took. Coxswain/ he says, 'send 
 up two or three 'ands to carry down the gentle- 
 men's dressin'-bags.' 
 
 "All this time the two parley- voos they 
 were German an' Belgian respectfully were 
 carryin' on in the ridic'lous fashion common 
 to all natives from Boolong to Cape Mattlepan. 
 While one was shakin' his fist at us and 
 spittin' up oaths from the back of his great 
 bull throat, the other kep' turnin' the palms 
 of his 'ands outwards and the whites of his 
 eyes upwards, prayin' (by the sound o' the 
 words) for fire an' brimstone to wipe out the 
 
 17
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 sacred-blue-interferin' English. But when they 
 saw a fine figger of a man (there's no need to 
 mention names) stand up in the stern-sheets 
 o' the cutter and stretch hisself, they suddenly 
 remembered their packin' ; and ten minutes 
 later the three castaways, with their beads, an' 
 their kettle (and a one-pound 'baccy tin apiece, 
 which never left their 'ands) were safe from all 
 the cannibals in Africa upon the quarter-deck 
 of H.M.S. 'Ermi One. 
 
 " * I 'eartily congratulate you all/ says the 
 skipper, takin' off his gold-peaked 'at, ' on 
 your rescue in the nick o' time from what I 
 may lit'rally call the jaws o' death.' 
 
 " ' Jaws o' bunkum ! ' bursts out our com- 
 patriot, forgetful of the 'oly place he stood on. 
 ' Look 'ere, Capt'in, the sooner this little mis- 
 onderstandin' (to call it by no 'arsher name) is 
 cleared up, the better it'll be for all concerned 
 from the British Foreign Office down to the 
 'ulking private o' Marines who purposely trod 
 on my toes as I stepped into the cutter. This 
 'ere gentleman on my right 'and/ he says, ' is 
 Mounseer 'Oogoomong, a brave Belgian (so he 
 tells me) from the Congo Free State ; and this 
 
 18
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 one on my left is Hair Watchtamrine from the 
 neighbourm' German territory of Togo. As 
 for my own name/ he says, drawing 'imself up 
 to his full height, ' it is too ancient an' too 
 honourable to be mixed up in what may 
 develop into an international scandal. I need 
 say no more than that it is to be found between 
 the scarlet covers of the London Post Orfice 
 Direct'ry.' 
 
 " ' And this impert'nence,' says Capt'in 
 Precious, turnin' to the First Lootenant, 'is 
 my reward for rescuin' a feller- countryman 
 from cannibals ! ' 
 
 " ' Cannibals ! ' splutters the feller-country- 
 man, droppin' on to a bollard handy-by. 
 ' Oh ! lor', you'll be the death o' me yet, you 
 will!' 
 
 " ' I will,' shouts the skipper, losin' his 
 temper, ' if I ketch you settin' down on the 
 quarter-deck again ! ' 
 
 "'Any'ow,' says the offender, standin' up, 
 ' let me tell you that ev'ry one o' your bloomin' 
 cannibals can sing " From Greenland's Icy 
 Mount'ins" to the 'armonium, and what is 
 more to the point,' he says, 'ugging his 'baccy 
 
 19
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 tin tightly, ' they've learnt the beautiful lesson 
 that love o' gold is the root of all evil. So 
 now, Capt'in,' he says, ' I'll thank you to put 
 us ashore again, that we may continue the 
 pleasant task which, through a misappre'ension, 
 you've onfortunately interrupted.' 
 
 " ' And what might that be ? ' asks the 
 skipper, lookin' 'ard at the 'baccy tin. 
 
 " ' Gladdenin' the 'earts o' them primitive 
 people/ returns the other enthusiastic'lly, ' by 
 distributin' among them the coloured beads 
 they love.' 
 
 " ' I'm afraid,' says the skipper, after he'd 
 taken a turn or two up and down the deck, 
 * that your late 'ymnal companions will 'ave to 
 be satisfied with the beads you've already give 
 them. Look at the case from my point o' 
 view,' he says. ' A white man stops me at sea 
 with a tale of three castaways ' 
 
 " ' Mission'ries he said we were,' interrupts 
 the other, indignant. 
 
 " ' It was 'ard on you, I admit, but he was 
 mistook,' explains the skipper. 'Anyway, 
 mission'ries or no mission'ries, I was bound to 
 come to your rescue; and, 'aving burnt all 
 
 20
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 this extra- coal, I've got to satisfy the Admiralty 
 that some one 'as been rescued. As soon as 
 I've shown you to the Guv'nor of Cape Coast 
 Castle/ he concloods, 'you can steam back 
 here, beads an' all, in your own kettle, so far 
 as I am concerned.' 
 
 " ' You don't look a 'ealthy man/ says the 
 other, lookin' anxious at the skipper's brawny 
 chest, 'and if you try to be funny like that 
 again you'll probably end by spittin' blood. 
 Now, once an' for all/ he says, ' we didn't ask 
 to be rescued, there was nothin' to be rescued 
 fronij and before I'm took to Cape Coast Castle 
 and ex'ibited like a bloomin' freak, I'll see 
 you ' 
 
 '"No swearin' on the quarter-deck!' 
 thunders the skipper, in a voice that made 
 the three castaways jump like one man. ' I'm 
 Commander John Precious/ he says, ' the sea- 
 goin' representative o' the Lord's Anointed; 
 and when I say a man is to be rescued, that 
 man 'as got to be rescued whether he likes it 
 or not. Besides/ he says, puffin' out his chest 
 another three-quarters of an inch, ' it stands to 
 reason that an orf cer who's been in the In- 
 
 21
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 telligence Department (same as what I *ave) 
 must know what is best for everybody better 
 than anybody knows for hisself. In spite of 
 your black ingratitood 'itherto, if you be'ave 
 yourselves I'll take you as my own guests in 
 
 the cabin. Otherwise ,' he says, lookin' 
 
 'ard at somethin' be'ind them. 
 
 " When I tell you that the somethin' was 
 nothin' more or less than the fancy man o' the 
 Marine detachment (never mind his tally) 
 standin' like a graven image with one eye 
 cocked upon them and my baynit drawn, you 
 will onderstand that there was no need for 
 Precious to finish his sentence. Without 
 another word the three Hooligans thoroughly 
 tamed by a look from one man's eye turned 
 and followed the skipper into his cabin under 
 the poop. 
 
 "But although the bounce an' bluster of 
 Dreadnought Precious might prevail with 
 others, it couldn't deceive one who was ever 
 studyin' his feller-creatures for their own good. 
 An expression lurked in the tail of the skipper's 
 eye and about his under lip which that stoodent 
 read like printed words, and the words were 
 
 22
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 'orrtble misgivin's. ISow that his objec' had 
 been achieved, Precious was beginnin' to doubt 
 if even the sea-goin' representative of the 
 Lord's Anointed could play 'anky-panky with 
 the 'Abeas Corpus Act without bein' talked 
 to. 
 
 " It chanced thdt on that very night the 
 skipper's valley (' servant ' he would 'ave been 
 to any one but a skipper) went sick, and I was 
 nat'rally selected from the ship's company to 
 fill the vacant billet. And then it was that 
 Precious realised the blessin' I mentioned of 
 bein' brought in direct contac* with a well, 
 with a man like me. 
 
 "The followm' forenoon, while the three 
 passengers were drinkin' cocktails in the ward- 
 room, I went into the after-cabin, where the 
 skipper was bewilderin' himself with Lawrence's 
 ^Andbook on International Law. 
 
 " * I beg your pardon, sir,' I says, ' but may 
 I speak to you a minute ? ' 
 
 " ' You know, Pagett,' he says, lookin' up 
 with a smile (just like that), ' you know that, 
 'owever 'umble his rating may be, I am always 
 
 B 23
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 'appy to listen to a man with, a' intellec' like 
 yours.' 
 
 " ' Well, sir/ I replies, catchin' sight o' my 
 reflection in the mirror on the bulkhead, ' I 
 believe I 'ave got somethin' better than the 
 usual pap between my fore'ead and my back 
 'air, but what I've come to tell you is this. I 
 'ave discovered why our three guests sleep 
 with their 'baccy tins onderneath their 
 pillers.' 
 
 " ' Oh, you 'ave, 'ave you ? ' says he, jumpin' 
 up from his cheer, and layin' his 'and on the 
 bell-pull ; ' then I'll put you onder the 
 sentry's charge,' he says, 'for tamperin' with 
 my guests' tobacco ! ' 
 
 " ' I beg your pardon, sir/ I returns, with 
 that quiet dignity which has made more than 
 one post-capt'in look foolish, * but there was 
 no 'baccy to tamper with.' 
 
 " ' Then the bloomin' tins was empty ? ' 
 yawns the skipper, sittin' down on his cheer 
 again. 
 
 " ' On the contrairy/ says I, ' they're as full 
 as my as our two 'eads are of intellec'.' 
 
 24
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 " ' What are you playing at ? ' he roars, 
 forgettin' himself once more. ' First you tell 
 me they are empty, then in the same breath 
 you say they are full ! Full of what, you 
 prevaricatin' son of a barrack-room lawyer ? ' 
 
 " ' I stooped down an' whispered in his 
 ear'ole. 
 
 " ' What ? ' he shouts, clutchin' me by the 
 sleeve, ' tell me that again.' 
 
 " I told him. 
 
 " ' Shut that door, Pagett/ he says, ' and let 
 me 'ave the benefit of your invaluable advice.' 
 
 " Knowin' me as you do, Mister, you will 
 'ardly be surprised to learn that Commander 
 Precious followed that advice to the letter. 
 The moment I appeared with the after-dinner 
 corfy that evenin' he began to make a speech ; 
 and I think he'd waited for the corfy because 
 my presence in the cabin gave him confidence. 
 Nothing in his life, he said, 'ad afforded him 
 greater pleasure than this rescue at the eleventh 
 hour, and in the face of enormous odds, of 
 three brave nat'ralists from the cookin' pot 
 of bloodthirsty and onconverted cannibals. 
 Nothing in his life '
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " ' Look 'ere/ interrupt the English pas- 
 senger rudely, ' who are you gettin' at, Capt'in ? 
 We ain't nat'ralists, the cannibals only exist in 
 your deceased imagination, and the eookin' 
 pot was our own. For some reason best known 
 to yourself you've kidnapped three 'armless 
 trippers (two o' them foreigners) on board a 
 British man-o'-war, and we're goin' to 'ave the 
 law on you when we get to Cape Coast Castle 
 capt'in or no capt'in, and you may lay 
 to it!' 
 
 " * I beg your pardon,' returns Precious, 
 lookin' very 'ard at the indignant face before 
 him, * I see that I have been mistook. 'Ow I 
 could ever 'ave taken you for nat'ralists I can't 
 think, when you've got "SMUGGLERS" wrote 
 as big as poster print all over your bloomin' 
 bodies. I not only caught you red-'anded at 
 the illicit traffic,' he says, ' tradin' with the 
 natives without a shred of charter between the 
 three of you, an' defraudin' the Colony of 
 thousands o' pounds' worth of revenue, but 
 I've a pretty damning proof of your villainy 
 in these three 'baccy tins, which this estimable 
 soldier an' valley abstracted from your respect- 
 
 26
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 ful bunks while you were 'aving your soup. 
 Why, if I 'adn't arrived when I did,' concloods 
 the skipper, with a righteous 'uskiness in his 
 voice, ' instead o' fillin' them 'baccy tins only, 
 you might 'ave got away with 'alf the gold" 
 dust in Africa ! ' 
 
 " ' More than likely/ groans the other, his 
 face between his 'ands, ' an' when I first see 
 you blunderin' up the river I 'eartily wished 
 you an' your steam paint-pot at the bottom 
 o' the Bight of Benin. I wish it now/ he 
 added, finishin' his corfy at a gulp. 
 
 " ' Well, you never know your luck/ returns 
 the skipper cheerily, ' and, p'r'aps, on our way 
 round to Cape Coast Castle your charmin' 
 wish may be gratified. 'Owever/ he says, 
 risin* from the table and returnin' the tins to 
 their owners, 'it may interest you to know 
 that, so far from having raised those lids, I'm 
 prepared to take your word for it that they 
 cover nothin' more than the 'baccy advertised 
 on their labels. Moreover, to prove how mis- 
 took I must 'ave been about that there illicit 
 trading/ he says, with a cur'ous smile, ' I'll 
 ondertake to forward to the British, German 
 
 27
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 and Belgian Consuls a full an' true account by 
 each of you of your 'appy deliverance from the 
 cookin' pot o' the cannibals. And since there 
 is no time, gentlemen, like the present/ adds 
 that crafty seaman, leadin' the way into the 
 after cabin, ' I have instructed my confidential 
 adviser and valley as you will perceive to 
 prepare writin' materials and inspiration for 
 three.' 
 
 " I think it was the inspiration (fizzin' in 
 three o' the longest tumblers I could find) 
 which finally brought them to their bearin's, 
 though, of course, to avoid being run in for 
 illicit traffic, they'd no alternative but to do 
 what the skipper wished. While they wrote, 
 Precious (who could talk Prussian an' Belgian 
 like a native) stood by and prompted their 
 mem'ries ; and before he'd done with them 
 the story was fit to be put among the ' V.C.' 
 records in Lean's Royal Navy List. 
 
 "At Cape Coast Castle they parted comp'ny, 
 the skipper goin' ashore to call on the Gov'nor, 
 the three nat'ralists embarkin' on board a 
 coasting steamer that 'appened to be returnin' 
 the way we'd come. And you may lay to it 
 
 28
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 that they parted on the best of terms. For 
 in a parchment-certif cate envelope under his 
 arm Dreadnought Precious 'ugged the story of 
 his 'eroism, wrote in three langwidges ; while 
 the others still gripped what they were now 
 pleased to call their ' specimen tins/ and which 
 they knew ought by rights to 'ave been con- 
 fiscated. As for me, I stood on the t'gallant 
 fo'c'sle and watched the three 'andkerchers at 
 the steamer's gangway wavin' in response to 
 the one in the stern-sheets o' the galley ; and 
 as I watched I onderstood what a tremenjous 
 advantage it is to a post-capt'in or a com- 
 mander to 'ave a confidential valley with 
 intellec' instead o' porridge onderneath his 
 foragin' 'at. 
 
 " That advantage must 'ave been brought 
 'ome very closely to Precious about three 
 months later, when we were in Simon's Bay. 
 For on board the flagship, and surrounded by 
 'alf the gold lace in the squadron, the Adm'ral 
 presented our 'ero with the Distinguished 
 Service Order, with that there freak Eagle 
 (I misremember its proper tally) of Prussia, 
 and with the Three Stars label decoration, 
 
 29
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 I should say of the Netherlands' Navy. 
 They'd been sent by our own Queen, the 
 German Kayser, and the King o' Belgian 
 respectfully." 
 
 " Unless you yourself had told me, Mr. 
 Pagett," I murmured, after a pause, " I would 
 never have believed that the D.S.O. could be 
 obtained by such er curious methods ! " 
 
 My host removed his pipe from his 
 mouth, and leaned across the table towards 
 me. 
 
 " Naval 'istory," he observed impressively, 
 " is chock-a-block with cur'ous things. But " 
 he emphasised his words by tapping the rim 
 of my tumbler with his pipe-stem " you may 
 lay to it, Mister, that the most cur'ous things 
 of all are those what are left out of the 'istory 
 books." 
 
 " I can well believe it," said I warmly ; 
 "for although a student of contemporary 
 Naval history myself, I cannot recall a single 
 reference to the series of remarkable events 
 which occurred in the Service during the 
 twenty-one years you belonged to it." 
 
 30
 
 THE DECORATION 
 
 Mr. Pagett regarded me a full minute 
 by the clock on the mantelpiece behind 
 him. 
 
 " What did you say was the new-fangled 
 pronounciation of 'Ermi One f " he inquired 
 at length, with a fleeting droop of the right 
 eyelid.
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A 
 GUNBOAT
 
 II 
 
 " Hands employed as requisite." (Daily tntry in 
 log.) 
 
 " THE 'istory of the British Navy," observed 
 Mr. Pagett, his pipe between his teeth and 
 his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat, 
 " 'minds me of a woman's letter. The most 
 interestin' part meaning the biggest scandal 
 is in the postscript. The only diffrence 
 between them," he added moodily, " is that 
 in the 'istory the postscripts are left out." 
 
 I received the statement with the bent head 
 and respectful attention to which the utter- 
 ances of a profound thinker are entitled. 
 
 " I had no idea," I murmured, after a fitting 
 interval, " that you were Irish." 
 
 Mr. Pagett, grasping the arms of his high- 
 backed chair, sat bolt upright
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " Who are you tryin' to get at ? " he 
 demanded, with a bellicose stare. 
 
 " Your admirably trained and most obliging 
 barmaid," I explained, hurriedly ringing the 
 bell ; "I wish her, with your permission, to 
 bring me some lump sugar, a lemon, a couple 
 of long tumblers with teaspoons, and a bottle 
 of Glenlivet, I believe, your prefer ? That 
 hissing kettle on the hob somehow suggested 
 them." 
 
 The stare relaxed into an appreciative grin, 
 and, leaning back once more in his chair, Mr. 
 Pagett re-crossed his slippered feet upon the 
 fender. 
 
 " In that case, Mister, and if you've a mind 
 to," he announced, with the condescension of 
 the truly eminent, " you may call me a 
 bloomin' Armenian." 
 
 Week-end visitors at the " Coach and 
 Horses " are rare in mid-winter, and I had 
 been invited by my gallant host (with an air 
 of lofty indifference that ill concealed his 
 eagerness) to smoke an after-supper pipe in 
 his snug sanctum behind the bar. Impelled 
 by the Dartmoor blizzard, which rattled the 
 
 36
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 leaded casements and shook the stout walls 
 of the ancient inn to their foundations, our 
 talk had speedily drifted to the sea; and, after 
 Mr. Pagett had demonstrated (by means of 
 the material I placed at his disposal) how 
 curiously small is the fraction which represents 
 water in a standard tumbler of toddy, we 
 returned to our conversational starting-point. 
 
 " Touching those unwritten postscripts," I 
 hinted : "I'll bet I can lay my finger on a 
 certain brilliant raconteur of my acquaintance 
 who could dictate a few of them what ? " 
 
 14 1 know the brilliant man you mean," he 
 admitted modestly, " though callin' me foreign 
 names might not be considered the best o' 
 taste, Mister, even on the lower deck of a 
 gunboat. In the Janus, for example" he 
 paused a moment, then tapped me on the 
 sleeve with his pipe-stem " talkin' of the 
 
 Janus, why, there you 'ave a case in 
 
 j. 
 point I 
 
 " A case of correct taste ? " 
 " A case of one o' they postscripts. It was 
 this way, look" 
 
 Mr. Pagett sipped his grog, ejaculated pro- 
 37
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 fanely at its unexpected heat, and placed a 
 slice of cooling lemon on his tongue. 
 
 " My first foreign station," he mumbled, 
 " was China, where I was sent in a trooper, 
 along with several 'undred other Marines and 
 naval ratings, as a soopernoomer'y for disposal 
 in the fleet. To-day, as every one knows (or 
 ought to by this time), I am a churchwarden 
 'ighly thought of by the Bishop o' the diocese, 
 a parish councillor the 'Ome See'etary has his 
 eye on, and the model licensed victualler 
 quoted by every magistrate in the county at 
 Brewster Sessions. But recollec' that five- 
 and-twenty years ago I was practic'lly a 
 recruity, with none of the experience (and the 
 modesty that grows with it) of my later years. 
 Besides, one should never forget that at every 
 age, as the French poet says, 'uman ester rare!" 
 
 My murmured compliments on his erudition 
 were checked by the irrelevant statement that 
 his tobacco pouch was in the left-hand corner 
 of the top right-hand drawer of the chest in 
 his bedroom. The obvious alternative to his 
 fetching it was accepted with a condescension 
 that touched me. 
 
 38
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 " We picked up the fleet in 'Ongkong Har- 
 bour," he continued, with his pipe-bowl in my 
 pouch, " and, as I not onreasonably supposed 
 that the smartest and most intelligent Marines 
 on board would be sent to the flagship, I 
 requested the Sergeant-major to point her out 
 to me. 
 
 " ' Ask the First Lootenant when you get 
 on board the Janus, my lad/ he says, with a 
 grin, ' he'll be most 'appy, I've no doubt, to 
 show you the beauties of the neighbour'ood, 
 and he's probably got more time for the job 
 than what I 'ave.' 
 
 " ' And which,' I falters, ' is the bloomin' 
 Janus, 'major ?' 
 
 " ' Get your bag over to the port gangway 
 to once,' he orders rudely, 'her dinghy's along- 
 side now, waitin' for you.' 
 
 " Settin' in the stern-sheets was another 
 Marine with his bag, and the two seamen who 
 formed the dinghy's crew were solemnly takin' 
 stock of him as though he'd been a waxwork 
 at a penny gaff. As soon as I'd slung my 
 own bag into the boat and set down alongside 
 my comrade, they turned their stare on to 
 
 39
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 me : and though, bein' a fine figger o,f a man, 
 I was accustomed to attrac' attention, my 
 nat'ral modesty knew exactly where to draw 
 the line. 
 
 " ' My pore fellers,' I says, after five 
 minutes of it, ' I'm sorry to disappoint you, 
 but it's a kindness to simple sailormen to tell 
 them the worst at once. We ain't princes in 
 disguise, nor yet pirates neether, being nothin' 
 more than a file o' gallant soldiers sent out to 
 keep you and your shipmates from cutting 
 the orficers' throats. You've a score of our 
 facsimiles aboard the Janus, no doubt.' 
 
 " * No doubt,' admits the stroke oar with a 
 cur'ous laugh, ' scores an' scores, all out of the 
 same toy-shop winder, and dear at sixpence 
 the box They ain't no bloomin' princes, 
 eether, what say, Bill ? ' 
 
 " ' Nor yet pirates,' gurgles the bow oar, 
 the tears runnin' down his cheeks, * ho ! no, 
 especially not pi ' 
 
 " ' Keep silence in that boat and shove off 
 instantly ! ' sings out the trooper's First 
 Lootenant from the top o' the accommodation 
 ladder. ' If you ondisciplined pirates didn't 
 
 40
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 belong to "the Admiral's 'oly Janus,' he adds 
 sarcaustically, ' I'd send all four of you on 
 board under escort ! ' 
 
 " ' Pirates again ; oh, lor' ! ' murmurs Bill 
 under his breath, as he shoves off with the 
 boat'ook. ' To think that I should live 
 to 'ear any of the Janus' comp'ny called 
 pirates ! ' 
 
 " My gallant spirits, which were low on 
 account of bein' overlooked for the flagship, 
 were certainly not raised by the discovery 
 that I was settin' alongside the last man in the 
 troopship's draft that I would 'ave picked out 
 as a three-years messmate afloat. His tally 
 was Keep Number (Portsmouth) one seven 
 ought four Private James Keep and he was 
 the dismallest Jimmy I've served with outside 
 the Chapling's Department. He was as full 
 of cranks as a Admiral that's had a sunstroke, 
 and what was worse he wrote about them 
 to Reynolds' Weekly and other leading noos- 
 papers. But the real trouble was his con- 
 science, which would 'ave comfortably fitted a 
 Archbishop, but was many sizes too big for a 
 mere Private of Marines.
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " ' Where's the Janus lyin' ? ' I asks, taking 
 the tiller before Keep could lay 'old of it. 
 
 " ' Make for the top o' the weather line/ 
 says the seaman in charge of the boat ; ' you 
 can't see hdr yet she's on the far side o' the 
 flagship. The Admiral always likes to 'ave us 
 close under his lee, don't he, Bill ? ' he adds, 
 with onmistakable pride. 
 
 " * Can't sleep without 'olding our 'and, in 
 a manner o' speakin',' growls Bill, and for the 
 next twenty minutes we pulled on in silence. 
 
 " ' / don't see no Janus' I says, when we 
 'ad at last opened out the other side of the 
 flagship. 
 
 " Bill glanced over his shoulder. 
 
 " ' You're a bloomin' liar,' he says ; and 
 then, not liking the look on my face, he 
 'urriedly adds, ' or bat.' 
 
 " ' Do you mean to tell me,' I gasps, the tears 
 of mortification standin' in my eyes, ' that 
 yonder penny steamboat with the tin gun amid- 
 ships is 'er Majesty's ship Janus f Why, the 
 flagship could 'oist her inboard with one watch 
 of Marines ! ' 
 
 " * Maybe,' admits the seaman pulling stroke ; 
 42
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 ' we all know what wonderful fellers the Jollies 
 are ! But/ he says, and I could see that his 
 feelings were 'urt, ' it may be noos to you, my 
 lad, that, tin or no tin, that there Armstrong 
 'as the cur'ous trick of turnin' everything it 'its 
 into silver dollars at three and a penny- 'a'penny, 
 which is the present rate of exchange ! ' 
 
 " ' He's the captain of the bloomin' gun,' 
 explains Bill 'astily, and then, kicking his mate 
 in the small of the back with his bare toes, he 
 whispers, ' If only you 'ad intelligence instead 
 o' pap onderneath that straw 'at of yours, 
 'Arry, what a much 'appier ship's comp'ny we 
 should be ! ' 
 
 " But I was far too depressed to pay 'eed to 
 the foolish chatter of sailor folk. What was 
 the good of being the smartest recruit Walmer 
 Depot 'ad turned out for five- an' -twenty years ? 
 where was the use of being the most intelligent 
 man that had ever passed through the gun 
 battery in Plymouth Barricks ? what was the 
 objec', in a word, of being Private Pagett at all, 
 if the end of it was to be three years' burial 
 between the decks of a third-class gunboat? 
 It was puttin' a check on zeal and riskin* the 
 
 43
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 transformation of a valuable soldier into a 
 bloodthirsty mutineer ! " 
 
 So pleased was Mr. Pagett with his peroration 
 that a considerable interval of silence elapsed 
 before he discovered that his pipe had gone 
 out. Having borrowed (and inadvertently 
 pocketed) my silver matchbox, he relit the 
 presentation meerschaum, shifted the position 
 of his legs, and continued. 
 
 " But no sooner had I set foot on her upper 
 deck than even my unexperienced eye saw that 
 the Janus was an extr'ordinary smart ship. 
 No wonder the Admiral always anchored her 
 within biscuit throw of his sacred stern-walk, 
 for she was a sailor's dream of burnished metal, 
 white enamel paint and gold-leaf. From the 
 vanes at her three mastheads (she was barquan- 
 tine rigged), down the strips of her lightnin' 
 conductors to the rims of her lower deck ladder 
 rungs she was all copper, brass and gun-metal : 
 and every square inch of her that wasn't 
 bleached deck or paintwork shone in the 
 mornin' sun like red and yellow gold. Not 
 only were the usual stanchions, rails, binnacles, 
 tompions, belayin'-pins, an' cetera, an' cetera, 
 
 44
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 made of brass, but the very hatchway coamings, 
 bollards, and capstan-head were cased in sheets 
 of the same metal ; while as for the hundred- 
 an'-ten-pounder seven-inch B.L. Armstrong 
 amidships, it was that dazzlin' it might have 
 been cast in pure silver ! 
 
 " I am speakin' of the days when the dress 
 regulations of the Navy were far less stringent 
 than what they are now. Yet not only was 
 the Janus herself a brazen model of what a 
 British man-o'-war should be in peace time, but 
 her orficers and ship's comp'ny might 'ave been 
 the originals of the coloured plates in the sealed 
 pattern clothing book of to-day. From the 
 skipper's white drill toonic to the aprin of the 
 wardroom cook's mate, every garment was 
 noo, an' spotless and well cut ; and, al- 
 though I'd never been to sea before, my 
 trained intelligence told me that money must 
 have flowed like water aboard that gunboat 
 before she could 'ave been brought to such a 
 inconceivable pitch of perfection. One nat'rally 
 would 'ave supposed that this onusual expendi- 
 ture in uniform, brasswork and paint swamped 
 most of the pay of the ship. But I quickly 
 
 45
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 discovered that, whatever they spent on their 
 clothin', the lower deck had more pocket-money 
 than they knew what to do with. The orficers, 
 too, lived like fighting-cocks, while, to entertain 
 and carry on gen'rally as he did, the captain 
 (accordin' to my subsequent calc'lations) must 
 'ave got through every penny of fifteen 'undred 
 a year ! 
 
 " There was one thing, 'owever, which that 
 onnat'ral ship's comp'ny did not spend their 
 sea wages on, and that was drink. It is true 
 that on guest nights the wardroom orficers 
 drank the Queen's 'ealth in port or sherry wine, 
 and that, when foreigners called on them, cock- 
 tails were 'anded round by Ah Loom, the 
 stooard. But these were social dooties they 
 couldn't avoid, and the rest o' the time they 
 were teetotalers. No grog-call sounded aboard 
 the gunboat at one bell, the mess deck to a 
 man preferrin' to take up their money sav- 
 ings in lieu of their ration o' rum ; and I 
 'ad the mortification of learnin' that I'd been 
 picked for the Janus (at her skipper's re- 
 quest), not so much on account of my 
 splendid figger and intellec', as because I 
 
 46
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 was known to 'ave been silly enough to sign 
 the pledge ! " 
 
 In proof of a timely conversion from the 
 errors of his youth, and with a comment on 
 the futility of biting twice at the same cherry, 
 Mr. Pagett emptied his tumbler in one 
 draught. 
 
 " You will let me mix you another ? " I 
 suggested, with diffidence. 
 
 " You may lay to it, Mister, that I will," he 
 responded promptly, " for it nat'rally upsets a 
 churchwarden to recall the fac' that he was 
 
 once a bloomin' pi But where was I ? 
 
 Stand by, I remember. 
 
 "About a week after me and Keep joined 
 the Janus, a story reached 'Ongkong which 
 set many a gallant 'eart besides my own a- 
 thumping. It was brought by a trading junk 
 from the north'ard, but so scared were her 
 heathen crew, and so full of dragons and evil 
 spirits was the yarn, that at first no Christian 
 could make 'ead or tail of it. The presence of 
 the British fleet, 'owever (and the sight, no 
 doubt, of a man or two like me), put 'eart of 
 grace into them eventually, and in the second 
 
 47
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 edition the dragons and spirits were left 
 out 
 
 " Yet even without them the tale was 
 startlin' enough. For who 'ad ever before met 
 in the China seas a gang of black pirates armed 
 with Martin-'Enries and dressed in feathers ? 
 a delirious tremens the junk's crew insisted 
 they had seen not a fortnight before off the 
 back o' the island of Formosa. Villages 'ad 
 been looted, they declared, junks plundered 
 and scuttled on the 'igh seas ; and every pig- 
 tail in that region of the Celestial Empire was 
 stiff with appre'ension lest the nightmare 
 should return. 
 
 " When I say nightmare, Mister, I'm not 
 using the extravagant figger o' speech you 
 might think for. Accordin' to our informants, 
 every abominable act o' piracy had been com- 
 mitted between tattoo and revelly, and it was 
 in the middle watch of a pitch-black night that 
 the terror herself had passed within spittin' 
 distance of the paralysed junk's crew. They 
 described her, in their 'eathen gibberish, as a 
 'three piecee bamboo, one piecee puff-puff, 
 inside walky ' which we converted Christians 
 
 48
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 would call a three-masted, one-funnel, screw 
 steamer ; and so grave a menace did she seem 
 to be to commerce that the Adm'ral determined 
 to send a vessel to capture her. Although it 
 roused ' envy, 'atred, malice and all oncharit- 
 ableness ' in every other ship in the squadron, 
 no one was in the least surprised at the Janus 
 bein' the one chosen. Gunboat as she was, 
 not even the flagship herself could touch her 
 for smartness in appearance and drills. Her 
 punishment returns thanks, no doubt, to the 
 temp'rance fore an* aft were nil, while her 
 practice with the Armstrong was a feature of 
 the gunnery records of the station. She was 
 known in wardroom circles though I'm blest 
 if I onderstand the alloosion as ' the ruddy 
 Admiral Crichton,' and, despite the fac' that 
 the Commander-in- Chief s favourite is always 
 a onpopular ship, we made such a picture 
 steamin' out of 'arbour that every crew in the 
 fleet turned up to give us a parting cheer. 
 
 "It is true that, so far as I could see, no 
 special look-out was kep' during the run. But 
 this I set down to the skipper's knowledge 
 that we should not fall in with the pirate ontil 
 
 49
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 a higher latitood was reached. Judge, there- 
 fore, of my surprise when, on the second 
 evenin' after leaving 'Ongkong, we let go both 
 anchors in a onin'abited bay on the extreme 
 south-east of Formosa. What astonished me 
 even more was the sudden absence of that 
 smartness at evolutions which made the Janus 
 the best 'ated ship in the fleet. If we'd come 
 for a month's duck-shootin' we couldn't 'ave 
 gone about the job of moorin' ship in a more 
 leisurely and slipshod fashion. 
 
 " There were bigger surprises in store for 
 me yet, 'owever, as you shall 'ear, Mister. 
 For some hours after the arrival of a man-o'- 
 war in port the hands are so busy that leafe to 
 go ashore is never even thought of. But the 
 second anchor 'ad barely splashed over the 
 aide before the dinghy was lowered and 
 manned, and the astonished me an' Keep 
 were sent for by the skipper on the quarter- 
 deck. 
 
 " ' The Sergeant-major tells me/ he begins, 
 with a kind smile, ' that you two men haven't 
 'ad a opportunity of stretchin' your long legs 
 ashore since you left England. I've been very 
 
 So
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 pleased with the way you've done your dooty 
 since joinin' this ship/ he says, ' and to mark 
 my appreciation I'm goin' to let you 'ave an 
 hour's run along the beach. And I 'ope/ he 
 adds, looking 'ard at us both, ' that you'll 
 return on board 'ealthier and 'appier men.' 
 
 " Now, if there was one thing the ship's 
 comp'ny most certainly 'ad not done in the 
 last forty-eight hours it was dooty. We'd 
 been piped at the usual times to our meals 
 and our 'ammicks, and each morning 'ad 
 mustered by divisions for prayers. But with 
 these exceptions routine had been at a stand- 
 still, which made the Captain's praise all the 
 more incompre'ensible. 
 
 " We thanked him in a dazed sort of way, 
 and a couple o' minutes later were bein' pulled 
 ashore in the dinghy. Besides the leading 
 seaman and Bill who had fetched us from the 
 trooper, there were two other bluejackets in 
 her ; and it was as well the sea was smooth, 
 for the four sailors bein' (after me) the finest 
 men in the ship, the small boat was pretty 
 nigh awash. 
 
 " * I give it up/ blurts out Keep, after a
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 silence that was beginnin' to get on my nerves : 
 * it's anky-panky of some sort/ he says, 
 ' though sink me if I can put the proper name 
 to it!' 
 
 " ' If I ain't mistook, my lad/ says Bill, 
 with a grin at the other three, ' you ain't the 
 sort to like it when you 'ear it. Only take my 
 tip/ he adds more serious, ' and keep any old- 
 fashioned prejudices you may 'ave from 'im ! ' 
 
 " There was no need to mention names, 
 Mister, any more than there is to-night. For, 
 although the skipper was at that time a 
 Lootenant with his first command and more 
 'ighly original sin in him than the rest o' the 
 Navy List put together, he is now a retired 
 Admiral, and a churchwarden same as me. 
 
 " About a mile from the anchorage the bay 
 took a sharp twist to the north'ard, and in the 
 middle of the twist, completely shut out to 
 view from seaward, was a barren islet. It was 
 overshadowed by dismal mountains on the 
 mainland, not a si cm of 'uman life was visible 
 
 7 O 
 
 in the whole of the desolate landscape, and 
 when, to my astonishment, we landed on this 
 gawd-forsaken rock, a swarm of the biggest rats 
 
 fa
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 I'd ever seen scurried into the crevices with 
 which it was 'oneycombed. 
 
 " ' If this is a fair sample of the China 
 station/ I says, lookin' around me, ' I don't 
 mind tellin' you, chums, that I think very little 
 of it.' 
 
 " ' And I don't mind tellin' you,' returns the 
 leading seaman very 'eartily, ' that, if you're 
 the blamed fool I don't take you for, you'll 
 think still less of it before morning.' 
 
 " ' I was the most intelligent man/ I begins 
 with quiet dignity, ' that ever passed through 
 the gun battery in Plym ' 
 
 " ' So we've 'eard you say some 'undred 
 times already/ he interrupt, in ontruthful 
 sailor fashion, 'and now we're goin' to test 
 it. Let's ave the book, Bill.' 
 
 " While Bill was fumblin' for it inside his 
 jumper, I noticed that he and the three other 
 bluejackets 'ad ranged themselves in a circle 
 with me an' Keep in the centre. P'r'aps it 
 was accident ; p'r'aps, on the other 'and, it 
 wasn't. 
 
 " ' There's no time to waste/ continues the 
 leading seaman, looking 'ard at the pair of us, 
 
 53
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 ' for it'll soon be dark, and they bloodthirsty 
 rats may prove too many even for 'alf-a-dozen 
 able-bodied men to tackle. The long an' 
 short of it is,' he says, taking the book from 
 Bill's 'and, ' you two fellers have been brought 
 'ere by the captain's orders for the purpose of 
 swearin' a oath, which every one else in the 
 ship has sworn at one time or another for the 
 common good. It's easy took and easy kep', 
 but the man as breaks it,' he adds, with a ugly 
 light in his eye, ' may lay to it that he'll never 
 break nothing else this side of kingdom come ! ' 
 
 " ' And what if a man's conscience is agin 
 his takin' it at all ? ' inquires Keep, in his 
 best Reynolds' Noospaper style. 
 
 " ' We should honour him for it,' says the 
 seaman enthusiastic'lly, ' for don't we all belong 
 to a country where conscience is spelt with a 
 capital C ? But so oncomfortable would he be 
 aboard the Janus which is too small a 
 craft to carry consciences, even when spelt 
 with a little c that the skipper would 
 certainly approve of our leaving the pore feller 
 where 'e'd have a whole island to hisself to be 
 conscientious in.' 
 
 54
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 " ' Not -entirely to hisself,' reminds Bill, 
 throwing a pebble at a impatient rat, ' though 
 I don't suppose they'd touch him till we was 
 'alf-way off to the ship and out o' sight. I 
 dare say, too, that before ten years had passed 
 some ship would be driven even as far out of 
 her course as this place, and kind 'ands would 
 collect his bones in one spot, and put up a 
 tombstone to his mem'ry, and ' 
 
 " *'Ave done with it, can't you?' raps out 
 Keep, and I could see he was shiverin' in the 
 twilight. ' You give me the 'errors, you do, 
 with your rats and your tombstones and what 
 all. I'll swear what you want me to,' he says, 
 ' only please to bear in mind that I do it under 
 protest.' 
 
 " The leading seaman looks at him doubt- 
 fully for a minute, and then, opening the Bible, 
 reads out the oath, which was wrote on the fly- 
 leaf. I'm not goin' to repeat it to you, Mister, 
 although even after five- an'- twenty years I can 
 still say every word of it by 'eart. It 'ad been 
 drawn up (as I subsequently found out) by the 
 skipper, as president, and a committee of 
 orficers, petty orficers an' men, and the first 
 c 55
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 part was simple enough. Until twenty yews 
 1 'ad elapsed from the date the ship should pay 
 off, no one belongin' to her was to divulge what 
 occurred under the familiar entry in the log, 
 'Hands employed as requisite.' And there 
 you 'ave the oath in a nutshell ! Although 
 I'm not sayin' it wasn't 'ighly suspicious, 
 mind you, nothing, you'll admit, could have 
 been more simple so far. Yet you may take it 
 from me that the penalties for breakin' it were 
 so terrifyin' you wouldn't sleep a wink all night 
 if I told you them. 
 
 " Now, I ask you, Mister, what could a file 
 of Marines do under the circumstances even 
 when the front-rank man o' the file was me ? 
 The brawny villains outnumbered us by two to 
 one ; darkness was coming on, and the rats 
 were beginnin' to squeak so loudly I was forced 
 to tuck my trousers 'urriedly into my boots. 
 We did what a file of Archbishops would 'ave 
 done in our places, that is to say, repeated the 
 oath line by line after the leading seaman, and 
 kissed the book 'eld out to us by the tarry 
 fingers of Bill. 
 
 " That was a night of surprises, but out in 
 56
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 the anchorage was awaiting us the greatest 
 surprise of all. The Janus 'ad gone to sea, 
 and in the exact spot where we'd left her 
 another ship lay at anchor ! She was the same 
 tonnage as the gunboat, but barque-rigged and 
 painted black, and as we pulled round her 
 bows my gallant 'eart nearly stood still. 
 
 " For the look-out who hailed us from the 
 fo'c'sle 'ad a face as black as the ship, and, 
 although he carried a rifle, he was dressed in 
 a suit o' feathers ! " 
 
 Mr. Pagett mopped his face with his hand- 
 kerchief, and, leaning towards me, tapped my 
 knee impressively with his pipe-stem. 
 
 " You may call me a liar, if you will," he 
 continued ; " I'm used to it, and it don't 'urt me 
 nothing to speak of. But as sure as I'm settin* 
 in this chair I'm tellin' you no made-up pirate 
 tale for boys, but 'istory an onprinted post- 
 script, maybe, but none the less a postscript to 
 modern naval 'istory. In our present great 
 fleet of battleships, fast cruisers an' destroyers, 
 of multiplied submarine cables, of searchlights 
 and wireless tele-grarphy, the thing would be 
 wildly impossible. But with the small and 
 
 57
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 scattered mast-an'-yard squadron of a quarter 
 of a century ago, it was not only possible it 
 appened ; and, though the oath was well kept 
 for more than twenty years, the Janus scandal, 
 so I 'ear, is no secret to-day in the treaty ports 
 of China an' Japan. 
 
 " Standing in the barque's gangway was 
 another feathered blackamoor, and as I passed 
 him I saluted from force of 'abit. 
 
 " I 'ope you two have profited by your run 
 ashore/ he says, with a suspicious eye on 
 Keep. 
 
 " ' I 'ope the same, sir,' I returns, ' and, if 
 we ain't much 'appier, at all events we've come 
 back 'ealthier men for the Janus, in a manner 
 o' speakin'.' 
 
 " ' You will find your ball dresses laid out 
 for you for'ard,' he says with a laugh, well 
 knowing we'd took the oath. 
 
 " Yes, in spite of her barque rig and what 
 all, this buccaneer ship was the Janus. The 
 befeathered blackguards who manned her (my 
 paragon messmates an' comrades ! ) must have 
 been fairly busy in our absence. For her 
 gleamin' white sides had been covered with 
 
 58
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 squares of tarpaulin, laced together outboard, 
 and secured in the manner of collision mats. 
 Her yellow-washed funnel had been similar'y 
 treated one of its tarpaulins 'aving the great 
 red dragon painted on it, which no doubt 
 explained the junk's reference to devils. 
 Black strips of cloth and canvas masked all the 
 paintwork on deck, and every bit o' brass 'ad 
 either been hidden or removed. Three bogus 
 yards on the mainmast had altered her from 
 barquantine to barque, so that on a average 
 dark night the Admiral hisself wouldn't have 
 known his spick an' span Janus from a collier ! 
 
 " Soon after me an' Keep had got into our 
 feathered suits (which 'ad been made on make- 
 and-mend-clothes afternoons at sea) the 
 skipper put out all lights, got und^r weigh and 
 shaped a course for Look 'ere, Mister." 
 
 My gallant host, drawing his chair nearer 
 mine, lowered his voice to a whisper. 
 
 "It's more difficult than what you think 
 for," he complained, " to live up to that 'igh- 
 class reputation which is associated with the 
 name of Pagett. If it was to get known what I 
 did that night (and on many others before we 
 
 59
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 returned to 'Ongkong) my reputation would be 
 gone as 'opelessly as what this glass of grog 
 'as." 
 
 I hurriedly took the hint, apologising for 
 my oversight 
 
 "For 'ow would it be," he went on, a few 
 minutes later, " if the Bishop of Exeter 'eard 
 that the fancy churchwarden of his diocese had 
 dressed himself up in feathers to scare away 
 Chinese ladies while he ran through the jools 
 in their ditty-boxes ? Why should the 'Ome 
 Sec'etary learn that a man he's got his eye on 
 for Justice o' the Peace was once caught, 
 feathers and all, and shut up (till he managed 
 to loosen a bamboo) in the cage of a Japanese 
 prison? What would The Licensed Vic- 
 tuallers 1 Gazette print about a man who took 
 part in a piratical attack on specie junks, and 
 purchased a public- 'ouse with the interest on 
 his share of the dollars ? And, worst of 
 
 all, what would Are you a married 
 
 man, Mister ? " 
 
 I gripped his hand in silent sympathy. 
 
 " Ah ! then you'll nat' rally onderstand," he 
 concluded, " that I don't want to 'ave the 
 
 60
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 missus worryin' me with riddles as to what 'as 
 become of all the feminine fal-lals and gilguys 
 I accumulated during that mem'rable com- 
 mission ! In due course we turned up again 
 in 'Ongkong a cleaner, smarter, prouder and 
 better 'ated Janus than ever ; for, though 
 we'd failed to sight the buccaneer, we'd fought 
 an action against tremenjous odds, and sunk a 
 whole fleet of spe that is, pirate junks, with 
 our single Armstrong gun ! " 
 
 I nodded comprehendingly, for Mr. Pagett's 
 starboard eyelid had fluttered just enough to 
 swear by. 
 
 " But what is not so obvious," I added, " is 
 why, in spite of that terrifying oath, the 
 secret should have been so strictly kept. 
 Surely among some sixty odd er " 
 
 " Pirates," put in Mr. Pagett modestly. 
 
 " there must have been dissension over 
 
 the division of the spoil ? " 
 
 " When the calc'lation of shares is based 
 upon the Admiralty scale o' prize-money," ex- 
 plained Mr. Pagett, " and when those shares 
 are whacked out punctooally once a week at 
 the capstan by the assistant-paymaster-in- 
 
 61
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 charge and in the presence of the Captain, it 
 redooces the risk of dissension to a minimum. 
 There was one crumpled rose-leaf in our 
 'ammicks, though, and he was conscientious (or 
 misguided enough, whichever you prefer) not 
 only to refuse his share, but to write a letter 
 to Truth about it as well ! " 
 
 " I don't remember it," I pondered. 
 
 Mr. Pagett rose (a thought unsteadily, 
 perhaps), and, taking down from the chimney- 
 piece a battered Service ditty-box, he rum- 
 maged for some moments among its contents. 
 
 " P'r'aps that may 'elp to explain to you, 
 Mister," said he, as he placed a sheet of canteen 
 notepaper in my hand, "why the letter I 
 referred to was never posted. I copied that 
 inscription from a brass on the starboard as 
 you were ! the port wall (a little abaft amid- 
 ships) of 'Ongkong Cathedral." 
 
 " Sacred to the Memory of Private James 
 Keep, Royal Marines," I read aloud, "who, 
 while sentry on the lifebuoy, was washed over- 
 board from H.M. Gunboat JANUS and 
 drownded. This memorium tablet was erected 
 as a token of esteam by his grievous ship- 
 
 62
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A GUNBOAT 
 
 mates of ' all ranks. ' Hands employed as 
 requisite. 1 ' 
 
 " It was all along o' the skipper stumblin' 
 agin' 'im on a dark night," commented Mr. 
 Pagett, in further explanation. 
 
 "Talking of darkness," I exclaimed, "it is 
 high time I lit my candle and went to bed. 
 Where on earth ? " 
 
 " Why, 'ow in the name o' thunder did it get 
 into my pocket ? " demanded the ex-pirate, 
 restoring my silver matchbox. 
 
 c 2
 
 HIS IRREVERENCE
 
 Ill 
 
 "I MISREMEMBEK," said Mr. Pagett, as we 
 seated ourselves upon the low wall of the 
 little moorland churchyard, "whether in the 
 course o' my remarks on onwritten naval 
 'istory, I've ever mentioned the name o' Jan- 
 naway Lootenant Jannaway, of the Sea 
 Regiment?" 
 
 From my pockets I hurriedly produced, and 
 laid beside him, certain articles which a know- 
 ledge of the historian's methods had led me 
 to place therein before leaving the " Coach 
 and Horses " that morning. They comprised 
 a well-plenished 'baccy-pouch, a box of matches, 
 a knifeful of implements for stoppering and 
 cleaning pipes, and a flask of whisky dashed 
 (in deference to convention) with water. 
 
 " You refer," I replied, " to the earnest and 
 promising young officer who personally con- 
 
 67
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 ducted the Canadian-Pacific ' Home-coming of 
 the Strange Children,' who played the r61e of 
 Joseph in Policeman Potiphar's island estab- 
 lishment in the Straits of Malacca, who turned 
 out the entire Plymouth garrison for a fire 
 which " 
 
 " You might 'ave mistook the glow of the 
 'arvest moon be'ind a hill for a fire," retorted 
 Mr. Pagett indignantly, " if you'd been all 
 day on main-guard which is half-way house 
 o' call, in a manner o' speakin', for every thirsty 
 sailor and soldier orficer in the Three Towns!" 
 
 " This is your favourite ' Capstan Brand/ " 
 I meekly hinted, in atonement for the mal- 
 apropos reminiscence. 
 
 Magnanimous to a fault, he burrowed with 
 pipe-bowl and forefinger deep in my plethoric 
 pouch. 
 
 " I've such an 'igh opinion of Mr. Jannaway," 
 he observed severely, " that I 'ope some day to 
 see him Dep'ty-Adjutant-Gen'ral o' the Marine 
 Corpse!" 
 
 " I can think of no one more likely to 
 galvanize that moist body into a new lease 
 of life," I exclaimed enthusiastically. 
 
 68
 
 'HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 Mr. Pagett eyed me with obvious sus- 
 picion. 
 
 " As for that, Mister," he snorted, " you may 
 lay to it that, whoever else wants galvanizin', 
 it ain't the Marines. But what I mean to say 
 is Mr. Jannaway 'as gifts, great gifts, and 
 why, we 'ad an instance of 'em not 'alf-an- 
 hour ago. He'd got more to do with that 
 there wedding we've just witnessed than what 
 you think ! " 
 
 Seeing that I had not connected the absent 
 Jannaway with the function in any degree 
 soever, I accepted the postulate without demur. 
 As (an exorbitantly paying) guest at the village 
 inn I had been invited by my gallant host to 
 the marriage ceremony a ceremony run by 
 him on arbitrary quarter-deck lines, for which 
 his office of churchwarden seemed inadequate 
 justification. From the moment of their early 
 arrival upon consecrated ground the unhappy 
 bridegroom and best man (a couple of smart 
 young bluejackets from Devonport) had been 
 harried by marches and counter-marches along 
 the aisle, by a catechism on the " detail " in 
 the vestry, and by " preliminary practice " 
 
 69
 
 with the ring at the foot of the chancel steps. 
 Nor had the blushes of the bride herself 
 deterred the martinet. For, discovering that 
 shs was attended by an uneven number of 
 bridesmaids, he had delayed the procession at 
 the tower door until he had manoeuvred the 
 odd file into the position laid down for her 
 (according to Mr. Pagett) by the infantry drill 
 book. 
 
 " My last ship," he continued, with one of 
 his bewildering irrelevances in which the 
 method was at first sight less apparent than 
 the madness, " was the Immortalight, second- 
 class cruiser in the Channel Squadron. About 
 'alf-way through the commission our Lootenant 
 o' Marines (she only carried but one Marine 
 orficer) burst an 'aricot vein in his leg, and had 
 to be discharged to 'orspital ; and his relief, who 
 we picked up at Plymouth, was as onlike him as 
 lower-deck rum is from wardroom bubbly wine. 
 The first one 'ad always been bickerin' an' 
 squabblin' with the Commander (it was the 
 final countertemp between them what broke 
 his 'arioot), but the noo subawltern went about 
 his job like the ship's monkey, in a manner o' 
 
 70
 
 HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 epeakin', 'atching mischief, but never sayin' a 
 bloomin' word to nobody. 
 
 " When the defaulters' call sounded the 
 mornin' after he joined, the ' sergeant-major ' 
 reported to him very indignant that the naval 
 police 'ad placed three Marines in the Com- 
 mander's crime report instead of in the Marine 
 Orficer's, as by courtesy, at least they should 
 'ave done. The noo subawltern only grinned, 
 and all the time the Commander was tellin' 
 off them Marines stoppin' their leafe and 
 punishin' them with 10 A an' what not without 
 the slightest ref rence to their own orficer, mind 
 you ! he stood by on the aft deck with the 
 same sad smile on his face, and as interested, 
 seemin'ly, as a pore deaf mute with a weak 
 intellec'. 
 
 " But as soon as the petty sessions was over 
 he sends for the 'sergeant-major' on the 
 quarter-deck. ' It seems to me, Colour-sergeant 
 Kingcome,' he says, ' that either the Marine 
 sentries in this 'ere ship performs their dooties 
 in a perfunctoorily manner, or else the seamen 
 are an onnat 'rally well-be'aved lot o' fellers. 
 Now, my experience o' the Service 'itherto,'
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 he says, with the leastest possible droop of his 
 starboard eyelid, ' 'as been that for every crime 
 committed by a Marine two are done by blue- 
 jackets' he says. With which he turns on his 
 'el and strolls aft, while the ' sergeant-major ' 
 goes for'ard with his tongue in his cheek and 
 his eye cocked on the weather-vane at the 
 foretopmast 'ead. 
 
 "Nex' mornin' two Marines were reported 
 by the ship's police for fingerin' the paint- 
 work, and four seamen run in by a sentry 
 for spit tin' on the deck. Folio win' mornin' 
 six Marines for 'alf-a-dozen similar crimes, 
 and twelve bluejackets an' stokers. Mornin' 
 after nine Marines and eighteen naval ratings 
 of all sorts, till at last the skipper says to the 
 Commander : ' What's the bloomin' meanin',' 
 he says, ' of this sudden eperdemic o' crime in 
 the ship's comp'ny ? ' 
 
 " ' Something to do with the noo Marine 
 orficer, I b'lieve,' says the Commander, 
 gloomy-like. 
 
 " ' I don't care if it 'as to do with the 
 Archadmiral Gabriel Archangel, I should 
 say,' thunders the skipper, stampin' on the 
 
 72
 
 HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 deck ; ' it's got to be stopped ! If a prepos- 
 terously 'eavy punishment return like this 'ere 
 was to go into the flagship at the end o' the 
 quarter, it would jam my I mean your 
 promotion, and that's a adjective fac' I ' 
 
 " With that, the Commander, who, in spite 
 of his suspicions, couldn't prove nothin' against 
 the Marine orficer, sends for the Master-at- 
 arms to his cabin, and dresses 'im down 
 as that chief petty-orficer and 'ead of the 
 ship's police 'ad never been dressed down 
 before. 
 
 '"You and your pap-brained myrmidons,' 
 he concloods, ' are a sight too fond of bringin' 
 frivolous charges against the Marines, what 
 I don't even want to 'ear of ! ' 
 
 '"Very good, sir,' returns the surprised 
 Master-at-arms, 'umbly touching his 'at. 
 
 " ' Don't you say very good to me,' 'owls the 
 Commander, ' when I've just told you it's very 
 bad ! Aye aye, sir, is the proper way to 
 answer me,' he says, ' and just you keep them 
 naval police in some sort of order, or I'll 'ave 
 a few of them disrated,' he says ; ' and button 
 up your jacket and put your 'at on straight 
 
 73
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 when you come aft,' he says with a lot more 
 that I've forgot. And so wishful was the 
 Master-at-arms to get out o' the Commander's 
 cabin that he pretty nigh fell down the ward- 
 room ladder atop o' the ' sergeant-major,' who 
 was listenin' with a 'appy smile on his face at 
 the bottom of it." 
 
 "And ever afterwards," I hazarded, as Mr, 
 Pagett paused to light his pipe, " the Marine 
 defaulters were * told off ' by their own officer 
 instead of by the Commander? I am sure 
 Mr. Jannaway scored." 
 
 The ex-Private regarded me with a cold 
 stare of surprise. 
 
 " 'Ow you come to guess the end of all my 
 my experiences," he growled, " I can't think, 
 But it was 'im, and he certainly did score on 
 that occasion, same as what he always does. 
 There was the christenin' of the Commodore's 
 baby in 'Ongkong Cathedral, for instance, 
 when " 
 
 " Is not that a trifle premature ? " I pleaded: 
 " we were talking, you remember, of a wed- 
 ding." 
 
 The bellicose glare, with which he received 
 74
 
 'HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 the interruption, softened to a dreamy gaze 
 as I unscrewed the stopper of the flask and 
 placed the latter in his hands. 
 
 " We were," he gurgled, with its neck 
 between his teeth, " and of Lootenant Janna- 
 way's share in tyin' the 'appy knot. It was 
 this way, look. 
 
 " One day, about a month back, there come 
 to the ' Coach and 'Orses ' a young able seaman 
 with his kit-bag, who wants to know if he can 
 stop three weeks. His yarn was that he'd 
 just been paid off at Plymouth from the 
 Terpsi-chore, late flagship in the East Indies, 
 that he was on six weeks' furlough, that he 
 was engaged to be married to a farmer's 
 daughter on the other side of the moor, that 
 the banns were going to be called at our church 
 on the three followin' Sundays, and that he 
 was consequently bound to be ' domiciled ' in 
 the parish durin' that interesting if rather 
 embarrassing period. All o' which, with one 
 triflin' exception, turned out to be solid fac' ; 
 but if it 'adn't been for the exception there 
 wouldn't be no story for me to tell or for you 
 to pick 'oles in, Mister." 
 
 75
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " I should never dream " 
 
 Mr. Pagett swept my protest aside with a 
 foot of cherry wood stem. "Me an' you 'ave 
 smoked pipes together before," he said 
 darkly ; " but to return to the future bride- 
 groom elect. 
 
 " At first I put 'im in a attic and gave 'im 
 his rations in the kitchen ; for, 'aving been 
 a Marine a soldier invented by King Charles 
 the Second (before his 'ead was cut off) for 
 the purpose of preventin' mutiny in the fleet 
 no one knew better than me 'ow a pore 
 simple seaman is affected by the sight of 
 onlimited liquor. But when I found out 'ow 
 much money he'd saved in the East Indies for 
 the patriotic motive of spendin' in his native 
 country, and when I saw his respectful ad- 
 miration for a intellec' which could combine 
 the dooties of licensed victualler, parish 
 councillor and churchwarden, I brought him 
 down (the inn bein' empty at the time) to 
 the third-best bedroom, and invited him to 
 'ave the honour o' my company at meals in 
 the bar parlour. 
 
 " Every afternoon, as reg'lar as clockwork, 
 76
 
 'HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 he would set off across the moor to see his 
 fi nancy, and every evenin' over a after-supper 
 pipe he'd confide in me what a angel she was, 
 arid what beautiful back 'air she'd got, and 
 all the rest o' the drivel that the monkeys 'ad 
 to endure from Adam when he was keepin' 
 comp'ny with Eve. I give you my word that 
 in less than a week I was fair sick of 'im ! " 
 
 Mr. Pagett expectorated with emphasis into 
 the roadway, and unscrewed the stopper of 
 the flask. 
 
 " Humanum est amare" I parodied, de- 
 precatingly. 
 
 " I misremember that he ever told me," 
 retorted the indignant confidant, "but 
 whether she was a Mary or a Ermyntrood I 
 was precious glad when the banns were called 
 for the last time, and my lovesick lodger's 
 departure was, in a manner o' speakin', within 
 measureful distance. 
 
 " It was on that third Sunday evenin', 
 while he was enjoyin' the privilege of a pipe 
 in my sancto sanctotum, that I says to 'im 
 same as I might say to you now ' My lad,' 
 I says, ' your banns 'ave been called for the 
 
 77
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 third and last time this mornin' ; when is the 
 'appy day agoin' to be ? ' 
 
 " ' Mr. Pagett,' he replies just as it might 
 be you 'Mr Pagett, you'd better ask my 
 young lady financy, for between me an' you,' 
 he says, droppin' his voice to a awestruck 
 whisper, 'now that it 'as come to the point 
 I'm too bloomin' scared to do it myself.' 
 
 " ' My pore feller,' I says, encouraging-like, 
 'take a good look at me. You wouldn't 
 think,' I says, ' that a man distinguished in 
 commercial, moonicipal and ecclesiarstical 
 affairs same as what I am could 'ave been 
 equally timorous of Mrs. Pagett what-'ad-got- 
 to-be?' 
 
 " ' Yes I would,' he says, with a seaman's 
 love o' lyin', ' for you're just as much af eared 
 of her now.' 
 
 " I give him my well-known look that has 
 checked more than one post-capt'in, to say 
 nothin' of scores of rude fellers on the lower 
 deck. 
 
 " ' After all,' I says kindly, ' you got over 
 the worst of it when you asked her to be 
 your wife/ 
 
 78
 
 'HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 " ' Oh, did I ? ' lie snaps, irritable-like, 
 ' that's all you know about it, Mr. 'enpecked 
 Pagett what-'ad-got-to-be. Why, / 'aven't 
 even been introdooced to my jftnancy yet, so 
 put that in your bloomin' pipe and smoke it ! 
 
 " But I was never to smoke nothin' more 
 in that pipe, for it fell from my 'orrified teeth 
 and smashed itself in pieces on the floor. 
 
 " ' Do you mean to tell me,' I says, when 
 I'd tied a knot in my 'andkerchief to 'mind 
 me to charge 'im for it in the bill, 'that 
 you've 'ad a young woman's name called in 
 church on three successful Sundays without 
 even knowin' her to speak to ? ' 
 
 " * Don't blame it on to me/ he grumbles. 
 ' I'd 'ave spoke to her weeks ago, and kissed 
 her into the bargain, if it 'adn't been for the 
 perpetooal sentry-go kep' over her by her 
 bloomin' old ginger -whiskered, bludgeon - 
 brandishin' father. I see 'em first,' he says, 
 ' at the agricultooral show at Plymouth, 
 lookin' at the fat 'ogs; and what with her 
 shinin' eyes, and her 'air frizzed out like a 
 halo all round her 'at, she might 'ave been 
 a angel come down ' 
 
 79
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " ' I've heard all that before/ I interrup's. 
 
 " ' It won't 'urt you to 'ear it again 
 that I know of,' he retorts, 'uffy-like, ' but 
 since I want to turn in I'll reef the story 
 down a bit. Neether that day in Plymouth 
 nor afterwards out 'ere on the moor could I 
 get speech of her by reason of the bludgeon 
 and blasphemious langwidge, which, in a 
 manner o' speakin', always intervened. If 
 your ship won't tack you must wear that 
 is to say, go about the other way. My court- 
 ship wouldn't tack, so after it 'ad missed stays 
 a dozen times at least I went about to the 
 Vicar of this parish, as a matter o' fact, an' 
 put up the bloomin' banns. This mornin', as 
 you know, they were published for the third 
 and last time of askin', and, nobody 'aving 
 forbidden them, in the eye o' the law I'm 
 almost as much a married man as what you 
 are.' 
 
 " ' I 'ope not, my lad,' I returned, solemn- 
 like 'I mean there's verger's, an' bell- 
 ringers', an' parson's to say nothin' of 
 churchwarden's fees to be paid before you're 
 a lawful Benedictus, as the Prayer-book calls 
 
 80
 
 HIS IRREVERENCE 1 
 
 it. But apart from all that/ I says, ' onless 
 I'm much mistook you've rendered yourself 
 liable to ten years' 'ard for attemptin' to 
 obtain a bloomin' bride by false pretences. 
 By the bye,' I says, 'what's her father's 
 tally?' 
 
 " ' Butterbiggins,' he replies with a oath, 
 4 William Butterbiggins, of Wildflower Farm, 
 in the parish o' ' 
 
 " ' Butterbiggins ! ' I shouts, ' then you 
 won't get them ten years after all. You'll 
 be murdered instead/ I says, 'for he's the 
 'oliest terror on Dartmoor ! ' 
 
 " ' I've no doubt of it/ he answers, standin' 
 up, ' but it ain't for you to say so. My banns 
 'aving been three times called, if I choose to 
 swear at 'im I am at all events three parts 
 entitled to do so. But if I 'ear another 
 person disparagin' my future father-law/ he 
 says, ' me an' that person parts brassrags.' 
 With which he lights his candle and stalks off 
 to bed." 
 
 Mr. Pagett paused in his narrative in order 
 to set his watch by the church clock, which 
 at that moment struck the hour. 
 
 81
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " Then Mr. Jannaway," I observed, mentally 
 harking back to the beginning of things, 
 " doesn't come into this story ? " 
 
 " I misremember ever savin' that he didn't," 
 retorted the ex- Private severely, " but, as a 
 matter o' fact, it is Captain Jannaway who 
 does. For, although I still call 'im * Mister ' 
 from force of 'abit, he got his comp'ny twelve 
 months ago next 'ay 'arvest. And you may 
 lay to it that he comes very much into the 
 story as you shall 'ear. 
 
 "It so 'appened that the Vicar and the 
 More Reverend Canon Jannaway, our 'ero's 
 father, were at the same college at Cambridge 
 the Bunch o' Keys they call it, I b'lieve ; and 
 when the Vicar 'ears that Captain Jannaway 
 is quartered in Plymouth Barricks, he nat'rally 
 asks his old messmate's son out to lunch with 
 'im. The date, I recollec', was the Monday 
 after the bluejacket's banns 'ad been called 
 for the last time ; and the very 'eavens seemed 
 to be weepin' for the 'eartless 'okey pokey 
 that 'ad been played with a young maid's 
 modesty and the dignity of the Established 
 Church. The consequence was that Mr. 
 
 82
 
 'HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 Jannaway (I'm bound to call 'im ' Mister ') 
 got so wet walkin' from the station, that when 
 I opened the Vicarage 'all door to 'im " 
 
 " When you opened it ? " 
 
 " Yes, me Mr. Pagett, Es-quire, though 
 you needn't let on to the bloomin' Bishop 
 about it. It might wound his lordship's 
 vanity to 'ear that the fancy churchwarden of 
 his diocese occasionally goes out as butler in a 
 dress-soot for a small pecooniary stipend." 
 
 " The next time I stay at the palace," I 
 replied, " I will bear your injunction in mind. 
 In any case, I have not the slightest doubt 
 that your experiences as captain's valet and 
 lance-corporal of the wardroom servants have 
 well qualified you for the er profession." 
 
 "You may lay to it, Mister, that there's 
 nobody can't teach me nothin' about butlerin'," 
 he admitted, with complacent ambiguity ; 
 " but to return to our 'ero. ' Pagett,' he says, 
 shakin' 'ands me bein' in the evenin' soot 
 'if I'd been overboard I couldn't well be 
 wetter than what I am. You'll 'ave to put 
 me in the Vicar's bed,' he says, c while you 
 
 83
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 dry my clothes in front of the kitchen 
 fire.' 
 
 " ' There ain't no time for that, sir/ says 
 I ; ' it's gone two bells, and lunch is on the 
 bloomin' table. But I'll take you up to the 
 dressin'-room/ I says, * and rig you out in a 
 dry kit, so as you won't know yourself, 
 beggin' your pardon, from the walkin' sponge 
 what you are now/ 
 
 " With that we goes upstairs, an* while 
 he peels off his soppin' jacket an' knicker- 
 pants, I lays out the Vicar's review order 
 coat, collar, weskit and trousies. 
 
 " ' 'Ere/ says he, suddenly catchin' sight o* 
 them, an* shyin' like a cab 'orse, ' if you 
 think I'm goin' down to lunch in that lash-up 
 you're jolly well mistook. You can take 'em 
 back where they come from/ he says. 
 
 " ' Very good, sir/ I replies, pickin' 'em up 
 again ; ' there's still two other kits to choose 
 from/ 
 
 " ' Then trot 'em out for 'eaven's sake/ says 
 he ; ' anything would be better than them ! ' 
 
 "But he was 'ard to please, for, when he 
 84
 
 HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 saw the surplice and pyjammers I came back 
 with, he didn't seem to like 'em no better 
 than what he had the first lot. 
 
 "'I s'pose there's no 'elp for it,' he sighs, 
 as the luncheon gong 'urries him into the 
 trousies ; * but you'll 'ave to dress me, Pagett, 
 for 'alf the blessed fal-lals appear to button 
 up be'ind.' 
 
 " I got him into 'em at last, and never 
 even on the lower deck o' Sunday mornin's 
 'ave I 'eard such langwidge as he used when 
 he saw hisself in the glass. But I 'adn't the 
 'eart to check him ; for, though I'd never 
 noticed it with the Vicar, all the cloth seemed 
 to 'ave shrunk up the arms and legs to 'ang 
 in sooperfluous bights in the skirts of the 'igh 
 church coat. 
 
 " ' By the bye, sir,' I says, when we were 
 'alf- way down the stairs, ' the Vicar has left 
 his compliments for you, and he's been called 
 out to administer spirituous comfort to a dyin' 
 parishioner. He 'opes you will carry on with 
 the ladies ontil his return.' 
 
 " ' The ladies ! ' says Mr. Jannaway, stoppiii' 
 85
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 as if he was shot; 'what ladies, in 'eaven's 
 name ? I thought the Vicar was a bachelor.' 
 
 " ' That don't prevent him from 'aving 
 lawful nieces, that I know of,' I replies. 
 
 " * You can bring my clothes up from the 
 kitchen fire,' he says 'urriedly, ' and when I've 
 shifted let me out o' the back door.' With 
 which he turns and bolts up the stairs. 
 
 " But I 'ad him by the 'igh church tails 
 before he'd reached the landin'. ' They're 
 two of the beautifullest an' merriest young 
 ladies I ever set eyes on,' I whispers, gently 
 drawin' him down again. 
 
 " ' All the more reason,' he says, clutchin' 
 at the banisters, ' that they shouldn't see me 
 in this tomfool kit ! ' 
 
 " ' It's a clergyman's,' I reminds him, re- 
 provingly. 
 
 " ' I don't care if it's a archangel's,' he says, 
 stampin' his foot ; ' I ain't in 'oly orders, and 
 
 I refuse to masquerade ' But by this 
 
 time I'd got him to the drawin'-room door, 
 and before he could finish the sentence I'd 
 turned the 'andle and 'ollered out his tally. 
 
 86
 
 HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 " What" 'appened, them three alone know, 
 for I 'ad to go down to the galley to see 
 about dishin' up the lunch : but when I 
 marches them into the dinin'-room five 
 minutes later they seemed to 'ave got over 
 the worst of it. It is true that, each time 
 Mr. Janna way's eyeglass fell down the vacooum 
 between the Vicar's collar and his neck, Miss 
 Edith and Miss May shoved their lace 'andker- 
 chiefs into their respectful mouths ; and they 
 were continooally lookin' under the table for 
 their serviettes, which they knew all the time 
 were on their laps. Before the boiled 'akey 
 fish was off, 'owever, the three o' them were 
 chawin' their fat together yarning, I should 
 say as if they'd known each other all their 
 bloomin' lives. 
 
 " We'd got as far as the figgy duff and 
 the junket when one o' the maids, runnin' 
 into the room, cries out that a ginger-'eaded 
 madman was in the 'all threatenin' to murder 
 the Vicar. The instinc' of self-preservation 
 is always strongest in the bravest men, and 
 I'd just moved round to the window side o' 
 
 D 87
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 the table when the murderer bursts in at the 
 door. When I saw that it was Farmer Butter- 
 biggins I give you my word that I sweated 
 right through the dress -soot. 
 
 " 'So you'm the owdacious young priest 
 o' Baal what done it, be you ? ' he bellows, 
 shakin 1 his stick at Mr. Jannaway ; ' I du 
 call it sheameful o' the Bishop to give a raw 
 lad, same as you be, the power o' bein' so 
 mischeevious ! Me an' you 'ave gotten a 
 pretty bone to pick together, my rev'rend 
 gen'leman, I can tell 'ee ! ' 
 
 "'As the bones 'ave all been removed to 
 the kitchen, dear friend,' bleats Mr. Jannaway, 
 with a coorate-like smile, ' and since I can't 
 well desert the ladies to join you there, I fear 
 you'll 'ave to pick it by your lonesome.' 
 
 " ' I'll learn 'ee to make mock o' me afore 
 I've done with 'ee,' shouts the ginger- whiskered 
 murderer appleplectic'lly. ' If my own sister- 
 law's uncle wasn't a local preacher,' he says, 
 ' dang it all I'd lay thicky stick about 'ee 
 and so I tell 'ee ! But I'll 'ave the law on' ee/ 
 he says, ' Rev'rend or Irrev'rend, an* a British 
 
 88
 
 HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 jury '11 soon learn 'ee, you mark my words, 
 that this ain't a Popish country, where a young 
 maaid can be axed in church unbeknownst to 
 her father let alone herself ! ' 
 
 " ' Dearly beloved brother ' begins Mr. 
 
 Jannaway. 
 
 "'Don't you "dearly beloved" me,' 'owls 
 Butterbiggins, ' or there'll be murder done 
 afore the ladies ! What I want to knaw is 
 'oo give you leave fer to go an' do it ? ' 
 
 " ' I must refer you,' says Mr. Jannaway, 
 who'd 'ad the fac's from me while he was 
 dressin', ' to the seafarin' gentleman as is 
 stoppin' at the " Coach an' 'Orses." ' 
 
 " ' I'm agwoin' to 'im,' returns the murderer, 
 makin' for the door, ' and when I've done 
 for'n, I reckon I'll step round to p'leece station 
 an' take a summons out agin' you 1 ' With 
 which he grips his cudgel by the ferool end, 
 and rushes from the room. 
 
 " For fully 'alf a second I lost that presence 
 o' mind which 'as always been associated with 
 my gallant tally. 
 
 " : Mr. Jannaway,' I exclaims, armin' myself 
 89
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 at the end o' that time with a carvin'-knife 
 from the sideboard, ' for 'eaven's sake don't let 
 us have a crime upon our respectful consciences. 
 Onless we stop that bloodthirsty assassin he'll 
 wreck my bloomin* bar ! ' 
 
 " Wotever faults Mr. Jannaway may 'ave 
 and, in spite of the 'oly expression on his 
 sunburnt face, he ain't no terrer-cotter seraphim 
 I've always said this for him, namely, that 
 in cases of sudden emergency he's sometimes 
 nearly as prompt as what I am. Before I'd 
 finished speakin* he was apologisin' to the 
 ladies who were nat'rally a bit shook up 
 for our temp'rary absence, and with his 
 ritooalistic coatskirts tailin' out be'ind him, 
 he dashed, neck an' neck with me, out of the 
 'ouse. 
 
 " From the Vicarage to the ' Coach and 
 'Orses ' it is no more than a 'undred yards or 
 so of straight road, and as we debouched as 
 the drill book says from the garden gate, we 
 sighted the blood-curdlin' murderer enterin' 
 the inn. Outside the gate a young woman 
 was climbin' into a farmer's gig, and, as we 
 90
 
 HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 passed her, she whipped up the 'orse and 
 followed. We all arrived in my vestibool 
 simontaneous. 
 
 "But, oh 'eavens ! in spite of our 'eroic 
 efforts we were too late. The deed 'ad been 
 done what could never be ondone, and the 
 drippin' author of the outrage, bludgeon in 
 'and, was standin' at bay in the middle of the 
 red-splashed bar ! " 
 
 Mr. Pagett, seeking strength for the con- 
 tinuance of his narrative from the ordained 
 source, paused to unscrew the stopper. 
 
 " I was scarcely prepared," I said gravely, 
 " for so tragic an ending to your tale." 
 
 " It couldn't 'ave been more so," he sighed, 
 as with genteelly lifted little finger he raised 
 my flask to his lips. "For on the topmost 
 shelf, where his nat'ral instinc's 'ad prompted 
 him to climb, sat the bluejacket; and, in 
 tryin' to 'it his legs with the cudgel, Farmer 
 Butterbiggins 'ad smashed my last bottle o' 
 flagship sick-bay port ! 
 
 " What Mr. Butterbiggins said before his 
 daughter, too, who'd left the gig with the
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 ostler! makes me 'ot to think of. 'Alf the 
 village was grinnin' through the window, the 
 missus 'ad sent me a message by the chamber- 
 maid to know if it was Parish Councils, and 
 I'd just made up my mind to send for the 
 Force before he 'ad his dinner, when Mr. 
 Jannaway raises his 'and (it might 'ave been 
 the Bishop hisself) and began to address the 
 meetin'. 
 
 " * Mr. Butterbiggins,' he says, ' I may as 
 well tell you first as last that, not bein' in 'oly 
 orders, I ain't the Vicar though, for reasons 
 which are irreverent to the issue, as lawyers 
 say, I 'appen to be wearin' his kit. As a 
 matter o' fact,' he says, ' I've never set foot in 
 this village ontil to-day, nor, with the exception 
 of my 'ighly populous friend, Mr. Pagett 'ere, 
 'ave I ever 'ad the pleasure of seein' any of you 
 before. Now, speakin' as an onbiassed out- 
 sider,' he says, ' it seems to me that, instead of 
 blas^ 11 ' *ke career of the mistaken but gallant 
 young seaman roostin' up yonder among the 
 bottles to say nothin' of draggin' the ancient 
 an' honourable name o' Butterbiggins into a 
 
 92
 
 'HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 police court it would be 'appier for all 
 parties if the matter could be settled by 
 arbitration.' 
 
 " Well, after a bit o' grumblin', the farmer 
 'anded his cudgel to me (for fear o' accidents), 
 and the bluejacket climbed down from aloft ; 
 and, Mr. Jannaway 'aving ordered two bottles 
 o' champagne wine, we all four set down at 
 the table to discuss the question o' compensa- 
 tion. But, once the amount (to be 'anded to 
 some charity) 'ad been fixed on, the man who 
 was to pay it seemed to lose all int'rest in the 
 proceedin's. For, after a debate between 
 Butterbiggins on the one side, and me as 
 churchwarden on the other, as to whether the 
 Fat Stock Breeders or the Additional Coorates 
 was to 'ave the biggest 'alf o' the money, we 
 found that he'd left the room. 
 
 " It was Mr. Jannaway as went to find him, 
 and when they came back I saw Farmer 
 Butterbiggins look 'ard in the direction of his 
 cudgel. For his daughter was with them, and 
 the bluejacket's arm was round her trim little 
 waist ! 
 
 93
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " ' By your leafe, sir/ says the sailor, as 
 bold as brass, 'me an' your daughter 'aye 
 come to the concloosion that it would be a 
 sinful waste o' fees not to make use o' them 
 banns. As for the compensation money,' he 
 says, ' why, charity begins at 'ome ; and when 
 I've added to it what Mr. Barabbas 'ere 
 Pagett, I should say 'as left in my pockets, 
 there'll be a tidy little sum to start 'ousekeepin' 
 with after the weddinV 
 
 " ' Dang me/ says the farmer, after another 
 narrer escape from appleplexy, 'if a maaid 
 bain't the most contrarious critter in creation ! 
 Why, not 'alf a hour back thee was more mad 
 with'n than I were ! ' 
 
 " * So I was, sure 'nough/ says she. ' But I 
 reckon/ she adds, smilin' up at the sunburnt 
 face 'longside her, ' that 'tes no good arguin' 
 with the Navy!'" 
 
 " There'll be another weddin' 'ere before 
 long, you mark my words," opined Mr. Pagett, 
 as we dropped from the wall and set our faces 
 homewards. 
 
 94
 
 'HIS IRREVERENCE' 
 
 " Mr. Jannaway returned to the Vicarage," I 
 observed, with conviction. 
 
 " He did, and a many times afterwards. 
 Though whether it's Miss Edith or Miss May " 
 Mr. Pagett scratched his head in perplexity 
 "is a thing what even I can't tell you." 
 
 D 2 95
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM 
 CLUB
 
 IV 
 
 " THE 'orse," opined Mr. Pagett vindictively, 
 as he scraped the mud from his waistcoat with 
 my penknife, " may be a noble and 'ighly 
 intelligent animal, but " 
 
 "When he meets a motor-car," I adapted 
 from the Babu essayist, " he ceases to do 
 either ! " 
 
 With a view to demonstrating the advan- 
 tages of mounting from the " starboard " 
 instead of from the more conventional near 
 side, the ex-Private-of-Marines-turned-land- 
 lord had caused his ancient crock, "Friend 
 of Man," to be saddled and brought round to 
 the inn door. But the car chancing to pass 
 while he was still endeavouring to thread 
 his toe through the left stirrup, disaster had 
 ensued, and "Friend of Man," tingling from 
 subsequent chastisement, had been " returned 
 to store " by the ostler. 
 
 99
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 "The nobility of the 'orse," explained Mr. 
 Paget, when, cleansed and court-plastered, he 
 had rejoined me in the private bar, "is a 
 misleadin' fashion dee parlour, as a Froggy 
 would say. Our so-called ' dumb friend/ 
 bein' subjec' to fits of 'omicidal mania, is, as 
 a matter o' fact, our most treacherous enemy ; 
 while the 'igh intelligence we hear so much 
 of 'as been proved by them as have tested 
 it " Mr. Pagett fingered his knee-cap tenderly 
 " to be nothin' more than low cunnin'. So 
 far from bein' the friend o' man he's a 
 property- wreckin', manslaughterin' terror." 
 
 " But surely " I protested. 
 
 " A bloomin', pig-'eaded terror," he insisted, 
 " 'alf infernal machine, 'alf fool. For who but 
 a fool would pass a Volunteer band without 
 turnin' a hair and the next minute dance a 
 ondelicate cake-walk at the sight of a noos- 
 paper lyin' in the 'edge ? " 
 
 "You have suffered in your time, Mr. 
 Pagett ? " I sympathised, as he paused to 
 sip the pick-me-up I had prescribed (and 
 provided) for him. 
 
 " I 'ave, and that you may lay to," he 
 100
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 admitted resentfully ; " what 'appened five 
 minutes ago, for instance, wasn't what you 
 might call pastime for me, I mean to say." 
 He eyed me suspiciously, but I fixed my 
 thoughts on the Fiscal Problem, and he was 
 reassured. " Yet, buckjumper as that young 
 'unter of mine is, look you, he's a paralytic 
 compared with a he-devil I once 'ad the 
 navigating of in Malta. He stopped just 
 short of breakin' my gallant neck, it is true, 
 else me an' you wouldn't be 'aving the honour 
 of each other's comp'ny in my sanctotum 
 ii ow. But he lost me a badge and my ship ; 
 and when I tell you she was that queen o' 
 ships the flag in the Mediterranean, and 
 that I was sent from her to the bloomin' 
 Flea, the smallest and crummiest gunboat 
 in the Levant you will onderstand 'ow a 
 military career of extr'ordin'ry promise was 
 blasted, and why I'm so fond of that noble 
 and super'umanly intelligent animal the 'orse. 
 It was this way, look. 
 
 " My 'igh proficiency in the art o' war (to 
 say nothing of my talent for orficers' 'air- 
 cuttin' and other parlour tricks) 'ad been 
 101
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 scandalously frittered away for years in small 
 craft all over the globe before I was called 
 to my nat'ral sp'ere o' usefulness under the 
 daily eye of an Admiral. The flagship up the 
 Straits is always the classiest ship in the 
 Navy, and you may lay to it that H.M.S. 
 Sooperdlious was no exception to the rule. 
 Her musketry returns were nothin' to gas 
 about, it is true, and her gunnery record 
 was never allooded to till after ' out lights ! ' 
 But she was a smother, from navigatin' bridge 
 to tiller flat, of white enamel paint and gold 
 leaf, and I've cut lords' 'air aboard of 'er in 
 a single dog watch enough to stuff a bloomin' 
 bolster with. 
 
 "It so 'appened that one fine afternoon, 
 soon after I'd joined her, I was settin' with 
 a shipmate outside o' the 'Alfway 'Ouse on 
 the Chitter Veckier road. The shipmate was 
 an ordin'ry of the name o' Tong Orlbert 
 Tong, christened after the Prince Consort, 
 but the radicallest sea-lawyer on the lower 
 deck. He'd just taken 'alf-an-hour to explain 
 to me that the only difference between a 
 ordinary seaman and an Admiral was a pair 
 
 102
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 o' Jemima boots, a dickey and a gold-peaked 
 'at, when a long line o' smart dogtraps swep' 
 past, smotherin' us in a cloud o' dust. Each 
 dogtrap was drawn by a couple o' ponies, 
 'arnessed single file, and with their 'air and 
 tails cut short like a man come out o' cells. 
 Settin' alongside each coachman was a lady, 
 and since the leading 'and was the Admiral 
 hisself, and 'alf the remainder were other 
 orficers o' the flagship me an' Tong 'ad to 
 stand up and salute. 
 
 " ' What is it V I asks, when we'd set down 
 again, ' a Derby 'orse race on wheels ? ' 
 
 " ' No,' answers Tong, gloomy-like, as he 
 brushed the dust from his jumper, ' it ain't : 
 it's a objec' lesson on the bloatedness o' the 
 upper clarses. While me an' you an' the 
 rest o' the lower deck are slavin' like niggers,' 
 he says, drawin' the cork of his second bottle 
 o' beer, ' our so-called bloomin' sooperiors are 
 gallivantin' ashore with females. That there 
 circus what has just passed us,' he says, ' is 
 the Orficers' Tan turn Club.' 
 
 " ' I'm no wiser than what I was before/ I 
 says. 
 
 103
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " ' And that wasn't nothing to 'urt you,' he 
 grins, with a sailor's attemp' at wit. "Owever, 
 a tantum is a pair of 'orses 'arnessed line- 
 ahead (instead of abreast) in a dogtrap ; and 
 all the bloated orficers of the garrison an' 
 fleet who've got one have formed theirselves 
 into a club. If me or you was keepin' 
 eomp'ny with a young lady,' he says, pickin' 
 his teeth with a pin, ' we'd 'ave to do our 
 walkin'-out on our own four bloomin' feet. 
 But there's one law for the pore and another 
 for the rich,' he says, ' and the quarter-deck 
 walk their females out in tantums ! ' 
 
 " It was warm settin' in our great-coats 
 outside that there public- 'ouse, and I think 
 I must 'ave got a touch o' the December 
 sun. For 'ow could a brain like mine in its 
 norman condition have 'atched such a maggot 
 as the one which was to lose me well, you've 
 'card ? 
 
 " * And what/ I asks, finishin' my second 
 bottle, 'is to prevent the lower deck from 
 'aving their Tantum Club, too ? ' 
 
 " ' By the Lord 'Arry nothin' ! ' he shouts ; 
 and, if it 'adn't been for my knowledge of 
 104
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 pore 'uman nature, he'd 'ave 'urried back to 
 the ship that very moment leavin' me to 
 pay for the liquor. 
 
 " As soon as we got on board we passed 
 the word among the ship's comp'ny, and 
 that evenin* a meetin' was 'eld on the fo'c'sle 
 ' to consider a proposal to form a lower-deck 
 Tan turn Club.' You will 'ardly be surprised 
 to hear that the man as was voted pro con. 
 into the chair was me. 
 
 " ' Gentlemen/ I shouts there was a sing- 
 song goin' on in the ship at the next buoy 
 ' we've met to discuss a subjec' which will 
 appeal to every true lover of the 'orse, and 
 where is the sailor who isn't ? ' 
 
 " ' 'Ere/ sings out a resentful voice from a 
 bandaged 'ead in the background. 
 
 " ' A man as tries to ride between two 
 lamp-posts where there's only one/ I retorts 
 (not knowin' as much of the "ighly intelli- 
 gent' as I do now), 'can't blame the pore 
 'orse. But to resoom. In submittin' the 
 proposal to the meetin'/ I says, ' I would 
 urge that no onsportsinanlike attemp' be made 
 to cut out, or 'andicap in any way, the 
 105
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 existin' Orficers' Tantum Club. The quarter- 
 deck,' I says, *'ave done us no 'arm more 
 than what it's their dooty to do, and I for 
 one won't 'elp to make any odious comparison 
 which would 'umiliate them in the eyes o' 
 their females. But dogtrap exercise is as 
 good for a lower-deck liver as what it is 
 for a lord's, and I fean't imagine no better 
 shake-up for eether than, say, a tantum drive 
 down Calcara '111.' 
 
 " ' Nor me,' laughs the obstructer in the 
 bandage, ' seein' as the Grand 'Arbour is at 
 the bottom of it ! ' 
 
 " ' It is,' I acquiesces, ' for them as are 
 incapable of navigatin' a tantum into the 
 road along the Marina. But, 'appily for the 
 pore lamp-posts, we ain't all double-sighted,' 
 I says, ' and ' 
 
 " When the ensooin' onpleasantness had 
 been stopped by a dozen friendly 'ands, a 
 plumber's mate from Glasgow asked 'ow much 
 his subscription would be ? 
 
 " ' It nat'rally depends,' I points out, ' on 
 the number o' members who join and the 
 number o' tantums 'ired. The more the 
 1 06
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 members and the fewer the tantums, the 
 less the cost and the smaller your subscrip- 
 tion, chum.' 
 
 " ' The bigger the members an' smaller the 
 tantums/ he puzzles, scratchin' his sandy 'ead, 
 ' the less the numbers an' mair the subscrip 
 
 Mon, 'tis a matter for carefu' con- 
 
 seederation/ 
 
 " ' Don't 'ee overdo it, my dear life ! ' calls 
 out a sarcaustic second-class stoker from 
 Mevagissey ; ' I reckon 'twas up to Glasgie 
 where too much of it killed old tom-cat ! ' 
 
 " ' Any'ow/ puts in a Landport chum o' 
 the plumber's mate, * they don't 'ang pore 
 shipwrecked monkeys at Glasgow on suspicion 
 o' bein' French spies same as what they did 
 once in Meva ' 
 
 " The three- 'anded onset between the stoker, 
 the plumber's mate and the chum rapidly 
 developed into a gen'ral melly; and another 
 ten minutes o' my valuable breath was wasted 
 in hollerin', ' Order, gentlemen, please ! ' (and 
 'ammering the liar from Landport) before peace 
 was restored and the business o' the meetin' 
 continued. 
 
 107
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " Not bein' wishful to weary you with 
 irreverent details, Mister, I will leave out the 
 rest of the silly sailor talk with which I was 
 continooally interrupted. After much 'eated 
 discussion (and the removal by the ship's 
 police of a wardroom cook's mate and two 
 seamen) it was finally decided to christen the 
 enterprise (at the ' Union Jack ' free 'ouse) by 
 the name o' ' The Flagship's One-'Orse Tantum 
 Club.' This tally was adopted, partly to 
 avoid the otherwise inevitable confusion with 
 the orficers' club, and partly because it was 
 the gen'ral opinion that a two-'orse-power dog- 
 trap was ridic'lously over-injined. The choice 
 o' club colours, the 'ire of a cornet, the fittin' 
 of a bin under the thwart of each tantum for 
 the stowage o' liquid refreshment, with such- 
 like second'ry but 'ighly necessary etceterers, 
 were settled with as little onpleasantness as 
 could be expected. But when it come to the 
 formality of takin' the collection, in a manner 
 o' speakin', there was a sudden gloom which 
 I've often noticed since in my capacity o 
 churchwarden. 
 
 " ' The financial scheme which I 'ave the 
 1 08
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 honour of submittin' to you, gentlemen,' I 
 says, lower-in' my voice from the shout which 
 was no longer necessary, ' is one which I 
 venture to 'ope you will consider worthy of 
 the intellec' which conceived it. Since there's 
 a considerable diffrence between our respectful 
 sea wages,' I says, 'it's obvious that some of 
 us can't afford the same subscription as what 
 some others of us can. On the other 'and,' I 
 says, ' it's equally plain that them as pays less 
 ain't entitled to the same privileges with them 
 as pays more. I propose, therefore,' I says, 
 'to 'ave two classes of subscribers life members 
 
 and lifeless mem 1 mean, none-life members, 
 
 the latter to contribute seven-an'-six, five shil- 
 lin's and 'alf-a-crown, accordin' to their pay. 
 The seven-'an-sixpennies, on the principle of 
 the Dartmoor coaches,' I says, ' to 'ave the 
 privilege of riding up the 'ills, the five shil- 
 lin'ses to walk up them, and the 'alf-crowns to 
 bloomin' well shove be'ind.' 
 
 "The dazed silence which followed was a 
 gratifyin' tribute to my well-known gift for 
 figgers. It was a wooden-'eaded sea-lawyer of 
 an able seaman as first broke it. 
 109
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " ' Where's the sense/ he asks, irritable-like, 
 ' in talkin' of life members when the club will 
 be scattered to the four winds of 'eaven at the 
 end o' the present commission ? ' 
 
 " ' More than what that solid figger-'ead of 
 yours is capable of onderstandin',' I retorts, 
 betrayed, for the third time in my life, into 
 nat'ral irritation. ' Accidents will 'appen to 
 the best navigated dogtraps/ I says, ' and, in 
 spite of the 'igh intelligence of the noble friend 
 o' man, even the most 'orsiest of us is liable to 
 top-up a tanturn drive in the mortuiary of an 
 'orspital. In which case,' I says, ' the corpse, 
 if a ten shillin' life member, would not only 
 'ave shared the privilege of the seven-an'-six- 
 pennies in his lifetime, but would be entitled/ 
 I says, ' to brass-'eaded nails on his cawfin and 
 a wreath of artificial immortals provided for 
 out o' the sinking fund o' the club/ 
 
 " Wasn't it an extr'ordinary piece of luck, 
 Mister, for a lower deck to 'ave a man of 
 intellec' and strong commercial instinc's like 
 me to start its Tantum Club on a sound 
 financial basis? That master-stroke of the 
 wreath and the brass-'eaded nails fetched a 
 no
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 score of 'alf-sufferins out o' the bars of soap, 
 where, in accordance with the primitive custom 
 of seamen, they'd been 'idden since last pay 
 day ; and, once the gold was tapped, the silver 
 flowed like water. The election of a committee 
 passed off with the minimum o' violence 
 Tong, on the strength of a cousin in the Royal 
 'Orse Artillery, bein' voted honourable sec'et'ry, 
 with Tregenna, the Cornish stoker (who'd been 
 the station 'bus conductor at Fowey), honour- 
 able treasurer. It would be as insultin' to 
 your intelligence, Mister, as it would be onbe- 
 comin' of me, to mention the name o' the man 
 who was elected president. 
 
 " Before the 'ands were piped down at four 
 bells, it was decided that the honourable com- 
 mittee should go ashore nex' day for the pur- 
 pose of 'iring a sample tantum, and runnin' 
 a trial trip over the measured mile. By a 
 remarkable coin-cidence, 'owever, it 'appened 
 that the three of us were victims at the same 
 time of that onconstitootional interference 
 with the liberty o' the subjec' known in the 
 Navy as ' stoppage o' leafe.' But a committee 
 that isn't prepared to make some sacrifice, pro 
 in
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 bonno clublico (to adap' the French pun), ain't 
 worth its bloomin' perkisites, and by three 
 o'clock the followin' afternoon, Misters Pagett, 
 Tong, and Tregenna 'ad committed the henious 
 crime of breakin' out o' their ship. 
 
 " Time bein' precious that disgrace to 
 'umanity, the man-'untin' picket, would be 
 laid on our trail at once we 'ailed a carrotchy 
 at Calcara steps, and ordered the Jose* to drive 
 like like 'eaven to Black Saliva's stables at 
 the Marsa. The proprietor hisself bein' in bed 
 with a bruise on the sitdown (give 'im by the 
 friend o' man), we were interviewed by his 
 leading 'and a swivel-eyed, lop-eared leper I 
 was within an ace of takin' off my belt to. 
 For, admitting that he was justified in ques- 
 tionin' the onsupported bonno fydes of a 
 stoker and a ordinary seaman, his suspicion 
 was onwarrantable when the pore fellers were 
 'all-marked (in a manner o' speakin') by the 
 three good-conduc' badges on my tooiiic, and 
 by a face which was trusted at first sight by 
 every chapling with whom it was brought in 
 contac'." 
 
 With an expression half simper, half leer, 
 112
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 which I interpreted as an illustration of his 
 method with the maritime clergy, Mr. Pagett 
 raised his empty tumbler to his lips. It being 
 impossible to disregard three times in succes- 
 sion a hint so delicately conveyed, I accepted 
 the inevitable, and the narrative in due course 
 proceeded. 
 
 " The offensive manner of Black Saliva's 
 leading 'and vanished like magic at sight o 1 
 the two soapy 'alf-sufferins the honourable 
 treasurer 'ad 'ad the foresight to bring with 
 him. 
 
 " ' Come this way, sare,' he says, nat'rally 
 addressin' hisself to me, ' you are a senior who 
 will know that I speak de truth when I say 
 that you shall 'ave the best tantum in the 
 whole of Malta ! It belong one time to Maltese 
 nobleman,' he says, ' and now ' 
 
 " ' What's wrong with it ? ' asks Tong, with 
 seamanlike suspicion. 
 
 " 'Nothing wrong, senior/ whines the ragged- 
 muffin, ' but the Count he leave de island, and 
 when he go he ask Mistare Saliva, with the 
 tear standin' in his eye, to give it a kind 
 'ome.'
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " ' What, the bloomin' dogtrap ? ' shouts 
 Tong. 
 
 " ' No, sare you no onderstand like the 
 intelligent military senior ' (meanin' me), 
 returns pore Jose*. ' Not the carriage, sare, 
 but the 'orse that goes with 'im here 'e is, 
 senior ! ' 
 
 " ' 'Ow long ago/ inquired Tregenna, after 
 we'd looked at the ' 'im ' (which was the dog- 
 trap, not the 'orse) for a full minute o' silence, 
 ' 'ow long ago did the Count leave the island ? 
 Fifty years ? ' 
 
 " * Fifty year ! Corpo di Baccy, senior, he 
 sail by de last P. an' 0., and he buy this 
 carrotchy brand-noo the week before 'e ' 
 
 " ' Let's see the 'orse/ I interrup's, mindful 
 of his immortal soul, even though he was a 
 Maltee. 
 
 " When the ' 'ighly intelligent ' was led out 
 of his mess-place by a stable 'and, the three of 
 us winked at each other to signify that 'ere 
 was a piece of 'orse-flesh that mustn't be 
 allowed to slip through our fingers for the 
 sake of a extra shillin'. For, if the tantum 
 was a bit obsolete, it was more than made up 
 114
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 for by the newness, in a manner o' speakin', of 
 the 'orse ; while the 'opeful look on his face, 
 as he allowed hisself to be 'arnessed to the 
 dogtrap, won our respectful 'earts simontaneous. 
 "'We'll stop at the first pub/ says Tong 
 enthusiastic'lly, ' and christen the bloomer 
 
 "'What for?' asks Tregenna, referring of 
 course, to the tally, not the stoppage. 
 
 " ' Because,' answers Tong, who'd been the 
 terror of a Sunday school in his boy'ood, ' we 
 are told that he came delicately' 
 
 "As we were all three of one mind with 
 regard to the 'orse, and since the Count 
 (accordin' to the raggedmuffin) would be 'eart- 
 broken if his four-legged favourite and his 
 tantum parted comp'ny, we decided to give 
 'em both a trial 'anding over the two 'alf- 
 sufferins (with bits o' soap still sticking to 'em) 
 as a deposit. While Agag's runnin' gear was 
 being rove by the ostler, I asks the leading 
 'and if he could let us have the loan of an 'orn 
 or cornet, in case we should be overtook by 
 a fog. 
 
 " * Senior/ he returns 'urriedly, ' Beelze I
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 mean, Agag is very quiet 'orse, as you see 
 the most gentle 'orse in all de Maltese islands. 
 Twice no, three time he take de sugar from 
 my 'and, and only bite me once. But me 
 very honest fellow, sare, and I speaka you de 
 truth. He got one only one little vice. 
 He no love de music, and when he hear it the 
 blessed saints preserve you, for he clean go off 
 his chumpa ! ' 
 
 " ' We'll soon learn 'im to love it,' I says, 
 doin' a little prelimin'ry drill with the whip. 
 ' Tong ! ' I sings out, ' there's the bloomin' 
 picket comin' for us across the Marsa ! ' 
 
 " ' No, it ain't,' he returns, lookin' 'ard in 
 that direction, * it's only a seminairy o' makee- 
 learn priests out for a afternoon airin'. 'Ere,' 
 he says, turnin' round in time to see me 
 climbin' into the dogtrap, ' Tm the senior 
 Service, and, as such, I take the yoke-lines ! ' 
 
 " ' The senior Service shouldn't have been 
 in such a cast-iron 'urry to look at a seminairy,' 
 I grins, takin' a couple o' turns with the reins 
 round my right wrist. 
 
 " ' Any'ow,' he grumbles, clamberin' up by 
 the other step with a oath, ' you might set the 
 116
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 proper side o' the blessed craft. It ain't the 
 fashion,' he says, ' to drive from the port 
 dickey I pertic'larly noticed it as we come 
 along from Calcara.' 
 
 " ' I never was fash'nable, although you 
 mightn't think it,' I retorts, getting a purchase 
 on Agag's sarcaustic mouth ; ' but if your 'cart 
 is set on it, and you'll pass your word not to 
 take the lines, I don't mind shiftin' over to 
 oblige a shipmate.' 
 
 " ' For 'eaven's sake set down ! ' sings out 
 Tregenna from the stern sheets seat, I should 
 say ; ' if you two lubbers stand up while she's 
 under weigh, you'll capsize the bally tantum ! ' 
 
 " Although collectin' fares in a Cornish bus 
 'ardly qualified him to give me advice in 'orse- 
 drivin', I was sailor enough to see the sense o' 
 what he said. For, the ostler 'aving cast off 
 from for'ard, and Tregenna 'aving sheered off 
 astern from the stable wall with the butt- end 
 o' the whip, I was now steerin' Agag through 
 the yard gateway into the open road. No 
 one but them as 'ave tried it would believe 
 'ow much narrower a gap seems from the 
 navigatin' box of a tanturn than on foot ; but, 
 117
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 thanks to a blameless life, I got out with no 
 more damage than a triflin' dent in the 'ub of 
 the starboard wheel. 
 
 " We'd decided to run the trial trip along 
 the road which winds round Sliema Creek, 
 where we knew the distance between two 
 public-'ouses to be exactly one mile. But as 
 we were all three onfamiliar with the other 
 roads o' the island, I'd borrowed a cyclin' map 
 from the Chapling on pretence of lookin' out 
 some quiet country walks against the time my 
 leafe should be restored. This chart was now 
 spread out on Tong's knees, and as we passed 
 each landmark he kep' prickin' off our position 
 with a pin. 
 
 " ' After alterin' course near the aquedue'/ 
 he explains, ' we ought to sight Spenser's 
 Monument on the opposite 'ill. From the 
 monument we bear away to the north'ard as 
 far as the Vier Principesser Meleeter, when 
 Look 'ere/ he says, ' what are you playin' at, 
 for 'eaven's sake ? Are we a tantum club,' he 
 says, ' or are we a bloomin' walkin' funeral ? ' 
 
 " ' It ain't my fault/ I returns, indignant, 
 ' there's no other place left for me to 'it him 
 118
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 on leastways none that I can reach from 'ere, 
 and if I cluck any 'arder I shall get paralysis 
 o' the tongue ! ' 
 
 " ' You'll get a month's 'ard that's what 
 you will get,' he says, as the 'orse comes to a 
 standstill 'alf-way up the long rise to Spenser's 
 Monument. ' He's going to die, by the look 
 of 'im,' he says, ' and you'll be jugged for 
 manslaughterin' a pore dumb animal.' 
 
 "Although I knew there was nothin' more 
 in these crool words than an ignorant seaman's 
 jealousy of my skill in 'orse-drivin', I don't 
 mind admittin', Mister, that I didn't 'alf like 
 Agag's onmistakably feverish appearance. His 
 ears were laid fore-an'-aft along the top of hia 
 'ead, I could see the whites of his eyes from 
 the navigatin' box, and he was scratchin' the 
 roadway with his two foremost paws like a 
 dyin' man pickin' at his coverlet. The nex' 
 minute Tregenna 'ad jumped down from be'ind, 
 and was crawlin' on his 'ands and knees under 
 the animal's stummick. 
 
 " ' What are you a-doing of you silly 
 stoke'old sooicide ? " I shouts. 
 
 " * Loobricatin' of his joints,' he answers, 
 E 119
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 'olding up an oil-can what he'd smuggled 
 ashore inside his Sunday jumper. 
 
 " The words were 'ardly out of his mouth 
 before Agag, suddenly springin* up to atten- 
 tion, began to ' quick mark time ' with his hind 
 paws, and Tregenna came out quicker even 
 than what he'd crawled underneath. At first 
 I thought it was the loobricatin' oil, but when 
 I heard a military band comin' nearer every 
 minute, it minded me of the raggedmuffin's 
 warnin', and I sweated right through my 
 toonic. 
 
 " ' All 'ands aboard ! ' I sings out, for the 
 seaman 'ad also jumped down to look at the 
 'orse's tongue ; ' it's 'omicidal mania what's 
 the matter with 'im,' I says, 'and the more 
 ballast there is in the tantum the 'arder it'll 
 be for 'im to do it ! ' 
 
 " ' They're playin' the Funeral March of an 
 'Ero,' pants Tong, as he scrambles into the 
 yawing tantum, ' and we'll collide with the 
 mournful corteege at the turnin' by Spenser's 
 Monument ! ' 
 
 '"If you'd 'ad the sense to bring a grapnel 
 with you instead of a messy oil-can,' I snaps 
 1 20
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 at Tregenna over my shoulder, ' we might 'ave 
 dropped it astern and brought up in our own 
 length ! ' 
 
 " But the vulgar repartee, which comes 
 nat'ral to a stoker, was lost in the 'orrible 
 clatter of Agag's paws on the 'ighway. For 
 although not a minute before he could 'ardly 
 crawl on the level, and in spite o' the fac' that 
 the three of us were fallin' back on the reins 
 like a tug-o'-war team on a rope, he was racin' 
 up that incline as if he belonged to a fire-injin. 
 Along the road at the top the corteege in slow 
 time was already crossin' our course ; and I 
 felt my 'air liftin' my forage 'at as it suddenly 
 come 'ome to me that we were just ten seconds 
 too late. With a din that might 'ave woke 
 the pore 'Ero we were into the bloomin' band ! 
 
 " My word, but it gives me a temp'rature 
 to think of it even now ! With an 'eart- 
 rending moan, like the wind runnin' out o' 
 the organ when the blower forgets the ' Amen,' 
 the music suddenly stopped ; and the bands- 
 men, on the parley-voo principle of Soaky poo! 
 dropped their instruments and scattered in all 
 directions. The gun-carriage came to an 'alt 
 121
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 with a jerk that shook off the wreaths, and, 
 before I could see 'ow he did it, that buck- 
 jumpin' 'omicide we'd 'ired for a golden sufferin' 
 had got one of them jammed round his 
 neck. 
 
 " ' Ketch 'old of his 'ead ! ' shouts the orficer 
 in command, who pluckily stuck to his post at 
 the far end o' the column, ' ketch 'old and turn 
 'im round the other way ! ' 
 
 " But so vi'lently did Agag keep turnin' 
 hisself round in his attemp's to get rid o' the 
 wreath, that no one seemed wishful to be the 
 first to carry out the lawful order. The 
 Drum-major, it is true, made a gallant effort 
 to brain him with his heavy crape-bound staff. 
 But as he missed his aim and knocked Tregenna 
 'alf off the back seat instead, he did himself 
 more 'arm than good ; for from that day he 
 was a marked man among Drum-majors in 
 every stoke-'old throughout the fleet. 
 
 " So dizzy 'ad I become by this time, that 
 I seemed to be surrounded by a ring of gun- 
 carriages and Jack-covered cawfins. Just as 
 Tong, 'owever, was beginning to complain of 
 sea-sickness, Agag, with a final spin that 
 122
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 wrecked the big drum, bolted up the road 
 towards Valletta. 
 
 " ' For gracious goodness sake/ says the 
 ordin'ry (leastways that's as near as a church- 
 warden can reprodooce it), 'steer 'im into the 
 Meleeter Road when we come to it ! If he 
 takes us across the Vittorioser drawbridge,' he 
 says (with another repre'ensible epithet), ' we 
 shall be nabbed by the sangwine picket 1 ' 
 
 " ' What skilful 'orse-drivin' can accomplish/ 
 I replies, droppin' the starboard and grippin' 
 the port rein with both 'ands, ' shall be done, 
 and you may lay to it. But Tod Sloan hisself/ 
 I says, takin' the strain with my backbone, 
 ' couldn't work miracles on a perisher as refuses 
 to answer his 'elm.' 
 
 " 'Owever, I hadn't spent three years 'auling 
 on the mainsheet of a corvette for nothin', and 
 even Agag's back teeth couldn't stand the pull 
 they got on 'em at Meleeter corner. With the 
 starboard wheel spinnin' a good foot clear o 
 the dust, we swung round at right angles to 
 our original course ; and, Tong an' Tregenna 
 'aving slid from their respectful thwarts on 
 to the bottom boards o' the tantum to improre 
 123
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 our ballast, we headed at top speed for Sliema 
 Creek. 
 
 " At the bottom of the long slope was a 
 little cluster of blue an' scarlet dots, and as 
 we rapidly over'auled them, we made 'em out 
 to be a party of bluejackets and Marines, 
 saunterin' along in fours. 
 
 " ' None o' your makee-learn seminairies 
 this time, chum,' announces Tong, gloomily 
 examinin* them through a glass he'd stole 
 from the chart-'ouse : ' it's the bloomin' picket 
 right enough ! ' 
 
 " 'Then them fourteen days' cells is nearer 
 than what I thought for,' sighs Tregenna, 
 with Christian fortitood. 
 
 " ' Set down in the boat dogtrap, that is ! ' 
 I orders, as Tong, with his legs wide apart, 
 stands up on the thwart alongside me. ' You'll 
 be overboard in another minute,' I says, ' and 
 'ow do you expec' me at this speed to go about 
 an' pick you up ? ' 
 
 " But a bluejacket would balance hisself on 
 
 the boiler of the Plymouth an' Exeter express, 
 
 and Tong was semaphorin' with his arms and 
 
 the spy-glass as easy as if he was standin' on 
 
 124
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 the flagship's quarter-deck in 'arbour. By 
 this time the picket, 'aving spotted us, 'ad 
 spread themselves right across the roadway. 
 But when they'd took in Tong's meanin' they 
 'urriedly lined the two footpaths, and as we 
 thundered between I graciously bowed right 
 an' left while Tregenna lifted his 'at to 'em. 
 
 " ' What was your signal ? ' I asks, when 
 we'd covered another mile. 
 
 " ' Stand by to slip ! ' answers Tong, ' our 
 injins ain't onder control! 
 
 "They wasn't, as a man with less know- 
 ledge of 'orses than me could 'ave seen at a 
 glance. Every one with 'alf an eye that we 
 passed on the Sliema Road (to say nothin' 
 of sightless beggars and week-old infants in 
 arms what hadn't yet opened theirs) must 
 'ave known we were being bolted with ; while 
 every one else knew besides what we didn't 
 find out till afterwards that the bolter was 
 known as Beelzebub, the most dangerous 'orse 
 in the island. Skimming within a foot of the 
 edge of Sliema 'Arbour, shavin' the kerb and 
 the lamp-posts and paralysin' the traffic, 
 escapin' the Maltese Club'ouse but cuttin' a 
 125
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 chunk from the bandstand, scatterin* riders 
 an' walkers and scandalisin' the p'leece force 
 along the sea road we tore and over the 'ill 
 to St. Joolian's. After the distance we'd 
 travelled and the murderous pace of the 
 journey, we expected, and 'eartily prayed, 
 that our four-legged terror would die there. 
 Yet, if you'll believe me, Mister, he was only 
 just settling down to it ! With the exception 
 of 'alting twice to browse off the funeral 
 wreath, he never slowed down till he reached 
 the inn at St. Paul's Bay. Then, enterin' the 
 stable yard (where it subsequently transpired 
 he'd been born an' bred), he twisted his figure- 
 'ead round and grinned in my bloomin' face ! 
 
 " Standin' in the yard were three other 
 'orses, two with side-saddles on their backs, 
 one with a man's. Not a soul was about the 
 place the ladies an' gentleman, no doubt, 
 bein' at tea an' s'rimps in the sallymangy, 
 the ostler asleep. The idea seemed to strike 
 all three of us simontaneous ; but those who 
 know me will say that in the case of the other 
 two it must 'ave been tele-pathy with my 
 intellec'. Without a word (we were far too 
 126
 
 THE LOWER-DECK TANTUM CLUB 
 
 shook-up for speech) we 'arnessed the unknown 
 gentleman's 'orse to the dogtrap in place of 
 Beelzebub, and, not even waiting for the 
 drinks we were 'alf dead for want of, silently 
 started back for Valletta. The last thing I 
 see as I looked over my shoulder was the 
 late Agag standin' saddled between the ladies' 
 'orses the wreath still round his neck, the 
 grin still lurkin' at the corners of his 'ard, 
 sarcaustic mouth." 
 
 "And what was the end of the Tandem 
 Club ? " I inquired with interest. 
 
 "That was," returned Mr. Pagett shortly. 
 " The unknown gentleman at tea an' s'rimps 
 was the Naval Commander-in-Chief." 
 
 E 2 
 
 127
 
 THE SIGNAL GUNS OF 
 GUNGAPORE
 
 FROM his comfortable arm-chair in the 
 ingle-nook Mr. Pagett eyed me with gloomy 
 suspicion. From the high-backed and very 
 uncomfortable settle I stared in an in- 
 differently successful attempt at nonchalance 
 into the heart of the great wood fire. 
 
 By reason of a broken window pane (the 
 " incendiary crime," according to my gallant 
 host, of some arch-enemy of Licensed Vic- 
 tualling and the Established Church) we had 
 been driven from our usual after-supper 
 rendezvous in the bar parlour to the ruder, 
 but less draughty, shelter of the raftered 
 kitchen. The buxom Mrs. Pagett and her 
 apple-cheeked handmaidens had retired for 
 the night; the wind roared in the open 
 chimney and rattled the leaded casements in 
 the most approved manner of fireside fiction ;
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 and the little Chinese god upon the mantel- 
 shelf smiled down benignly at the burnt 
 offerings of Gold Flake and libations of 
 Mountain Dew which were in course of 
 preparation before his shrine. Everything, 
 in a word, made for peace and good-will 
 between men ; yet, because I had spoken 
 lightly of Vanderdecken and his phantom 
 ship, we had (in Mr. Pagett's picturesque 
 phraseology) " parted brassrags." 
 
 " If it is not a rude question," I ventured, 
 after a five minutes' armistice, " where do you 
 get your firewood from, Mr. Pagett ? " 
 
 " Who are you gettm: at?" he demanded, 
 with increased suspicion. 
 
 " Come, come," I laughed, " let us agree to 
 differ about the er legend " 
 
 " Fac'," he insisted. 
 
 "Fact then, if you prefer it, of the 
 Flying Dutchman, and discuss some topic 
 with which we are more in accord. My 
 question was suggested by the curious shape 
 of the log you have just thrown upon the 
 fire." 
 
 Mr. Pagett, to whom the prolonged cessation 
 132
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 of his own raucous voice was unendurable 
 seized with alacrity the olive branch held out 
 to him. 
 
 " From the surrounding distric' mainly," 
 he explained, " though it so 'appens that the 
 present lot came from Plymith. An old 'ulk 
 an East Indiaman she'd been in her day was 
 broke up there lately, and her timbers went 
 cheap. That there log, by the look of it," he 
 kicked it with his slippered foot, " was no 
 doubt one of her tops'l 'alliard blocks." 
 
 As if stirred to resentment, the ancient 
 wood, impregnated with the salt of a hundred 
 gales, spluttered into green and violet 
 flame, and to the anger of the wind in the 
 chimney was added a plaintive whimper 
 that might have been a distant echo of its 
 creaking in by- gone days. I drew my host's 
 attention to these things. 
 
 "There you are again," he returned 
 aggrievedly. "If I was to tell you that 
 them colours was a chemical reflection, in a 
 manner o' speakin', of a thousand tropic sunsets 
 an* dawns, and that the twitterin' was the 
 petrified echo of a million sea-birds' cries, 
 133
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 you'd call me a bloomin' liar. All the same," 
 he snorted defiantly, " it's a scientific fac'." 
 
 " There are doubtless more things in heaven 
 
 and earth By the bye, Mr. Pagett, I believe 
 
 you yourself have served in the East Indies ? " 
 
 " Another fac' an 'istorical one this time," 
 he mused. " It was as far back as the early 
 'eighties that I was detailed for the gunboat 
 Mongoose, and it was while I was servin' 
 aboard her in the 'Ooghly river that I heard 
 them distant guns what so much 'as been 
 wrote and argued about. The old East India- 
 man's timbers and our talk o' the Flying 
 Dutchman 'minded me of them. You've read 
 of the mysterious Signal Guns of Gungapore, 
 Mister?" 
 
 I had, in common with every one else 
 familiar with Calcutta and the Ganges delta. 
 But I deemed it politic to profess ignorance of 
 that weird and baffling phenomenon, and Mr. 
 Pagett was obviously pleased. 
 
 " Ah ! " he observed, as he filled his church- 
 warden pipe, " then I s'pose I shall 'ave to 
 enlighten you. It was this way, look. 
 
 "We were lyin' in Diamond 'Arbour, 
 134
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 thirteen or fourteen miles below Calcutta, and 
 some of the orficers made up a party to go 
 shooting in the Sunderbunds. Now, when the 
 river Ganges is within fifty or sixty miles of 
 the sea, it spreads in a network o' channels 
 over a great waste of swamp and jungle two 
 'undred an' forty miles wide, for all the world 
 like a trickle o' rain water crossin' a greasy 
 patch upon the pavement. These channels, 
 which cut up the jungle into thousands of 
 dismal islands, are perpetooally shiftin' their 
 course and changin' the landmarks of the 
 distric', so that a village which may be 'ere 
 to-morrow, in a manner o' speakin', is gone 
 to-day. Some of the islands are ten miles 
 across, some only a few yards, and most o' 
 them swarm with rhinosc'roses, muggers (or 
 what you'd call halligators), pythons, and all 
 other deadly sins snakes, I should say. Such 
 are the Sunderbunds of our story, Mister, and 
 you may take it from me that they are as full 
 of painful surprises as the Missus's work-basket 
 when you're fumbling for the bloomin' scissors." 
 In illustration of the latter portion of his 
 statement, he pointed to three or four pin- 
 US
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 pricks on the horny fingers of his right hand. 
 I nodded in silent sympathy. 
 
 "The party consisted of three the First 
 Lootenant, the Doctor an' the Sub ; and as, in 
 addition to the boat's crew, an extra hand 
 was wanted as beater, volunteers were called 
 for from the lower deck. On the stren'th of 
 an entry in my defaulter sheet of a most 
 onjust (but very handy) conviction by the 
 civil power for poachin', I was the man 
 selected. 
 
 " We left the ship one evenin' at ten o'clock 
 in the steam cutter and in the highest spirits, 
 towin' the skiff astern. The great copper- 
 coloured moon of the tropics was 'alf-way 
 above the 'orizon, and as I looked at its 
 stamped face and smooth, sharp rim, it 'minded 
 me, I recollec', of a bright noo penny jammed 
 in a slot machine. For some time our course 
 lay straight down the broad track o' the moon 
 ray, and from my station in the skiff's stern- 
 sheets the cutter, with her funnel and the 
 coxswain's head showin' above the canopy, 
 seemed to be cut out of black paper and stuck 
 on a gold mount 
 
 136
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 " But presently we edged out o' the main 
 channel into one o' the tribootary streams, 
 and the moon was blotted out by the jungle. 
 The change from the brilliant light in the open 
 to the inky shadow of the bank got on my 
 gallant nerves, and, although I was no more 
 than spittin' distance from her, I began to 
 'anker for a billet alongside the others beneath 
 the cutter's canopy. You will onderstand, 
 therefore, 'ow my soldier 'eart jumped into my 
 neck when the First Lootenant suddenly sings 
 out ' 'Ark ! ' and then to the stoker in charge 
 o' the injins, ' Stop 'er ! ' 
 
 '"What is it?' asked the Doctor, and I 
 remember thinkin' 'ow loose his false teeth 'ad 
 suddenly become. 
 
 "But before Number One could reply the 
 answer came from the distant solitoods ahead 
 of us. The churnin' of the screw, the throbbin' 
 of the injins, the swish o' the bow wave and 
 the murmur of conversation 'ad given place to 
 a most onpleasant silence, and as we listened 
 the silence was broken by the far-off boom of 
 a gun. 
 
 137
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " ' Our recall ! ' ejaculated the Sub, and I 
 noted that his nerves were nothin' more to 
 boast of than what mine were. 
 
 " The First Loo tenant let slip a repre'ensible 
 word. ' 'Er Majesty's ship Mongoose,' he says 
 sarcaustic'lly, tappin' the boat's compass, 
 ' 'appens to lie nor'-west o' the spot where we 
 now are. The sound we've just 'card came 
 from the south-east. Onless, therefore, the 
 magnetic north 'as shifted round to the 
 
 south'ard,' he says, ' I fail to see 'ow 
 
 There's the bloomin' phenomenon again.' 
 
 " It was certainly plain enough to every one 
 that the signals or what not came from exactly 
 the opposite quarter to that in which the ship 
 lay. Although he called it a ' phenomenon,' 
 the First Lootenant knew as well as the rest of 
 us that what we 'eard was the firing of 'eavy 
 guns. What puzzled us was the circumstance 
 that they were bein' fired, not on the 'Ooghly 
 or in Calcutta behind us, but far from civilisa- 
 tion and the sea in the heart o' the lonely 
 Sunderbunds. 
 
 " * What in the name o' thunder/ says the 
 138
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 Sub, scratchm" his back 'air, 'are big guns 
 doing in the middle of a ten-thousand-square- 
 mile swamp ? ' 
 
 " ' They ain't guns at all it's a nat'ral 
 phenomenon, I tell you,' snaps Number One 
 and I discovered (what you'll 'ardly credit, 
 Mister) that even a First Lootenant can 'ave 
 nerves. ' It's the result o' the bore' he says, 
 ' the wave caused by the meetin' o' the flood 
 tide with the descendin' current It onder- 
 mines the banks at times,' he says, ' and they 
 fall in with a noise same as what we've just 
 'card/ 
 
 " ' That may be your theory,' retorts the 
 young Doctor, who was a partic'lar chum 
 o' the Sub's, 'but, on'appily for its value, 
 scientific investigation 'as disproved it. You 
 may take it from me, as a medical man,' he 
 says, ' that the explanation o' they guns is as 
 great a mystery to-day as it ever was.' 
 
 " And then, in a flash, there crossed my 
 mind some talk I'd heard in a Fort William 
 canteen at Calcutta. 
 
 " ' I've got it ! ' I sings out, standin' up
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 in the stern-sheets o' the skiff, 'it's the 
 Signal Guns o' Gungapore, the Guns o' 
 Gunga ' 
 
 " ' Guns o' Gunga, Guns o' Gunga look 
 'ere ! ' mimics the First Lootenant, forgettin' 
 hisself, ' are you a bloomin' 'uman gong, or 
 are you a boat-keeper put into that there skiff 
 to prevent her yawin' about ? Go ahead ! ' 
 he orders to the stoker, ' and for 'eaven's sake 
 let us have no more old woman's chatter of 
 mystery, an' ghostly guns, an' what-all ! ' 
 
 "You will observe, Mister, that there'd 
 been no mention of ' ghostly ' guns which 
 plainly showed what was at the back o' the 
 First Lootenant's mind. It was true enough, 
 as the Doctor had said, that science had 'ither- 
 to been onable to discover a nat'ral cause for 
 the phenomenon. It was also a fac' that the 
 natives set it down to the artillery of dead 
 an' gone armies fightin' their battles over 
 again. And what was the case twenty years 
 ago is the case to-day ; for, exceptin' to one 
 curiously intelligent man, it is still one of the 
 onsolved riddles o' the world." 
 140
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 " And the intelligent exception, Mr. 
 Pagett ? " I murmured, realising what was 
 expected of the auditor. 
 
 " Me," he returned moodily ; " I solved it 
 that night, as you shall 'ear though the 
 only good it did was to saddle me with a 
 reputation as a liar which has taken twenty 
 years to shake off." 
 
 The expression of my sense of the world's 
 injustice occupied some moments in the 
 mixing, and it was with an air of Christian 
 forgiveness for the scepticism of two decades 
 that Mr. Pagett presently wiped his mouth 
 and continued. 
 
 " For the next hour or two we steamed 
 slowly onwards, avoidin' the channels not 
 shown on the chart, yet keepin' as nearly as 
 possible in a south-easterly direction. We 
 reached our ' objective ' (to quote the bloomin' 
 drill book) early in the middle watch, and, 
 'aving played for safety by anchorin' well in 
 mid-stream, we drew fires and coiled down on 
 the bottom boards for the remainder o' the 
 night. 
 
 " But you may lay to it there was plenty 
 141
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 to look at, and to listen to, and to think about 
 before mornin' broke and the day's sport 
 began. The noo bronze penny 'aving forced 
 itself out o' the slot, as it were, dwindled first 
 to a shillin', then to a silver sixpence over'ead; 
 swelled again to a shillin', changed itself into 
 a golden sufFerin, and began to slip towards 
 the western jungle, into which a million 
 similar coins 'ad dropped before. In spite o' 
 the peaceful moonlight and the fact o' there 
 not bein' breath enough to stir a blade o' grass, 
 the shadows all round us were full of rustlin's, 
 and coughin's, and splashin's that kep' our 
 eyes skinned and our fingers crooked round 
 the triggers of our rifles. Water-snakes, whose 
 bite meant an express journey to Kingdom 
 Come, 'ad to be attended to with boat 'ooks, 
 and a ration o' quinine apiece was served out 
 to us by the Doctor as a precaution against 
 the more lingerin', but 'ardly less deadly, 
 malaria. Altogether, what with one thing an' 
 another we passed a pretty fev'rish night ; so 
 that you will scarcely be surprised to hear, 
 Mister, that more gallant teeth than mine 
 began to chatter when, just before the dawn, 
 142
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 and from the jungle close at 'and, there came 
 the muffled boomin' of great guns. 
 
 "No seaman outside Yarmouth Mad Asylum 
 could 'ave had the smallest doubt about it 
 this time. Even the First Lootenant, wakin' 
 suddenly after forty winks, sent a message to 
 the Gunner ' to stand by to return the 
 salute.' 
 
 " ' It's a batt'ry o' native artillery at drill,' 
 surmises the Sub, spittin' out the blood what 
 his chatterin' teeth had drawn from his 
 tongue. 
 
 " ' They're 'eavier guns than that, sir,' 
 says the coxswain, with his tremolo stop out, 
 ' though I'm not denyin' but what the gunners 
 may be only using quarter charges.' 
 
 " ' 'Owever much you may laugh at my 
 theory,' I puts in from the skiff, ' you may 
 lay to it, gentlemen, that Fort William canteen 
 ain't frequented by 'ysterical, ghost-believin' 
 nursery-maids ; and it is well known to every 
 gallant habitooee of that admirable institoo- 
 tion,' I says, with justifiable 'eat, ' that there's 
 no 'anky-panky about them Signal Guns 
 
 o' ' ' 
 
 143
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " Whether Number One (who was 'ot- 
 tempered even for a First Lootenant) meant 
 to haul the skiff alongside for the purpose 
 of man'andling me, or whether he merely in- 
 tended to make the painter more secure, is a 
 thing what I (not bein' the First Lootenant) 
 can't tell you. But what I can swear to is 
 this. The skiff bein' weighted with two bags 
 o* coal for the cutter (to say nothin' o' me), 
 and the current runnin' very strong, the line 
 had tautened out like a bowstring; so that 
 when the gallant orficer, with his foot jammed 
 for purchase against the rudder 'ead, gripped 
 the rope with both 'ands, he just put the extra 
 strain upon it that a painter bloomin' well 
 won't stand. Before I could ask him what he 
 was playin' at, it parted, and me an' the skiff, 
 with the coal bags in the bows, were spinnin 1 
 down the stream like a soldier ant adrift on a 
 loocifer match in the gutter. 
 
 " It was 'ard on the British taxpayer, 
 Mister, as you'll admit. Through the 'asty 
 temper and lubberliness of a so-called bloomin' 
 sooperior, a costly and 'ighly-trained unit o' 
 the regular forces was being 'urried to his 
 
 144
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 doom in the heart o' the lonely Sunderbunds. 
 The frail boat bein' lumbered up with coal, I 
 was enable to get the sculls out, and with her 
 anchor down and fires drawn the cutter was 
 equally helpless. All I could do, therefore, 
 was to sit tight in the stern-sheets o' my 
 derelic' collier, and keep repeating ' A man 
 may not marry his grandmother ' the only 
 bit o' the Prayer-book which the 'orror of the 
 sitooation would allow me to recall." 
 
 Mr. Pagett paused to toy abstractedly with 
 the gold pencil-case I had laid for a moment 
 upon the table. 
 
 " Thank you," I presently hinted. 
 
 " Beg pardon my mistake," he explained, 
 returning it from his waistcoat pocket ; " I 
 was back in that there boat, endeavourin' to 
 fix the kinks and tangles of her 'eadlong course 
 in my mem'ry. In three minutes the cutter 
 was out o' sight round a sharp bend of the 
 river, and the jungle had swallowed me up. 
 So 'opeless was my condition without chart, 
 compass or rations, that for the first time in 
 my gallant life I felt the ondescribable 
 sensation which is the masculine equivalent 
 145
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 of wantin' to set down and 'ave a good 
 cry. 
 
 " With extr' ordinary luck I might have got 
 the bags o' coal overboard without capsizing 
 the skiff: but a mugger's snout above the 
 water drove that idea out of my head quicker 
 than what it came in. There was always the 
 ghost of a chance, too, that I might find the 
 cutter again, and without all that coal she 
 would never fetch back to the ship. Even if 
 by a miracle she did, I should certainly get 
 fourteen days' cells and be put under stoppages 
 of pay till I'd made good my ' wilful destruc- 
 tion of Gover'ment property, namely, bags o' 
 coal two in number.' And I think the last 
 reflection 'ad more weight with me even than 
 the mugger's nose. 
 
 " 'Ow long I was twistin' and spinnin' 
 about in that gawd-forsaken water-maze I'd no 
 means of calc'lating. Once, when I tried to 
 steer in towards the right bank, a rhinosc'ros 
 waded out to meet me ; and when I edged 
 over to the left, a python snake, all shiny in 
 the moonlight, tried to grab me from an over- 
 'anging tree. Then suddenly the current 
 146
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 swirled me round a corner into a shallow 
 creek, and in an instant all thought o' snakes, 
 and rhinosc'roses, and the collec' about not 
 marryin' grandmothers, vanished from my 
 head. Not fifty yards away, in the very 
 heart o' the jungle, lay a great ship ! 
 
 " If it 'ad been St. Paul's Cathederel I could 
 'ardly 'ave been more took aback. To see a 
 vessel of her size so many miles from the 
 'Ooghly fairly made me gasp. In spite of her 
 exceedin'ly rotten an' weed-grown condition, I 
 classed her at once as one o' the obsolete steam 
 line- o'- battleships of Crimean War time and 
 the 'sixties : for a moth-eaten funnel, 'eld in 
 position by one stay only, toppled over her 
 upper deck, and a propeller, that was minus 
 two of its blades, drooped between her counter 
 and her rudder a dozen feet above the surface 
 of the creek. 
 
 " She was aground on the bed of a channel, 
 which at one time must 'ave been deep enough 
 to float her, but which now contained no more 
 than two or three foot o' water ; and, although 
 she'd evidently been shored up with timber aa 
 the stream fell, most of the baulks 'ad rotted 
 147
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 and fallen away, causin' her to list 'eavily 
 against the starboard bank. So sharp was the 
 heel that, bein' on that side of her, I could just 
 see her port nettings the few remainin' guns 
 (that hadn't slipped from their frayed breech- 
 in's into the opposite scuppers) cocked high 
 above the 'orizon, the vacant gun-ports framin' 
 squares o' moonlit sky. 'Ere and there from 
 the starboard tiers of ports like mourners 
 lookin' into the grave of comrades gone before 
 some 'alf-dozen rusty muzzles peered down 
 at the reeds, and a couple o' crazy boats one 
 showin' like a sieve against the moon, the 
 other buried deep in the ondergrowth hung 
 in their ragged gripes at the quarter davits. 
 Most of her upper spars were gone, though 
 some of their riggin' still trailed in bights an' 
 festoons from the tops and the lower yards ; 
 and never in my life 'ave I seen such a dismal 
 objec' as that castaway ship in the jungle, with 
 the slantin' moon shinin' on her blistered sides 
 and spilling a shadow on the creek like a over- 
 turned 'ogs'ead of ink. 
 
 " While I sat starin' up at her from the 
 Btern-sheets of the skiff, the stillness o' the 
 148
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 night was suddenly broken by a mournful kind 
 o' whistlin', like a draught bio win' through the 
 key'ole. At first I thought it was the wind at 
 a great height above me piping for a cyclone, 
 but my gallant pulse beat faster still when 
 I presently discovered that it come from 
 between the decks of the derelic' ship herself. 
 And you may take it from me, Mister, that 
 my pulse nearly stopped beatin' altogether 
 when a quavery voice begins: 
 
 " ' Show a leg, show a leg heave out ! 
 Come, show a leg there, show a leg rouse an' 
 bitt/' 
 
 "Any one, of course, who'd been twenty- 
 four hours in the Service would 'ave known 
 what that meant. It was the bo'sun's mate 
 turnin' out the 'ands for the day's work, and in 
 a few minutes the 'ammicks would be lashed 
 up, onslung, and stowed in the nettings round 
 the upper deck. I give you my word that my 
 eyes were glued to the derelic' like a pair o' 
 barnacles, for I was mortal anxious to see what 
 her comp'ny would be like. 
 
 " It was a comp'ny as moth-eaten and 
 obsolete as the ship herself. One by one they 
 149
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 painfully pulled theirselves up the main 'atch- 
 way and tottered to the nettings, like the 'Aslar 
 Pensioners they ought by rights to 'ave been. 
 There were pathetic'lly few of 'em not 
 more than thirty or forty all told out of a com- 
 plement that must have once numbered nearly 
 a thousand ; and I thought of the pythons an' 
 tigers, and wondered what 'ad become of the 
 rest. Every mother's son of 'em was a white- 
 bearded patriarch, and in the bright moonlight 
 I could see that the bundles of bedding on 
 their shoulders were as tattered an' patched 
 as their clothing. Presently one of them, 
 ketchin' sight o' me, squeals out to the others 
 to look ; and the way in which they stared 
 down from over the poop nettings fairly give 
 me the bloomin' creeps ! " 
 
 Having heavily insured himself against a 
 recurrence of this botanically suggestive sensa- 
 tion, Mr. Pagett, with an emphasis impossible 
 to misunderstand, replaced his rummer upon 
 the table. 
 
 " The bloomin' creeps ! " he repeated shud- 
 deringly. 
 
 I reached out for the empty glass. 
 150
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 " I'm not denyin' but what you're a sym- 
 pathetic listener at times," he admitted 
 genially, "but to return to our gallant 'ero 
 in the skiff. 
 
 " A perempt'ry scarecrow, who was evidently 
 one of the orficers by the onsociableness of his 
 manner, 'ailed me to come aboard ; so, taking 
 the painter over my shoulder, I waded the boat 
 onderneath the line-o'-battleship's great bulging 
 side, immediately below her port gangway. 
 From the lowest of the ladder rungs, which 
 was many feet above me and quite 'idden 
 by the bulge, a patchwork Methuselum 
 dropped me a rope's end ; and in spite of its 
 rottenness and the difficulty of climbin' cur- 
 vin'dicularly, I managed to reach the rung 
 and walk upstairs, in a manner o' speakin', to 
 the back door o' the upper deck. 
 
 " ' What did you go to all that trouble for/ 
 asks the scarecrow, in a high, quavery voice, 
 ' when you could 'ave stepped over the star- 
 board gangway from off o' the bloomin' 
 bank ? ' 
 
 " c Because,' I returns, salutin' the quarter- 
 deck, * although I'm bound to get one some
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 day, I don't yet 'appen to have the honour of 
 holdin' 'er Majesty's commission, same as 
 what you do. In the noo Navy,' I says, ' the 
 starboard gangway is only used by com ' 
 
 " And then I stops, for I suddenly dis- 
 covered that he was not a commissioned orficer 
 after all. Among the hundred patches of this 
 ven'rable Joseph's coat o' many colours I'd 
 spotted, on the collar, what 'ad once been the 
 two white patches of a midshipman ! 
 
 " ' I'm the Captain of this ship,' he says 
 quietly, readhT my thoughts like a sema- 
 phore. 
 
 " ' So I guessed, sir,' I replies, very respect- 
 ful, ' and I 'ope we shall have the honour of 
 giving you an' your ship's comp'ny a passage 
 up to Calcutta in the Mongoose* 
 
 " ' I thank you for the wish,' he returns 
 gravely. ' But you are probably too young to 
 know that it is not in accordance with the 
 traditions o' the Service for orficers an' seamen 
 to abandon their ship so long as there is a 
 chance o' saving her.' 
 
 " A chance o' saving her ! I was a fairly 
 sangwine man myself in those days, Mister, 
 152
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 but I was a sooicidal pessimist compared with 
 \m ! 
 
 " ' 'Ow did she come to get here, sir ? ' I 
 inquires. 
 
 " ' It was just such another moon as this,' 
 he says, gazin' dreamily at it, ' when we made 
 the mouth of the 'Ooghly river one night in 
 the month of October, eighteen 'undred and 
 
 sixty-one. The glass was fallin' ' He 
 
 stopped, and drew himself up to his full height. 
 ' 'Ow did you come to get here ? ' he demands, 
 with a sudden change o' manner. 
 
 " I told him. You might 'ave heard a pin 
 drop, so interested were the ship's comp'ny in 
 the information. 
 
 " ' Well,' he snaps, when I had finished, 
 1 d'you suppose the captain of a line-o'-battle- 
 ship has nothin' better to do than to bandy 
 words on the quarter-deck with a noo-fangled 
 private o' Marines ? Go for'ard at once,' he 
 says, ' and stand by to lay aft when I send for 
 you ! ' With which he turns on his 'eel, and 
 goes into his cabin under the poop. 
 
 " A minute or two later I was settin' on a 
 bollard on the t'gallant fo'c'sle surrounded by 
 153
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 the ship's comp'ny, and feelin' as if I was at 
 the pantomine of Sinbad the Sailor. Only 
 in this pantomine there were five-an'- thirty 
 Sinbads instead o' one, and presently the 
 tallest of them touched me on the shoulder. 
 
 " ' Which division o' Marines do you belong 
 to ? ' he asks. 
 
 " ' Plymith/ I replies, noticing that he was 
 dishabillied in the patched rags an' tatters of 
 an old-pattern infantry toonic. 
 
 " ' I was the drummer o' this detachment,' 
 he says, very mournful, ' and now I'm the 
 detachment itself. Of a hundred an' nineteen 
 Marines who marched out of barricks, I shall 
 be the only one left when the ship pays off 
 to march back. If you belong to Plymith 
 headquarters,' he continues eagerly, ' you must 
 know little Salamander Jenkins her who was 
 christened after one of her father's ships. We 
 were sweethearts when I was in the Drums,' 
 he muses ; ' I suppose she's put her 'air up by 
 now?' 
 
 " ' Salamander Smith,' I correc's him, ' has 
 been the Drum-Major's missus these twenty 
 years, I b'lieve. Her daughter was married to 
 154
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 a bandsman the week before I came away to 
 sea.' 
 
 " ' Aye, aye,' he murmurs presently, with 
 his 'ead between his hands, ' it's two-an'- 
 twenty years ago two-an'-twenty years 1 ' 
 
 " ' Tell me 'ow the ship was cast away/ I 
 says partly to distrac' his thoughts, and 
 partly because I wanted to know. 
 
 " If I was to repeat to you one 'alf o' what 
 that derelic' drummer (colour-sergeant, he now 
 called hisseli) told me in the moonlight, I 
 should keep us both from our respectful beds 
 till sunrise, Mister. Soon after enterin' the 
 'Ooghly on her way to Calcutta, the ship 'ad 
 been caught in a cyclone and carried by a 
 tremenjous tidal wave into the heart 'o the 
 Sunderbunds. When the water (and the panic) 
 'ad subsided, she was found to be afloat in one 
 of the deeper channels o' the network, and 
 great 'opes were 'eld of eventooally workin' her 
 out. But this soon proved to be impossible 
 partly because of the channel's sharp turns, 
 and partly on account of the surroundin' shoals 
 an' quicksands. 
 
 155
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " Attemp's were then made to reach Cal- 
 cutta for assistance. Boat after boat went 
 away, but the few survivors who returned, 
 more dead than alive, reported overwhelmin' 
 difficulties an 1 dangers. The landmarks, too, 
 were perpetooally changin' puzzlin' and baf- 
 flin' them more every year ; though it wasn't 
 till their own anchorage ran dry that despair 
 first began to grip their gallant vitals. Some 
 ruins in the bed o' the creek they guessed (from 
 their imperfec' charts) to be the former village 
 of Gungapore ; but that region o' the Sunder- 
 bunds was now entirely onin'abited, and was 
 never visited by natives probably because of 
 the deadly quicksands. When the ship's 
 stores were ex'austed (and luck favoured 
 them) they'd lived on the jungle game and on 
 fish from the waterways ; in bad times they'd 
 starved on the scanty grain of their own 
 so win' or on the berries an' roots around 
 them. 
 
 " In the course of years, 'owever, there 'ad 
 been fewer an' fewer mouths to provide for. 
 Tigers an' pythons, venomous snakes of all 
 156
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 sorts, sunstrokes, starvation, and, most of all, 
 fever, had redooced the ship's comp'ny from a 
 thousand to thirty-five souls. The survivors 
 'ad all been boys at the time o' the disaster, 
 and even now were only men in their early 
 prime. But the nightmare terrors and 'ard- 
 ships had made them dodderin' Methuselums, 
 with the maggot of conviction in their brains 
 that, so long as she remained above that two 
 or three foot o' water, they must never 
 abandon their ship. 
 
 " The colour- sergeant-drummer (who 'adn't 
 told me these fac's without many promptin's 
 and contradictions from his shipmates) was 
 just showin' me a rude survey they'd recently 
 made of the neighbouring channels, when the 
 midshipman- skipper sends for me on the 
 quarter-deck. He was standin' between the 
 only pair o' guns in the ship that weren't 
 useless from red rust, and I knew by instinc* 
 that I was lookin' at the famous Guns o' 
 Gungapore. 
 
 "'In spite o' redooced charges and the 
 most rigid economy,' he was mutterin' to 
 157
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 hisself, * we've 'ardly a cask o' powder left in 
 the bloomin' magazines. And when that is 
 gone/ he says, turning dreamily to me, ' what 
 means would you suggest, my lad, for scarin' 
 away the tigers, pythons an' what-all ? ' 
 
 " ' Always supposin' that we can pick up 
 the cutter,' I returns promptly, ' I would most 
 respectfully submit that you should abandon 
 this Noah's Ark to the tigers, pythons an' 
 what-all, and take passage in the Mongoose 
 for ' 
 
 " ' Put him in irons ! ' he shrieks, and my 
 blood ran cold at the sound, ' put him in irons 
 for attemptin' to sedooce a British seaman 
 from his dooty ! Put him ' 
 
 " But I waited to 'ear no more. The blaze 
 in his eyes was reflected in the other five-an'- 
 thirty pairs around me, and I remembered 
 that the moon was at the full. In a moment 
 I was through the port gangway and slipping 
 down the manrope like greased lightnin'. 
 Luckily for me the skipper 'ad seized the 
 opportunity of my bein' on the fo'c'sle to 
 pinch the two bags o' coal from the skiff, so I 
 
 158
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 was now able to use the sculls. And you 
 may lay to it, Mister, I used them to such 
 good purpose that in two minutes I'd put fifty 
 yards o' creek between me and that castaway 
 loonatic asylum ! 
 
 " With the aid of the rough sketch-chart 
 (which Pd pinched !) and by an onusual stroke 
 of luck, I fell in with the cutter again at dawn. 
 When he'd recovered from a sort o* second- 
 'and appleplectic fit (brought on by the loss o' 
 the coal), the First Lootenant listened onpleas- 
 antly to my assurance that I could show him 
 the mysterious Guns o' Gungapore. But 
 when, after a long day's search and the con- 
 sumption of the remainder of the coal, he 
 hadn't yet seen them, his onpleasantness 
 developed into the rudeness of makin' me a 
 prisoner at large. The next evenin* we were 
 picked up by the Mongoose, the skipper 'aving 
 become oneasy about us ; and, in spite of the 
 well-known fac' that the channels of the 
 Sunderbunds are continooally shifting ; in 
 spite, too, of a conclusive bit o' documentary 
 evidence in my possession the First Loo- 
 
 F2 I 59
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 tenant's plausibility gained me the character 
 of a liar and lost me one of my 'ard- earned 
 good-conduc' badges ! " 
 
 With a muttered anathema on the insur- 
 mountable scepticism of the quarter-deck, Mr. 
 Pagett crossed the kitchen and reached down 
 his Service ditty-box from the topmost shelf 
 of the dresser. 
 
 " There is the bit of documentary evidence I 
 was speakin' of," he grumbled. " The Doctor's 
 camera was in the skiff, and, when I was a 
 safe distance from the derelic', I had the 
 presence o' mind forseein' trouble with the 
 First Lootenant to take a snapshot of her." 
 
 He thrust before me a copy of the well- 
 known composite photograph of Bristol on the 
 mountains of Alaska. 
 
 " Extraordinary ! " I murmured. " The very 
 churches " 
 
 " Not that one this," he exclaimed, hur- 
 riedly substituting another. 
 
 I examined it attentively. It seemed to be 
 a similar picture of H.M.S. Victory, with top- 
 masts housed and hull careened for scraping, 
 160
 
 SIGNAL GUNS OF GUNGAPORE 
 
 in the middle of Kensington Gardens ; and I 
 said so. 
 
 Mr. Pagett kicked viciously at the dying 
 embers o the topsail halliard block. 
 
 " One would think," he observed with bitter- 
 ness, "that you were a bloomin' First Loo- 
 tenant yourself ! " 
 
 161
 
 HOW PRIVATE PAGETT 
 AVERTED WAR WITH RUSSIA
 
 VI 
 
 " IF I'd belonged to the Bagpipe Brigade, or 
 been a Christmas Number ' 'Andy Man,' " ob- 
 served Mr. Pagett cynically, "I'm not denyin' 
 but what things would 'ave turned out differ- 
 ent. But I served my twenty-one years in a 
 Corps that is stiff with the kicks and 'ard 
 knocks of two and a half centuries though 
 notoriously short of 'a'pence : and therefore " 
 Mr. Pagett smote the table vigorously with 
 his open palm "in spite of having once solved 
 the Eastern Question for 'em by my own on- 
 aided intellec', I was discharged from the 
 Service as I joined it a full Private o' 
 Marines ! " 
 
 From a consideration of the present crisis 
 
 the gallant landlord and I had passed to 
 
 reminiscences of former complications in the 
 
 Far East It was one of these which had so 
 
 165
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 roused his indignation as to cause him, con- 
 trary to precedent, to take the initiative in the 
 customary provision of alcoholic and narcotic 
 entertainment for two. 
 
 " One slice of lemon and a small lump of 
 sugar thank you. So your diplomatic services 
 were unrecognised, Mr. Pagett ? " I prompted 
 sympathetically. 
 
 "Me being a Marine," he explained with 
 gloom. " Yet I can give you instances, Mister, 
 of men who, for doing 'alf what I did in 
 eighteen 'undred an' scare time, 'ave been 
 made baronights and even belted dooks. It 
 was this way, look you." 
 
 With the grand air of a Personage present- 
 ing a prize, he handed me one of the rummers ; 
 and, having stirred, tested and added more 
 spirit to the contents of the other, he crossed 
 his slippered feet upon the fender, and con- 
 tinued 
 
 " You will recollec' that on the occasion to 
 which I'm referrin' the onpleasantness between 
 the two countries developed very rapidly, and 
 each step o* the diplomatic 'anky-panky was 
 known in the streets o' London and St. Peters- 
 166
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 burg an hour or two after it had took place. 
 But out in the Far East it was difFrent. There 
 were no fast cruisers or destroyers on the 
 China station twenty years ago, and there 
 were fewer submarine cables and overland 
 wires than what there are to-day. European 
 noos was scarcer, and what there was of it 
 travelled more slowly : so that, when the 
 crisis came, it found the British an' Russian 
 squadrons lyin' together in Yokohama road- 
 stead the orficers askin' each other to gallanty 
 shows and what not aboard their respectful 
 ships, the men 'obnobbing over saki, beer an' 
 vodki in the various tea-'ouses ashore. 
 
 " It so 'appened that I was servin' in the 
 flagship at the time ; and you may take it from 
 me that, when the rumour reached us that war 
 was eminent, all this intent cordial vanished in 
 the twinklin' of a trump, as the sayin' is. 
 You'll mind, when me and that 'airy brigand, 
 Farmer Butterbiggins, 'ad words in the meadow 
 yesterday, how our terriers faced each other 
 with their bristles up, waitin' for a sign from 
 their angry Gover'ments to begin ? The sitoo- 
 ation in the meadow was the same (on a 
 167
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 slightly smaller scale) as the one at Yokohama 
 me an' the brigand standin' for the two 
 Great Powers, the terrier dogs for the Ad- 
 mirals, and the bristles for the guns of their 
 respectful squadrons. It is true that we still 
 passed the time o' day with the Ruskies when 
 we met them in the streets, and that their 
 orficers parley-vood ours on the Bund as aff- 
 able, seemin'ly, as before. But there were no 
 more international dinners in the wardroom 
 or sing-songs on the upper deck, for our 
 posturin's an' smirkin's became an 'ollow 
 mockery when we knew that at any moment 
 we might be ordered from St. Petersburg and 
 London to cut each other's throats. 
 
 " One mornin', when the strain had pretty 
 nigh reached its breakin' point, the guard, 
 band and orficers' calls sounded aboard the 
 flagship, Sunday manropes were 'urriedly 
 rigged to the starboard accommodation ladder, 
 and, to the usual accompaniment of panic and 
 'asty words, the Russian Admiral came over 
 the side. I, of course, was fell in with the 
 guard o' Marines upon the quarter-deck, and 
 ontil he caught my eye I don't believe he'd 
 168
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 fully realised what fine figgers of men it might 
 be his misfortune to 'ave to fight. Telfer- 
 Bagge, our own old cup o' tea, met him at the 
 gangway, and, after bo win' and scrapin' at each 
 other for some moments like vizzervees in a 
 quadrille, the Rusky announced the objec' of 
 his visit. 
 
 " ' I'm desolated to 'ave to tell you, share 
 ammy,' he says, 'alf in English, 'alf in French, 
 'that I've come aboard for the melan-choly 
 purpose of biddin' you ajew ! ' 
 
 " ' And you may lay to it, Mossoo,' says the 
 other liar politely, ' that you ain't more deso- 
 lated to say so than what I am to 'ear it. If 
 it ain't a rude question,' he says (smilin' just 
 like this), ' where are you and your 'igh-class 
 squadron agoin' to ? ' 
 
 " ' To Vladivostock,' returns the other, with 
 a smirk what even I can't reprodooce, 'to 
 Vladivostock, where I 'ope one day to 'ave the 
 honour of seein' you at Adm'ralty 'Ouse.' 
 
 " ' I shall be most 'appy, I'm sure,' says 
 Telfer-Bagge genteelly : ' till then, Mossoo, au 
 reservoir ! ' 
 
 " A couple of hours later our bo'sun's mates 
 169
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 were pipin' ' Clear lower deck ! ' And while the 
 seamen manned the riggin', and the Marines 
 presented arms, and Telfer-Bagge put hisself 
 into a stained-glass attitood upon the poop, 
 the band played the Euskies out of 'arbour to 
 the toon of 
 
 " ' Begone I dull Care, I prithee begone from me, 
 Bey one I dutt Care, you and I shall never agree ; 
 Long time 'ast thou been tarrying 'ere, and fain wouldst 
 
 thou me kill, 
 But faith, dull Care, tlwu never shall 'avt thy 
 
 will' 
 
 " We watched dull Care steam leisurely out 
 o' sight beyond the eastern point, and one of 
 our gunboats, that arrived in the afternoon 
 from Hakodate, reported having passed the 
 Russian squadron at sea, standing away to the 
 north'ard. 
 
 " Now, ever since our late friends and our- 
 selves had begun to ' part brassrags/ as the 
 sayin' is, all lower -deck liberty 'ad been 
 stopped, lest some triflin' tea-'ouse misonder- 
 standing should cause a prematoor declaration 
 o' war. But as soon as Telfer-Bagge was 
 satisfied that the Russians had shaped a course 
 170
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 for Siberia, ' special leafe for both watches ' 
 was piped : and, as that applied to onblemished 
 characters only, you'll 'ardly be surprised to 
 'ear, Mister, that I went ashore in the first 
 boat. 
 
 " Who would believe that the grain a in- 
 valid's rice puddin' is made of is capable of 
 prodoocing such a deceivin' spirit as sakif 
 Although, in accordance with my well-known 
 principles, I took no more than a turn thimble- 
 ful of it, it must 'ave predisposed me, as the 
 doctors say, to the sunstroke I got on my way 
 back to the boat in the evenin'. I'd just 
 managed to reach the hatoba (or 'ard, as you 
 would call it), alongside o' which the native junka 
 and sampans are made fast, when a sudden fit 
 o' dizziness seized me, and before I could sing 
 out ' Man overboard ! ' I'd tumbled over the 
 edge. The night bein' very dark I should 
 certainly 'ave been drownded ; but 'appily for 
 the Service I pitched upon somethin' dry an' 
 soft, and after that like the gallant 'ero of a 
 penny novelette I remembered no more. 
 
 " When I first came to I must 'ave wasted 
 the best part of 'alf-an-hour tryin' to recollec' 
 171
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 where I was. Although not in the 'abit of 
 slingin' my 'ammick under an open 'atchway, 
 I certainly seemed to 'ave broken the rule that 
 night. For, right above me, cut out of the 
 surroundin* blackness, was a big square glimmer 
 o' midnight sky : and, dartin' from side to side 
 and from corner to corner of the square like 
 a bead o' quicksilver on a tilted slate was a 
 solitary star. From the lively motion o' the 
 ihip, and from the spray which every now an' 
 then wetted me and which 'ad woke me up, I 
 knew we were at sea. But it was a long time 
 before I began to onderstand that I was not in 
 my 'ammick aboard the flagship at all, but 
 lyin' on some sacks o' rice in the hold of a 
 Japanese junk ! 
 
 " I'd barely made this discovery, and was 
 still 'alf asleep, when in a flash I became as 
 wide awake as what I am at the present 
 moment. As the junk rolled, the square of 
 dim sky was suddenly barred and lined by the 
 black masts an' riggin' of a great ship : and 
 before the next lurch I was off them bags and 
 on deck, hollerin' as lustily as any of the 
 heathen crew. 
 
 172
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 " ' Mark time ! 'Alt ! ! Go astern ! ! ! ' I bawls 
 up at the towerin' fo'c'sle above us, ' there's a 
 junk right under your bows, you lop-eared 
 lubbers ! ' 
 
 " With a rattle of her steam steerin' gear, 
 the 'uge ship's cutwater shaved our stern by a 
 foot. But her bowsprit and dolphin-striker 
 having fouled our mast, the big spar and its 
 bamboo sail came down with a run about our 
 ears. It was a bloomin' miracle she didn't 
 cut us clean in two. As it was, the result o' 
 that exhibition of 'igh- class seamanship was a 
 disfigurin' scar on the small o' my gallant back 
 which I shall 'ave to carry to my grave, the 
 loss of a Jap overboard, and a disabled junk. 
 My pro tempum shipmates were lettin' her 
 know what they thought of it, and I chipped 
 in. 
 
 "'You mark my words!' I sings out, 
 shakin' my fist at her invisible skipper ; ' if I 
 don't get your Board o' Trade certificate 
 suspended for scorchin' on the 'igh seas with- 
 out lamps, hours after lightin'-up time, my 
 tally ain't the well-known one what it is ! 
 It's scandalous,' I says, ' that any longshore 
 173
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 Bartimaeus that calls hisself a master mariner 
 should be let loose with a ship ' 
 
 " And then I stopped, for I suddenly onder- 
 stood that it was waste o' breath talkin' Board 
 o' Trade to 'im. The ship, which made no 
 attemp' to find out what damage she'd done, 
 had barely passed on into the blackness o' the 
 night when another loomed up in her wake. 
 A third followed, a fourth and I misremember 
 'ow many more : but I knew that we'd crossed 
 the course of a war squadron, steamin' in 
 oncanny silence and with all deadlights closed. 
 
 " Not bein' a common or garden land soldier, 
 my first instinc' was to take my bearin's by 
 the stars. A pointer of the Great Bear and the 
 three 'oles of Orion's waistbelt were visible 
 through two moth-eaten patches o' the night : 
 and between them, like a giant's cigar in the 
 dark, was a dull red glow o' fire. Eecognisin' 
 this as the crater o' the island volcano off 
 Yokohama Bay, I was able, in a manner o' 
 speakin', to prick off my on'appy position on 
 the chart. 
 
 "And you may lay to it, Mister, that it 
 couldn't well 'ave been more on'appyl 'Ow 
 174
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 long I'd been absent from my ship I was still 
 too dazed to remember, and, since none o' the 
 junk's crew spoke English, they nat'rally 
 couldn't tell me. But, whether it was a matter 
 of days or hours, information 'ad evidently 
 reached the Admiral in the interval that war 
 was declared, and he'd gone to sea with his 
 lights out to look for the Russian fleet. It 
 may or may not 'ave worried him to leave his 
 show private of Marines be'ind, but it certainly 
 worried me. For I knew 'ow croolly suspicious 
 the quarter-deck is of sunstrokes picked up by 
 pore soldiers an' sailors when on leafe, and I 
 wasn't sure but what the penalty for the other 
 thing in war time mightn't be death ! 
 
 " Whether the Japs noticed that I'd come 
 out of their 'old, or whether they thought I'd 
 tumbled among them from off o' the flagship's 
 fo'c'sle I can't say ; for, like the practical 
 little seamen they are, instead o' wasting time 
 in askin' me riddles what I couldn't guess, they 
 set to work to clear away the wreckage of the 
 mast and sail. This 'aving been done, and 
 enough bamboo cut adrift to make a dozen 
 'andsome suites o' dra win' -room furniture, they 
 175
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 got out the big sweeps, and laid the junk's 
 'ead for Yokohama. 
 
 " 'Appily for me an' Great Britain though 
 most on'appily for Russia, as you will soon 
 perceive, Mister both wind and tide were 
 with us. In less than three hours we made 
 the roadstead, and in the roadstead I could 
 'ardly believe my gallant senses ! a noo and 
 joyful surprise was awaitin' me. There, in its 
 usual billet, and with each ship's fore-stay 
 lantern burnin' bright and clear, lay the British 
 squadron I could 'ave sworn we'd passed three 
 hours before at sea ! At first, as you may 
 suppose, it made me rub my eyes. But 
 presently it made me think : and when a 
 intellec' like mine does that, Mister, you may 
 lay to it that things are bound to 'appen. 
 
 " It's extr'ordin'ry what a really intelligent 
 man can do with pore 'eathen who only chatter 
 gibberish. By means of signs I made the 
 junk's crew onderstand that the ship with the 
 light in her top was my own ' 'Ome, sweet 
 'ome ! ' and that I wanted to be put on board 
 her. The dawn was just breakin' as we ranged 
 alongside the flagship's port gangway: and, 
 176
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 presentin* the captain o' the junk with my 
 Waterbury watch an' chain the only joolry I 
 had on I climbed the accommodation ladder, 
 and stepped upon the quarter-deck. 
 
 " In accordance with routine the corpril 
 of the gangway took me before the orficer o' 
 the watch. 
 
 " ' Anything to say ? ' asks the Lootenant, 
 yawnin.' 
 
 " ' Yes, sir,' I replies, ' I 'ave. Not feelin' 
 very well, I went down to the hatoba a good 
 hour before my leafe expired, and, while 
 waitin' for the liberty boat, I was seized with 
 a fit o' vertigo, and fell over the edge.' 
 
 " ' And the dip sobered you, I s'pose,' he 
 comments sarcaustic'lly. 
 
 " * I know you can't 'elp sayin' that, sir,' I 
 sighs, with Christian resignation. ' As a 
 matter o' fac' I providentially fetched up on 
 some rice bags in the 'old of a junk. But the 
 fall stunned me, and when I come to we were 
 at sea, and in collision with ' 
 
 " ' Very well,' he interrup's, impatient-like, 
 1 you can tell all that, and any other fairy tale 
 you may 'ave invented meanwhile, to the 
 177
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 Major o' Marines in the mornin'. Put 'im in 
 the report, corpril, and let 'im turn into his 
 'ammick : but if he shows any signs of strikin' 
 out, place him under the sentry's charge at 
 once.' 
 
 " ' I beg your pardon, sir,' I says, with a quiet 
 dignity that would 'ave shamed any one but a 
 naval orficer, ' the Adm'ral hisself ain't more 
 sober than what I am at the present moment 
 And talkin' of the Adm'ral,' I says, ' I'll thank 
 you kindly to take me before 'im, as I've got 
 somethin' most partic'lar to commoonicate.' 
 
 "The orficer o' the watch looked 'ard for 
 some seconds at my earnest face. 
 
 " ' I may 'ave been mistook,' he mattered 
 and then, turnin' to the corpril, ' Tell the 
 sergeant-major,' says he, ' that this man is to 
 see the doctor the first thing in the mornin'.' 
 
 " ' March him over here ! ' 
 
 " We all three jumped simontaneous, for 
 there, in the deep shadow onder the break o' 
 the poop, stood Telfer-Bagge hisself. He'd 
 come out of his cabin as he often did at 
 night, bein' a bad sleeper with a monkey- 
 jacket over his pyjammers ; and I more than 
 
 178
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 'alf expected him to tell the Lootenant (like 
 the friend of the 'ero in a play), ' Villain, all is 
 discovered : your 'eartless conduc' has been 
 over'eard ! ' 
 
 Mr. Pagett paused for breath. 
 
 " And did he ? " I inquired with interest. 
 
 Mr. Pagett dabbed his moustache. 
 
 " He did not. 1 might 'ave known he was 
 the villain's friend, not the 'ero's. What 
 Telfer-Bagge did say was, ' If you've told the 
 orficer o' the watch a lie, I'll give you fourteen 
 days' cells for takin* my name in vain. You 
 said you 'ad a commoonication to make to me ? 
 Very well, then, spit it out' or words to 
 that effec'. 
 
 " You will admit, Mister, that, in the cir- 
 cumstances, a less onblemished man than me 
 would probably 'ave lost his 'ead. But a 
 men's conscience erect, as the text says, is a 
 wonderful pick-me-up in time of onjust sus- 
 picion, and in answerin' the Adm'ral I looked 
 him full an' square between the two lower 
 buttons of his monkey-jacket. 
 
 " ' The commoonication I 'ave the honour to 
 make, sir,' I begins, with that def rence to 
 179
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 naggin' old age which is the mark o' Nature's 
 gentleman, 'is one which I venture to 'ope will 
 not only prove of paramour importance to 
 you, but will also condone the little piccadilly 
 for which I ' 
 
 " It was on the tip o' my tongue to check 
 his interruption by quotin' the Article o' War 
 on profane swearin' ; but some'ow it got no 
 further than the tip. 
 
 " ' I will come to the point, sir,' I goes on 
 gravely, * without trespassin' any further, as 
 the sayin' is, on your valuable columns.' 
 
 " * You'd better,' he says appleplectic'lly. 
 
 " ' Three hours ago the junk what brought 
 me alongside was run down by a large ship.' 
 
 " * More fool the junk,' snaps the Adm'ral. 
 
 " ' At first,' I continues, ' I thought the ship 
 was this one, and in the 'eat of the moment I 
 said things to her skipper that don't concern 
 this story.' 
 
 " ' Make out a second charge,' says Telfer- 
 Bagge to the orficer o' the watch, ' of insubor- 
 dinate langwidge to the flag-captain.' 
 
 " ' But I was mistook, sir. I now know that 
 the ship what run us down at sea' here I 
 1 80
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 looked him 'ard in the face ' was the leading 
 ship of the Russian squadron ! ' 
 
 " ' Then you can belay that there second 
 charge, Mr. 'Astings. Well,' he sneers, turnin' 
 to me, ' seem' that the Russians only left for 
 Vladivostock onder easy steam at noon, I fail 
 to 'discover anything soopernat'ral in their 
 bein' off the coast three hours ago. They 
 probably spent the afternoon at tatties,' he 
 mutters, more to hisself than to me. 
 
 "'They were steerin' west-sou' -west,' says I. 
 
 " The Adm'ral looked up at me sharply. 
 ' When I'm First Sea Lord,' he says, ' I'll 
 'ave the Marines taught to box the compass 
 before they come afloat. North-by-east, you 
 mean.' 
 
 " ' West-sou'-west,' I insists. 
 
 " ' Send the fool to his 'ammick/ he roars, 
 turnin' on his 'eel. 
 
 " I swallered the insult for the sake of my 
 beloved country. ' Beggin' your pardon, sir,' 
 I says, ' but I can box the compass with any 
 quartermaster in the fleet. I marked the 
 course o' the Russian squadron by the stars,' 
 I says, ' and you may take it from me that it 
 181
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 was as near west-sou'-west as be jiggered. It's 
 my respectful belief,' I says, ' that that sea- 
 goin' dancin' bear was pulling your leg this 
 mornin' when he told you he was goin' to 
 Vladivostock. Nagasaki, bang in the opposite 
 direction, is the port he is bound for, and if I 
 was you ' 
 
 " Before the corpril could 'inder me I'd 
 whispered in Bagge's ear'ole my scheme for 
 checkmatin' Russia. Like all great schemes 
 it was very simple ; but the fact of it's coming 
 from a private o' Marines so 'orrified 'im that 
 he ordered me to be made a pris'ner for gross 
 disrespec' to a Adm'ral. 
 
 " Five minutes after the corpril 'ad turned 
 me over to the sentry in the cell flat, I heard 
 somethin' piped on deck. 
 
 " ' What is it ? ' I asks the sentry, who was 
 standing on the ladder with his 'ead up the 
 'atchway. 
 
 " ' Clear lower deck ! ' he repeats : * 'ands 
 up anchor ! ' 
 
 " ' Then you may lay to it, chum,' I says, 
 1 that Bagge for once in his life has took the 
 advice of one of his so-called inferiors.' 
 182
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 " ' Meanin' who ? ' asks the sentry, comin' 
 down the ladder. 
 
 " ' That/ I replies, solemn-like, ' will prob- 
 ably never be known ontil my auto-biograph 
 comes to be wrote after my death.' 
 
 " When at six bells in the forenoon watch 
 I was took on the t'gallant fo'c'sle for an 
 airing, I was more convinced than ever that 
 Rear-Adm'ral Telfer-Bagge had availed hisself 
 of that far-seein' intellec' which Providence 
 had sent to him from the lower deck of his 
 flagship. The squadron was already well clear 
 of the Bay, the island volcano (which seemed 
 to have dwarfed since the night) still smokin' 
 away on the one 'and, the white face o' dead 
 Foosiyama 'igh up among the clouds on the 
 other. We were bowling along on a beam 
 wind with all plain sail and starboard stu'n's'ls 
 set, the curling wave at each ship's bow, the 
 dense smoke from the funnels and the vibration 
 of the deck showin' that every boiler was 
 lighted up as well. Evidently 'er Majesty's 
 business was pressin' ; but, although at least 
 each post-captain and navigatin' orficer must 
 'ave guessed it from our course (west-sou' - 
 G 183
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 west a 'alf west westerly, a seaman told me it 
 was), me an' Bagge were probably the only 
 two men in the squadron who knew what that 
 business was. 
 
 " Even if this brilliant move in the big 
 war game hadn't been my own invention, my 
 nat'ral intelligence and warlike instinc's would 
 'ave discovered it when I was took on deck the 
 folio win' morn in'. We were headin' through 
 Ku Channel into the Inland Sea, and I had 
 the satisfaction of perceivin' that, 'owever 
 much he might resent it, Telfer-Bagge was 
 availin' himself of my ' gross disrespec' ' to 
 outwit the Russians." 
 
 Adopting his favourite method of demon- 
 stration, Mr. Pagett dipped his pipe-stem into 
 his rummer, as a pen into an inkpot, and 
 traced upon the table a rough outline of 
 southern Japan. " It was this way, look," he 
 continued. 
 
 " Me and the Adm'ral knew perfectly well 
 that the Russians were making for Nagasaki, 
 and that for reasons which you will presently 
 onderstand it was 'ighly desirable that we 
 should get there before them. A sharp look- 
 184
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 out had teen kep' by a man stationed on the 
 fore royal yard of each ship, lest we should 
 over'aul the Russian Adm'ral and give our- 
 selves away. But when we reached this 'ere 
 back door to the Inland Sea, in a manner o' 
 speakin' " Mr. Pagett indicated the spot with 
 his thumbnail " without sighting so much as 
 a smudge of smoke in the offing, we felt pretty 
 confident that he'd taken the safer, though 
 slightly longer, course by way of the Pacific 
 Ocean. By slippin' through the Inland Sea 
 and out by the Straits o' Simonoseki, we (that 
 is me an' Bagge) 'oped to forestall His Wili- 
 ness ; and with both leadsmen in the chains 
 and our 'earts in our bloomin' mouths we 
 began the dangerous navigation of the inner 
 passage. 
 
 " Now, as a feller-man I'd no great opinion 
 of Telfer-Bagge, as you know, Mister. His 
 brain was as full of kinks as a newly-hauled 
 logline on a poop, he didn't know intellec' 
 especially lower-deck intellec' when he saw 
 it, and he seemed to think that me an' the 
 rest o' the Navy was created for his own 
 bloomin' honour an' glory. But, to give the 
 185
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 devil his jew, as the sayin' is, Bagge was a 
 first- class seaman : and to take a squadron o' 
 big ships at top speed through the Inland Sea 
 o' Japan was a feat that'll no doubt 'elp him 
 a lot when he comes to muster with the 
 defaulters at the Last Day. 
 
 "It is true that the vessels were of lighter 
 draught than what they are now. But you 
 must recollec' that, to balance this advantage, 
 we'd no searchlights : and instead of anchorin' 
 at night, as the routine was then, Bagge 
 cracked on through the darkness till the flag- 
 captain was bald-'eaded and the 'air of all the 
 other skippers astern 'ad turned snow-white. 
 When, early on the fourth mornin' after 
 leavin' Yokohama, we raced through the 
 Simonoseki narrows into the open sea again, 
 our ' Staffy ' (Commander for Navigatin' 
 Booties, he called hisself) performed the first 
 of those religious 'ornpipes which he now 
 dances daily in Yarmouth Mad Asylum. 
 
 " We made the entrance to Nagasaki as the 
 bo'sun's mates were pipin' to dinner, but (it 
 was the only occasion I can call to mind during 
 twenty-one years' service) no one stirred a foot 
 
 1 86
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 to obey the welcome summons. Every soul 
 in the squadron, from the Rear-Adm'ral to the 
 last joined Jack-in- the-dust, was by this time 
 'aggard with anxiety to see the upper end of 
 the most beautiful 'arbour in the world. But 
 you may lay to it that, when we did eventoo- 
 ally open out the town, it wasn't the fairy 
 scenery that caused the flagship's comp'ny, 
 regardless of discipline, to break into a rousin' 
 cheer. The anchorage was empty! and we 
 tumbled below to our stone-cold dinners with 
 the accumulated 'unger of four days' loss of 
 appetite. 
 
 " The instant the mudhook was down the 
 barge was called away, and Telfer-Bagge, with 
 his flag-lootenant and sec'etary, landed at the 
 coal depdt. The previous day I'd been re- 
 leased from the sentry's charge and sent back 
 to dooty ontil the Captain should 'ave time to 
 see defaulters : and so it 'appened that I was 
 again fell in with the guard on the quarter- 
 deck when the Adm'ral returned to the ship. 
 He was grinnin' all over his scrubbed-'ammick 
 face, and, just as he stepped across the gang- 
 way and we presented arms, the yeoman of 
 187
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 signals raced down from off the bridge with a 
 report for the flag-captain. 
 
 " ' The Russian ships are just enterin' the 
 'arbour, sir,' he says, touching the brim of his 
 'at. Then, encouraged by the 'appiness in 
 Bagge's face, he adds with a chuckle, 'and 
 
 OO ' 
 
 they're all standin' out of the water as 'igh as 
 three-storey 'ouses ! ' 
 
 " ' They seem to 'ave burnt more coal even 
 than what we 'ave/ remarks the skipper cheer- 
 fully to the Adm'ral. 
 
 " ' Not a scuttleful left among them, by the 
 look of it,' sniggers the flag-lootenant, who 
 was observin' them through his glass from the 
 top o' the accommodation ladder. 
 
 "The two senior orficers eyed each other 
 for a second, and then burst out laughin' 
 simontaneous. 
 
 " ' And to think,' gasps Bagge, dabbin' his 
 yes with a white Cambridge 'andkerchief, 
 4 that I've just bought up every bloomin' knob 
 in the distric' ! ' " 
 
 Mr. Pagett, leaning forward, tapped my 
 knee with the still wet pipe-stem. 
 
 188
 
 HOW HE AVERTED WAR 
 
 " Consider what that there move o* mine 
 and Bagge's meant," he said impressively. 
 " The entire Russian naval force at that time 
 in the Far East locked up in Nagasaki 'arbour, 
 'elpless to move out of it, and completely at 
 our mercy ! Like a wise man, the check- 
 mated Adm'ral cabled the position 'ome to St. 
 Petersburg, and, like a still wiser country, 
 Russia climbed down, and bloody war between 
 two great nations was averted. The Queen 
 was so pleased at it that she sent Bagge 'alf- 
 a-dozen letters o' the alphabet to put after his 
 tally, and a bit o' joolry on a red ribbon to 
 'ang round his appleplectic neck." 
 
 " And you what did you get ? " I inquired 
 breathlessly. 
 
 " Fourteen days' cells for breakin' my leafe 
 in scare time ! Me bein' a Marine," added 
 Mr. Pagett with gloom. 
 
 189
 
 THE UNPOPULARITY OF 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 G 2
 
 VII 
 
 IN the weather-bitten, lichen-covered church, 
 that looked older even than the cromlech on 
 the Tor above, Evensong was drawing to a 
 close, and, to the strains of " The day is past 
 and over," the churchwarden fingered the 
 almsbag from the ledge before him, and tiptoed 
 into the aisle. As he approached my corner, 
 an enormous red paw spread across the lumbar 
 area of his broadcloth and a general air about 
 him of aggressive respectability, I hastily sub- 
 stituted a shilling for the threepenny-bit I had 
 designed as an offertory. For it was a matter 
 of notoriety that no one could gauge the value 
 of the unseen coin with more disconcerting 
 accuracy than my friend Mr. Pagett, vicar's 
 warden, landlord of the " Coach and Horses,'* 
 and sometime a private in the Royal Marines. 
 
 "I will wait for you in the porch," I 
 193
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 whispered, as I ostentatiously dropped my 
 shilling into the bag. 
 
 But so much in request was he, first by the 
 Vicar in the vestry, and afterwards by half-a- 
 dozen parishioners in the darkened church, 
 that by the time he joined me at the door I 
 had half repented of my resolve to walk home 
 with him. 
 
 " What a thing it is," I snapped, " to be the 
 most popular man in the parish I " 
 
 " To say no thin' of the neighbourin' 'alf- 
 dozen," he added modestly, as he buttoned 
 himself into his great-coat. " But talkin' o' 
 popularity 'minds me o' just such another 
 night as this, with a three-quarters moon 
 blotted out every now an' then by 'eavy 
 showers." 
 
 " There's one beginning now," I interrupted. 
 We were walking down the churchyard path 
 after locking the tower door behind us. 
 
 " Then we'd best mark time under the lych- 
 gate till it's over," he observed philosophically ; 
 " onless, that is to say, you'd rather pick up 
 the double, and race it" 
 
 Seeing that we were a hundred feet above 
 194
 
 HIS UNPOPULARITY 
 
 the hamlet, and that the road thither was littl* 
 more than a cattle track, I favoured his first 
 suggestion, and we halted beneath the pic- 
 turesque lych-roof. Closing the gate, which 
 was on the inner or churchyard side of our 
 shelter, Mr. Pagett seated himself on the 
 coffin-stone, produced a well-coloured meers- 
 chaum, and began an ostentatious search of 
 his numerous pockets. 
 
 " If that there gate," he explained carefully, 
 " was on the outside instead o' the inside o' 
 the lych, we should be standin' (or sittin', as 
 the case may be) on consecrated ground, an' 
 therefore onable to smoke. Bein' where it 
 is 'Ang me if I 'aven't left my prayer- 
 book an' baccy-pouch on the table in the 
 vestry I " 
 
 " To a pipe-smoker a cigarette, I fear, is but 
 a sorry makeshift. Nevertheless " 
 
 Apparently he was not of my opinion, for 
 on handing him my case he absent-mindedly 
 extracted three of its five remaining Melach- 
 rinos. But instead of smoking them in the 
 orthodox manner he ripped open the paper 
 cover of each with his penknife, and, without 
 
 195
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 losing a single shred, deftly packed the con- 
 tents into the capacious bowl of his pipe. 
 
 " I never could pick up the parlour trick of 
 keepin' a cigarette dry between the teeth," he 
 explained, as he stoppered the tobacco with 
 the tip of his (comparatively) little finger. 
 " After the first pull at it the end frays out in 
 my mouth, and after the second I gen'rally 
 bite the blessed fal-lal in two. My matches 
 must be with my prayer-book an' pouch on 
 the vestry table." 
 
 Again I played my usual r61e of honorary 
 tobacconist to Mr. Pagett. 
 
 " You er mentioned a similar night to 
 this," I presently hazarded, assured that the 
 great man's pipe was drawing satisfactorily. 
 
 " Latitood forty-three twenty north," he 
 mused, pocketing my matchbox, " an' longitood 
 twenty-one seventeen west. I did mention it 
 We were two days out from the Azores, 'ome- 
 ward bound from the West Indies to Plymith 
 to pay off, and the night was as like this one 
 as be damned ! " 
 
 " Really," I murmured, " from a church- 
 warden " 
 
 196
 
 HIS UNPOPULARITY 
 
 " I know, I know," he interrupted testily ; 
 " but you may take my word for it that a 
 archbishop in aprin and mitre 'at would be 
 croolly 'andicapped by his tongue if he'd spent 
 more than 'alf his life on lower decks and in 
 barrick rooms, same as what I 'ave ! But to 
 return to our rations o' mutton, as those 'alf- 
 baked Frenchmen say. From bein' the idol o' 
 that there ship's company I became in one 
 bloomin' minute the most onpopular man in a 
 complement of seven 'undred an' fifty souls. 
 It was this way, look." 
 
 Mr. Pagett paused to turn up the collar of 
 his coat, for it was draughty under the lych. 
 I lit a cigarette and seated myself beside him 
 on the coffin-stone. 
 
 " The junk was the Bodmin, first-class 
 battleship, fourteen guns, fourteen thousand 
 one 'undred an' fifty tons, somewhere about 
 ten thousand indicated 'orse-power, an' com- 
 manded by Capt'in Sir 'Enry Pagett, Baronite, 
 Companion of St. Michael an' the Garter, and 
 a distant ancestor o' mine though of course 
 he pretended not to know it. She'd been in 
 
 197
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 commission a matter o' three years an' five 
 months, mostly within the tropics ; and you 
 may take it from me that, wherever else you 
 may find 'em, you will be disappointed if you 
 expect in a man-o'-war at the end of a long 
 foreign commission the ' peace on earth, good- 
 will towards men' the parson was preachin' 
 about to-night. 
 
 " Under the conditions, and 'uman nature 
 bein' what it is, the two things are impossible. 
 The last few months of waitin' for one's relief 
 are dead against 'em. In the Bodmin, more- 
 over, we'd been still further 'andicapped by 
 painter's colic and prickly 'eat. One 'alf o' 
 the wardroom orficers didn't appear to know 
 the other 'alf, even by sight. The first 
 loo tenant discovered that the commander was 
 a liar, the commander was convinced that the 
 first-lootenant drank, and both were agreed 
 (especially after Sir 'Enry 'ad shown them his 
 confidential report o' them to the Adm'ralty) 
 that the skipper was made up in equal parts of 
 knave and fool. The young gentlemen o' the 
 gunroom divided their watch below between 
 
 198
 
 HIS UNPOPULARITY 
 
 spells o' sulky gloom and gen'ral mellees, which 
 landed 'em all on the quarter-deck before the 
 commander. In the warrant orficers' mess 
 for'ard the gunner 'ad told the bo' sun he was 
 no gentleman, and neither of them was on 
 speakin' terms with the carpenter, who 'ad 
 drunk both their tots o' grog while the gunner 
 was bein' 'ammered. On the mess deck the 
 bluejackets began to wonder (loud enough for 
 us to 'ear) what the 'ell Marines were sent 
 aboard for ; and when the stokers, who are 
 always our chums, told 'em, the skipper 'ad to 
 clear lower deck an' read the Articles o' War. 
 Then, at the Azores, we picked up the latest 
 noos of Fashoda." 
 
 Mr. Pagett removed the meerschaum from 
 his mouth, and laid two well- browned sausages 
 (slightly resembling fingers) on my knee. 
 
 " You will onderstand how late it was," he 
 observed impressively, " when I tell you that 
 the signal ran ' War between Great Britain 
 an' France declared ! ' As the message was 
 spelled out by the signalmen o' the watch 
 upon the bridge, it ran from fo'c'sle to ward- 
 
 199
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 room and back again by way o' the flats like 
 wireless tele-grarphy, bein' felt, in a manner o' 
 speakin', without any aperient means o' com- 
 munication. For, almost before the yeoman 
 with his slate had reached the skipper's cabin, 
 the cheerin' 'ad begun, which lasted a full ten 
 minutes. 
 
 " It was soon after daylight when we took 
 in the signal, the ship bein' still some miles off 
 the land ; and, knowin' how welcome our 
 'omecomin' would be to the Adm'ralty at such 
 a crisis, the skipper decided not to touch at 
 the islands but to crack on for Plymith at top 
 speed. As we might fall in with the enemy 
 at any moment, we were kep' paintin' an' 
 gildin' the ship's pretty-work from breakfast 
 to supper time, with the exception of one hour 
 when we were exercised at repellin' boarders 
 with pikes. At nightfall the look-outs were 
 doubled, and the capt'in's valley took his 
 master's bedding up to the chart'ouse on the 
 fore bridge. 
 
 " It is wonderful how many int'resting 
 things a really intelligent man sees an' hears 
 200
 
 HIS UNPOPULARITY 
 
 on board a man-o'-war in the course o' the 
 day's work. Before the sun was over the 
 foreyard that mornin' I'd observed through 
 the wardroom skylight the fleet-surjin and 
 chief engineer, who hadn't been on speakin' 
 terms for months, drinkin' each other's 'ealth 
 in a couple o' gin an' angostura cocktails. 
 While doin' the last dog sentry-go on the 
 capt'in's cabin door I accidentally heard 'im 
 through the key'ole tell the commander and 
 the first-lootenant how pleased he was with 
 the paint- work at such a grave crisis, and how 
 he should in consequence recommend them 
 both to the Adm'ralty for promotion. You 
 will therefore onderstand that I was 'ardly 
 surprised to hear them say, on passin' my post 
 afterwards, what a blessin' it was to serve with 
 a skipper who was as smart as paint and as 
 straight as a bloomin' die. On the lower deck 
 the bluejackets 'ad suddenly grown so polite 
 to the Marines that the stokers were quite 
 jealous, and the gunroom mess seemed as 
 'appy as a young ladies' school breakin' up for 
 the 'olidays. But on no one fore and aft the 
 20 1
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 ship was the effect o' the signal more marked 
 than on the warrant orficers. For, goin' for'ard 
 in the dinner hour, I saw the gunner, bo' sun 
 an' carpenter standin' arm-in-arm in a cloud o 
 baccy smoke, with the sparks from the black- 
 smith's forge fallin' all round 'em. The First 
 Lesson to-night, about Shadrach, Meshach and 
 Abednego in the burnin' fiery furnace, 'minded 
 me of them." 
 
 For some moments Mr. Pagett had been 
 irritably tapping his pipe-bowl against the 
 edge of the coffin-stone. I handed him the 
 last of the cigarettes. 
 
 " Smoke it as it is," I urged, " your pipe is 
 evidently choked." 
 
 He placed it with a sigh of resignation 
 between his teeth, lit it, took a couple of 
 puffs, bit off the already frayed end, and 
 eyed me as aggrievedly as though / had 
 been the inventor of that foolish fal-lal, the 
 cigarette. 
 
 " But I really am not," I murmured involun- 
 tarily. 
 
 " ' Searchlight on the port bow I " he 
 202
 
 HIS UNPOPULARITY 
 
 shouted, with an irrelevance that made me 
 jump. 
 
 " It was on our second night out from the 
 Azores. Three bells in the first watch 'alf- 
 past nine we call it ashore 'ad just been 
 struck by the sentry, and the 'ands were in 
 the act of bein' piped down, when the look-out 
 electrified the ship with them five simple words. 
 In an instant all thought of obeyin' the pipe was 
 gone ; the bo'sun's mates themselves stopped 
 dead with the whistles between their lips; 
 ev'ry one for a second or two stood as rigid as 
 though the bugle 'ad just sounded the ' Still ! ' 
 Then the pin-drop silence was cut in 'alf, as the 
 sayin' is, by the sharp cry of the look-out on 
 the other side of the fo'c'sle 
 
 " ' Searchlight on the starboard bow, sir ! ' 
 
 " And out o' the darkness from the bridge 
 over'ead came the calm acknowledgment of the 
 orficer o' the watch : 
 
 " 'Very good.' 
 
 " I've always thought that it's not so much 
 his education as the generations be'ind him 
 that make a gentleman act different from the 
 203
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 lower deck at times of strong excitement. 
 Although the 'alf-dozen orficers on deck knew 
 p'r'aps better than what we did the meanin' o* 
 they two searchlights, not one o' them raised 
 his voice above its ordin'ry pitch. As for us 
 on the fo'c'sle, 'aving nothing in the way o' 
 pedigree to 'andicap our natural instinc's, we 
 first cheered ourselves 'oarse, and then sang the 
 National Anthem as far as ' Send her vic- 
 torious.' Before we reached ''Appy an* 
 glorious ' the bugles sounded off ' Action ! ' 
 
 " Never in the 'ole course of that long com- 
 mission had we gone to gen'ral quarters with 
 such a good 'eart as upon that showery, 
 shadowy night three 'undred and fifty miles 
 north-east o' the Azores. 'Itherto we'd cast 
 loose the guns for drill only or for target 
 practice at best an' always with one eye on 
 the commander's paint-work. But this time 
 we were goin' to lick the French, an' no one 
 cared a tinker's curse for the paint excep' the 
 commander hisself, whose promotion depended 
 on it. 
 
 " Now, although it has taken me some time 
 204
 
 HIS UNPOPULARITY 
 
 to put all this into words, less than five 
 minutes 'ad elapsed between the second look- 
 out's hail and the commander's report to the 
 capt'in that the ship was cleared for action. 
 Every light throughout her except the electric 
 sparks o' the night sights, which lay like a 
 pair o' glow-worms on the chase of each gun 
 had been switched off or masked. Even the 
 searchlights in the offing 'ad disappeared, and 
 the three-quarters moon was blotted out by a 
 heavy rain-squall which 'ad over'auled us out 
 o' the sou'-west. My station bein' at one o' 
 the spar-deck Hotchkiss Q.F.'s, I'd good reason 
 to remember that shower, for it drenched me 
 to the bloomin' skin. 
 
 " But in spite o' the rain and the darkness the 
 Bodmin carried seven 'undred an' fifty of the 
 lightest 'earts in the British Empire. For 
 there was no shadow o' doubt as to the nation- 
 ality of the electricians who 'ad worked them 
 searchlights. Neither our Channel nor 
 Reserve Squadron would be wastin' its sweet- 
 ness on the mid- Atlantic at such a time ; they 
 were showin* their pretty-work (especially the 
 205
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 gilded scrolls above their rams) elsewhere. 
 On the other 'and, our 'ome-comin' was well 
 known to, and for certain good reasons eagerly 
 awaited by, the enemy. I myself 'ad had 
 several little affairs with wineshop keepers in 
 Martinique, which caused me to be a marked 
 man to the French Gover'ment." 
 
 Mr. Pagett sighed heavily, though whether 
 with remorse for the harassed Quai d'Orsay or 
 because he had at length bitten his cigarette 
 in two I was unable to determine. I inclined 
 to the former theory. 
 
 " ' L'infanterie d' Angleterre,' ' I quoted, 
 " ' est la meilleure du monde. Heureusement 
 il n'y en a pas beaucoup.' ' 
 
 The ex-private eyed me suspiciously. 
 " Well," he retorted, " I won't deny but what 
 there was a petticoat or two mixed up in them 
 
 affairs, though 'ow you came to guess it 
 
 Anyway, that's neither 'ere nor there. ' Cap'n 
 Pringle,' sings out the skipper from the top o' 
 the chart' ouse to the commander below, * we 
 sha'n't be within range o' they cruisers for 
 another twenty minutes at least. Let the 
 206
 
 HIS UNPOPULARITY 
 
 orficers fall out and the men lie down alongside 
 o' their gun's. And, Pringle,' he says, ' as the 
 pore fellers are wet through, and even a British 
 seaman is 'andicapped for fightin' when his 
 teeth are chatterin' in his 'ead, I'll splice the 
 mainbrace. Make the necess'ry arrangements 
 with the fleet-paymaster/ he says, ' to 'ave the 
 rum served out to them at their quarters.' 
 
 " If the strictest silence 'adn't been enjoined 
 from the moment we first sighted the enemy, 
 no popular dockyard member would 'ave been 
 more, roundly cheered than my distant ancestor 
 when he made that graceful little alloosion to 
 the condition o' the mainbrace. As it was, 
 we on deck drank our tots with nods an' grins, 
 while the orficers 'obnobbed over gin an' 
 sardines (accordin' to tradition) in the ward- 
 room below. At one end o' the table so my 
 towny the wine stooard told me afterwards 
 the commander was sayin' that he wished all 
 first-lootenants were teetotalers like the 
 JBodmin's, while at the other end Number One 
 kep' whisperin' that there was no man whose 
 simple word he would take more readily than 
 207
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 the commander's. In place o' the wicked 
 passions which reigned fore and aft the ship 
 but two days previous there was now nothin' 
 but unity, peace an' concord. 
 
 " When the word was presently passed for us 
 all to fall in again round the guns, ev'ry eye 
 above the water-line was nat'rally turned 
 towards the north-eastern 'orizon. The great 
 loom of the sweepin' rain-squall still blurred 
 the sky in that quarter, but stretchin' upwards 
 and inwards from either side, till lost in the 
 cloud itself, were the two searchlights of the 
 invisible French fleet. And you may lay to it 
 that mine was not the only gallant 'eart that 
 thumped at sight of 'em. 
 
 " But a stillness not entirely doo to discipline 
 bimebye fell on that shipful of eager 'eroes. 
 As the cloud vanished the searchrays shot 
 'igher and 'igher, till one of the spare numbers 
 at the gun (a recruity 'e was) gripped me by 
 the elbow and pointed through the port. 
 
 " ' S'elp me 1 ' he whispered, ' I never 
 onderstood till now why they call the blamed 
 thing the arc light. Blimy if it ain't for all 
 208
 
 HIS UNPOPULARITY 
 
 the world like the beginnin's of a great arch 
 across the sky ! Jumpin' Je'oshaphat, chum ' 
 he was 'oarse with excitement ' the bloomin' 
 rays are bendiri ! " 
 
 " Bern' Number Two I 'ad the lever o' the 
 breechblock in my 'and, and I closed the 
 breech with a clang that made the upper deck 
 quarters skip like one man. 
 
 "'The French fleet!' I cries, 'oldin' my 
 sides, while the tears ran down 'my face. 
 ' To think,' I says, ' that we've cleared for 
 action an' spliced the mainbrace all for a 
 bloomin' ' 
 
 " ' Put that pot-bellied, pap-brained, 'owling 
 dervish under the sentry's charge ! ' roared the 
 Companion of St. Michael an' the Garter, after 
 he'd danced a pas de sool on the chart' ouse 
 roof. 
 
 " And several of the 'ands who'd jumped 
 'ighest when I slammed 'ome the breechblock 
 so far forgot theirselves as to cry ' 'Ear, 'ear ! ' 
 
 " For, such are the changes an' chances of 
 this mortal life, in one fleetin' minute that 
 there discov'ry o' mine 'ad changed a justly 
 209
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 popular idol into the best 'ated man in the 
 ship!" 
 
 Mr. Pagett rose from the coffin-stone, and I 
 followed his example. For the shower had 
 passed and the moon once more shone from a 
 clear sky overhead. 
 
 "The nex' mornin', while the 'ands were 
 bein' turned out," he continued, as we prepared 
 to descend the hill, " a bluejacket looked over 
 the edge o' my 'ammick and allooded to 
 Marines in a way that might 'ave 'urt an 
 ordin'ry soldier's feelin's. But I always made 
 allowances for the pore, ignorant, flat-footed 
 fellers; besides, even Solomon in an 'ammick 
 would 'ave been 'andicapped in argument with 
 a man on his feet. And this man was the 
 'eavy weight champion o' the squadron, so I 
 looked at him in dignified silence, an' presently 
 he went away. 
 
 "But before prayers that forenoon I 
 
 discovered that he was not the only man 
 
 affected by the crool disappointment of the 
 
 previous night. After a breakfast that was 
 
 210
 
 HIS UNPOPULARITY 
 
 like a Dorcas meetin' for backbitin' and 
 slanderin', one 'alf o' the wardroom orficers 
 again cut the other 'alf dead upon the quarter- 
 deck. The gunroom was less like the young 
 ladies' school of yesterday than a cageful o' 
 bear cubs with sore 'eads and the power o' 
 profane swearin', while the gunner, bo'sun an' 
 carpenter 'ad arranged by dinner-time for a 
 triangular dooel near the bandstand on Plymith 
 'Oe. From the unity, peace an' concord of the 
 past two days the entire ship 'ad reverted to 
 the angry passions of the previous five months. 
 
 " At seven bells, as we were cleanin' guns, 
 the fleet-paymaster climbed the bridge ladder 
 and touched his 'at to the skipper. 
 
 " ' I've come to ask you, sir,' he says, 
 ' whether I'm to charge them seven 'undred 
 an' twenty tots o' rum last night to the public, 
 and, if so, what reason you wish me to assign 
 for such an abnormally large issue. The 
 gen'ral action we er anticipated didn't come 
 off after all, so ' 
 
 " ' Seven 'undred an' twenty tots ! ' shouts 
 the skipper, when he'd recovered his breath. 
 211
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 ' Then, in the name o' Beelzebub/ he says, 
 ' what's become o' the temp'rance brigade 
 the chapling 'as been feedin' with tea an' buns 
 all the commission ? ' 
 
 " ' There was no temp'rance brigade last 
 night, any'ow/ says the pusser with a grin ; 
 * seven 'undred an' twen ' 
 
 " * Well, I don't want to 'ear no more about 
 it/ interrup's my distant ancestor, post-cap- 
 t'inlike, ' and what's more I won't. If there 
 was seven 'undred an' fifty blind fools aboard 
 this ship last night/ he says, ' Capt'in Sir 
 'Enry Pagett, Baronite and Companion of St. 
 Michael an' the Garter, was the blindest. 
 Charge it to me/ he says, ' and log it as issued 
 under the mistaken impression that the date 
 was the First Lord's birthday.' " 
 
 For the next few moments we continued our 
 walk to Mr. Pagett's accompaniment of " The 
 day is past and over," whistled in march time 
 and in five successive keys. 
 
 "That searchlight?" I presently hinted, 
 when I could stand no more ; " what was it, 
 after all ? " 
 
 212
 
 HIS UNPOPULARITY 
 
 He stopped in the middle of a bar and of 
 the roadway at the same instant. 
 
 " Don't accuse me o' the coincidence," he 
 growled, staring aggrievedly before him, 
 " but well, that there searchlight off the 
 Azores was twin-brother to the nat'ral phe- 
 nomenon over yonder. Look ! " 
 
 I looked. The valley before us was spanned 
 by a lunar rainbow. 
 
 213
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT
 
 VIII 
 
 "Tnis," I observed, as Mr. Pagett and I 
 simultaneously broke the long silence with the 
 same remark, " is telepathy." 
 
 " Tell 'ow much ? " demanded the ex-Private 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " With you and me," I mused, " the thing 
 happens too often to be explained by mere 
 coincidence. Whether one calls it thought 
 transference, or animal magnetism, or " 
 
 " Soopernat'ral 'okey-pokey is what / call 
 it," growled Mr. Pagett, with rapidly rising 
 choler. "When a party affable enough, I 
 admit, in the matter o' liquor an' tobacco is 
 continooally puttin' words to thoughts still 
 simmerin' in the back o' my 'ead, you will 
 onderstand that I may not wish him no 
 positive 'arm. But " my gallant host stared 
 217
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 fixedly at Yes Tor "I'd like to see him 
 paralysed all down his right side, so 'elp me, I 
 would ! " 
 
 " It is considerate of you to limit the stroke/' 
 I laughed, involuntarily testing the reflexes 
 of my dexter limbs. 
 
 Mr. Pagett irritably waved aside my 
 acknowledgment with an ill-drawn hand like a 
 finger-post's. 
 
 " I wasn't thinkin' so much of you as of 
 another worry," he explained. "Number 
 (Chatham) one ought four seven Private 
 Orlbert Shillitoe was his tally, and, though 
 he died like a gentleman, he was the worst 
 Queen' s-'ard-bargain in a ship that was packed 
 fore an' aft with 'em. He was just such 
 another as you." 
 
 " Thank you " 
 
 " Just such another as you in the matter o' 
 that there 'okey-pokey, I mean. Not only 
 did this this wireless tele-grarphy, in a 
 mangier o' speakin', constantly 'appen between 
 us when we were servin' in the same detach- 
 ment, but afterwards as well, when we were 
 thousands o' miles apart on different stations ! " 
 
 218
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 " There must have been some strong bond 
 of sympathy between you," I suggested. 
 
 Mr. Pagett shifted his stare from Yes Tor to 
 my face. 
 
 " He was the worst Queen' s-'ard-bargain," 
 he reiterated, with ominous deliberation, "in 
 a ship that was packed " 
 
 I apologised. " All the same," I added 
 mendaciously, " I have known an instance of 
 telepathy between a bishop and a burglar." 
 
 " It was 'ard on the burglar," he commented, 
 "though I dare say the bishop 'ad his little 
 professional secrets as well. But talkin' of 
 of " 
 
 " Of telepathy ? " 
 
 " Of Orlbert Shillitoe 'minds me of a night- 
 mare I once 'ad on this very gardin bench 
 where me an' you are now settin'. Leastways, 
 when I say a nightmare I'm tellin' you a lie. 
 For it 'appened, Mister 'appened as surely 
 as the rest o' the dreadful business, which all 
 the world read about nex' mornin' on the paper." 
 
 Mr. Pagett's stare, softened to a dreamy 
 gaze, reverted to the cromlech-crowned Tor 
 that overshadowed us. It was a mellow after- 
 
 219
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 noon in September, and the former Private of 
 Marines and I were busy with spunyarn, 
 making up a prick of ship's tobacco (smuggled 
 by me and at his instance, I grieve to say) in 
 the garden of his little Dartmoor hostelry, 
 the "Coach and Horses." A bee droned 
 among the hollyhocks and dahlias, showing 
 here and there like a great solar spot upon the 
 flaming face of a sunflower. In the meadows 
 beyond, a farm boy, undeterred by the failures 
 of countless predecessors, essayed with cries 
 and clods of turf to hasten the homing cows. 
 Perpendicular streaks of cobalt smoke from 
 the hamlet below were rubbed, as by a giant's 
 finger, upon the purple background of the 
 Tors ; and between a fold of the latter, far 
 away to the south'ard, the eye caught a glint 
 of summer sea. 
 
 Suddenly the spell of the moorland afternoon 
 was broken by the incongruous jangle of a 
 piano-organ. But while 1 vehemently prayed 
 that " no positive harm " (in Mr. Pagett's 
 sense) might befall the invisible organ grinder, 
 my companion sheepishly fumbled in his 
 waistcoat pocket. 
 
 220
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 "It's Jewsepper," he explained, as he laid 
 a shilling on the bench between us ; " the pore 
 ragbag fetches up 'ere two or three times a 
 year, and it don't break me, d'you see, to give 
 him his day's rations and a bob. It's a cur'ous 
 thing, though," he went on musingly, " that 
 he should 'ave turned up just as I was about 
 to tell you that there oncanny experience o' 
 mine. P'r'aps you'll call that tele what's- 'er- 
 name, Mister ? " 
 
 " I shall be better able to form an 
 opinion," I hinted, " when I have heard the 
 story." 
 
 Mr. Pagett leaned back against the century- 
 old red-brick garden wall, and, thrusting his 
 thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat, 
 looked out upon the world with a troubled 
 expression as unwonted as the tinge of sadness 
 which suddenly crept into his voice. That he 
 was accounted a painstaking and promising liar 
 by the seafaring profession the profession 
 best qualified to judge I well knew. But 
 to this day I am unable to determine whether 
 he merely lied more convincingly than usual 
 that autumn afternoon, or whether he actually 
 221
 
 did dream of the haunting tragedy in the Bag 
 Flat. 
 
 " It was a fine afternoon like this one, but 
 earlier in the summer," he began, without 
 further preamble, " that I came to an anchor 
 on this 'ere bench for a quiet pipe o' baccy. 
 As the wind 'ad backed in the night from 
 nor' -east to sou' -west, we'd been workin* like 
 niggers since daylight to save the 'ay before 
 the rain came ; and so dog-tired was I that I'd 
 barely sat down before I fell sound asleep. 
 And you may lay to it, Mister, that I mis- 
 remember ever in my life bein' so 'eavy 
 with sleep even after coalin' ship as I was 
 that twenty-second afternoon o' June month 
 in the year eighteen 'undred and ninety-three." 
 
 A flight of rooks, changing from black to 
 purple as they circled in the sunlight, sailed 
 overhead on their way home to the vicarage 
 elm-tops. Mr. Pagett paused until the dimin- 
 uendo of their cawing permitted his own 
 unusually subdued tones to be heard again. 
 
 " The last thing I recollec' before takin' that 
 long stretch off o' the land," he resumed, " was 
 the church clock strikin' three. You know 
 222
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 the cur'oua echo there is after each stroke ? 
 P'r'aps that may 'ave 'ad somethin' to do with 
 it p'r'aps not. Any'ow, long before the 
 clangin' 'ad died away I knew that I was 
 listenin' to the sentry strikin' six bells ; and 
 that its muffled sound (the church is at the 
 other end o' the village) was doo to the fact 
 that I was somewhere in the ship a long way 
 below the upper deck. 
 
 " Although I could 'ave taken my Bible 
 after-davit that I'd never seen that partic'lar 
 place before, I'd been in scores of others very 
 similar. It was a large oblong sort o' chamber, 
 lighted, since it was below the water-line, by a 
 couple of electric lamps ; and it 'ad a passage- 
 way round all four sides and a doorway at 
 each end leadin' into the other watertight 
 compartments. Along the ship's linin' was a 
 cofferdam, while borderin' the other long side 
 the inboard one was a kind o' big bin, 
 waist 'igh. The centre o' the compartment 
 was occupied, from the deck to the beams 
 over'ead, by tiers o' skeletin pigeon-'oles a 
 yard square ; and these, as well as the bin, 
 were filled with neatly-stowed, yellow-painted 
 H2 223
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 canvas bags. Each bag bore upon its base, 
 which showed outwards, a stencilled number 
 those belongin' to the seamen an' stokers bein' 
 in black, the Marines in red. For the place 
 I 'ad tumbled into straight out o* this 'ere 
 gardin (in a manner o' speakin') was the 
 wardrobe of some ship's comp'ny ; and, from 
 the size o' the compartment and the number 
 o' bags it contained, I knew it for the Bag Flat 
 of a first-class battleship. 
 
 " Besides myself there were two other men 
 in the flat, both Marines, and both in white 
 clothin'; and, even if the crool temp'rature 
 'adn't told me so, I should 'ave known from 
 their kit that I was on a hot station. One 
 was asleep atop o' the cofferdam, the other 
 the sweat patterin' off his face on to the deck- 
 cloth like summer rain was slowly walkin' 
 up an' down the starboard passage-way. 
 Although he wore no baynit I knew him for 
 the sentry the 'umming of that living magnet, 
 the dynamo, in the next flat bein 1 quite 
 sufficient reason to me for his 'aving been 
 posted without his side-arms. 
 
 " ' It's bleedin' 'ot ! ' he says, 'alting in front 
 224
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 o' me to. wring out his red pocket-'an'ker- 
 cher. 
 
 " He seemed no more surprised to find me 
 there than I was myself. 
 
 " ' It is that/ I agrees, moppin' up my own 
 'ead. ' Is yonder a sea-goin' sallymander/ I 
 says, ' that has picked out this 'igh class little 
 'ell for a sleepin* billet ? ' 
 
 " ' It's been picked out for 'im/ grins the 
 sentry, ' 'and bloomin* well serve 'im right, 
 too. He's under my charge at present,' he 
 says, cockin' a chest (he was a young soldier, 
 was the sentry, and wearin' his first badge), 'for 
 to-morrow mornin' he goes into cells.' 
 
 " ' What's the pore feller's crime? ' I asks 
 tender-'earted, never 'aving 'ad one myself. 
 
 " ' Sleepin' on his post/ says the sentry, 'with 
 his toonic for a pillow and his waistbelt an' 
 boots 'ung up on the 'andle of the Captain's 
 cabin door.' 
 
 " Before I 'ad time to point out that the on- 
 'appy victim of a post-capt'in's tyranny 'ad pro- 
 bably 'ad nowhere else to 'ang them, the sleepin' 
 figger on the cofferdam stirred, uttered a blas- 
 phemious observation on the temp'rature, and 
 225
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 sat up. Simontaneous with the discov'ry that 
 he was no other than my old comrade an' ship- 
 mate, Orlbert Shillitoe, I saw the dawn o* 
 recognition in his own 'andsome face ; and I 
 could 'ave predicted to a word the joyful 
 expressions that were 'overing on his lips." 
 
 " Yes ? " I prompted, seeing that Mr. Pagett 
 paused. 
 
 " I should 'ave predicted wrong," he con- 
 tinued moodily. " What he did say was, 
 ' Strike me paralytic if that ain't the lop-eared 
 leper what borrowed 'alf a sufferin' off o' me 
 aboard the Imperoose ! ' 
 
 " ' I gave it back,' I returned, with quiet 
 dignity, ' the day the ship paid off at Chatham.' 
 
 " ' I know you did/ he says, with a wicked 
 oath, ' and after you'd left by train for Plymith 
 barracks I found it was a wrong 'un! ' 
 
 " I was in the act of clearin' my voice in 
 order to tell the young sentry of the 'exemplary* 
 character with which I'd been discharged to 
 pension, when somethin' was piped on deck. 
 We were too far below to hear the order, but 
 the hootin' of the fog 'orn along the messes and 
 the rush of men down the ladders soon told us 
 226
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 that it was ' Close watertight doors ! ' It is a 
 drill constantly practised in the fleet at sea I 
 knew we were at sea by the throbbin' of the 
 screws but since it touched neither the sentry 
 nor the prisoner, and since I was a passenger, 
 in a manner o' speakin,' we all three stood fast 
 where we were in the starboard passage. 
 
 " Now it 'appened that, as the hands raced 
 through the compartments, bangin'-to and 
 clippin' the heavy steel doors be'ind them, 
 they passed along the Bag Flat by the port 
 gangway. The great stack of bags bein' 
 between, they nat'rally could not see us any 
 more than they could see the ordin'ry seaman 
 and second-class stoker, who crawled out of 
 different corners after they'd passed. 
 
 " ' Ullo ! ' says the startled sentry, not 'aving 
 yet learnt 'ow little space and air are necessary 
 for a contraband nap in the Navy, ' I'll report 
 you two stowaways after the evolution to the 
 sergeant o' the guard fo^ skulkin' from your 
 work and sleepin' in a onlawful place.' 
 
 " ' Then I'll 'ave full value for me money,' 
 says the seaman, turnin' back the sleeves of his 
 jumper, ' by layin' out a grabby first ' grabby 
 227
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 bein' the pore ignorant feller's name for a 
 soldier. 
 
 " He was advancin' to the attack with the 
 stoker in support, and Orlbert 'ad just sprung 
 to his feet to reinforce me an' the sentry, when 
 there come a shock that made all five of us sit 
 down very vi'lent on the cofferdam. 
 
 " ' She's took the ground ! ' sings out the 
 second-class stoker, rubbin' hisself abaft the 
 stummick. 
 
 " ' She's in collision, that's about the size of 
 it ! ' says the seaman with a oath. ' The 
 quicker we're out o' this blasted rat-trap, chums, 
 the better it'll be for our gracious Queen an' 
 country.' 
 
 " ' And the worse for them as passes wrong 
 'uns ! ' adds Orlbert, with an offensive stare at 
 me which I've long since forgiven. 
 
 "We made for the watertight doors, two 
 to the foremost one and three to the after (or 
 maybe 'twas t'other way about I misre- 
 member which), and tried to force back the 
 steel clips which 'eld them. The 'orrible 
 grindin' and rendin' of armour plates and the 
 'eart-stoppin' inrush of water that was goin' 
 228
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 on somewhere nigh, made us exceedin'ly 
 wishful to join the rest o' the ship's comp'ny 
 on deck. But the ship 'ad already begun to 
 list 'eavily to starboard, and the massive doors, 
 bein' thrown so far out o' the perpendic'lar, 
 resisted our desp'rate efforts to move them the 
 leastest part of an inch. Then panic grabbed 
 us, and, shoutin' ourselves 'oarse, we battered 
 on them doors till our knuckles were bloody 
 and the First Lootenant's white enamel paint 
 was ruined. Yet, shriek and 'ammer as we 
 might, there was no response. For the closed 
 compartments on each side of us were as 
 abandoned as the Bag Flat itself should 'ave 
 been, and our shipmates 'igh above us in the 
 blessed air 'an sunlight were far too busy at 
 * Out collision mat ! ' to 'ear the despairin* 
 cries of us five pore lost souls in the bowels of 
 the capsizin' ship. 
 
 " That she was capsizin' we now knew 
 beyond doubt. Through some great 'ole below 
 the water-line the sea was pourin' in tons, and 
 with each ton the deck canted more an' more 
 sharply under our feet till we were skiddin' on 
 it like cats in walnut shells on a steep roof. 
 229
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 Then the bags began to avalanche from the 
 starboard racks on to the cofferdam an' the 
 ship's side ; the deck reared itself up till we 
 an' the deck-cloths fell off it in a smotherin' 
 tangle atop o' the bags ; two or three dull 
 explosions shook from us what little wits we 
 "ad left ; and, lastly, the electric light went out 
 leavin' us bruised, an' chokin,' an' standin' 
 on our 'eads for the most part, in a darkness 
 that was more appallin' than all the rest o' the 
 terror put together." 
 
 Mr. Pagett paused to mop from his fore- 
 head the moisture which had gathered during 
 the telling of the tale. It was obvious that 
 either he was a consummate actor or that he 
 believed he had actually experienced in the 
 spirit the horrors he was describing. Although 
 his gaze was now turned towards the far-off 
 strip of Channel, it was plainly a more dis- 
 tant sea that was reflected on the retina of his 
 memory. The red beneath the sunburn of his 
 cheeks had faded, his lips and hands were 
 tremulous, his churchwarden pipe and the 
 contraband tobacco lay unheeded beside him 
 on the bench. As for me the sun still shone, 
 230
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 the bees still droned among the flowers, the 
 rooks still chattered like smart society at a 
 concert while Giuseppe rendered the master- 
 pieces of Cockayne. Yet I was but dimly 
 conscious of my surroundings; for, like the 
 ex-Private, I was living those last awful 
 moments in the Bag Flat of the foundered 
 battleship. 
 
 " After the light went out there followed a 
 lifetime of suffocation, of mortal sickness, of 
 stupefyin', black despair. The earth itself 
 seemed to be plungin' and reelin' from its course 
 through hissin' space, and the direction it 
 appeared to be takin', in a manner o' speakin', 
 was upwards. But even this lifetime of a 
 minute or two came to an end at last, and the 
 end was a blessed onconsciousness that would 
 'ave been a thousand times more merciful 'ad 
 it been death itself. 
 
 " 'Ow long it was before I came to is one o' 
 those things what even I shall never know ; 
 but, as you will onderstand later on, it could 
 only 'ave been a matter of a very few minutes. 
 When I 'ad struggled clear of the 'alf dozen 
 bags atop o' me it was the corner of a ditty- 
 231
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 box pressin' on my liver what pulled me 
 together I thought I should 'ave gone ravin' 
 mad with the paralysin' 'orror of the sitoo- 
 ation. For, though I tried my 'ardest to 
 think of the pure an' truthful life I 'ad led, 
 and of the two columns of obitooary notice 
 which the Globe an' Laurel (the regimental 
 paper) would be certain to print about me, I 
 could not keep my mind off the lingerin' manner 
 o' my death. The steel girder I was lyin' acrosst 
 like a suit o' damp whites 'ung out to dry 
 showed me that the ship was bottom upper- 
 most, and from her deadly stillness I knew 
 that she was restin', maybe a hundred fathoms 
 deep, upon the sea bed. Had all the sea- 
 manship an' science in the Navy been 
 assembled up there over'ead in the sun- 
 shine and afternoon land breeze, they would 
 'ave been as powerless to 'elp us as a infants' 
 school. Even Death hisself wouldn't befriend 
 us for a little eternity to come For there 
 were but five of us to ex'aust all the air in 
 that big 'ermetically-closed compartment ; and, 
 though I could never work sums in cubic 
 measure, my cursed intelligence I 'ave always 
 232
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 been an extraordinary intelligent man warned 
 me that we might suffer the best part of two 
 hours before we finally stiffened out like trout 
 in a fishin' creel. 
 
 " ' Is any one else alive ? ' I presently asks, 
 in a voice so oulike my own that it scared me 
 worse than ever. 
 
 " A smothered groan came from what I'd 
 took to be a bag alongside me. 
 
 11 * Alive ! ' moans a weak voice about the 
 size of a whisper, ' my Gawd, why didn't I 
 shove my 'ead through a furnace door a hour 
 ago when I was on watch and "ad the chance ? ' 
 
 " ' It's a judgment on us both, chum, for 
 skulkin 1 where we didn't ought,' says the 
 ordin'ry, more solemn than I'd ever heard a 
 seaman speak before. ' But it's a 'ard judg- 
 ment crool 'ard,' he adds, with somethin' like 
 a sob, ' for a crime as would 'ave got us seven 
 days 10 A at most ! ' 
 
 " A silence followed that was like the silence 
 o 1 the tomb excep' for the 'ard breathin* of 
 the five pore cawpses buried in it. 
 
 " ' It's the gashly darkness what euchres 
 me I ' blurts out Orlbert Shillitoe at last. 
 233
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 ' There's bound to be a pack 'o cards some- 
 where in one o' they bags, an' it would 'ave 
 passed the time away till till ' 
 
 " We all coughed simontaneous. No one 
 seemed wishful for 'im to finish the sentence, 
 some'ow. 
 
 " ' Even if we 'ad the cards/ says the young 
 sentry, with a 'eavy sigh, 'I, for one, shouldn't 
 'ave the 'eart to play. Come to think of it, 
 ' twould be more fittin' if we prayed.' 
 
 " Not a man laughed, which they all most 
 certainly would 'ave done if the suggestion 'ad 
 been made on the mess deck a hour before. 
 Still, nobody seemed to know 'ow to begin. 
 
 " ' There's no denyin' but what we've all 
 been pretty 'ealthy blackguards in our time,' 
 comments Orlbert slowly, and though of 
 course it was foolishness I felt that he was 
 lookin' 'ard at me through the dark. ' We 
 none of us, I'll lay to it, did much in the 
 prayin' line when Death seemed out o' sight to 
 le'ward, and now that he's got the weather 
 gauge of us it appears to me a bit pitiful-like 
 to whine to the Almighty about it. At any 
 rate,' he says, ' we've each got womenfolk at 
 234
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 'ome, Gaw<J 'elp 'em ; and, when they hear o' 
 this 'ere casuality, depend upon it they'll make 
 out a better case for us than we 'ave the wits 
 to do for ourselves. It comes more nat'ral to 
 a woman/ he says, with a sort o' catch in his 
 voice, ' to tell pretty fairy tales about well, 
 about people as she's fond of.' 
 
 " In the silence which followed I could 'ear 
 the young sentry cryin' very softly to hisself. 
 It was pestilential 'ot, the air was already 
 becomin' difficult to breathe, and I was achin' 
 as I never ached before to 'ave my baynit 
 'andy-by to put an end to it all. Then, with 
 a rousin* oath, Orlbert suddenly sent our 
 throbbin' 'earts into our necks. 
 
 " ' Shipmates,' he shouts, and from the 
 'eight of his voice I judged that he'd sprung 
 to his feet, ' I've a bit o' noos for you all as '11 
 'earten you up more than a double tot o' rum 
 apiece ! It's gawspel truth,' he says, ' that 
 Death has got his fingers at our throats, and 
 means to keep 'em there ontil he 'as choked 
 the life out of us. But we'd 'ave to face that 
 much one day or other in any case, so, after all, 
 why not now as well as later ? And to-day, 1 
 235
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 he says, in a voice tremblin' with excitement, 
 ' we can snap our own fingers at him in return. 
 I'm 'olding that in my 'ands, chums, which '11 
 make Death so gentle he won't know hisself 
 from his twin-brother Sleep. Has any bloke 
 got a box o' matches ? ' 
 
 "I nat'rally supposed that the nightmare 
 terror of the sitooation 'ad turned the pore 
 feller's brain. But the seaman sings out that 
 he has three matches in his cap, and by the 
 flame which he presently struck we saw that 
 the objec' in Shillitoe's shakin' 'and was a 
 bottle, not much bigger than a Martin-'Enery 
 cartridge, with a few white discs a-rattlin' in 
 the bottom of it. 
 
 " ' Lord forgive you for disappointin' us ! ' 
 groans the stoker, who was nighest to 'im ; 
 'they're nothin'but bloomin' cough lozengers.* 
 
 " * It's true enough,' laughs Orlbert 'is- 
 torically, as the match flickers out, ' that the 
 man as swallers one o' them will never cough 
 no more this side o' Kingdom Come. Listen 
 to me, chums,' he says. ' You'll mind when 
 Pincher Martin, the armourer, 'ad his 'and 
 blown off last month by a misfire cartridge in 
 236
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 openin' the breech of the port foremost spar- 
 deck six-pounder 'Otchkiss ? I was in the 
 sick bay, with a touch o' fever, when they 
 brought him in moanin' like the wind before it 
 freshens for a winter gale ; and I see the Fleet- 
 surjin take this very bottle out o' the poison 
 cupboard, dissolve one o' the lozengers in 
 water, and squirt some of it into pore Pincher's 
 arm. In a few minutes he was as sound asleep 
 as I was atop o' the cofferdam 'alf a hour ago.' 
 
 " ' But we ain't got no squirt nor water 
 neither,' complains the young sentry, still 
 cryin'. 
 
 " ' We don't want 'em, my pore lad,' says 
 Orlbert, tenderlike, ' so long as we 'ave the 
 power of swallerin' left us. What would 
 'appen,' I asks the sick bay stooard, after the 
 doctor 'ad gone aft, ' if a man was to swaller 
 one o' they lozengers ? ' ' Why, I reckon,' 
 says the stooard, after considerin' a bit, ' that, 
 since they contain a whole grain o' morphium 
 apiece, in ten minutes he'd be 'appier than 
 what he'd ever been in his life, and that after 
 ten more nothin' short of the Last Trump o' 
 Tattoo would wake him.' 
 237
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 " * J 0w did you come by 'em ? ' asks the 
 stoker, still suspicious, by the sound of his 
 voice, that they were cough drops. 
 
 " ' When I was bein' examined for cells by 
 the doctor this mornin,' explains Orlbert, ' I 
 spotted the bottle in the sick bay poison cup- 
 board, which 'appened to be unlocked. " If I 
 can lay 'old of one o' they lozengers," I says to 
 myself, " I can be 'appier in cells (by nibblin' 
 it now an' then) than I've ever been with a 
 all-night pass in my pocket at the Chatham 
 ' Tin Can.' ' I'm 'andier with my fingers than 
 what you think me, p'r'aps, and when I left 
 the sick bay the bloomin' bottle was inside 
 o' my foragin' 'at.' 
 
 " ' Then for dear Gawd's sake,' cries out the 
 stoker, 'let me 'ave a bit o' one to chaw at 
 once 1 ' 
 
 " ' You shall 'ave a whole one, chum,' says 
 Orlbert quietly, ' if somebody will strike 
 another match. Accordin' to the stooard 
 nothin' less than a grain '11 do the job 
 thoroughly.' 
 
 " Never, not when I was in 'orspital with 
 the fever, 'ad I be'eld four such nightmare 
 238
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 faces as the next match lighted up ; and I 
 make no doubt but what mine was as dreadful 
 as the rest. Even now in my dreams I often 
 see that wild onearthly stare, and when I do 
 you may lay to it I shout myself awake. 
 Some one called out to the seaman for the 
 Lord's sake not to drop a spark upon the 
 bags; for, though we 'ad to die, we didn't 
 want to be burnt alive like cockroaches in 
 the galley fire. Then Orlbert began to tell 
 the morphium lozengers into the palm of his 
 'and. 
 
 " * One, two, three, four ' he says, and 
 stops. 
 
 " ' 'Ave you forgotten 'ow to count, you 
 blank fool ? Shake out one more ! ' almost 
 screams the young sentry, as the match again 
 burns out 
 
 " But Orlbert's voice 'ad dropped to a 
 solemn whisper. ' Christ ! ' he says, more 
 to hisself than aloud, ' which of its 'as got to 
 go without ? ' 
 
 "In an instant we were all four atop of 
 him forcing open his fingers, tearin' at his 
 clothin', fightin', blasphemin' like the pore 
 239
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 maddened souls we were. 'Aving seen the 
 means of blessed onconsciousness within our 
 reach, we were less minded than ever to face 
 without it that onthinkable death which was 
 so surely approachin'. But, though the stoker 
 found the empty bottle, none of us could lay 
 'ands on them priceless morphium tablets ; 
 an' presently we fell back on the bags, cryin' 
 with the impotent rage of children, and 
 chokin 1 for the air that was growin' less ev'ry 
 minute like the sand in the upper part of an 
 hour-glass. 
 
 " ' Steady, lads ! ' says Orlbert, in a clear 
 though far-away sort o' voice ; ' recollec' that 
 I could 'ave bolted the lot unbeknownst 
 to any of you if I'd 'ad the mind to. But, 
 although I've always been a Queen's-'ard- 
 bargain ever since I was a nipper in the 
 Drums, I've never stole a march upon a 
 comrade. Share an' share alike,' he says, 
 with a ghost of his old laugh, ' is the motter 
 on the Shillitoe coat-of-arms ; so strike the 
 last glim, shipmate, and you shall all 'ave 
 what you desire. Three would get it in any 
 case, and therefore don't owe me no thanks. 
 240
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 But since there's got to be an odd man out, 
 and I'm goin' to be that man, it's only the 
 fourth whichever he may be what need 
 think a bit kindly of me when he's droppin 1 
 off to sleep.' 
 
 "Again I could 'ave swore he was lookin' 
 'ard in my direction through the darkness ; 
 but when the match was struck I saw that 
 he was collectin' the four lozengers from the 
 mouth of the bag where he'd shoved them. 
 Almost before he'd placed them in our fists 
 we'd swallered them, and not on til mine was 
 safe inside me did I feel remorseful for 'aving 
 took it. But while I was shakin' him by the 
 'and an' tellin' him so, the last light that four 
 of us were to see in this world went out ; and, 
 exceptin' in my dreams, I never be'eld the 
 face of Orlbert Shillitoe again. 
 
 " When I come to I found that I'd fallen 
 off this bench, and that the church clock was 
 strikin' the quarter the first quarter after 
 three." 
 
 Mr. Pagett sighed heavily, and, removing 
 his thumbs from the armholes of his waist- 
 241
 
 PRIVATE PAGETT 
 
 coat, sliced a pipeful of tobacco from the roll 
 beside him. 
 
 "Well, was it tele you know?" he in- 
 quired, without looking up. 
 
 " It is possible," I replied with caution, 
 " that the heat, the glimpse of sea yonder, 
 the striking of the clock, the tumble from 
 the bench might of themselves have been 
 sufficient to account for your extraordinarily 
 vivid dream." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 For some moments he thoughtfully rubbed 
 the fragrant leaf between his palms. Then, 
 having filled his pipe, he tapped my knee 
 with the stem. 
 
 " The nex' mornin'/ 1 he observed slowly, 
 " I read on the Western Mornin' Noos of the 
 rammin' an' loss of a certain first-class battle- 
 ship on a foreign station. It 'ad 'appened 
 just after six bells the previous afternoon, and 
 'alf-way down the long list o' casualities was 
 ' Number (Chatham) one ought seven four, 
 Private Orlbert Shillitoe, Royal Marines.' " 
 
 I was looking at the pink and crimson 
 hollyhocks before me, but I saw the white, 
 242
 
 IN THE BAG FLAT 
 
 set face of .a hero waiting in midnight silence 
 and appalling loneliness for the end. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 I shook my head. "As your friend 
 Giuseppe yonder would probably answer," 
 I said, "chisa?" 
 
 " Talkin' o' Jewsepper," remarked Mr. 
 Pagett excitedly, " 'ark ! That's the same 
 bloomin' toon he was playin' when I come 
 to that there midsummer afternoon ! " 
 
 I hearkened. The melody was the hack- 
 neyed but ever exquisite Ah che la morte. 
 
 THE END
 
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