JOLLY TARS IN EGYPT
After the work of the morning had been gotten out of the way next day, the word was passed about that shore parties were to be allowed to leave the ship immediately after the noon mess.
One party was to spend the day in Suez, while the other was to take a longer journey. The Battleship Boys were of the latter party. There were all of fifty of them. When they were ready to start they marched to the quarter-deck, where the captain addressed them.
"I am giving you three days' shore leave, men, in recognition of faithful service and attention to duty. I shall expect you to carry yourselves as befits an American man-of-wars-man. Arrangements have been made for you to visit Cairo and the Pyramids. I shall hope to see you all report on time and happy. That will be all, men. The steamers are waiting to convey you to the landing."
The men, regardless of discipline, gave three cheers for Captain Farnham.
Then they piled over the side of the ship with shouts and laughter, no effort being made to check their merriment.
"It pays to be good," howled Hickey from the bow of the steamer to those still aboard. "If you're good you can go visit your friends, the mummies. I'll give your kindest to the caliphs."
With a shrill whistle the steamers headed for the landing, every jackie on board singing. Reaching the landing, the whole crowd rushed for the train that was waiting to convey them to Cairo.
"Oh, look at the man with the kimono," shouted Dan.
"That's no kimono; that's the conductor's uniform," answered a voice.
There were a number of American tourists aboard the waiting train, and many of these waved American flags from the windows.
The jackies went wild. They hurrahed for America; they hurrahed for the tourists, winding up with a "Hip, hip, hurrah, for the kings of ancient Egypt."
By this time the conductor was charging up and down beside the train as if he had suddenly lost his senses.
"Has he gone crazy?" called Sam.
"No; he is always that way when he is starting the train. He has a fit at every station on the line. He wouldn't think he were earning his salary if he didn't," answered a traveler.
The conductor's robe, a cross between a kimono and a bath robe, was taken in at the waist by a sash, while a bright red fez adorned his head. The fez was the wonder of the jackies.
"That would match your hair, wouldn't it, red-head?" called a shipmate who observed Hickey looking at the fez.
"I'll have it, too, if he gets near enough to me. Maybe you think I don't dare?"
"I dare you."
Sam made a dive for the conductor. Dan Davis stuck out a foot and Hickey measured his length on the ground, right at the feet of the gayly robed conductor.
"Who did that?" demanded the red-headed boy, bounding to his feet, his eyes blazing with wrath.
"I did. Do you think I am going to let you mix us up in any more trouble? If you had done what you proposed, we should have been arrested, the whole crowd of us. Now, behave yourself, Sam Hickey, or I'll thrash you right here before the train starts."
"That's the talk, Dynamite!" called another sailor.
"You can't do it. You can't——" sputtered Sam.
"All aboard!" howled the jackies. At the same time half a dozen of them picked Sam up bodily and tossed him in through a car window. The engine gave a toot, and the train moved off, all hands singing the "Star Spangled Banner."
For some distance the route led along the edge of the Suez canal. Ships were passed, and at sight of one the sailors would lean far out of the windows, swinging their caps and hurrahing.
The conductor hurried along the running board, trying to make the passengers keep their heads in, but he might as well have tried to prevent the wheels going around.
It was like throwing a cat into a bed of catnip and expecting him to be calm. The sailors joked the conductor good-naturedly, but it is doubtful if he understood a word of what they were saying.
"He's got more on his mind than the captain of a battleship," laughed Dan.
"More than the admiral of the fleet, you mean," shouted a jackie. "I wouldn't have his job for the whole railroad itself. They say they chop a conductor's head off every time a train is late in this country."
"I know of some roads in America to which they ought to apply that practice."
"So do I," agreed Sam Hickey. "This reminds me of the milk train on the peanut road out at Piedmont. Piedmont is where we hail from, mates," he explained.
"Yes; you look the part," answered a shipmate, at which there was a roar of laughter.
Sam's eyelids were at half mast.
"I'll rub your nose in the desert for that when I get——"
"Go tell it to the Sphinx. We're on the desert now."
Stretches of yellow sand reached away and on to the foot of the Arabian mountains in the far distance. Along the track the train passed processions of dusty travelers, gorgeously arrayed with brilliantly colored mantles thrown over their heads.
"Look! Look, there's a circus going by!" yelled Hickey.
"Where, where?" Jackies rushed to his side of the car and leaned far out.
"It's a caravan. What's the matter with you, red-head?"
A long line of camels was dragging itself along the highway, each camel holding the bobbing figure of a native, while on foot at the rear strung a long procession of other natives. It was a most picturesque sight. It was the first time the Battleship Boys had seen camels on their native soil, and the boys leaned from the windows, watching the unusual sight until the caravan was lost in the distance.
Villages of yellow mud huts, their flat roofs covered with thatch, the buildings surrounded by a drove of Arab goats, chickens, pigs, camels and donkeys, were frequently passed, the sight causing the jackies keen amusement.
Everything was quaint and unusual; the lurching camels, the Arabs with their long guns and queer costumes, all combined to make the journey one long to be remembered.
"Cairo! All out for Cairo!" sang the voice of the petty officer in charge of the party.
"Cairo! Cairo!" howled the jackies.
"Remember, boys, you are in a city now—not out on the desert."
This suggestion was sufficient for the moment, and the men-o'-warsmen lowered their voices as they did so. But another din almost as great as had been their own arose. A perfect army of beggars surged toward them. Arabs, Greeks, Hindoos, Nubians, black, white and brown men surrounded the jackies, crying out in shrill voices, "Backsheesh! Backsheesh!" All tongues sounded alike when it came to begging.
"Get out of my pocket, you heathen!" roared Sam Hickey.
"This is almost as bad as Paris!" cried Dan Davis, trying to fight his way through the mob. "But I'd rather meet a regiment of these howling Dervishes, or whatever they are, than one Paris guide."
"Give them the flying wedge," shouted a jackie.
"Whoop! Go!"
Beggars tumbled to right and left. Greek, Hindoo, Arab, Nubian and Albanian went down in a yelling, shouting heap on either side as the jackies charged into their ranks.
Clang, clang!
"Look out for the trolley car," shouted Dan.
"What—trolley cars in this heathen country!" cried one.
"Yes, and I'll bet that car there came from Newport, R. I.," jeered Hickey. "Yes, sir; that's the very car that I used to ride to town on from the training station."
A shout greeted this announcement, but the sailors were amazed at what they saw. Had it not been for the strange mixture of races, and the quaint costumes, the sightseers might well have imagined themselves in some American city. Veiled women rode in carriages through the busy streets; here and there an automobile tooted its horn, while dogs infested the gutters, snapping at the heels of the Navy men.
"This is the original crazy house," laughed Dan. "I never imagined anything like it."
The sailors did not separate. They traveled about together, attracting a great deal of attention. Now and then they met an American, who, when he addressed them in their own language, would be greeted with a cheer. Up one street and down another strolled the jackies, sometimes singing their national anthem, then dropping into the march step to the "hep, hep, hep!" of one of their number.
The bazaars came in for a considerable share of attention. In these the lads bought freely all manner of curios, for most of which they paid all of twice what the articles were worth. Sam Hickey got into an argument with an ebony-hued Nubian who had substituted an inferior article for something that Sam had purchased. The fellow denied having done so, and refused to make good the difference, or to hand over the original article.
"All-right; I can't lick you without causing international complications, as the captain calls it, but I'm going to have part of your clothes."
With that Sam snatched the fez from the Nubian's head and stuffed it in his trousers' pocket. The merchant made a dive at the red-headed boy, but found himself face to face with a solid wall of jackies, who had suddenly stepped between the enraged merchant and his victim.
"See here, you man with the iron face," threatened one, "we'll take your whole shop along if you don't look out, and we won't buy it, either."
"Come along, boys; we can't afford to have any row here," warned Dan. "We want to see the Pyramids, you know."
"Hurrah for the Pyramids!" shouted the boys.
"Donkey, sir, donkey?" questioned a group of native boys as the jackies came from the bazaar.
"Who's a donkey?" demanded Sam Hickey.
"Want a donkey, sir?"
An idea occurred to Dan.
"How much do you charge for a ride?"
"Twenty piastres for half an hour," answered the lad, in very good English.
"Twenty pi——"
"That's about ten cents," spoke up a sailor who had been in Cairo on a former cruise.
"Good! How many donkeys have you? Enough for all of us?"
"I get 'em. You wait."
"If you'll hurry we will wait. Don't be long. My friends are not in a mood to wait for anything to-night. Run, boy!"
The boy darted away. In a few minutes donkeys began gathering, their young masters prodding the lazy beasts, urging them along with shrill shouts and sundry twists of the animal's tails.
"Look at the donkeys," shouted the jackies. "What's going on here?"
"You are all going to take a ride with me," announced Dan Davis. "We'll wind up the evening with a parade; then we'll pipe up hammocks."
"Hurrah for Little Dynamite!" howled the men.
"Let's form a cavalry company and charge the town."
"The town will do all the charging, and then some more," laughed Dan. "Mount."
With shouts of mirth the jackies swung themselves to the backs of the donkeys.
"Forward, march!" commanded Dan.
The grotesque procession started away, while the sides of the narrow streets were lined with natives and foreigners, all laughing at the ludicrous spectacle.
It was harmless fun, the pent-up spirits of the sailor boys being given full play after weeks at sea.
"Somebody sing," suggested a voice.
"I'll sing," answered Hickey.
"No; let Dynamite. He's the only sweet-voiced warbler in the crew. What will it be, Dynamite?"
Dan cleared his throat.
"The harbor's past, the breezes blow,
Yeo ho, lads, ho! Yeo ho! Yeo ho!
'Tis long ere we come back, I know,
Yeo ho, lads, ho! Yeo ho!"
The jackies greeted the effort with a howl of delight; then all joined in with a shout that brought people from their beds to the flat roofs of their houses, from which they peered down wonderingly on the strange procession.
"But true and bright from morn till night my home will be,
And all so neat and snug and sweet, for Jack at sea;
And Nancy's face to bless the place, and welcome me;
Yeo ho, lads, ho! Yeo ho!
"The bo's'n pipes the watch below,
Yeo ho, lads, ho! Yeo ho! Yeow!"
The song ended in a roar of laughter that was taken up from the housetops, running down the narrow street like a wave at sea.
At that moment the bluejackets were nearing the bazaar of the Nubian with whom Sam Hickey had had the trouble. For some reason Sam's donkey was taken with a sudden attack of the sulks. Sam prodded the beast and yelled at him; donkey boys punched the animal with their fingers to stir him up, but still the animal refused to move.
"Twist his tail," suggested a shipmate jeeringly.
Hickey accepted the suggestion. Half turning, he grasped the beast's tail, giving it a violent twist.
"Hee—hee—hee-h-a-w—he-e-e-e-e," protested the donkey.
The jackies shouted.
"You better get a new horn for your automobile, red-head," jeered a shipmate.
"The one he has would make a good siren for the battleship," added another.
Hickey was having too much trouble, about this time, to give heed to the jeers of his companions. The lazy donkey had all at once taken matters into his own hoofs. These hoofs were flying in all directions. With every kick the circle about the Battleship Boy and his mount widened.
"I'm going to fall off. Somebody catch me!" yelled Sam.
Dan Davis, though fairly doubled up with laughter, sprang from his donkey and ran to Sam's assistance. He did not fear that Sam would be harmed, but he saw that, with every kick, the animal was getting nearer and nearer to the bazaar.
"Hang on, Sam!" encouraged his companions.
"Sprinkle some salt on the donkey's tail," suggested another.
Dan leaped to the donkey's head.
Instantly the animal whirled. Dan, seeing what was about to occur, threw himself forward just as the hind hoofs of the animal shot out, the boy falling against the donkey's legs and hips.
The Battleship Boy was lifted right up into the air. He landed in a heap some fifteen feet away.
The jackies yelled themselves hoarse, while Dan got up, rubbing himself and grinning sheepishly.
A crash at that instant attracted their attention to the bazaar. Mr. Donkey, with the red-headed boy's arms wrapped about its neck, had bolted into the bazaar.
