"It's just because they haven't been ashore for weeks and months, and in spite of the Lieutenant for Physical Training—och! No, Bunje, don't start scrapping—it's too early in the morning, and we'll wake . . . those . . . poor devils——Eugh! Poof! There! What did I tell you!"
The two swaying figures, after a few preliminary cannons off sideboard, arm-chair and deck stanchion, finally collapsed on to the settee. The sleepers awakened with disgust.
"Confound you, Bunje, you clumsy clown!" roared one. Between them they seized the Young Doctor, who was a small man, and deposited him on the deck. "Couldn't you see I was asleep, Pills?" demanded the other hotly. "You've woken Peter, too. He's had—how many is it, Peter?—eight morning watches running. I've brooded over him like a Providence from the fore-top through each weary dawning, so I ought to know." He yawned drowsily. "Peter saw a horn of the crescent moon sticking out of a cloud this morning, and turned out the anti-aircraft guns' crews. Thought it was the bows of a Zeppelin. Skipper was rather peevish, wasn't he, Peter?"
The Junior Watchkeeper grunted and turned over on to his other side. "Well, you nearly opened fire on a northern diver in that flat calm at dawn the other morning." The speaker cocked a drowsy eye on the mess from under his cap-peak. "Silly ass vowed it was the periscope of an enemy's submarine coming to the surface."
"Truth is," said the Indiarubber Man, "your nerves are shattered. Pills, here's a job for you. Give the lads two-penn'orth of bromide and stop their wine and extras. In the meanwhile," he pulled a small book out of his pocket, "I have here a dainty brochure, entitled, 'Vox Humana—Its Ascendancy over Mere Noise'—otherwise, 'Handbook for Physical Training.' I may say I was partly responsible for its production."
"I believe you, faith!" said the Fleet Surgeon bitterly, over the top of the B.M.J.
The Indiarubber Man wheeled round. "P.M.O.! That's not the tone in which to speak to your Little Ray of Sunshine. It lacked joie de vivre." The speaker beamed on the mess. "I think we are all getting a little mouldy, if you ask me. In short, we are not the bright boys we were when war broke out. Supposing now—I say supposing—we celebrated our return to harbour, and the fact that we haven't bumped a mine-field, by asking our chummy-ship to dinner to-night, and giving them a bit of a chuck-up! Which is our chummy-ship, by the way? Where's the What Ho! lying?" He walked to the scuttle and stuck his head out. "Blessed if I can tell t'other from which now we're all so beautifully disguised."
"We haven't got a chummy-ship," replied the A.P. "We don't want a chummy-ship. Nobody loves us. We hate each other with malignant hatred by reason of hobnailed livers."
"And if we had," interposed another Lieutenant gloomily, "they'd far rather stay on board their own rotten ship. They're probably getting used to their messman by now. The sudden change of diet might be fatal." The speaker turned to the Young Doctor. "Pills, what d'you get when you change your diet sudden-like—scurvy, or something awful, don't you?"
"Hiccoughs." The Surgeon dragged his soul from the depths of a frayed Winning Post and looked up. His face brightened. "Why? Anyone here——"