3
It may or may not have been the effect of the old brandy, but in all the years Milsom and I were shipmates I never remember him in a mood of such sheer light-hearted reckless gaiety as that into which he seemed to slip on the threshold of the antechamber.
A sing-song was in progress round the piano, but on his arrival the group turned and bellowed for "The Tuppeny Tube." "The Tuppeny Tube," it must be explained, was a song of his own invention, accompanied by a great deal of patter and not a little horseplay. In pantomime he herded the Public (the newly joined subalterns filled the rôle) into an imaginary overcrowded tube lift, and with clashing fire-irons imitated the closing and opening of the gates. His stentorian bellow of "'Urry up there, step smartly! Plenty of room in front!" was the gag that presently involved the Mess and its guests in a furious mêlée amid overturned card-tables and chairs. Little did we guess as we sprawled gasping, breathless with laughter and exertion, on the leather upholstered chesterfields, in what grim surroundings many of us were to hear again and thrill at that slogan.
The snooker players, wearied of the decorum of the billiard room, presently rejoined the remainder, and in five minutes Milsom, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, had them dancing to his music. I don't dance: but I leaned over the back of the piano, sucking my pipe and watching his smiling, half-mocking face as he swayed dreamily to the music that tinkled out from underneath his fingers. His eyes were puckered up in the smoke of the cigar he kept screwed into the corner of his mouth, and as he played I saw him watching with a queer inscrutable smile the dancers revolving round him, Majors, Captains and Subalterns, aye and a couple of Colonels, for Havelock and Markham were footing it with the best of them.
"This room has seen some good jamborees in its time, Hornby," he said after a while, speaking with the butt end of the cigar between his teeth. "I dare say men have carried worse memories across the Line than their last night in the old Mess before they sailed." He changed into another air, an old-fashioned valse with a slow haunting melody; the Bostoners and bunnyhuggers checked and picked up the altered step. "I envy you going back to sea," he went on. "It's a good life, afloat. A clean life.... Better'n mucking about ashore with women.... But our turn'll come."
"You aren't due for sea yet, are you, Soj?" I asked.
"I ain't due," he said slowly, nodding his head to the melody. "The others ain't due, but they're going ... some day...."
"When are you going?"
He shrugged his shoulders, and again the tune changed:
"With me bundle on me shoulder
Sure there's no man could be bolder" ...