The other smiled in his slow way and turned seaward, nodding across the bay towards Algeciras. "Not much longer to wait—there's the steamer with the mail coming across now." He took a couple of steps across the deck and turned. "Only another 1200 miles. Isn't it ripping to think of, after three years...?" He rubbed his hands with boyish satisfaction. "All the coal in and stowed—boats turned in, funnels smoking—that's what I like to see! Only the mail to wait for now: and the gauges down below"—he waggled his forefinger in the air, laughing,—"like that...!"
The Lieutenant nodded and hitched his glass under his arm. "Your middle watch, Shortie? Mine too: we start working up for our passage trial then, don't we? Whack her up, lad—for England, Home, and Beauty!"
The Engineer Lieutenant walked towards the hatchway. "What do you think!" and went below humming—
"From Ushant to Scilly...
The Lieutenant on watch turned and looked up at the Rock, towering over the harbour. Above the green-shuttered, pink and yellow houses, and dusty, sun-dried vegetation, the grim pile was flushing rose-colour against the pure sky. How familiar it was, he thought, this great milestone on the road to the East, and mused awhile, wondering how many dawns he had lain under its shadow: how many more sunsets he would watch and marvel at across the purple Bay.
"British as Brixton!" He had read the phrase in a book once, describing Gibraltar. So it was, when you were homeward bound. He resumed his measured pacing to and fro. The ferry steamer had finished her short voyage and had gone alongside the wharf, out of sight behind an arm of the mole. Not much longer to wait now. He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Postie" wouldn't waste much time getting back. Not all the beer in Waterport Street nor all the glamour of the "Ramps" would lure him astray to-night. The Lieutenant paused in his measured stride and beckoned a side-boy. "Tell the signalman to let me know directly the postman is sighted coming along the mole."
He resumed his leisurely promenade, wondering how many letters there would be for him, and who would write. His mother, of course, ... and Ted at Charterhouse. His speculations roamed afield. Any one else? Then he suddenly remembered the Engineer Lieutenant imitating the twitching gauge-needle with his forefinger. Lucky beggar he was. There was some one waiting for him who mattered more than all the Teds in the world. More even than a Mother—at least, he supposed.... His thoughts became abruptly sentimental and tender.
A signalman, coming helter-skelter down the ladder, interrupted them, as the Commander stepped out of his cabin on to the quarter-deck.
"Postman comin' with the mail, sir."
A few minutes later a hoist of flags, whirled hurriedly to the masthead, asking permission to proceed "in execution of previous orders." What those orders were, even the paying-off pendant knew, trailing aft over the stern-walk in the light wind.