"Doctor's waiting, Crafter."
"Blast the doctor!"
"Right-o, old chap," I answered; "but the skipper sent me——"
"Tellim t' goter'ell!!" (Here the nut gave suddenly, and he sat down—hard.)
From the safe altitude of the first grating, I said sweetly, "All right, old man; I'll give him your message. Er—did it hurt?" and raced up the ladder just in time to miss the flying spanner.
Crafter came up, sweating and purple-faced, grumbling about disturbing men at important repair jobs, was pronounced free from small-pox, and instantly returned to his labours.
Medical and Customs inspection were over by 4.30 p.m., when we got under weigh, and proceeded up the harbour. Its beauties were even more enticing than usual to our sea-pickled eyes, as we slowly passed point after point, finally bringing up alongside the wharf at Woolwich Dock at tea-time. By this it was nearly calm, just a faint breeze wrinkling the placid water, and the sky cloudless. The daylight gradually merged, through dusk, into the soft radiance of a glorious full moon.
I leaned on the rail, drinking in the calm, peaceful beauty of the night. Across the water the innumerable lights and subdued hum of the city, the coloured lights of the moving shipping here and there, and the white reflection of South Head in the distance, the broad path of moonlit water, broken every now and then by a brilliant firefly of a ferry boat streaking across it. Nearer at hand, rocky, brush-covered points, romantic and inviting. Above all, and pervading everything, the subtle perfume of the faint breeze—a scent of flowers, hay, gum leaves, and warm rich earth, the very breath of the Goddess of Health. I don't know how long I stopped there, dreaming and thinking of the contrast between this haven of peace and the last month of turmoil, before I woke to the fact that I was dog-tired and had better turn in. Couldn't sleep, though. An hour or so of restless tossing about, and I was out again—the night more beautiful than ever. There was another form leaning on the gangway, pyjama'd, like myself.
"Hello, Crafter—that you? Isn't this just A1 at Lloyd's?"
"By jingo, Senex, you've said it. A chap ought to be shot for sleepin' on a night like this. What say we clear out and go up country, eh?" (with a laugh).