“Oh, come on, Tintern; there’s no one else to play but you. You’ll stop the whole sing-song. Why won’t you play?”
“Why? Because the poor old Konk”—he was referring to the monarch after whom the ship was named—“because the poor old Konk is bloody-minded, and so am I.”
It was when affairs had reached this stage that, to the junior midshipmen, relief came, sudden and unexpected.
II
One forenoon the Captain’s messenger came to the Gunroom to say that the Captain wished to see Mr. Sentley. After an absence of ten minutes, Sentley returned. They read in his face that he had good news. In his hand he carried a sheet from a signal pad.
“We are all to return to England immediately,” he said. “We shall have about a fortnight or three weeks of leave. Then we are to join the Colonsay for passage to Colombo, where we are to recommission the Pathshire, China Station.”
“All of us?” said Howdray. “What do you mean?”
“We junior snotties.”
“Not the others?”