Bones drew himself up and saluted.
"Dear old friend," he said proudly, "put your faith in Bones."
"H.M. Launch No. 36 (Territories)," as it was officially described on the stores record, had another name, which she earned in her early days through certain eccentricities of construction. Though she might not in justice be called the Wiggle any longer, yet the Wiggle she was from one end of the river to the other, and even native men called her "Komfuru," which means "that which does not run straight."
It had come to be recognized that the Wiggle was the especial charge of Lieutenant Tibbetts. Bones himself was the first to recognize this right. There were moments when he inferred that the Wiggle's arrival on the station at the time he was making his own first appearance was something more than a coincidence.
She was not, in the strictest sense of the word, a launch, for she possessed a square, open dining saloon and two tiny cabins amidships. Her internal works were open to the light of day, and her engineer lived in the engine-room up to his waist and on deck from his waist up, thus demonstrating the possibility of being in two places at once.
The Wiggle, moreover, possessed many attributes which are denied to other small steamers. She had, for example, a Maxim gun on her tiny forecastle. She had a siren of unusual power and diabolical tone, she was also fitted with a big motor-horn, both of which appendages were Bones's gift to his flagship. The motor-horn may seem superfluous, but when the matter is properly explained, you will understand the necessity for some less drastic method of self-advertisement than the siren.
The first time the siren had been fitted Bones had taken the Wiggle through "the Channel." Here the river narrows and deepens, and the current runs at anything from five to seven knots an hour. Bones was going up stream, and met the Bolalo Mission steamer coming down. She had dipped her flag to the Wiggle's blue ensign, and Bones had replied with two terrific blasts on his siren.
After that the Wiggle went backwards, floating with the current all ways, from broadside on to stern first, for in those two blasts Bones had exhausted the whole of his steam reserve.
She was also equipped with wireless. There was an "aerial" and an apparatus which Bones had imported from England at a cost of twelve pounds, and which was warranted to receive messages from two hundred miles distant. There was also a book of instructions. Bones went to his hut with the book and read it. His servant found him in bed the next morning, sleeping like a child, with his hand resting lightly upon the second page.