“I’m sick, that’s all.”
“Trying to work the list, eh?” asked another.
“I don’t know what working the list may be, but I’m anything you want to call me.”
“He means getting on the binnacle list,”
“What’s that?” wondered Sam.
“Being excused by the doctor for one day on account of a fit of laziness that makes a fellow think he’s sick.”
“I don’t think; I know,” was the lad’s muttered response. However, Sam resolutely stuck to his work, though every plunge of the battleship threatened him with a final collapse to the deck.
Somehow, he managed to pull himself through that long morning without, as he called it, “disgracing myself.” When the command came, “knock off scrubbing decks,” Sam broke ranks and ran for the forecastle. He did not dare trust himself to walk, for he feared he would be unable to keep on his feet.
But his headlong course was an unsafe one through the narrow corridors of a man-of-war, and many a jackie and marine’s shins were rapped soundly by the handle of the deck swab, during Sam’s wild dash. The jackies yelled at him, now and then one hurling something at the fleeing lad, but Sam did not stop until something finally happened to check his mad career.
Somehow his swab handle was thrust between the feet of a man standing with his back to the lad. This occurred on the gun deck.