There was plenty to see as well as plenty to learn. The first thing was to be able to see in peace, and to do this Nic found he had to learn to get out of the way of the men busy lowering down packages, getting rid of the litter of the deck, and blunderingly making matters shipshape—blunderingly, for the crew, almost without exception, were suffering from the effects of their holiday ashore, and were working the mate and boatswain into a state of red-hot indignation at the slow progress made. The latter, too, a big, burly, red-faced man with stiff whiskers, was every now and then asking people how he could be expected to have clear decks when his ship was being turned into a farmyard.
This recalled the live stock on board, and Nic went forward to have a look at the cattle in their pens, where they were contentedly enough munching away at the hay placed ready for them, while the dogs, which recognised Nic, began to tug furiously at their chains, and made their eyes seem ready to start from their heads as they tried to strangle themselves by straining at their collars.
Nic was leaning over the pen in which they were chained up, patting and caressing them, when a gruff voice cried fiercely:
“Those dogs yours?”
“Not exactly. They’re for Sir John O’Hara.”
“Then I wish he’d got ’em. Who’s to move with all these things on board?”
“What’s, the matter, Buller?” said a bronzed man, coming up.
“Matter, sir? everything. There isn’t a man aboard fit to pull a rope, and I can’t move without breaking my shins over cats and dogs, and all this here Tower mynadgery. Is the skipper going to start a farm?”
“Get on, man, and don’t make so much noise.”
“Noise, sir!” growled the boatswain, for it was he; and he looked hard at a couple of officers in undress uniform, whose attention had been taken by the dogs.