“Right. That you, Mr Poole?”
“Yes! Look sharp!”
There was a loud rustling, apparently about a hundred yards away, followed by the scraping of an oar over the side of the boat, and then the sound of paddling coming nearer and nearer, till the dimly-seen forms appeared out of the mist, and the boat grated against the side of the rough pier. “How goes it, sir?” said one of the men. “All right so far,” replied Poole. “But how is it with you two?”
“Offle, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“Heads so swelled up with skeeters that we can’t wear our hats. We’ve finished the grub, and to-morrow morning we was a-going to toss whether I should eat him or him should eat I.”
“No nonsense,” said Poole.
“No, sir; there arn’t been none,” said the speaker, in a low growl. “This ’ere’s been the roughest job I was ever on. We’d have given anything to come and jine our mates so as to get a shot. Anybody lost the number of his mess?”
“No,” said Poole. “No one even hurt.”
“’Cept us, sir, and we’ve each of us got ten hundred million wounds.”