“I dunno nothing about no ’tachments,” he growled.
“Well, are you in the service, and going out to India?” I said.
“I’ve took the shilling, and I’m going out to cholera borgus, if that’s what you mean. Don’t bother!”
“You’ll get yourself in for it directly, mate,” growled another of the men. “Can’t you see the gent’s a horficer?”
I felt better at this, but I was damped down directly, for my man I had spoken to growled out—
“Horficer? Well, all I can say is as he don’t look it.”
As the man turned away to rest his arms on the bulwark and refill his pipe, the second man saluted me.
“Yes, it’s all right, sir. We’re just down from Warley barracks, and we are going out as part of Captain Brace’s draft.”
I saluted and walked away, feeling in no wise proud of the men who would be partly under my charge. Physically, they were well-made fellows enough, but there was neither romance nor sentiment about them, and in the midst of all the bustle and confusion on board, with the decks literally swarming, I began to feel horribly lonely and depressed, and a sensation of home-sickness was coming on fast, till I told myself it was all nonsense, the home for which I was sickening was only the kind of school which for many months past I had been longing to leave, and that I should in all probability soon meet father, mother, and sister, as well as begin my career as a man.
Just then my attention was taken up by an angry encounter. Three men were brought on board, almost dragged, and thrown down, and it did not need a second thought to grasp the fact that they were sailors who had been spending their advance-money at one of the public-houses which swarmed about the docks.