Middy and Ensign

by George Manville Fenn

In fact the officers began to debate whether the hour had not arrived when they ought to retreat; but the idea was set aside, and once more they determined to hold the station till help should come, since for the steamer to go in search of help was to condemn the little garrison of the fort to destruction.

And now as the hours slowly crept by, with the heat and inaction growing more and more difficult to bear, every thought was directed to the envoy they had sent out, and they waited anxiously for Ali’s return, or for some messenger with tidings at his hands.

Though the Malays refrained from attack so long as the occupants of the station kept within their lines, any attempt at quitting the fort at once drew fire. Consequently the supplies within had to suffice, and middy and ensign thought gloomily of the past, when sampans brought daily an abundance of delicious fruit, when flowers were abundant, and fish in plenty was supplied.

Now it was bread or biscuit, and preserved meat either salt or tinned, and preserved vegetables, and so much soup that Bob Roberts said a man might just as well be living in a workhouse.

That evening he made up his mind to try for some fish, and aided and abetted by Dick, a line was rigged up, and payed out over the steamer’s stern, the stream carrying down the baited hook, but only into a place where there was no likelihood of a fish being caught. So another line was attached, and another, and another—long sea-lines each of them, till Bob Roberts sat fishing with the end of a line in his hand and his bait about a quarter of a mile down the stream.

To his great delight he found the plan to answer, for before long he felt a tug, and drew in a good-sized fish. This done, he rebaited, and tried again, sometimes catching, sometimes losing, a couple dropping off the hook just as they were raised up level with the deck.

It was about an hour before sunset that Bob Roberts set Dick to work winding up the lines on the reels to dry, and then, having placed the brilliantly scaled fish in the basket, he obtained leave from the lieutenant, who looked longingly at the catch, and involuntarily made the noise with his lips customary with some people at the sight of anything nice.

“What are you going to do with those, Roberts?” he said.

“Take them to the ladies, sir.”

“Ah! yes: of course, the ladies first. We ought to study the ladies. But do you know, Roberts, I’m not a ladies’ man, and I feel an intense desire to have one of those fish—broiled.”