Hence it was that when Tom Bodger swept the pier from where he sat in Aleck’s boat lying by the steps in the harbour, he saw nothing but the top of the pier, and his eyes fell again upon the sloop’s beautifully clean boat, which he again compared with the one he occupied, with such unfavourable effect to the latter that he muttered to himself a little, took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves over his tattooed arms, and went in for a general clean up.
Tom was as busy as a bee and, to judge from the latter’s usually contented hum, just as much satisfied, for his efforts certainly vastly improved the aspect of Aleck’s boat; and he was still hard at work swabbing and drying and laying ropes in coils, when a remark from one of the sailors in the adjacent boat made the midshipman spring up out of a doze in the hot sunshine and give the order to “Be smart!”
In other words, to be ready to help their messmates returning with their officer, well laden with fresh stores, which soon after were handed down into the boat and stowed. Then the men took their places again, while the officers took theirs, the order was given to cast off, there was a thrust or two given by the coxswain, and the boat glided from the steps, leaving Tom Bodger watching the movements, smiling, and thinking of the past.
He smiled again as the oars were poised for a minute and then at a word dropped to starboard and larboard with a splash before beginning to dip with rhythmic regularity, the midshipman seizing the lines and steering her for her run outward to the sloop.
“Well,” said the midshipman, in a low voice, “what luck?”
“Pretty good,” was the reply. “Not all I should like, but I’ve seen enough to say that we ought to get a dozen smart fellows easily. There’s some game or another on I hear from a man I know—a sort of meeting of fellows from along the coast—and Brown picked up a hint or two.”
“A meeting, sir?”
“Well, call it what you like. Brown thinks there’s a cargo to be run somewhere and that the men are here to make arrangements for getting it inland.”
“What, right under our noses?” said the midshipman.
“Of course; that’s a far better way than right under our eyes, my lad. Give way, lads. I want to get aboard, Mr Wrighton, to hear what the captain and the lieutenant of the cutter have to say.”