“But why, Tom?” I cried; “it must be dirty as well as dark. I’m afraid of soiling my coat.”
Tom looked out of the gun to laugh.
“Oh, Shireen!” he said, “the idea of a Royal Navy gun being dirty. I wonder what the gunner would say if you told him?”
So, half ashamed of myself, I jumped in. It was delightfully nice and cool, and so my companion and I fell sound asleep.
I was awakened before Tom by a voice. “Can’t load the bow-chaser, sir. Cats have both gone to sleep in it, and I can’t get ’em out.”
“Stick in a fuse,” cried the lieutenant, “and rouse them out.”
Immediately after there was a rang-bang let off behind us, and Tom and I were blown clean out of the gun.
We weren’t hurt, Warlock, for we both alighted on our feet; but, my blue eyes! I did get a scare.
Tom said that was nothing. He often went to sleep in the gun, and, as to being blown out with a fuse, it didn’t even singe one, and was quicker than walking.
But when the battle began in earnest, and the first gun went off, I bolted aft with my tail like a bottle-brush, and dived down below.