'Me? Lord, no!' guffawed the other.
'Well, you knows 'oo did it, any'ow!'
'I knows nothin',' retorted the A.B., getting angry in his turn. 'If yer says I did it you're a bally liar. I'll give yer a clip 'longside the ear'ole if you ain't careful. Don't act so wet. Wot 'ave I to do wi' yer rotten 'ammick?'
'Some one's cut it,' the Irishman replied furiously, examining a clean cut through two strands of the rope. 'If it ain't you wot done it, you must know 'oo it was. 'Oo was it? tell us.' He looked round to see if anybody else was awake, but every one seemed to be snoring peacefully. Sailors are very heavy sleepers sometimes.
It took Flannagan fully a quarter of an hour to repair damages and turn in again. It was bitterly cold, and he cursed vehemently.
But his troubles were not over yet. Towards eleven-thirty, when he had got thoroughly warm and was dozing off, he felt an uncomfortable, prickly sensation down his back and legs. He sat up blinking, and put a hand under the blanket to find a thin film of something warm and sticky. It resembled glue. The best part of a pound of finely ground brown sugar, cunningly insinuated between the bedclothes, is not a pleasant bedfellow. It melts with the heat of the body. The results are nasty in the extreme.
He leapt out, fuming. ''Ere!' he shouted, violently shaking the A.B. next to him. ''Ave you bin puttin' sugar in my 'ammick?'
'Look 'ere!' exclaimed the newly awakened man, 'I'm fair sick o' yer. I told you afore I 'adn't touched yer 'ammick, an' I sed I'd give yer a thick ear if yer went on worryin' me. Now I'm goin' to do it.' He hopped out, gave the astonished Irishman a box on the ear which sent him sprawling, and then stood over him with clenched fists. 'D'you want any more?' he asked grimly.
Flannagan did not.
Martin and the other men in the neighbourhood, meanwhile, had been waked by the disturbance, and were enjoying the fun. 'Go on, Ginger! Give 'im another!' somebody advised the A.B. 'Give 'im a clip under the lug! Slosh 'im one on the ruddy boko! Wakin' of us orl up at this time o' night!'