'We ain't got no carbolic, I s'pose, sir?' Joshua queried anxiously. 'I doubts if soap an' water'll shift 'em.'
The sub. laughed. 'We brought none with us, I'm afraid. But find the man who looks after the stores, get what you can, and do your best.'
Joshua saluted and walked off. Five minutes afterwards a long line of blankets and straw mattresses was floating gaily astern.
But their troubles had only started, for a quarter of an hour later Billings reappeared with Pincher Martin, and between them they dragged the resisting figure of one of the prisoners, a small, dark man with a pair of shifty black eyes. Pincher, Hargreaves noticed, was armed with a cutlass and a revolver, and displayed the latter weapon ostentatiously.
'Good Lord!' he muttered; 'what's the matter now?'
'Prisoner an' hescort, 'alt!' bellowed Joshua.—'I brings this man afore you, sir, fur refoosin' ter scrub art 'is quarters w'en hordered, an' fur hassaultin' me.'
'And I haf von gomplaint to make,' put in the prisoner truculently. 'Von of ze sailors heet me!'
'What happened?' asked the sub. with a sigh.
'Well, sir,' Billings explained, 'it wus like this 'ere. I tells this man—'e knows Henglish just as well as I does, sir—ter start scrubbin' art, an' ter be smart abart it. 'E sezs 'e won't, 'cos 'e 'as 'is rights as a prisoner o' war, an' ain't goin' ter do no work.'
'Oh! did he?'