The ungrateful old sinner puffed out a cloud of smoke. "'Arf a
Bradbury[1]!" he grunted unsympathetically. "You're jokin', sir."
I shook my head.
"But we pays a bob a pound fur 'bacca on board o' the ship," he expostulated. "It's something like 'bacca; grips you by the neck, like."
Evidently the delicate flavour of my best John Cotton did not sufficiently tickle his brazen palate.
For a moment or two there was silence between us as we watched the gulls screaming and wheeling over some object in the water far beneath us.
"Well," I asked, merely to start a conversation, "how d'you like the
Navy?"
"Suits me all right, sir," he said, "seein' as 'ow I've bin in it a matter o' fifteen year. But between you an' me, sir," he hastened to add, "it ain't like wot it wus when I fust jined. It's full o' noo-fangled notions an' sichlike."
"What d'you mean?" I asked in some amazement.
"Carn't say no more, sir. Afore we wus sent on leaf we wus all cautioned special not to git talkin' abart the Service wi' civvies."
I suppose I did look rather unlike a member of His Majesty's land forces, for I was wearing plain clothes and had only come out of hospital four days before, after being wounded for the second time on the western front. (I am speaking of the fighting line in France, not anatomically.) I hastened to explain who I was.