My warrant-officer says he saw me among 'em. 'Twas a hot night, like to-night, and in the tropics too, and he couldn't sleep, he said, and had to leave his room and come on deck. And so it was he happened to be where he could see me. He couldn't name the others. Indeed, he would not care to name others when he was not positive, and so do possibly innocent men an injustice, and so on. But he was positive about me.
I was called. The sentry looked me over. He wouldn't swear it was me, but there was one man in the party about my height and build, and, like me, he was a very active man, judging by the way he went down the bridge ladder.
Now, I knew who did it—I had been invited to be of the party, and I wasn't a bit too good for it; but I didn't feel like going and I didn't go. The man the sentry took for me was the man who had been the heavyweight slugger of the ship before I was drafted to her. We had already had the gloves on, and I had beaten him at a ship's smoker long before this. I waited to see would he speak up. He didn't, and I took my sentence—disratement and thirty days in the brig, ten of it on bread and water.
I didn't mind the disrating, nor the brig and the bread and water; but I did mind being made out a liar.
The first liberty I made after that—in Hong Kong—I caught my boxing rival ashore. I gave him a proper beating. He took it as something coming to him, without complaint. The next liberty I made—in Nagasaki it was—I caught my warrant-officer ashore.
He was not on duty and so not in uniform, and, pretending to mistake him for somebody else, I gave him a grand beating. Six or eight of their little ju-jutsu policemen clung to my legs and back, but that didn't stop me from finishing my job on him. I left him in such a ridiculous fix that he was ashamed to complain, but the Japanese authorities weren't satisfied. I spent a night in one of their jails, and aboard ship next day I was masted and once more disrated—this time with a sermon from the captain on my disorderly ways.
I didn't mind the captain's lecture—I had rated that—but I did mind being drafted to another ship with a record as a disturber. I had not taken more than four or five drinks in my time up to then, and then more out of curiosity than desire, but on my next liberty—in Manila—I took a drink. I didn't like the taste of it—I don't yet—but there's never any use in half-doing a thing—I took another, and more than another. From then on I began making liberty records.
Officers were good to me. It is only a skunk of an officer who will take pride in crowding an enlisted man, and I've met few skunks among our officers. So long as I could hold my feet coming over the gang-plank, a friendly shipmate buckled to either side of me and I able to answer "Here!" to the roll-call—so long as I could do that, there were deck officers who looked no further. 'Twas a friendly way, but bringing no cure to me.
By and by Meagher was assigned to our ship. He had married Mary, and this was maybe a year later. He was a warrant-officer—had been for five years—a chief gunner, wearing his sword and being called Mister. And wearing it with credit—all the gun crews spoke well of him.
He never let on that he remembered me, until one day the handling-room was cleared of all but the two of us, and then it was me who spoke to him. "I'd like to have a word with you, Mr. Meagher," I said, "if you don't bear too much of a grudge."