‘Old Hankey Pankey’ caught up the telescope that Mr Dabchick had just deposited on the slab, putting it to his eye.
“Yes, they are dhows sure enough, Gresham,” he said to the first lieutenant, after a brief inspection of the craft, which were stealing past us under the loom of the land far away to the westward. “No doubt, they are the very rascals who plundered the wreck we saw yesterday, and as likely as not murdered all the people on board! They are making for the same spot again, too, to pick up the rest of the loot they have not yet taken off; but we’ll stop their little game. Bugler, sound the ‘assembly’! Drummer, beat to ‘quarters’!”
The blare of bugle and beat of drum rang through the ship, mingled with the hiss and roar of the steam rushing up the funnels; the captain, as he sang out his orders to those on deck, mechanically, from force of habit, putting his hand on the engine-room telegraph to prepare the ‘greasers’ in the flat below, and rapidly shouting down the voice-tube, as soon as the electric bell on the bridge gave a responsive tinkle, that they were to ‘get up steam’ as quickly as possible.
But, there was no fear of our alarming the enemy with the noise of our preparations, not even when the boatswain’s mates added their quota to the din after the bugle was sounded. They were too far off, and, besides, we were to leeward, and twice the row we made could not have reached their ears.
All of our fellows below belonging to the port watch came tumbling up the hatchways in a jiffy on hearing the ‘assembly,’ clutching up their rifles and sword-bayonets from the arm-racks on the lower deck; while we of the starboard, who were already up from having the middle watch, proceeded at a break-neck pace to fetch ours.
Then the gunner took his keys from their appointed place outside the door of the captain’s cabin and went below to open the magazines in the flat appropriated to their combustible contents, in company with a working party to attend to the ammunition hoists; while the marine artillerymen and crews of the main-deck battery and upper-deck machine-guns hurried to their stations under charge of “Gunnery Jack,” the lieutenant whose special function was to see to our little barkers.
A minute later, when those whose duties did not take them elsewhere were ranged along the upper deck, Captain Hankey, who had gone down to his cabin in the meantime and buckled on his sword to be in proper fighting rig, came back on the bridge, where he remained in conversation with Mr Gresham until the ‘orderly’ midshipman—I don’t mean to say that the others were disorderly, but only just wish to specify those who were told off to carry messages from the various parts of the ship, when at ‘quarters,’ to the captain, they acting, so to speak, as his aides-de-camp on board—returned to say all was as it should be.
“Now then, Gresham,” said ‘old Hankey Pankey,’ drawing himself up to his full height, and looking every inch what he was, an officer and a gentleman—ay, and a sailor too, as plucky as they make them—“I think we’d better begin, or those beggars will get too far ahead, and a stern chase, you know, is a long chase. Bugler, sound ‘man and arm boats’!”
The boy, a young marine, who did this part of our musical business, puffed out his cheeks, inflating his lungs the while, and blew a blast that seemed to make the air shake; the boatswain’s mates, who always act on such occasions like the chorus at the opera, screeching with their whistles fore and aft up and down the hatchways, repeating with an exasperating repetition the same order little Joey the bugler had already given; while, all the officers who had charge of the respective boats stood up at the gangways to inspect the crews of these as they went down the side to take their places on the thwarts, so as to see they were all properly equipped.
“Mr Gresham,” said Captain Hankey to the first lieutenant, “I should like you to go in the steam pinnace and work away to win’ard towards Ras Hafim—you know the place we marked on the chart last night above Binna?”