“She took me for Maclean, I tell you,” Pritchard insisted. “Why—why—to listen to him you wouldn’t think that only yesterday——”
“Pritch,” said Pyecroft, “be warned in time. If we begin tellin’ what we know about each other we’ll be turned out of the pub. Not to mention aggravated desertion on several occasions——”
“Never anything more than absence without leaf—I defy you to prove it,” said the Sergeant hotly. “An’ if it comes to that how about Vancouver in ’87?”
“How about it? Who pulled bow in the gig going ashore? Who told Boy Niven…?”
“Surely you were court martialled for that?” I said. The story of Boy Niven who lured seven or eight able-bodied seamen and marines into the woods of British Columbia used to be a legend of the Fleet.
“Yes, we were court-martialled to rights,” said Pritchard, “but we should have been tried for murder if Boy Niven ’adn’t been unusually tough. He told us he had an uncle ’oo’d give us land to farm. ’E said he was born at the back o’ Vancouver Island, and all the time the beggar was a balmy Barnado Orphan!”
“But we believed him,” said Pyecroft. “I did—you did—Paterson did—an’ ’oo was the Marine that married the cocoanut-woman afterwards—him with the mouth?”
“Oh, Jones, Spit-Kid Jones. I ’aven’t thought of ’im in years,” said Pritchard. “Yes, Spit-Kid believed it, an’ George Anstey and Moon. We were very young an’ very curious.”
“But lovin’ an’ trustful to a degree,” said Pyecroft.
“Remember when ’e told us to walk in single file for fear o’ bears? ‘Remember, Pye, when ’e ’opped about in that bog full o’ ferns an’ sniffed an’ said ’e could smell the smoke of ’is uncle’s farm? An’ all the time it was a dirty little out-lyin’ uninhabited island. We walked round it in a day, an’ come back to our boat lyin’ on the beach. A whole day Boy Niven kept us walkin’ in circles lookin’ for ’is uncle’s farm! He said his uncle was compelled by the law of the land to give us a farm!”