“He merely says that ‘the engines having broken down, an officer extemporised a mournful and useless parody of sails.’ Oh, yes! he says that some of them looked like ‘bonnets in a needlecase,’ I think.”
“Bonnets in a needlecase! They were stun’sles. That shows the beggar’s no sailor. That trick was really the one thing we did. Pho! I thought he was a sailorman, an’ ’e hasn’t sense enough to see what extemporisin’ eleven good an’ drawin’ sails out o’ four trys’les an’ a few awnin’s means. ’E must have been drunk!”
“Never mind, Mr. Pyecroft. I want to hear about your target-practice, and the execution.”
“Oh! We had a special target-practice that afternoon all for Antonio. As I told my crew—me bein’ captain of the port-bow quick-firer, though I’m a torpedo man now—it just showed how you can work your gun under any discomforts. A shell—twenty six-inch shells—burstin’ inboard couldn’t ’ave begun to make the varicose collection o’ tit-bits which we had spilled on our deck. It was a lather—a rich, creamy lather!
“We took it very easy—that gun-practice. We did it in a complimentary ‘Jenny-’ave-another-cup-o’ tea’ style, an’ the crew was strictly ordered not to rupture ’emselves with unnecessary exertion. This isn’t our custom in the Navy when we’re in puris naturalibus, as you might say. But we wasn’t so then. We was impromptu. An’ Antonio was busy fetchin’ splits for the old man, and the old man was wastin’ ’em down the ventilators. There must ’ave been four inches in the bilges, I should think—wardroom whisky-an’-soda.
“Then I thought I might as well bear a hand as look pretty. So I let my bundoop go at fifteen ’undred—sightin’ very particular. There was a sort of ’appy little belch like—no more, I give you my word—an’ the shell trundled out maybe fifty feet an’ dropped into the deep Atlantic.
“‘Government powder, Sir!’ sings out our Gunnery Jack to the bridge, laughin’ horrid sarcastic; an’ then, of course, we all laughs, which we are not encouraged to do in puris naturalibus. Then, of course, I saw what our Gunnery Jack ’ad been after with his subcutaneous details in the magazines all the mornin’ watch. He had redooced the charges to a minimum, as you might say. But it made me feel a trifle faint an’ sickish notwithstanding this spit-in-the-eye business. Every time such transpired, our Gunnery Lootenant would say somethin’ sarcastic about Government stores, an’ the old man fair howled. ’Op was on the bridge with ’im, an’ ’e told me—’cause ’e’s a free-knowledgeist an’ reads character—that Antonio’s face was sweatin’ with pure joy. ’Op wanted to kick him. Does Antonio say anything about that?”
“Not about the kicking, but he is great on the gun-practice, Mr. Pyecroft. He has put all the results into a sort of appendix—a table of shots. He says that the figures will speak more eloquently than words.”
“What? Nothin’ about the way the crews flinched an’ hopped? Nothin’ about the little shells rumblin’ out o’ the guns so casual?”
“There are a few pages of notes, but they only bear out what you say. He says that these things always happen as soon as one of our ships is out of sight of land. Oh, yes! I’ve forgotten. He says, ‘From the conversation of my captain with his inferiors I gathered that no small proportion of the expense of these nominally efficient cartridges finds itself in his pockets. So much, indeed, was signified by an officer on the deck below, who cried in a high voice: “I hope, Sir, you are making something out of it. It is rather monotonous.” This insult, so flagrant, albeit well-merited, was received with a smile of drunken bonhommy’—that’s cheerfulness, Mr. Pyecroft. Your glass is empty.”