“I want to join Blue Fleet if I can,” I replied. “I’ve been left behind by—an accident.”
“Well?”
“Mr. Pyecroft told me to buy a ham and see life. About how big a ham do you need?”
“I don’t want any ham, thank you. That’s the way up the wharf. Good-night.”
“Good-night!” I retraced my steps, wandered in the dark till I found a shop, and there purchased, of sardines, canned tongue, lobster, and salmon, not less than half a hundredweight. A belated sausage-shop supplied me with a partially cut ham of pantomime tonnage. These things I, sweating, bore out to the edge of the wharf and set down in the shadow of a crane. It was a clear, dark summer night, and from time to time I laughed happily to myself. The adventure was preordained on the face of it. Pyecroft alone, spurred or barefoot, would have drawn me very far from the paths of circumspection. His advice to buy a ham and see life clinched it. Presently Mr. Pyecroft—I heard spurs clink—passed me. Then the jersey voice said: “What the mischief’s that?”
“’Asn’t the visitor come aboard, Sir? ’E told me he’d purposely abandoned the Pedantic for the pleasure of the trip with us. Told me he was official correspondent for the Times; an’ I know he’s littery by the way ’e tries to talk Navy-talk. Haven’t you seen ’im, Sir?”
Slowly and dispassionately the answer drawled long on the night; “Pye, you are without exception the biggest liar in the Service!”
“Then what am I to do with the bag, Sir? It’s marked with his name.” There was a pause till Mr. Moorshed said “Oh!” in a tone which the listener might construe precisely as he pleased.
“He was the maniac who wanted to buy a ham and see life—was he? If he goes back to the Pedantic—”
“Pre-cisely, Sir. Gives us all away, Sir.”