"Were they?" the Sub-lieutenant repeated to the figure next to him, who replied dryly: "I fancy I heard them."
"I feel sure I heard some little noise too, now I come to think of it," said the Sub-lieutenant jocularly.
"What are those things?" the Orphan asked, pointing to the two dark, square, box-like structures along the port side of the fo'c'sle.
"Come along and see," said his new friend; took him to one, slid back an iron plate, and pushed him into a little space where three men crouched, in the darkness, round the breech of a maxim whose barrel stuck out through a loophole in the front.
"Quiet little cosy place, that," he heard the Sub-lieutenant say from the outside. "Come along and we'll shut them in again, or they'll catch cold."
He slid the rear plate into place, and led the Orphan back to the maxim in the bows. "They're comfortable enough in their little boxes, aren't they? Steel plates all round them, and a steel plate on top—all home comforts!"
"But what's going on? Do tell me," the Orphan begged, looking down over the bows.
"Would you like to start a battle? I bet you would;" and before the excited Orphan had time to think what he meant, he sang out: "Get hold of that gun," and pushed him down astride the tripod.
Mechanically the bewildered and flustered midshipman gripped the two handles, and stood by to press his thumbs on the firing-button.
"Now don't be in a hurry; point the thing over there. No, not there; that's where our chaps are; they wouldn't like it—beastly 'touchy' they are; point the other way; that's better."