The Skipper practically turned him out of his cabin, and ordered him to take the tackle back with him. Rashleigh was so furious when he went back, that he was quite white in the face; and I mentioned the fact to old Barclay as a phenomenon of medical interest, but he was so busy trying to prevent himself exploding with laughter, that the interesting information was wasted on him.
It was lucky that we left Hong-Kong two days afterwards, for feeling ran so high between the two ships, that otherwise there would have been serious trouble ashore between our liberty men and hers.
We steamed slowly away for "England, Home, and Beauty", with our paying-off pendant streaming from our masthead, and the gilt bladder at its end jumping about in the water astern of us, our wretched band blaring away "For Auld Lang Syne"—a most inappropriate tune for the "Ringdoves"—and "Rolling Home for Merry England", till we were halfway through Lyemoon Pass.
The Commodore had made a "general signal"—"Cheer Ship"—and the unhappy "Ringdoves" had to climb on her nettings and give us three cheers as we passed, though little Rashleigh didn't appear on deck, as you may imagine. "Hardly what you'd call 'arty cheers," I mentioned to old Whitmore, who had been brought up on deck to see the last of Hong-Kong.
We returned them with three absolutely "top hole" shouts, for there were only two people aboard who didn't know for certain that the gun was somewhere on board us—the Skipper and Truscott—and they all knew that the "Ringdoves" had no more right to it than the man in the moon, so cheered "according".
We stayed a couple of months at Singapore, waiting for the Fisgard to come out and relieve us.
At last she arrived; we transferred some of the mids and cadets to her, cheered ship, and away we went for Colombo and home.
I assure you, on my solemn "Alfred Davy", that till next morning neither the Skipper nor Truscott did know anything about that gun, however much they may have suspected. When I went on deck, the first morning after leaving Singapore, there it was, mounted on its carriage, just below the muzzle of our after eight-inch gun. A brass plate had been screwed on to the carriage and engraved with—"This gun was captured during the operations against Chinese pirates in the Hector Islands, and presented by the Officers and Ship's Company of H.M.S. Vigilant to Captain Chas. E. Lester, R.N., and Mrs. Lester".
They had had the plate engraved ashore at Singapore.
Of course the Skipper saw it directly he came up to "divisions" and "morning prayers", and it was as good as a play to watch his face.