Bored Travers—Bored Travers Continues—"Old Lest" in Form—"We've Got 'em at Last"—A Dirty Night—"Old Lest" Unfolds a Tale—Mr. Hoffman's Tale—"Old Lest" and Hoffman—A Marvellous Old Chap
Written by Commander Truscott
At the time of parting company with the Ringdove the weather was extremely unpleasant—heavy rain squalls and a bitterly cold northerly wind—but it was snug enough down below, and, to celebrate the return of Travers, we gave him a great dinner in the ward room.
It is hardly necessary to tell you that we were all in the very brightest spirits, and spent a most jovial and riotous evening—all except, funnily enough, Travers himself. He was always a bit bored at these shows, and "turned in" early, only too glad to find himself once more in his own bunk. He was known throughout the fleet as Bored-Travers, or "B.-T.", his full surname being Gore-Travers, and was rather a weird chap, with a superior, supercilious, "Bond-Street-on-a-swagger-morning air" about him, which, somehow or other, gave everyone the idea that he looked "down" upon everybody else. You couldn't help liking him, however, for all that. I had never seen him enthusiastic about anything except a pretty girl or a game of cricket, and now after dinner he looked bored to distraction, leant wearily against a stanchion, and told Lawrence and the others his yarn. It was like drawing teeth out of a horse, to get him to tell anything at all.
"Oh! that night, um! Oh yes! I remember. One of those Mission native chaps got hold of me when I'd got inside the gates—couldn't shake him off—too much bore altogether, you fellows. He was so jolly earnest, I just went along with him. He said something about Old Hobbs and his daughter being carried away, or something. I had to go, you know—had never seen the girl—all you fellows said she was pretty—forgot 'A' company wasn't coming along too."
He stopped in the most irritating way to fill his pipe. "Same beastly old tobacco in the mess—can't get it to draw—never could."
"Didn't you find them, and have a scrap down there on the beach?" Trevelyan asked. "There was a Chinaman down there—dead, with a Webley revolver bullet in him."
"Did I kill him?" he asked, without the faintest display of interest. "I knew the beastly revolver would go off some day and hurt someone. Someone took it away after that—lots of them—shoved a beastly cloth over my head, and shoved me into a boat. They seemed to want me to stay still, so I did."
"Did they knock you about much?" "Didn't you see Sally?" several asked, and Trevelyan very eagerly added, "How many boats did you see? We thought there were three. We saw the keel marks of three in the mud."
He seemed quite amused at their eagerness.