I was famished—starvingly hungry—and they got food for me down in the ward-room, although Nicholson tried to make me lie down. The ward-room chaps, in their pyjamas, sat round me as I talked to them. I could not leave off talking, and I found that I didn't like anything they had on the table, so could not eat.
Nicholson took hold of my wrist and shoved another beastly syringe needle into my arm. He made the fellows go away too, although I had not told them nearly all that had happened, and in a little while I did let Nicholson take me to a cabin—just to humour him. That is the last I remember—I certainly don't remember undressing—but I woke in broad daylight to find myself in pyjamas belonging to somebody else, feeling rather shaky, my head covered in bandages, and Nicholson standing over me with a satisfied smile on his fat face.
My aunt! how hungry I was!
"Food, Nicholson, that's what I want," I said. "I haven't had anything worth speaking about for twenty-four hours."
He felt my pulse, smiled, and went away. I called him back. "How about the Bunder Abbas? Have you found her yet?"
"She's been alongside us for the last forty hours or more," he said. "We are anchored off Sheikh Hill. She's all right."
I looked puzzled. I had not noticed that the engines were not working.
"My dear chap, you've slept solidly for nearly three days. I've seen to that."
Popple Opstein came in, looking anxious, until Nicholson told him that I was as "right as rain". "Man, you are lucky!" he cried, his face growing violet with excitement; "she had nearly four hundred rifles on board. Look! I've brought you one," and he held up a brand-new Mauser rifle.
I handled it lovingly—my first capture. "You won't 'pot' at any poor wretched sentry on the Indian frontier, my beauty," I thought.