He had a slight argument about pronunciation and spelling, and then turned to me triumphantly. "She's a harmed launch, sir, that's what she his, a-looking out to stop them Arabs a-gun-running," and hastened to answer a bell, pocketing the half-crown I gave him.
I hurried away down the corridor, and was so excited that I did not notice my former captain until he tapped me on the shoulder.
"I've just come round," he said; "will see the Second Sea Lord myself—put in a word for you—thought I might fix it up at once—good luck to you if you get it."
"Thank you very much, sir," I said gratefully, and hurried out into Whitehall.
"Armed launch! Skipper of an armed launch—Collingwood dead of sunstroke—gunner gone mad," and I grinned to myself and walked along like a bird.
"Fancy getting away from all this!" I thought, and looked round at the babel of traffic and the throngs of people. Fancy getting away from the Channel Fleet for a time! I thought of my ship, the Russell, lying under Portland Bill, with other huge grey monsters; and thought of the tense readiness for war aboard them, and the strain of it, month after month. In a few weeks, with luck, I might be three thousand miles away, patrolling the Persian Gulf—free as air—with a good launch under me, and probably a 4.7-inch gun in her bows, ready to tackle any gun-running Arab dhow which came along. Prize money, too—there'd be a chance of that as well.
It was grand.
Collingwood, poor old Collingwood—I'd known him in the Britannia—dead of sunstroke, and the gunner gone mad! That didn't sound as if the job was exactly a bed of roses. But Copeland had put my name down—the die was cast; I didn't mind if the whole crew had died of sunstroke and plague combined. I rather hoped that they had, and that any other chap who applied for the Bunder Abbas would—well—feel a little less keen about her when he heard.
I didn't notice the rain or the mud splashed on my trousers from the roadway. I could have whooped with joy.
All these silly clothes my tailor bothered to make tight here or loose there, to show more or show less of the waistcoat, as silly fashion changed—why, with luck, in a month's time, a pair of flannel trousers and a cricket shirt would be all the wardrobe I should want. I'd be my own skipper, with a dozen blue-jackets, and a stout launch under us; that 4.7-inch gun—or perhaps it would be a twelve-pounder—shining in the bows under the awning. Wouldn't it shine, too! There'd be nothing much else to do but burnish it, and burnished it should be till I could shave by it.