Such was the composition of the little squadron, which, manned by nearly a thousand men, all volunteers, slowly steamed away from the rendezvous late on the afternoon of 18th October, and, painted a dull olive-green from truck to water-line, shaped its course for Gibraltar, and soon disappeared in the rapidly closing twilight.
CHAPTER VI
The Voyage East
A Gun-room "Sing-song"—The Dumpling gets Wet—Hopkins Disappears—Off in Chase—Escape of One Patagonian—Off to Colombo
The Narrative of Mr. Harold Swinton Glover, Midshipman, R.N.,
serving on board the Imperial Chinese ship "Laird"
You heard about all the rum things that happened to us before we left England, and how we all went to sea suddenly, no one knew why. We thought we were safe then; but not a bit of it, and just before we got into Gibraltar they found a dynamite cartridge down in the stoke-hold, mixed up with a lot of coal. It was jolly lucky they found it, for Ogston—that's our Assistant Engineer—says there would have been an "awful catastrophe" if it had got into a furnace. Don't think we were in a funk, because we weren't—at any rate not all of us—but it is such a beastly feeling to know that you may be blown up any minute.
The Skipper was terribly worried even before we got to Gibraltar, but you should have seen his face when I took him down some telegrams they brought off to the ship. I was midshipman of the watch. He gasped like a dying fish, and sang out to the old Doctor, who was there: "They've killed the Paymaster, and taken all his papers—mine and Hopkins's; did it at Lyons, in the boat express."
They both looked so scared that I crept up on deck.
Afterwards I heard that the Paymaster had been left behind to bring some valuable papers across Europe, and to join us at Port Said.
Well, we got into Malta, and more telegrams came aboard; but I wasn't on watch, and didn't take them down. They must have been pretty serious, though, for whilst we were all shifting into plain clothes in the gun-room flat to go ashore, the Commander's messenger came running down the ladder and sang out: "No leave for anybody!" So we had just to shove our things back into our chests and get into our dirtiest uniform, for the coal lighters were already alongside, and we were being smothered with coal dust. Jolly sick of life we were, too, I can tell you, for we had arranged to get ponies at Red Saliba's, down in the moat, and were off for a picnic to St. Paul's Bay.