“Oh! Tell him to make it shillings, or else to get out of my course!”
It is not much in the way of Persian Gulf Arabic that a man picks up from textbooks but at garnering the business end of beach-born dialects—the end that gets results at least expense of time or energy—the Navy goes even the Army half a dozen better. The sublieutenant's argument, bawled from the bridge rail to the reeling little boat below, was a marvel in its own sweet way; it combined abuse and scorn with a cataclysmic blast of threat in six explosive sentences.
“He says he'll take us in for ten pounds, sir,” he reported, without the vestige of a smile.
“Oh! Ask Mr. Hartley to step up on the bridge, will you?”
Two minutes later, during which the nasal howls from the boat were utterly ignored, the acting chief engineer hauled himself along the rail hand over hand to windward, ducking below the canvas guard as a more than usually big comber split against the Puncher's side and hove itself to heaven.
“It beats me how any man can keep a coat on him this weather,” he remarked, and the sublieutenant noticed that the streams that ran down both his temples were not sea water. “Send for me?”
His temper, judging by his voice, would seem to be a lot worse than could be due to the pitching of the ship.
“Yes. There's a pilot overside, and our orders are to take a pilot aboard when running in, if available. There are three men bailing that boat below there, and the sea's gaining on them. They'll need rescuing within two hours. Then we'd have a pilot aboard and would have saved the government ten pounds. Point is, can you manage in the engine-room for two or three hours longer? Three more waves like that last one and the man's ours anyway!”
“He might not wait two hours,” suggested Mr. Hartley. “He might get tired of looking at us, and beat back into port. Then where would be your strategy?”
“Then there wouldn't be a pilot available. I'd be justified in going in without one. Point is, can you hold out below?”