“‘I’m not going to point ’em out,’ ses the major. ‘I symperthise with ’em too much. They don’t get any of their beauty sleep, pore chaps, an’ they want it, every one of ’em.’
“I thought that was a very kind remark o’ the major to make, but o’ course some of the wimmin larfed. I s’pose they think men don’t want beauty sleep, as it’s called.
“I heard the leftenant symperthising with the skipper arter that. He said the major was simply jealous because the men drilled so beautifully, an’ then they walked aft, the leftenant talking very earnest an’ the skipper shaking his head at something he was saying.
“It was just two nights arter this. I’d gone below an’ turned in when I began to dream that the major had borrowed the bos’en’s whistle an’ was practising on it. I remember thinking in my sleep what a comfort it was it was only the major, when one of the chaps give me a dig in the back an’ woke me.
“‘Tumble up,’ ses he, ‘the ship’s afire.’
“I rushed up on deck, an’ there was no mistake about who was blowing the whistle. The bell was jangling horrible, smoke was rolling up from the hatches, an’ some o’ the men was dragging out the hose an’ tripping up the passengers with it as they came running up on deck. The noise and confusion was fearful.
“‘Out with the boats,’ ses Tom Hall to me, ‘don’t you hear the whistle?’
“‘What, ain’t we going to try an’ put the fire out?’ I ses.
“‘Obey orders,’ ses Tom, ‘that’s what we’ve got to do, an’ the sooner we’re away the better. You know what’s in her.’
“We ran to the boats then, an’, I must say, we got ’em out well, and the very fust person to git into mine was the major in his piejammers; arter all the others was in we ’ad ’im out agin. He didn’t belong to our boat, an’ dissipline is dissipline any day.