Raxworthy saluted and withdrew. “Slinging his hammock” he knew to be a mere term of formality. Actually his servant would make up his bed in a bunk. That left the midshipman free to go over the ship and make the acquaintance of his brother officers.
Lieutenant Poundall, the officer-of-the-watch, he had already seen officially. Viner, the other lieutenant, however, took him in hand and showed him round.
Sandgrub was by no means a modern vessel. She had been on the China Station for more than twenty years, and was likely to remain there until it became absolutely necessary to replace her. She was armed with two six-inch guns and recently—as a sign of the times—had been given a pair of three-inch anti-aircraft guns. She was driven by two propellers each working in a tunnel in order to protect the blades from hitting the bottom of the river, since her cruising radius was almost entirely in shallow waters where sandbanks and shoals are many. Most of these are uncharted—not that that made much difference, since the bed of the Yang-tse is constantly shifting both in height and direction.
Raxworthy had completed his tour of the river gunboat and was talking with Poundall on the quarter-deck when he broke off in the middle of a sentence and asked:
“When did you ship that Chink, sir?”
II
The lieutenant followed the direction of the midshipman’s gaze.
“That chap? He’s the second messman. Don’t know when he was taken on. One Chinaman’s face is much like another’s. At least it seems so to me. Why did you ask?”
“Because he’s the living image of the steward of the Ah-Foo.”
“The boat you were in when she was captured by Ton-quen pirates?”