“Well, s’long as they don’t get us on that lay, I hopes the Frenchie’ll kipper their bloomin’ Christmas,” rejoined the first speaker, who, having been caught by the Customs while in possession of a couple of plugs of smuggled tobacco, had no love for the members of His Majesty’s Preventive Service.
“Well, mine’s kippered any old way,” thought Midshipman Raxworthy. “But, by Jove! it would be a bit of excitement if there’s anything in the yarn, and I’m sent away to capture a French smuggler!”
III
There was very little respite for Midshipman Raxworthy. His next duty—for the commander meant to keep him busy—was to take ashore the junior officers and midshipmen who had been given leave.
“Bung-ho, Rax!” was Jimmy Whitwell’s final greeting as the boat with its load of exuberant snotties ran alongside the jetty. “I’ll write and tell you what you’ve missed if I have time!”
That seemed about the limit—to bear the brunt of a running fire of more or less sympathetic remarks from his fortunate messmates, and then to watch their disappearing forms as they scampered up the steps of the jetty and hurried to the railway station with hardly a backward glance or a farewell to the luckless victim of the commander’s ire.
Christmas Eve came round—as depressing a day as one could imagine. A biting nor’-easterly wind accompanied by a flurry of snow had sprung up during the night. The glass was rising rapidly—a sure sign of a gale from some northerly point.
Almost as soon as Midshipman Raxworthy came on duty the officer-of-the-watch hailed him.
“Commander wishes that q.d. awnings and curtains be furled immediately,” he ordered. “Look lively, or something will carry away in a brace of shakes.”
The order was certainly necessary. Already the canvas was bellying upwards and flogging under the onslaught of the rising gale.