Part 35 (1/2)
”Admiral's orders!” he ongs clanged down in the bowels of HMS Puncher and she gradually lost what little weigh she had, rolling her bridge ends under in the heave and hollow of a beam-on monsoon sea
”How much does he say he wants?” asked her co in the chains and Curley Crothers at the wheel both recognized the quarter tone instantly, and diagnosed it with deadly accuracy; every vibration of his voice and every fiber of his being expressed exasperation, though a landsht have noticed noas ”half a gale”
”He says he'll take us in for fifty pounds, sir”
”Oh! Tell hiet out of my course!”
It is not much in the way of Persian Gulf Arabic that athe business end of beach-born dialects-the end that gets results at least expense of tioes even the Aru little boat beloas a marvel in its oay; 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 se, will you?”
Twowhich the nasal howls froineer hauled hi below the canvas guard as a ainst 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 forby his voice, would see of the shi+p
”Yes There's a pilot overside, and our orders are to take a pilot aboard when running in, if available There are threeon the within two hours Then we'd have a pilot aboard and would have saved the governine-rooer? Three more waves like that last one and the ested Mr Hartley ”Heat 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?”
”Man,” said Mr Hartley, ”you're a genius” He peered through the spray down to leeward, where the pilot's boat danced a death dance alongside, heel and toe to the Puncher's statelier swing ”Yes; there are three enius But no! The answer's no! The engines'll keep on turning, maybe and perhaps, until wewhat a cherry-red bearing will do I can give ye maybe fifteen knots; e way and luck, and after that-”
Even crouched as he was against the canvas guard he contrived to shrug his shoulders
”But if we go in there are you sure you can contrive to patch her up? It looks like a rotten passage, and not much of a berth beyond it”
”I could cool her down”
”Oh, if that's all you want, I can anchor outside in thirty fathoms”
Curley Crothers heard that and his whole fraht not be disgraced But it faded on the instant
”Man, we've got to go inside and we've got to hurry! Better in there than at the bottom of the Gulf! Put her where she'll hold still for a day, or ested the couhts I daren't take down a thing while she's rolling twenty-five and ine-rooe; if I loosened one more bolt than is loose a'ready her whole insides 'ud take charge and dance quadrilles until we drowned!”
”You won't try to ive ye steam as far as the far side o' yon reef After that I wash my hands of a' responsibility!”
”Oh, very well Mr White!”