Gil the Gunner | Page 7

no 'tachments," he growled.
"Well, are you in the service, and going out to India?" I said.
"I've took the shilling, and I'm going out to cholera borgus, if that's what you mean. Don't bother!"
"You'll get yourself in for it directly, mate," growled another of the men. "Can't you see the gent's a horficer?"
I felt better at this, but I was damped down directly, for my man I had spoken to growled out--
"Horficer? Well, all I can say is as he don't look it."
As the man turned away to rest his arms on the bulwark and refill his pipe, the second man saluted me.
"Yes, it's all right, sir. We're just down from Warley barracks, and we are going out as part of Captain Brace's draft."
I saluted and walked away, feeling in no wise proud of the men who would be partly under my charge. Physically, they were well-made fellows enough, but there was neither romance nor sentiment about them, and in the midst of all the bustle and confusion on board, with the decks literally swarming, I began to feel horribly lonely and depressed, and a sensation of home-sickness was coming on fast, till I told myself it was all nonsense, the home for which I was sickening was only the kind of school which for many months past I had been longing to leave, and that I should in all probability soon meet father, mother, and sister, as well as begin my career as a man.
Just then my attention was taken up by an angry encounter. Three men were brought on board, almost dragged, and thrown down, and it did not need a second thought to grasp the fact that they were sailors who had been spending their advance-money at one of the public-houses which swarmed about the docks.
All at once one of them, as he lay upon the deck, began to sing, and this brought out a smart-looking officer in uniform.
"Here, get these pigs below," he cried angrily; and half a dozen of the sailors crossed to one side, returned with a coil of rope, fastened it round the waist of one of the last-comers, and then seizing him, trotted forward, dragging him along the deck to an open hatchway, where he was unceremoniously lowered down; one sailor followed to unfasten the rope, which was hauled up, and the other men were hauled to the hatchway and lowered in turn.
"That's the way to serve them," said the officer to me sharply. "Some time before they get drunk again."
He nodded shortly and went aft, while, feeling disgusted with the rough scene, I made my way aft too, and came upon quite a crowd of people, evidently friends of the passengers, bidding good-bye, many of them with tears.
"This is cheerful," I thought, and then by an absurd change of feeling, I was hurt because there was no one to bid good-bye to me.
"Confound it all, sir, do get out of the way, please!" said another officer sharply.
I gave him a resentful look, and backed out of his way into somebody else's, sending a man who was carrying part of a passenger's luggage staggering, so that he caught the corner of a trunk sharply against an officer's shoulder, with anything but a pleasant result for the burdened man, who recovered himself, and hurried to the cabin stairs, while, after apologising to the officer, I followed the man, meaning to go up on the poop deck.
But the staircase was full of people, and I dived under to go below and find my cabin, which I now resentfully remembered was not mine.
"Never mind, I'll go and sit down till dinnertime," I thought. "I suppose there will be some dinner some time."
I went along by the row of cabin doors, and found that I was on the port instead of the starboard side; and, crossing over, I found the right cabin at last, seized the handle sharply, for a man was coming along with more luggage, and, turning the fastening, I was about to dive in, but the door was fast, and a quick, authoritative voice cried from within--
"Well, what is it?"
"Open this door," I said as sharply, for I felt irritated at being shut out of my place of refuge from the noise and misery of the deck.
There was the sound of a bolt shooting back, the door was thrown open, and I was face to face in the dim light with a tall, dark, youngish man, whose expression was stern and severe in the extreme.
"Well, sir," he said shortly, "what is it?"
"What is it?" I cried angrily, with a sharp look at my luggage. "What are you doing here? Why is this door fastened?"
He looked at me quite fiercely for a few moments, and then his face softened a little, and he smiled, but