Part 8

Strangely enough, I did happen to be thinking that perhaps if that little, yellow-haired lady saw me now, her mocking grey eyes might look a little serious--for once. At any rate she could not possibly treat me as an infant. I grew quite red--though that I should have done so was perfectly absurd, because I scarcely knew her, had only spoken to her once or twice, and then she had treated me as if I were a midshipman or a mere child.

Nicholson read my thoughts--or thought he did--and chaffed me till I grew more red than ever, and wanted to kick him.

Five miles off Sheikh Hill the _Intrepid_ lowered the repaired cutter, the _Bunder Abbas_ came alongside for me and to take in more ammunition, my chum and an entirely fresh crew manned his boat, and I towed him back to his old billet. He looked so sad and "rigid" as the cliffs opened out and he saw the blackened mass of woodwork, all that remained of the dhow which had caused that tragedy of the morning, that I felt very nervous to leave him alone for the night. It was quite dark when I yelled "good night" to him and steamed away down the coast to Kuh-i-Mubarak, to try to find Evans.

We found him surely enough--or rather he found us. He mistook the "_B.A._" in the darkness for a dhow, and fired twenty or thirty rounds from his Maxim before he saw my flashing lamp.

He was awfully apologetic; though, as no damage had been done, it did not matter. He had not seen a suspicion of a dhow, nor had he heard the noise of our firing, so went nearly "off his head" with excitement when I told him what had happened.

Having found that he was safe and sound, I went back to my patrolling line.

For several weeks everything went on extremely quietly. Every morning I would hail old Popple Opstein, and find how things were going with him; sometimes, when there was no hurry, he even came aboard for a cup of coffee. Every morning I visited Evans, and these two events were about the only excitement we had; except, of course, the weekly Thursday afternoon alongside the _Intrepid_.

The weather was monotonously fine, and it really was monotonous work. Neither was Mr. Scarlett exactly the type of man I should have chosen to live with. We agreed very well, indeed, but he was of a morbid disposition, never laughed except cynically, and seldom talked much unless something or other stimulated his rather brooding, sluggish mind. Then, as you already know, it was difficult to make him stop.

I liked talking at meals--he didn't; and, as a matter of actual fact, I, being a cheerful kind of chap, found him rather a "damper".

Wiggins had returned to the _Bunder Abbas_, and a leading seaman named Ellis, a sturdy, hard-working, little man, rather opinionated and fond of "gassing", had taken Dobson's place. He and Moore, the petty officer, did not "get on" at all well together. Moore was jealous of him, and was for ever coming to me complaining that "that 'ere Ellis took too much on 'isself."

Several times Moore brought him up to my platform deck (which we used as a quarter-deck) and reported him for disrespect. Precious little sympathy did he get from me, however. Still, in such a tiny little ship it was unpleasant to know that they were not on friendly terms. The jealousy first started, I fancy, when we had a "sing-song" one night. Both of them had sung songs, and Ellis had been more often "encored" than Moore. The reason seems perfectly inane, but full-grown men, under conditions such as these were, often behave in the most childish way possible.

During these first weeks Mr. Scarlett and Jaffa, between them, put me up to all the tricks of the gun-running business. What one didn't know of the Arabs' dodges for concealing rifles the other did; so I became quite an expert, theoretically.

One evening when it was fairly cool--after a regular furnace of a day--Mr. Scarlett became communicative. We had been speaking of boarding suspected dhows.

"Now take the case, sir, of a dhow flying the Turkish flag. You steam up to her; down goes her sail; over you bob to her in the dinghy with Jaffa, and tell the nakhoda to show his papers. You dare not board until you have seen them. He hands them down to you. You look through them--written in Turkish, English, and Hindustani; all three probably--and so long as they are in order, whether you know for certain that she's brim-full of rifles or whether you only suspect that she is, you dare not board and search her.

"I remember," he said, "running up against a fine dhow one morning--I was away in the old _Pigeon's_ cutter then--a long time since. We ran her down, headed her off till she couldn't get away, felt sure that she was going to be a fair prize, and yelled "Hallib! Hallib!" until she lowered her sails. And that reminds me, sir; never go alongside any dhow until she's lowered her sail. They Arabs have a nasty trick of waiting for you to come alongside, and then lowering the sail so that it and its big yard drops into the boat and smothers it. I've known 'em carry away a cutter's mast that way. Whilst you are helpless under the sail they pot at you, hoist it up again, and sail away. I've been 'had' like that myself once.

"Just you see that sail properly lowered and then make them hold up the halyards to show you that they are 'unbent', because they are as nippy as sharks a-hoisting it again.

"Well, as I was saying, we were as keen as mosquitoes over that 'ere dhow, but, as we caught hold of her with our boat-hooks, she hoisted Turkish colours and we dared not board her. The nakhoda, grinning at us, leant over her side and handed down his papers. These were in perfect order, so we no more dared board her than we dared stop the mail-steamer. What riled us chiefly was the brazen-faced way they did things. The cargo was put down as one hundred cases of champagne, consigned to a dirty little Persian village of about twenty miserable fishing-huts. We knew it well, we did, before--and after. We felt jolly well 'had'. We were as certain as 'eggs is eggs' that she was chock-full of rifles and ammunition, but they were as safe where they were as if they'd been on top of the Eiffel Tower.

"The lieutenant in charge of us cursed the Arab nakhoda, and called his ancestors dogs and sons of dogs, hoping he knew enough Hindustani to understand. Then off we had to shove.

"Our only chance was to catch those rifles on their way to the beach whilst the dhow was unloading, or when they once got there. All we could do was to pull off again and follow her, and it was about all we could do to keep up with her until she reached her blessed village just before dark.

"We'd been there a week before--for water--so we knew what it was like. If there had been thirty half-starved fishermen then I'd be overshooting the mark; now the beach was crowded with rascally Afghans and their camels, and no sooner did the dhow drop her anchor, close in to the beach, than those cases of champagne--about five feet long they were, each holding a dozen fat rifles we felt sure--were bundled into boats.

"We had a Gardner machine-gun in our bows, and opened fire with that and our old Martin Henrys; but there must have been a couple of hundred Afghans letting rip at us, so we had to pull out of range and watch those cases of champagne being lashed on the camels' backs until it was too dark to see anything more. At any rate, all those rifles got ashore, and you can guess what they were used for later on--for potting at British Tommies trying to keep order on the Indian frontier.

"Don't you go away with the idea that we English don't have a hand in the game," Mr. Scarlett continued gloomily. "Why, sir, many's the time I've seen captured rifles with the old 'Tower' mark on them, showing that they'd been made in England--old-fashioned Army rifles some of them, others not. And the tricks they're up to! My word, they are as artful as a bagful of monkeys! I've helped search a couple of hundred dhows or more in my time, and that's taught me a thing or two."

"The first dodge as I remember bowling out--and the simplest of 'em," Mr. Scarlett told me another evening, as he sipped his tot of rum--for it was not until Percy had brought along his rum and he had taken several "sips", when the crew had "piped down" and everything was quiet, that he generally started his "talking machine"--"they built double bottoms in their dhows, made 'em so cleverly that we used to think they were the real inner skin. But we happened to have emptied one of her cargo, and walking about inside her she sounded hollow under our feet, so we ripped up a board and found a snug little collection of rifles lying there. Of course the nakhoda swore he knew nothing about them; he and his crew called upon Allah and most of the minor prophets to testify to that, but it didn't prevent them doing their five months 'chokey' or losing their dhow. A nice little haul that was, and the word was passed along to 'sound' the bottoms of all the dhows we overhauled. We used to bang 'em with the butts of our rifles. They gave up that dodge after a while and invented something 'cuter' still. They'd fasten ten or twelve long ropes to the keel, outside her, bringing them over the side on deck, and they'd lash the free ends to sacks of rifles. If they sighted a gunboat or a launch, or any of our people, and there was a risk of being caught and searched, they'd simply drop them overboard and let them hang down in the water suspended from the keel. Along we would come, and find nothing wrong; search her high and low, and let her go, with our blessing or the other thing. Then one of our launches happened to come upon a dhow unexpectedly, and caught them doing it, heaving the sacks of rifles overboard--took her by surprise--and that game was 'up'. Never you leave a dhow, sir, till you've 'underrun' her.[#] You'd be surprised how many rifles we picked up that way.

[#] Underrun = drop a bight or loop of rope over the bows and haul it along under her keel.

"Then there's another dodge they have round about these coasts. All along the Arabian side there are plenty of mangrove trees, and a great trade in firewood is carried on with the Persian coast. So what was easier for a dhow than to stow a dozen or more rifles at the bottom of the hold and fill up with firewood on the top of them? They'd chance us getting tired of unloading them; a cutter cruising by herself couldn't do it, because you daren't throw any of the stuff overboard, and there wasn't room on the dhow's deck for all the wood stowed below. Why, sir, I've seen the whole of the _Pigeon's_ upper deck on both sides full up to the level of the 'nettings' with chunks of firewood. Just imagine the amount of work that meant--five or six hours in the horrid heat--every chap feeling as limp as putty with the climate and the monotony. A cutter cruising by herself either had to let her go or stand by the dhow, wasting perhaps three or four days, till her gunboat came along to victual her.

"However, we did search them, and we did find rifles, which meant 'Good-bye' for that dhow and 'chokey' for her crew. They found that trick not worth the risk, these people being generally law-abiding people (more or less), simply tempted every now and then to make a larger profit by carrying a few rifles. They weren't what you might call reg'lar hands at the business.

"And there's another thing they do, sir; on top of the firewood they often load a small cargo of their dried fish, thinking the British sailor won't stomach the smell of it. Ugh! the stink from some of those dhows! Why, we sometimes never got rid of the smell of it for weeks.

"You never heard about the mail-steamers--the Royal British Mail--carrying rifles themselves, I suppose, sir?" he asked, a little less gloomily as the incongruity of it appealed to him. "Why, sir, for one whole six months the mail-steamer brought up regular consignments of sugar from Karachi to Bushire and landed them there for a respectable firm of merchants. One fine day a careless chap at a winch, who was lowering a cask of sugar into a lighter, let it drop. The cask was stove in, and instead of sugar they found half a dozen rifles stowed in pieces, packed in saw-dust. That was an eye-opener, I can tell you. The mail-steamers don't carry so many casks of sugar now as they did then," Mr. Scarlett finished, smiling sardonically.

Another night he became talkative and began:

"You remember that chap who fired at us--the first time we shoved our nose under the cliffs at Sheikh Hill? I told you for certain he was an Afghan and couldn't possibly help firing his rifle at a white man. Well, sir, they often send one or two of these fellows across to the Arabian coast in the empty dhows, just to see that the rifles are brought to the proper place. You can always tell if there's one of these chaps aboard a dhow when you come along to search her, because he'll fire at you for a dead 'cert'. What we did was to make the crew line the side nearest us, after they'd lowered the sail and unbent the halyards. Our sportsman, the Afghan (or Afghans) dar'n't fire then for fear of hitting his friends, or had to climb up where we could see him, which didn't give him much of a chance, we being standing by waiting for him. Still, he didn't mind being riddled with bullets so long as he got in a shot at us English, more especially if he'd hit any of us.

"The only thing in this world he does fear and does mind is the sea. If there's a bit of a lop running you may bet your life that Mr. Afghan is as sea-sick as a dog, and you'll find him coiled up like a cat somewhere under the poop, without a kick left in him. He'd give anyone, white man or no white man, all he possessed, if he'd only kill him right out--that's when he's sea-sick.

"He's a terrible bad sailor, is the Afghan!" Mr. Scarlett said reflectively; "that's the only good point about him except being such a born fighter."

Mr. Scarlett, as you know, would talk about gun-running occasionally, but never once in those weeks did he mention that bracelet snake of his. It was covered with a bandage which he used to replace very carefully every morning; sometimes I happened to catch him doing this and saw it, but as he never referred to it neither did I.

Percy, I am sure, was very inquisitive to know what was the matter with his arm, because, as I said before, everything about Mr. Scarlett was of absorbing interest to him; though, after he had been kicked out of the cabin once or twice when Mr. Scarlett was dressing, he never ventured near it again until he was called.

Things went on like this for three weeks--three weeks of calm, intensely hot weather. Popple Opstein's wound had healed without anything going wrong with it; my scars were becoming less marked. Jones, the private of marines, was well--as were all the other wounded. Popple Opstein was quite himself again, and in fact everything was going on very comfortably if monotonously. It certainly was monotonous, because during all that time we never sighted one single dhow, and although the _Intrepid_ had stopped and searched a few farther out at sea she had not found a single rifle over and above the proper number a dhow is allowed to carry for her own protection.

Then, to vary the tedium, it began to blow. A shamel got up very quickly, and blew steadily for eight or nine days. It was not so bad that the _Bunder Abbas_ couldn't keep the sea and do her patrolling, but the two cutters had to hug tight at anchor in their two little creeks.

However, Evans grew restless after the third day, and put to sea one morning, leaving the shelter of Kuh-i-Mubarak and beating into the shamel long after he ought to have run back again. A squall carried away his foremast when he was already to leeward of it, and he rapidly began to drift farther to the south. Fortunately I happened to sight him, went down to help him, and took him in tow. Towing him back into shelter against a heavy head sea strained some of the planks in the bows, below the water-lines, and the boat began leaking badly. We had only left the _Intrepid_ four days previously, so that she would not be coming inshore to revictual us for another three; and, as it would have been foolish to attempt to tow the cutter right out to sea to find her and repair damages, we decided to beach her, do a little amateur caulking, and try to repair the foremast if that was possible.

There was a jolly little sandy beach about half a mile up the creek, so we beached her there after Evans had transferred his Maxim, ammunition, and stores to the _Bunder Abbas_. I anchored close by, in case he was attacked. There was little chance of that, however, because the village of Sudab lay more than three miles away behind the sand-hills, not a single living soul was in sight, and none could approach without being seen for at least a mile.

His men were soon busy working and skylarking, stretching their legs on the strip of sand, and thoroughly enjoying themselves. Not a sign of an Arab or an Afghan, not even of a miserable Baluchi, did we see all that day. In fact, things seemed so safe and pleasant that I landed most of my fellows too, and we got up a cricket match, with an empty paraffin tin for a wicket, a ball made of "spun yarn", and a bat made out of a broken oar. We equalized numbers with my lascars, and had a most exciting game, the _Bunder Abbas_ winning the championship of Kuh-i-Mubarak just before the "spun-yarn" ball was worn out completely.

The work on the boat had been finished, the seams recaulked, and the mast repaired; but Evans decided, as it was going to be a perfect moonlight night, to stay there until next morning, in order that his men might have a change from the cramped cutter and get a good night's sleep.

At sunset I took all my people back to the _Bunder Abbas_, leaving the cutter's crew playing football with that paraffin tin, with their bare feet, until they grew tired of that, and kicked it into the edge of the sea. They then made themselves snug for the night, lying down on the crest of the beach with their rifles by their sides, in case they were attacked, and with one man doing "sentry go", to give warning if necessary.

When the moon rose I could see them all lying comfortably there, one sleepy-looking figure sitting up among them, and some way along the sand the cutter, with the sea--it was just about high water--lapping against her stern-post. Having seen my own "look-out" man "standing by" with a loaded belt in the Maxim, in case he was needed, I lay down on the deck, outside my cabin, and slept gloriously.

I was awakened by a rifle shot, and jumped up. More rifle shots spluttered out. I looked ashore and saw the cutter's crew lying flat on their chests firing along the strip of beach--showing up in the moonlight as clearly as if it was daytime--and heard Evans shouting out excited orders by the dozen. (I told you what a "nervy" chap he was.) One of his men came crawling down towards us, yelling to us to open fire. It did not want his shouts to alarm us; my fellows were already on deck, looking wildly up and down the creek to see who was attacking. Not a sign of an enemy could I see, and it was light enough to see half a mile; but the hummocks of sand stretching inland and along the beach cast such very dark shadows that whoever was attacking could lie there absolutely hidden.

To judge by the amount of ammunition the cutter's crew were expending, Evans was evidently certain of his enemy. Spurts of sand were flying up just in front of his men, although I could not see any flashes coming from out of those dark shadows. I admit that I felt considerably flustered; Mr. Scarlett's face looked ghastly in the moonlight, and I wished with all my heart that I had not allowed Evans to sleep ashore. I could not help thinking of how Popple Opstein had been caught, and was very fearful that something of the same kind was going to happen again.

If we could only have seen something to fire at it would have been less frightening, but there was nothing.

Then Evans himself came rushing down to where the cutter lay, and yelled to me to open fire whilst his men shoved her off.

I thought he could not possibly have made a mistake, so banged away with a Maxim at those shadows. "There, sir, there! Look there, sir!" Moore suddenly rushed at me, pointing excitedly to a dark object apparently crawling along just by the water's edge not a hundred yards away.

The cutter's crew had seen it too, their bullets were spurting close to it, but Evans shrieked for them to come down and shove off the cutter, so I started the Maxim. We saw our bullets splashing all round, ceased fire, and waited for anything else to appear. Whatever that was, it never moved again.

By this time Evans had got the cutter afloat, and had come alongside the _Bunder Abbas_.

"Arabs crawling along the beach!" he shouted. "The sentry saw them first, fired at them--we've all fired at them--we've not seen any more since."

"Were they firing at you?" I called down, when he left off shouting at me.

He didn't know--he was not certain of anything except that his fellows had managed to kill at least one man.

At any rate, whatever had happened, no one was attacking us now. I stopped the Maxim, and together we waited on the qui vive all night, in case we were attacked again.

When the moon sank, an hour and a half before the sun was due to take her place, it became extremely dark, which made it most trying and nervous work waiting for daylight. Instead of the good night's sleep we had all promised ourselves, not a soul among us so much as closed his eyes after the alarm.

At daybreak not a sign of any living thing could be seen on those desolate sand-hills or on the beach, so we ventured ashore to pick up the cutter's masts and sails, which had been left behind in the panic.

I went too, to have a look at the chap we had shot, and guess what we found--fifty yards along the beach--that paraffin tin! just where we had thought we had seen the enemy crawling along to attack us--simply riddled with bullets. It was like a nutmeg grater, and the sand all round it was scored and tossed about by hundreds more.

I simply sat down and laughed and laughed till I thought something would crack. The whole thing was so obvious. It was high water when the men went to sleep; as the tide fell it left that tin high and dry: the sentry, suddenly catching sight of it and its shadow, lost his head, thought it was someone crawling along the beach, let off his rifle at it, woke the others, and in their excitement they fired at every shadow they saw.

"You killed him, sure enough," I roared, holding up the perforated tin; "the attack was repulsed with great slaughter."

It was not until we had walked behind the sand-hills, and found not a single trace of footsteps, that Evans would allow that the whole thing had been a false alarm.

"Your Maxim fired at it too," he said angrily. "You've made a fool of yourself as well."

Evans never heard the last of his paraffin tin, nor did his boat's crew; and, later on, when the yarn (with additions) spread aboard the _Intrepid_, we all came in for a great deal of chaff. For months afterwards, a messmate hankering after a black eye had only to ask a man belonging to that cutter's crew, or to the _Bunder Abbas_, what kind of an Afghan a paraffin tin was most like, and he got one.

However, we had made the cutter watertight and mended the foremast (after a fashion), though it was not strong enough to "look at" the shamel still blowing; so, leaving Evans to wait until it had blown itself out, I struggled up to wind'ard to have a look at Popple Opstein and find out how he had fared.