Read Ebook: The promotion of the admiral and other sea comedies by Roberts Morley

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Ebook has 1489 lines and 53700 words, and 30 pages

"Certainly not," said Smith. "Fill 'em up with good honest liquor at my expense."

The bar-tender hardly knew where good honest liquor was to be found in that house, but he gave the two men-o'-war's men the slowest poison he had, and they were soon merry.

"Is the admiral as dead keen on fightin' with his fists as he was?" asked Smith.

"Rather," said the first man.

"Oh no, he's tired," said the second. "'E allows 'e can't find no one to lick 'im. 'E never could."

"Oh, that's his complaint, is it?" said Smith. "And is he as good as he was?"

"I heerd him tell the first luff on'y the other day as 'e reckoned to be a better man now than he was twenty years ago. And I believes 'im. 'Ard? Oh my! I do believe if 'e ran agin a lamp-post he'd fight through it."

It was enough for Smith to know that the admiral was still keen on fighting. To draw a man like that would not be so difficult. When he had turned the two naval seamen into the street, he called for the runner.

"Have you found out what I told you?"

"Yes," replied Bill. "He mostly comes down and goes off at eleven."

"Is he alone?"

"Couldn't be better," said Smith. "After waitin' all these years I can't afford to lose no time. Thishyer racket comes off to-night. Look out, Mr. Bully Admiral! I'm on your track."

And the trouble did begin that night.

Mr. 'Say-it-and-mean-it' Smith laid for Admiral Sir Richard Dunn, K.C.B., etc., etc., from ten o'clock till half-past eleven, and he was the only man in the crowd that did not hope the victim would come down with too many friends to be tackled.

"It's a penitentiary job, so it is," said Bill. And yet when the time arrived his natural instincts got the better of him.

The admiral came at last: it was about a quarter to twelve, and the whole water-front was remarkably quiet. The two policemen at the entrance to the Ferries had by some good luck, or better management, found it advisable to take a drink at Johnson's, just opposite. And the admiral was only accompanied by his flag-lieutenant.

"That's him," said Smith. "I'd know the beggar anywhere. Now keep together and sing!"

He broke into "Down on the Suwannee River," and advanced with Bill and Bill's two mates right across the admiral's path. They pretended to be drunk, and as far as three were concerned, there was not so much pretence about it after all. But Smith had no intention of being the first to run athwart the admiral's hawse. When he came close enough, he shoved the youngest man right into his arms. The admiral jumped back, and landed that unfortunate individual a round-arm blow that nearly unshipped his jaw. The next moment every one was on the ground, for Bill sandbagged the admiral just as he was knocked down by the lieutenant. As Sir Richard fell, he reached out and caught Smith by the ankle. The boarding-house master got the lieutenant by the coat and brought him down too. And as luck would have it, the youngster's head hit the admiral's with such a crack that both lay unconscious.

"Do we want the young 'un too?" asked Bill when he rose to his feet, swinging his sand-bag savagely. And Smith for once lost his head.

"Leave the swine, and puckarow the admiral," he said. And indeed it was all they could do to carry Sir Richard without exciting any more attention than four semi-intoxicated men would as they took home a mate who was quite incapacitated.

But they did get him home to the house in the Barbary Coast. When he showed signs of coming to, he was promptly dosed and his clothes were taken off him. As he slept the sleep of the drugged, they put on a complete suit of rough serge toggery and he became "Tom Deane, A.B."

"What did I tell you?" asked Bill in great alarm, as he saw several intimate friends of his being escorted to gaol.

"Are you weakenin' on it?" said Smith savagely. "If I thought you was, I'd murder you. Give me away, and when I get out, I'll chase you three times round the world and knife you, my son."

And though Bill was so much of a "terror," he could not face Smith's eyes.

"Well, I ain't in it, anyhow," he swore.

But certainly "Tom Deane, A.B." was in it, and was having a holy time.

"Send Mr. Selwyn to me."

But Selwyn was his flag-lieutenant, and was just then the centre of interest to many reporters.

"Send hell; rouse out, old son, and turn to," said one of his new mates. And the admiral rose and rested on his elbow.

"Where am I?"

"I'm dreaming," said the admiral, "that's what it is. To be sure, I'm dreaming."

There was something in his accent as he made this statement that roused curiosity in the others.

"No, you ain't--not much," said the first man who had spoken; "and even if you was, I guess Simpson will wake you. Rouse up before he comes along again. He was in here an hour back inquiring for the trumpet of the Day of Judgment to rouse you. Come along, Deane! Now then!"

"My name's Dunn," said the admiral, with contracted brows.

"Devil doubt it," said his friend; "and who done you? Was it Shanghai Smith?"

"Did you ship as a dead man?" asked Mr. Simpson, "for if you did, I'll undeceive you."

And with that he yanked the admiral from his bunk, and dragged him by the collar out upon the deck at a run. Mr. Simpson was "bucko" to his finger-tips, and had never been licked upon the high seas. But for that matter Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Dunn, K.C.B., had never hauled down his flag either to any man. It surprised him, as it would have surprised any of his crew, to find that he took this handling almost meekly. But then no one knows what he would do if the sky fell; and as far as the admiral was concerned, the entire world was an absurd and ridiculous nightmare. He rose at the end of his undignified progress and stared at the mate.

"Who--who are you?" he said.

Mr. Simpson gasped.

"Who am I--oh, who am I? Well, I'll oblige you by statin' once for all that I'm mate of this ship, and you're my dog."

But the "dog" shook his head.

"Nothing of the sort," he said, as he staggered with the remains of the opiate. "I'm a British admiral, and my name's Sir Richard Dunn. Where's my ship?"

"Oh, you're an admiral--an admiral, heh?" said Simpson.

Now it is a remarkable fact that the utterly and entirely unexpected will sometimes shake the courage of the stoutest heart. It is possible that a tiger would itself turn tail if a lamb rushed at him with open mouth. And though Mr. Simpson would have tackled a prize-fighter, knowing he was a prize-fighter, the fact that one of the kind of men whom he was accustomed to wipe his boots on now turned upon him with entirely strange language and a still stranger air of authority, for a moment daunted him utterly. He stood still and gasped, while the admiral strode aft and went up the poop ladder. He was met there by the captain, who had been the terror of the seas as a mate. A narrow escape of a conviction for murder had partially reformed him. He had also become religious, and usually went below when Simpson or the second "greaser" was hammering any one into oblivion and obedience.

"What is this?" asked Captain Blaker mildly, yet with a savage eye. "Mr. Simpson, what do you mean by allowing your authority to be disregarded?"

"Sir," said Mr. Simpson, and then the admiral turned on him.

"Hold your infernal tongue, sir," he roared. "And, sir, if you are the master of this vessel, as I suppose, I require you to put about for San Francisco. I am a British admiral, sir; my name is Sir Richard Dunn."

"Oh, you're an admiral and you 'require'?" said Blaker. "Wa'al, I do admire! You look like an admiral: the water-front is full of such. Take that, sir."

And the resurgent old Adam in Blaker struck the admiral with such unexpected force that Dunn went heels over head off the poop and landed on Simpson. The mate improved the opportunity by kicking him violently in the ribs. When he was tired, he spoke to the admiral again.

"Now, you lunatic, take this here ball of twine and go and overhaul the gear on the main. And if you open your mouth to say another word I'll murder you."

And though he could not believe he was doing it, Sir Richard Dunn crawled aloft, and did what he was told. He was stunned by his fall and the hammering he had received, but that was nothing to the utter and complete change of air that he experienced. As he overhauled the gear he wondered if he was an admiral at all. If he was, how came he on the maintopgallant-yard of a merchant ship? If he wasn't, why was he surprised at being there? He tried to recall the last day of his life as an admiral, and was dimly conscious of a late evening somewhere in San Francisco at which he had certainly taken his share of liquor. A vague sense of having been in a row oppressed him, but he could recall nothing till he had been yanked out of his bunk by that truculent devil of a mate then patrolling the poop.

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