"Ever shoved it into a ’uman afore, sir?" Grainger asked me, whilst he was helping me on with my sword and leather gear. He’d been polishing it outside my cabin, on and off, all day long.
"Never; nothing bigger than a cockroach."
"Well, sir, it ’ull be some’ut to ’ang up in the ’all at ’ome when we draws our pension. Won’t it, sir?"
"If we don’t have to pawn it," I told him, and went off to look at Truscott. Poor chap! he was worrying about what would happen to his wife and kids if he "pegged out", so one couldn’t do much to cheer him. He was very down on his luck.
We were a goodish bit behind time getting ashore, as the very dickens of a fog came up from the south and wrapped us in its "blissful mantle of white", as the young padré would have said if he’d been there. It was beastly annoying, and took all the gloss out of my moustache; but old Lawrence got us round to the back of the island somehow or other, chiefly by the sound of the _Ringdove’s_ guns, I think. Of course, he jolly well pretended that he did it with a boat’s compass and a pair of parallel rulers on a chart he’d made. Bless me! I never could understand why navigators make such a song about their job; it’s easy enough—shove on till you hit up against the shore—push off again and go on—that’s all that’s wanted. I bet I would navigate any ship you liked, anywhere you liked, if she’d stand a bit of bumping sometimes. I’ve often asked Lawrence to let me try, but, funnily enough, he won’t.
I’d had an awful job with Grainger to let me wear my other serge tunic—my best one—and it was only by telling him that I wasn’t going to bring discredit on "The Corps" by being found dead in the one I’d worn last night, that he let me wear it.
"I make it a rule in life," I had told him, "never to wear any serge in more than one battle," and he had gone away muttering that "he supposed that they hadn’t either of ’em been paid for, and never would be, so it didn’t hardly matter, though he was blowed if he knew what I was going to wear to-morrow".
Some of his statements were remarkably accurate. We had brought along one of Hoffman’s Chinamen to guide us, but, bless me! by the time we’d got ashore, with wet feet, we couldn’t see two yards in front of us. The fog was as thick as pea soup, and it was like trying to wade through velvet.