His chief failing was that he was never less than a quarter of an hour late for his watch. 'I'm deuced sorry, old chap,' was his usual excuse to the officer he had to relieve. 'The fella didn't call me properly.'
'Oh, to hell with you and your rotten excuses!' would growl the irritated watch-keeper who had been kept up. 'You're about the frozen limit! The corporal of the watch was hammering on your cabin door for at least a quarter of an hour!'
'It really wasn't my fault, though,' Fitz-Johnson would protest mildly. 'Please don't get shirty, old chap.'
It was impossible to be really angry with him; but he continued to relieve late until the other watch-keepers hit upon a scheme of keeping him up for an extra half-hour at the end of his own watch. That cured him eventually.
Boyle, the next in seniority, was a young, enthusiastic, and very energetic officer, who wished one day to become a gunnery officer. He had charge of the after-turret, with its pair of twelve-inch guns, and spent much of his time in a suit of oily overalls scrambling about in the depths of the hydraulic machinery. He was of an inventive turn of mind too, and even at the comparatively early age of twenty-four had already designed a self-stabilising seaplane, a non-capsizable boat, a patent razor-stropper, and an adjustable chair. This last, which he used in his cabin, was really most ingenious. It had hidden springs all over it, and you pushed a button and it did the rest. You could use it for anything, from an operating-table to a trousers-press; and it was often brought into the wardroom after dinner on guest-nights for its various uses to be demonstrated. It worked beautifully, until one night the _padre_, who was reclining gracefully at full length, pressed the wrong button in a sudden fit of exuberance. The chair promptly bucked like a kicking mule. The front shot up and the back fell down, and the reverend occupant hurtled adroitly backwards straight into the arms of an astonished marine servant with a tray full of whiskies and sodas. He came to the ground with a crash, with the marine and the liquid on top of him, and everybody laughed.
The servant, drenched through, retired grumbling to change his garments; and the Rev. Stephen Holiman scrambled to his feet, surveyed the mess of broken glass and liquor on the deck, and then felt his pulped collar and examined his clothes.