‘Another Teague, so help me,’ said Keppel; ‘the wretched island must have sunk at last.’
‘You are an offensive boy,’ said FitzGerald, ‘but I imagine you do not know it. If that fellow is your servant, tell him to pick up my portmanteau.’
‘How can you be such a blackguard?’ cried Keppel, with real indignation.
‘If you mean to check me with coming in through the hawsehole,’ said Ransome, growing suddenly very red, ‘I’ll learn you good manners.’
‘I do not understand your jargon,’ said FitzGerald, ‘but if you want a threshing, sure I’ll help you to one.’
‘That’s right,’ said Ransome, peeling off his coat.
They had equal courage: it was weight and skill that decided the matter. FitzGerald weighed ten stone to Ransome’s fourteen; Ransome had great skill in boxing; FitzGerald had none, and in ten seconds he was flat on his back with the blood running fast from his nose. He gasped, took a deep breath and sprang to his feet. He kept upright for much longer this time, and hit Ransome one or two good blows before he went down. Peter propped him up against his knee and wiped his face. ‘You can’t go on,’ he whispered; ‘the fellow is twice your size.’
‘Can’t I?’ said FitzGerald. ‘Let me go.’
He got up, and with a ferocious rush he shot under Ransome’s guard, smashing in one right-handed hook that jarred Ransome’s head on his shoulders. Then he was down again; but with scarcely a pause he leapt up, hitting madly: for a second the blows followed fast, hard bare-fist blows like the sound of a mallet on wood. One of FitzGerald’s got home, and Ransome with an instinctive reaction hit him really hard. The uppercut did not travel six inches, but it lifted FitzGerald a foot, with his chin in the air, and he fell as if he had been dropped from a steeple. He fell oddly crumpled, and he did not move.
‘What is this appalling din?’ snapped a voice behind Peter. ‘Fighting like a lot of snivelling schoolboys? Who is this?’
‘Mr FitzGerald, sir.’
‘New midshipman? The Irish one?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I might have known it. Well, pour some water over him.’
‘Aye-aye, sir.’
‘We was playing,’ said Ransome, with heavy invention.
‘Playing? Then you—what is that infernal racket? Yes, Settle, what is it?’
‘Beg pardon, sir, but some of the pressed men in the orlop has gone mad, talking foreign and carrying on horrible.’
‘Did you put the Irishmen in separate bays, as I told you?’
‘Yes, sir. But they got out,’ shouted the quarter-master to make himself heard above the mounting volume of furious sound that welled through the grating.
‘Mr Saumarez’ compliments, sir,’ said a ship’s boy from the quarter-deck, ‘and he would be glad of a little less noise.’
‘My compliments to the first lieutenant, and it will be attended to directly.’
‘The Commodore’s compliments, sir,’ said a second messenger, bumping into the first. ‘The port-admiral’s barge is coming alongside, and he would like to hear himself speak.’
‘My duty to the Commodore,’ said the harassed lieutenant, ‘and I will see to it myself.’
‘If you please, sir,’ said Peter, ‘I believe it is my servant. May I go down?’
‘You’ll hear from me, Settle,’ said Mr Dennis, shaking his first distractedly. Then to Peter, ‘Come on, if you can do anything.’
As they reached the orlop they entered an almost tangible hullaballoo; howls and curses in Irish shattered the heavy air, and in the gloom they could see a small band beleaguered in the aftermost bay.
‘Connacht! Connacht!’ came Sean’s voice high above all, as he and four tall Connaughtmen fought off the attacks of a pack of men from Munster and Leinster, while a party from Ulster assaulted both sides indiscriminately.
‘Sean, Sean, for the glory of God,’ cried Peter in Irish, ‘will you stop your murderous noise, and the Commodore asking are there savages in the heart of the ship and the Admiral no less himself advancing in splendour like a king to make us a compliment?’
At the sound of his voice and the tongue that he spoke they all turned to see, and he continued passionately, ‘It is the fine figure we make now to the Saxons, we the most polished and elegant, most ancient of people. Where should the world look for an example if not to us? And the moon-calf Sean shaming us all in the face of the people, his soul to the devil.’
‘Now listen,’ said Sean, scratching the back of his leg and blushing under the blood that flowed from his forehead; but his explanation was lost in Irish cries of ‘Shame,’ and ‘Ignorant peasant,’ and ‘Violent fellow that does be putting a mock on the nation’; and in the righteous peace that ensued Peter called him aside. ‘What was the trouble?’ he asked.
‘It was some question about the birth of Saint Patrick,’ said Sean. ‘The Munstermen said—faith, I never heard what they said; but they were certainly wrong.’
‘Let them say, let them say: and I tell you this, Sean—and listen, now—if once again you ever do this, I will cast you off and wipe out your name.’ Pushing Sean crossly away, Peter said to Mr Dennis, ‘Sir, I think the trouble is finished. It was a religious disagreement.’
‘Good,’ said the lieutenant, wiping his forehead. ‘You speak the lingo, so tell them from me that the first man to mention a church, or any moral subject whatever, will be hanged and lose a month’s pay. Where are those flaming Marines? Oh, here you are at last, Gordon. Now you go back to the cockpit,’ he said, patting Peter’s shoulder, ‘and sit perfectly still. For if there is the least sound from there while the Admiral’s aboard you will every one of you be disrated and finish the commission cleaning the heads.’
Peter made his way back and entered the berth as the Admiral was piped up the side. There were several other midshipmen now, and they were obviously discussing FitzGerald, for they stopped as Peter came in.
‘This is the other Teague,’ said Keppel.
‘My name is not Teague,’ cried Peter. He had had a trying day, and he was in no mood to be joked at.
‘Be calm, Teague,’ said another midshipman, and fell to whistling Lillibullero.
‘Take it easy, Teague,’ said another.
But Peter would not take it easy: he hesitated, trying to quell the wild indignation; but he failed; it possessed him, and with a furious shriek he hurled himself upon his country’s oppressors.
‘MY DEAR PETER,’ SAID MR WALTER, ‘I HAVE ASKED YOU TO come here because I think it my duty to your father to speak to you seriously. You are not making a good impression, neither you nor your friend.’
‘I know it, sir,’ answered Peter, hanging his head.
‘You are very ignorant of the service, but at least you know that a midshipman’s whole professional future depends on his captain’s report?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Peter, are you quite sure that you are suited for the Navy? Mr Saumarez tells me that you and your friend know no more about the work of a ship than, as he says, a pair of female Barbary apes; and I am sorry to say that the master finds you stupid.’
‘Sir, I am stupid with the master’s questions about