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Having reported himself as come on board with Sir Henry to the first lieutenant, who was near the gangway, he dived below. Numerous hammocks slung up forward showed that there were many sick or wounded, while groups of Frenchmen, with sentries over them, proved that a prize had been taken. He first hurried to the gunner's cabin.
At this point John Mills, the gunner's mate, a man of about forty, cleared his throat and gave it as his opinion that they should not go back to Otaheite, but should leave the matter of their future destination in the hands of Mr Christian, who was well able to guide them.
There seemed only too much reason to fear that the gunner's anticipations with regard to the wind would prove true; but while I stood near the transom, watching the steady relentless approach of the boats which were by now almost within gunshot of us I suddenly became aware of a gentle breeze fanning my sun-scorched features, and the slight but distinct responsive heel of the schooner to it; and in another minute we were skimming merrily away at a speed of quite five knots under the benign influence of one of those partial breezes which, on a calm day at sea, seem to spring up from nowhere in particular, last for half an hour or so, and then die away again.
Christian, with the master at arms, gunner's mate, and Thomas Burkitt, seaman, came into my cabin, and seizing me tied my hands with a cord behind my back, threatening me with instant death if I spoke or made the least noise: I however called as loud as I could in hopes of assistance; but they had already secured the officers who were not of their party by placing sentinels at their doors.
The mate of the brig, who looked rather ill and behaved excitedly, as though he were perhaps a lunatic, wanted him to believe that Captain Allen knew nothing of this; that it was he, the mate, who had recently sold these rifles in the dead of night to a certain person up the river. In proof of this story he produced a bag of silver dollars and pressed it on his, the gunner's, acceptance.
While I was standing at the pumps, cheering the people, the carpenter's mate came running to me with a face as long as my arm: "O, Sir! the ship has sprang a leak in the gunner's room." "Go, then, and tell the carpenter to come to me, but don't speak a word to any one else." "Mr.
A few moments more and the submarine was racing along toward the mouth of the Euphrates, where the enemy was known to be. Just as dusk was setting in, Brown, the gunner's mate, reported an aeroplane to leeward. Captain Nicholson, Jack and Frank, who stood on the bridge, could just make it out with binoculars.
Jules Fontaine had never been captain of anything but a sailing schooner, but he had been a gunner's mate on Captain Robert Morton's ship. He alone knew that Captain Morton had been forced into the fault that he had committed by order of his admiral.
This being done, I carried my man with me to my castle, and gave him a pair of linen drawers, which I had taken out of the poor gunner's chest before mentioned; and which, with a little alteration, fitted him very well; in the next place I made him a jerkin of goat's skin, such as my skill was able to manage, and indeed I thought myself then a tolerable good tailor.
With perfect simplicity did a man in the R.F.A. once say to me, "We feel towards our gun as a mother feels to her child; we'd sooner lose our lives than our gun." In that confession of faith you have the whole of the gunner's creed.
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