Blue Lights: Hot Work in the Soudan

Mr Sloper received this observation with the smiling urbanity of a man who eschews war at all costs.

“You don’t drink,” he said after a time, referring to Miles’s pot of beer, which he had not yet touched.

Miles made no reply, but by way of answer took up the pot and put it to his lips.

He had not drunk much of it when the big seaman rose hurriedly and staggered between the two tables. In doing so, he accidentally knocked the pot out of the youth’s hand, and sent the contents into Mr Sloper’s face and down into his bosom, to the immense amusement of the company.

That man of peace accepted the baptism meekly, but Miles sprang up in sudden anger.

The seaman turned to him, however, with a benignantly apologetic smile.

“Hallo! messmate. I ax your parding. They don’t leave room even for a scarecrow to go about in this here cabin. I’ll stand you another glass. Give us your flipper!”

There was no resisting this, it was said so heartily. Miles grasped the huge hand that was extended and shook it warmly.

“All right,” he said, laughing. “I don’t mind the beer, and there’s plenty more where that came from, but I fear you have done some damage to my fr—”

“Your friend. Out with it, sir. Never be ashamed to acknowledge your friends,” exclaimed the shabby man, as he wiped his face. “Hold on a bit,” he added, rising; “I’ll have to change my shirt. Won’t keep you waitin’ long.”

“Another pot o’ beer for this ’ere gen’lem’n,” said the sailor to the barman as Sloper left the room.

Paying for the drink, he returned and put the pot on the table. Then, turning to Miles, he said in a low voice and with an intelligent look—

“Come outside for a bit, messmate. I wants to speak to ’ee.”

Miles rose and followed the man in much surprise.

“You’ll excuse me, sir,” he said, when a few yards away from the door; “but I see that you’re green, an’ don’t know what a rascally place you’ve got into. I’ve been fleeced there myself, and yet I’m fool enough to go back! Most o’ the parties there—except the sailors an’ sodgers—are thieves an’ blackguards. They’ve drugged your beer, I know; that’s why I capsized it for you, and the feller that has got hold o’ you is a well-known decoy-duck. I don’t know how much of the ready you may have about you, but this I does know, whether it be much or little, you wouldn’t have a rap of it in the mornin’ if you stayed the night in this here house.”

“Are you sure of this, friend?” asked Miles, eyeing his companion doubtfully.

“Ay, as sure as I am that my name’s Jack Molloy.”

“But you’ve been shamming drunk all this time. How am I to know that you are not shamming friendship now?”

“No, young man,” returned the seaman with blinking solemnity. “I’m not shammin’ drunk. I on’y wish I was, for I’m three sheets in the wind at this minute, an’ I’ve a splittin’ headache due i’ the mornin’. The way as you’ve got to find out whether I’m fair an’ above-board is to look me straight in the face an’ don’t wink. If that don’t settle the question, p’r’aps it’ll convince you w’en I tells you that I don’t care a rap whether you go back to that there grog-shop or not. Only I’ll clear my conscience—leastways, wot’s left of it—by tellin’ ye that if you do—you—you’ll wish as how you hadn’t—supposin’ they leave you the power to wish anything at all.”

“Well, I believe you are a true man, Mister Molloy—”

“Don’t Mister me, mate,” interrupted the seaman.

“My name’s Jack Molloy, at your service, an’ that name don’t require no handle—either Mister or Esquire—to prop it up.”

The way in which the sailor squared his broad shoulders when he said this rendered it necessary to prop himself up. Seeing which, Miles afforded the needful aid by taking his arm in a friendly way.

“But come, let us go back,” he said. “I must pay for my beer, you know.”

“Your beer is paid for, young man,” said Molloy, stopping and refusing to move. “I paid for it, so you’ve on’y got to settle with me. Besides, if you go back you’re done for. And you’ve no call to go back to say farewell to your dear friend Sloper, for he’ll on’y grieve over the loss of your tin. As to the unpurliteness o’ the partin’—he won’t break his heart over that. No—you’ll come wi’ me down to the Sailors’ Welcome near the dock-gates, where you can get a good bed for sixpence a night, a heavy blow-out for tenpence, with a splendid readin’-room, full o’ rockin’ chairs, an’ all the rest of it for nothin’. An there’s a lavatory—that’s the name that they give to a place for cleanin’ of yourself up—a lavatory—where you can wash yourself, if you like, till your skin comes off! W’en I first putt up at the Welcome, the messmate as took me there said to me, says he, ‘Jack,’ says he, ‘you was always fond o’ water.’ ‘Right you are,’ says I. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘there’s a place in the Sailors’ Welcome where you can wash yourself all day, if you like, for nothing!’

“I do b’lieve it was that as indooced me to give in. I went an’ saw this lavatory, an’ I was so took up with it that I washed my hands in every bason in the place—one arter the other—an’ used up ever so much soap, an’—would you believe it?—my hands wasn’t clean after all! Yes, it’s one the wery best things in Portsm’uth, is Miss Robinson’s Welcome—”

“Miss Robinson again!” exclaimed Miles.

“Ay—wot have you got to find fault wi’ Miss Robinson?” demanded the sailor sternly.

“No fault to find at all,” replied Miles, suffering himself to be hurried away by his new friend; “but wherever I have gone since arriving in Portsmouth her name has cropped up!”

“In Portsmouth!” echoed the sailor. “Let me tell you, young man, that wherever you go all over the world, if there’s a British soldier there, Miss Sarah Robinson’s name will be sure to crop up. Why, don’t you know that she’s ‘The Soldiers’ Friend’?”

“I’m afraid I must confess to ignorance on the point—yet, stay, now you couple her name with ‘The Soldier’s Friend,’ I have got a faint remembrance of having heard it before. Have I not heard of a Miss Weston, too, in connection with a work of some sort among sailors?”

“Ay, no doubt ye have. She has a grand Institoot in Portsm’uth too, but she goes in for sailors only—all over the kingdom—w’ereas Miss Robinson goes in for soldiers an’ sailors both, though mainly for the soldiers. She set agoin’ the Sailors’ Welcome before Miss Weston began in Portsm’uth, an’ so she keeps it up, but there ain’t no opposition or rivalry. Their aims is pretty much alike, an’ so they keep stroke together wi’ the oars. But I’ll tell you more about that when you get inside. Here we are! There’s the dock-gates, you see, and that’s Queen Street, an’ the Welcome’s close at hand. It’s a teetotal house, you know. All Miss Robinson’s Institoots is that.”

“Indeed! How comes it, then, that a man—excuse me—‘three sheets in the wind,’ can gain admittance?”

“Oh! as to that, any sailor or soldier may get admittance, even if he’s as drunk as a fiddler, if he on’y behaves his-self. But they won’t supply drink on the premises, or allow it to be brought in—’cept inside o’ you, of coorse. Cause why? you can’t help that—leastwise not without the help of a stomach-pump. Plenty o’ men who ain’t abstainers go to sleep every night at the Welcome, ’cause they find the beds and other things so comfortable. In fact, some hard topers have been indooced to take the pledge in consekince o’ what they’ve heard an’ seen in this Welcome, though they came at first only for the readin’-room an’ beds. Here, let me look at you under this here lamp. Yes. You’ll do. You’re something like a sea-dog already. You won’t object to change hats wi’ me?”

“Why?” asked Miles, somewhat amused.

“Never you mind that, mate. You just putt yourself under my orders if you’d sail comfortably before the wind. I’ll arrange matters, an’ you can square up in the morning.”

As Miles saw no particular reason for objecting to this fancy of his eccentric friend, he exchanged his soft cap for the sailor’s straw hat, and they entered the Welcome together.

Chapter Three.

The “Sailors’ Welcome”—Miles has a Night of it and Enlists—His Friend Armstrong has an Agreeable Surprise at the Soldiers’ Institute

It was not long before our hero discovered the reason of Jack Molloy’s solicitude about his appearance. It was that he, Miles, should pass for a sailor, and thus be in a position to claim the hospitality of the Sailors’ Welcome,—to the inner life of which civilians were not admitted, though they were privileged, with the public in general, to the use of the outer refreshment-room.

“Come here, Jack Molloy,” he said, leading his friend aside, when he made this discovery. “You pride yourself on being a true-blue British tar, don’t you?”

“I does,” said Jack, with a profound solemnity of decision that comported well with his character and condition.

“And you would scorn to serve under the French flag, or the Turkish flag, or the Black flag, or any flag but the Union Jack, wouldn’t you?”

“Right you are, mate; them’s my sentiments to a tee!”

“Well, then, you can’t expect me to sail under false colours any more than yourself,” continued Miles. “I scorn to sail into this port under your straw hat, so I’ll strike these colours, bid you good-bye, and make sail for another port where a civilian will be welcome.”

Molloy frowned at the floor for some moments in stern perplexity.

“You’ve took the wind out o’ my sails entirely, you have,” he replied at last; “an’ you’re right, young man, but I’m troubled about you. If you don’t run into this here port you’ll have to beat about in the offing all night, or cast anchor in the streets, for I don’t know of another lodgin’ in Portsm’uth w’ere you could hang out except them disrepitible grog-shops. In coorse, there’s the big hotels; but I heerd you say to Sloper that you was bound to do things cheap, bein’ hard up.”

“Never mind, my friend,” said Miles quickly. “I will manage somehow; so good-night, and many thanks to you for the interest you have taken in—”

“Avast, mate! there’s no call to go into action in sitch a hurry. This here Sailors’ Welcome opens the doors of its bar an’ refreshment-room, an’ spreads its purvisions before all an’ sundry as can afford to pay its moderate demands. It’s on’y the after-cabin you’re not free to. So you’ll have a bit supper wi’ me before you set sail on your night cruise.”

Being by that time rather hungry as well as fatigued, Miles agreed to remain for supper. While they were engaged with it, he was greatly impressed with the number of sailors and marines who passed into the reading-room beyond the bar, or who sat down at the numerous tables around to have a hearty supper, which they washed down with tea and coffee instead of beer or gin—apparently with tremendous appetite and much satisfaction.