"
"Hah-h! Meantime this, sir, is, as I may say, _recherche_, unique,
fahscinating."
"I must set _my_ watch now," laughed the surgeon, and he whistled for
the male nurses. He had drilled them to perfection in a week or two, and
they had no easy time with him, for he was resolved to have naval
precision and naval smartness on board the _Cassall_; and Tom was
thankful that a man whose cheek showed chubby signs of containing a quid
of tobacco, was not instantly suspended from the gaff. That was what he
said, at any rate.
The _Robert Cassall_ picked up the fleet just when the boarding was at
its height, and her arrival caused a wild scene. Work and discipline
were forgotten for a while: men set off flares which were absurdly
ineffective in daylight; they jumped on the thofts of boats, ran up the
rigging, and performed all sorts of clumsy antics out of sheer
goodwill, as the beautiful steamer worked slowly along, piling up a
soft, snowy scuffle of foam at her forefoot. The spare hands who had
been brought out for the cruise yelled salutations to friends, and one
of them casually remarked: "If this had happened before the drink was
done away with, there would have been a funny old booze in some o' them
ar smacks, just for excitement like." There were no patients from the
first fleet excepting one man with that hideous poisoned hand which,
like death, cometh soon or late to every North Sea fisher. He was sent
back for his kit; one of the _Cassal's_ hands was sent in his place, and
the steamer rushed away after leaving a stock of tobacco with the
Mission smack.
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