We saw the telegrams ourselves later on, but there wasn’t any more information. Old Gerald, my brother, didn’t belong to the Yucan Company, and we forgot all about it because there was a much more exciting telegram above this one. The United Services had beaten Blackheath by fifteen points to five—a jolly sight more exciting that was, especially as I had played for the U.S. this season before we left England, and knew all the chaps playing on our side. Well, that night I had the middle watch, and whilst the Angel and Cousin Bob (you don’t know who they are yet, but you precious soon will) were making my cocoa, the light at the Europa Signal Station began flashing our number. I telephoned to the fore-bridge to smarten up the signalman, and ask what the dickens he meant by being asleep; and then, just for practice, and for something to do, leant up against the quarterdeck rails and took in the signal. ’Admiral Superintendent to Captain Grattan. Coal lighters will come alongside at daybreak. (Full stop.) Both _Hector_ and _Hercules_ will fill up with coal and water as soon as possible, and will complete with ten days’ fresh provisions. (Full stop.)’ A second or two later the signalman came running up with his signal-pad, and, not having the faintest idea what was in the wind, I took it down to the Skipper. I had to shake him before he would wake; and when he sat up in his bunk, found his eyeglass, tucked it into his eye, and read the signal, he chuckled, ’Tut, tut, boy; we’re off somewhere—finish gunnery. Won’t old Montague be sick of life? Show it to the Commander, and repeat it to old "Spats"—I mean Captain Roger Hill.’ As I was tapping at the Commander’s door, Cousin Bob and the Angel came along, and I knew they were up to some dodge, for I could see them grinning in the light of the gangway lantern. ’Couldn’t you let us off watch, as we’ve got to coal early to-morrow? Your cocoa’s just inside the battery door,’ they asked me as I went in. The Commander was out of bed like a redshank, read the signal, and gave me his orders for the morning. ’Can I let Temple and Sparks turn in, sir, as we’re coaling early?’ ’Confound them! I suppose they’d better, the young rascals. Turn the light off as you go out, and for heaven’s sake make that lumbering ox of a sentry outside my cabin take his boots off.’ I looked round to find the two mids., but they’d taken the leave for granted and gone below, so I drank my cocoa and finished my watch by myself.