Dogs -- Fiction; Great Britain. Royal Navy -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Seafaring life -- Fiction
The lieutenant leant over the hatchway, took his battered
speaking-trumpet from under his arm, and putting it to his mouth, the
deck reverberated with, "Pass the word for Smallbones forward." The dog
put himself in a baying attitude, with his fore feet on the coamings of
the hatchway, and enforced his master's orders with a deep-toned and
measured bow, wow, wow.
Smallbones soon made his appearance, rising from the hatchway like a
ghost; a thin, shambling personage, apparently about twenty years old; a
pale, cadaverous face, high cheekbones, goggle eyes, with lank hair very
thinly sown upon a head which, like bad soil, would return but a scanty
harvest. He looked like Famine's eldest son just arriving to years of
discretion. His long lanky legs were pulled so far through his
trousers, that his bare feet, and half way up to his knees, were exposed
to the chilling blast. The sleeves of his jacket were so short, that
four inches of bone above his wrist were bared to view; hat he had none;
his ears were very large, and the rims of them red with cold, and his
neck was so immeasurably long and thin, that his head appeared to topple
for want of support. When he had come on deck, he stood with one hand
raised to his forehead, touching his hair instead of his hat, and the
other occupied with a half-roasted red-herring. "Yes, sir," said
Smallbones, standing before his master.
"Be quick!" commenced the lieutenant; but here his attention was
directed to the red-herring by Snarleyyow, who raised his head and
snuffed at its fumes. Among other disqualifications of the animal, be
it observed that he had no nose except for a red-herring, or a post by
the way-side. Mr Vanslyperken discontinued his orders, took his hand
out of his great-coat pocket, wiped the drop from off his nose, and then
roared out, "How dare you appear on the quarter-deck of a king's ship,
sir, with a red-herring in your fist?"
"If you please, sir," replied Smallbones, "if I were to come for to go
to leave it in the galley I shouldn't find it when I went back."
"What do I care for that, sir? It's contrary to all the rules and
regulations of the service. Now, sir, hear me--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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