"Been!" cried the other with rollicking laughter. "That's a good un. Ere's a kid ain't eard where we been. Been!" the sudden thunder in his voice. "Why, in Boulong Arbour among Boney's craft. H'in and h'out, under Nap's nose. Stormed the Arbour Battery; set the gun-vessels afire; and came out under their guns, colours at the truck, and the bosun's boy in the mizzenchains singin-- O it's a snug little island, A right little tight little island." He clutched the boy's shoulder, and thrust flaming eyes into his. "Old man's got a game leg since Camperdown. Fust Lieutenant led the landin party--Mr. Wrot. Dessay you've heard tell of him. Dry Wrot, they called him. Tubby little bloke, all belly and big voice. Fine chap to fight, though, be God--only so thirsty, same as me. He took it in the tummy, crawlin through the embrasure--hand-grenade, I fancies. I was next man on the ladder." He was marching up and down, his hands swinging, seeming to smoulder almost in the gloom. "Pretty work in the battery, be God, as ever I see!--One time we was bungin round-shot at each other across the casement, like marbles. Give the Mossoos their due they fought like eroes; but not like h'us, sir! not like h'us!" He strode up and down, breathing flame. "Ah, you should ha seen us. I were in me glory. A bloody massacree, that's what it were. Bloody massacree. Enough to make a blessed saint weep for joy. Pommesoul it were." He turned in his stride, and the lamp showed the tears dribbling down his face. "And when we'd mushed up the blanky caboodlum: spiked the guns; sent the gunners to glory; and blow'd up the battery, who led the boys out?" He stopped dead. "Old Lush!--Lushy, the Gunner, Gorblessim!" swelling his chest, and patting it. "And why?--because there wasn't a quarter-deck officer, not so much as a middy or mate, left to do it." He resumed his strut with fighting hands. "That's our sort aboard the _Tremendous_, sir. We're the halleloojah lads to fight. And what we are, old Ding-dong made us." "Who's old Ding-dong?" asked the boy, breathlessly. The Gunner shot a finger at the block-of-granite figure forward. "That's the man as won the battle o the Nile," he whispered with husky magnificence. "And ere's the man that elped him." He bowed with wide hands. Drunk as he was there was yet a dilapidated splendour about the fellow as about an historic ruin. The boy felt it through his disgust. "I thought Nelson did a bit," he said. "Nelson did much; I did more; _e_ did most," with a wave forward. "Why!" shouting now. "Who was it led the line inside the shoal--creepin it, leadsman in the chains, soundin all the way?--We _Thunderers_, the _Goliath_ treadin mighty jealous on our heels. And who commanded the _Thunderer_?--Old Ding-dong. And what did he get for it?" He smacked a hand down on the boy's shoulder.