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and interpretate then," requested Hank, and marched up to the cook, closely followed by Buddy.
"When do we get our doo an' lawful eats, Slush?" he asked mildly.
The cook ignored him utterly and turned to go in lofty silence, but a huge hand shot out and sank with the grip of a vice into the fat of his bulging neck, another seized his wrist, and he was run as a perambulator is run by a child, straight to the side of the ship.
"Ask the pore gink if he can swim any," requested Hank, holding the man's head over the side.
Boldini did so.
The gink kicked out viciously, but made no other reply.
"Up with it, Bud--attaboy!" whooped Hank, and Buddy diving at the agitated legs, gathered them in, and raised them on to the taffrail.
The crowd of recruits cheered joyously.
I thought the man was really going overboard, and begged them not to waste a perfectly good cook.
"Sure," said Hank. "He's gotta get us some grub first," and they threw the cook on the deck un-gently.
The man lumbered to his feet, and, again seizing him, Hank ran him to the galley and threw him through the door.
"Cookez-vous, pronto!" quoth he, and the cook seized a heavy iron saucepan and rushed out again.
But alas, it was as a weapon and not as a utensil that he wished to use it. Swinging it up with all his strength--he found it wrenched from his hand and placed ringingly upon his head.
"He's contumelious," said Hank. "He's onobedient to my signs," and became earnest. Taking the man by the throat he started to choke him.
"Tell him I'm hungry, Bo," he said to Boldini. "Tell him he can eat outer my hand when I ain't riz by hunger. . . . I gotta eat outer his pots first though."
Boldini assured the cook that Hank would tear him limb from limb, and the angry crowd of recruits would see that nobody rescued him either.
The fellow ceased to struggle, and Hank hurled him into the galley.
A sort of ship's quartermaster, followed by a sailor, came up, and I feared trouble. Visions of us all in irons, awaiting a court-martial at Oran, floated before my eyes.
"Assaulting the cook?" quoth the man in uniform. "Good! Kill the thrice-accursed thieving food-spoiler, and may le bon Dieu assist you."
I gathered that he was not very fond of Slushy.
"His assistance will not be required, Monsieur le Contre-maître," said the smiling Boldini, and with horrible oaths and grimaces and the worst possible grace, the cook produced a number of loaves of bread, a pail of cold stew, and some macaroni.
"We'll have that hot," announced Boldini, pointing to the stew.
With very violent curses the cook said we would not--and the crowd snarled.
On understanding this reply, Hank instructed Boldini to inform the cook that unless he did precisely as he was told, there would be great sorrow for him when we had fed. If he were obedient he would be forgiven.
The stew was put over the galley-fire in a great pan.
"Can't he rustle a few onions and sech?" enquired Buddy, pushing into the galley.
Seeing that he was a very small man, the cook gave him a violent shove in the chest, and sent him staggering.
"I'll talk to you posthumorously, Cookie," said Buddy, with ominous calm. "We wants you whole and hearty like, for the present."
"Out, little dog! Out, you indescribable pollution," snarled the cook in French.
Under Boldini's instruction and Hank's compulsion, the cook produced a string of onions and added them to the soupe.
"Watch him well, or he'll poison us," advised Glock, the German, who, but yesterday, had called Hank a "dirdy tief" and now appeared to love him as a brother.
He watched, very well, and gave every encouragement we could think of.
Before long, we were squatting on the deck, each man with a well-filled gamelle of excellent stew and a loaf of bread, feeding heartily and calling blessings on Hank, the hero of the hour. Vogué tried to kiss him.
Again the fat cook emerged from the galley in search of relaxation and repose, and with a curse turned to go.
"He ought by rights to give us each a litre of wine," said Boldini. "He's got it and means to sell it."
"Say, Bo," shouted Hank thereupon. "Don' desert us! Did you say it was wine or cawfee you was keeping fer us?"
Boldini translated.
"'Crè bon sang!" roared the cook, raising his hands above his head, and then shaking his big dirty fist at Boldini. "To hell with you starving gutter-scrapings! You foul swine of the slums of Europe! You . . ."
"Sounds good!" remarked Buddy.
"I guess he's saying 'No,'" opined Hank. "I'll make signs to him agin," and he rose and strode towards the gesticulating ruffian.
The cook retreated into the galley, one hand to his throat.
"Look out for a knife," called Boldini.
But the cook was cowed, and reappeared with a wooden bucket containing three or four quarts of wine. This he handed to Hank, with a wish that it might choke him first and corrode his interior after.
He then requested Boldini to inform us that we were a cowardly gang of apaches and wolves, who were brave enough in a band, and slinking curs individually. He would fight and destroy every one of us--except the big one--and glad of the chance.
Boldini did so.
"I'm the smallest," remarked Buddy, and left it at that, while he finished his bread and wine.
I am a law-abiding person by nature and by training (or I was at that time), and regretted all this unseemliness. But what a loathsome blackguard a man must be to swindle hungry bewildered men (whose pay was a halfpenny a day and who had joined the army to get it!), to rob them of their meagre allowance of food in order that he might sell it to them for their last coppers, when they could hold out no longer.
According to Boldini it was this scoundrel's regular custom to pretend to each draft of ignorant browbeaten foreigners that the Government made no provision for them, and that what they wanted they must buy from him. If they were absolutely penniless they got precisely nothing at all for forty-eight hours, and the cook sold their wine and rations to other steerage passengers or to the sailors.
When they understood this, Hank and Buddy discussed the advisability of "sure eradicating" the man--its desirability being self-evident. They decided they must leave this duty, with so many others, unperformed, as the Messageries Maritimes Company might behave officiously and prefer French law to lynch law.
"But I'll expostulate some with the all-fired skunk--when we finished with him as a cook," observed Buddy. . . .
We lay on the deck propped against the hatch far into the glorious night, Hank and Buddy rolling cigarettes with my tobacco, and leaves from my pocket-book, while I enjoyed my dear old briar, as we listened to Boldini's wonderful tales of the Legion. . . .
The moon rose and flooded the sea with silver light. . . .
By this time to-morrow, I might be with Michael and Digby. . . . I began to nod, fell asleep, woke cold and stiff, and retired to a very unpleasant hole in the fo'c'sle, where there were tiers of bunks and many sorrows.
I slept for about ten hours and woke feeling as fit as a fiddle and ready for anything--particularly breakfast.
§6.
According to Boldini, this should be provided at eleven o'clock, and should consist of stew and bread. At ten-thirty, by his advice, we appointed Hank as spokesman and sergeant, with Boldini as interpreter,