CHAPTER XVIII
JOLLY TARS IN EGYPT
After the work of the morning had been gotten out of the way next day,the word was passed about that shore parties were to be allowed to leavethe ship immediately after the noon mess.
One party was to spend the day in Suez, while the other was to take alonger journey. The Battleship Boys were of the latter party. There wereall of fifty of them. When they were ready to start they marched to thequarter-deck, where the captain addressed them.
"I am giving you three days' shore leave, men, in recognition offaithful service and attention to duty. I shall expect you to carryyourselves as befits an American man-of-wars-man. Arrangements have beenmade for you to visit Cairo and the Pyramids. I shall hope to see youall report on time and happy. That will be all, men. The steamers arewaiting to convey you to the landing."
The men, regardless of discipline, gave three cheers for CaptainFarnham.
Then they piled over the side of the ship with shouts and laughter, noeffort being made to check their merriment.
"It pays to be good," howled Hickey from the bow of the steamer to thosestill aboard. "If you're good you can go visit your friends, themummies. I'll give your kindest to the caliphs."
With a shrill whistle the steamers headed for the landing, every jackieon board singing. Reaching the landing, the whole crowd rushed for thetrain that was waiting to convey them to Cairo.
"Oh, look at the man with the kimono," shouted Dan.
"That's no kimono; that's the conductor's uniform," answered a voice.
There were a number of American tourists aboard the waiting train, andmany of these waved American flags from the windows.
The jackies went wild. They hurrahed for America; they hurrahed for thetourists, winding up with a "Hip, hip, hurrah, for the kings of ancientEgypt."
By this time the conductor was charging up and down beside the train asif he had suddenly lost his senses.
"Has he gone crazy?" called Sam.
"No; he is always that way when he is starting the train. He has a fitat every station on the line. He wouldn't think he were earning hissalary if he didn't," answered a traveler.
The conductor's robe, a cross between a kimono and a bath robe, wastaken in at the waist by a sash, while a bright red fez adorned hishead. The fez was the wonder of the jackies.
"That would match your hair, wouldn't it, red-head?" called a shipmatewho observed Hickey looking at the fez.
"I'll have it, too, if he gets near enough to me. Maybe you think Idon't dare?"
"I dare you."
Sam made a dive for the conductor. Dan Davis stuck out a foot and Hickeymeasured his length on the ground, right at the feet of the gayly robedconductor.
"Who did that?" demanded the red-headed boy, bounding to his feet, hiseyes blazing with wrath.
"I did. Do you think I am going to let you mix us up in any moretrouble? If you had done what you proposed, we should have beenarrested, the whole crowd of us. Now, behave yourself, Sam Hickey, orI'll thrash you right here before the train starts."
"That's the talk, Dynamite!" called another sailor.
"You can't do it. You can't----" sputtered Sam.
"All aboard!" howled the jackies. At the same time half a dozen of thempicked Sam up bodily and tossed him in through a car window. The enginegave a toot, and the train moved off, all hands singing the "StarSpangled Banner."
For some distance the route led along the edge of the Suez canal. Shipswere passed, and at sight of one the sailors would lean far out of thewindows, swinging their caps and hurrahing.
The conductor hurried along the running board, trying to make thepassengers keep their heads in, but he might as well have tried toprevent the wheels going around.
It was like throwing a cat into a bed of catnip and expecting him to becalm. The sailors joked the conductor good-naturedly, but it is doubtfulif he understood a word of what they were saying.
"He's got more on his mind than the captain of a battleship," laughedDan.
"More than the admiral of the fleet, you mean," shouted a jackie. "Iwouldn't have his job for the whole railroad itself. They say they chopa conductor's head off every time a train is late in this country."
"I know of some roads in America to which they ought to apply thatpractice."
"So do I," agreed Sam Hickey. "This reminds me of the milk train on thepeanut road out at Piedmont. Piedmont is where we hail from, mates," heexplained.
"Yes; you look the part," answered a shipmate, at which there was a roarof laughter.
Sam's eyelids were at half mast.
"I'll rub your nose in the desert for that when I get----"
"Go tell it to the Sphinx. We're on the desert now."
Stretches of yellow sand reached away and on to the foot of the Arabianmountains in the far distance. Along the track the train passedprocessions of dusty travelers, gorgeously arrayed with brilliantlycolored mantles thrown over their heads.
"Look! Look, there's a circus going by!" yelled Hickey.
"Where, where?" Jackies rushed to his side of the car and leaned farout.
"It's a caravan. What's the matter with you, red-head?"
A long line of camels was dragging itself along the highway, each camelholding the bobbing figure of a native, while on foot at the rear strunga long procession of other natives. It was a most picturesque sight. Itwas the first time the Battleship Boys had seen camels on their nativesoil, and the boys leaned from the windows, watching the unusual sightuntil the caravan was lost in the distance.
Villages of yellow mud huts, their flat roofs covered with thatch, thebuildings surrounded by a drove of Arab goats, chickens, pigs, camelsand donkeys, were frequently passed, the sight causing the jackies keenamusement.
Everything was quaint and unusual; the lurching camels, the Arabs withtheir long guns and queer costumes, all combined to make the journey onelong to be remembered.
"Cairo! All out for Cairo!" sang the voice of the petty officer incharge of the party.
"Cairo! Cairo!" howled the jackies.
"Remember, boys, you are in a city now--not out on the desert."
This suggestion was sufficient for the moment, and the men-o'-warsmenlowered their voices as they did so. But another din almost as great ashad been their own arose. A perfect army of beggars surged toward them.Arabs, Greeks, Hindoos, Nubians, black, white and brown men surroundedthe jackies, crying out in shrill voices, "Backsheesh! Backsheesh!" Alltongues sounded alike when it came to begging.
"Get out of my pocket, you heathen!" roared Sam Hickey.
"This is almost as bad as Paris!" cried Dan Davis, trying to fight hisway through the mob. "But I'd rather meet a regiment of these howlingDervishes, or whatever they are, than one Paris guide."
"Give them the flying wedge," shouted a jackie.
"Whoop! Go!"
Beggars tumbled to right and left. Greek, Hindoo, Arab, Nubian andAlbanian went down in a yelling, shouting heap on either side as thejackies charged into their ranks.
Clang, clang!
"Look out for the trolley car," shouted Dan.
"What--trolley cars in this heathen country!" cried one.
"Yes, and I'll bet that car there came from Newport, R. I.," jeeredHickey. "Yes, sir; that's the very car that I used to ride to town onfrom the training station."
A shout greeted this announcement, but the sailors were amazed at whatthey saw. Had it not been for the strange mixture of races, and thequaint costumes, the sightseers might well have imagined themselves insome American city. Veiled women rode in carriages through the busystreets; here and there an automobile tooted its horn, while dogsinfested the gutters, snapping at the heels of the Navy men.
"This is the original crazy house," laughed Dan. "I never imaginedanything like it."
The sailors did not separate. They traveled about together, attracting agreat deal of attention. Now and then they met an American, who, when headdressed them in their own language, would be gre
eted with a cheer. Upone street and down another strolled the jackies, sometimes singingtheir national anthem, then dropping into the march step to the "hep,hep, hep!" of one of their number.
The bazaars came in for a considerable share of attention. In these thelads bought freely all manner of curios, for most of which they paid allof twice what the articles were worth. Sam Hickey got into an argumentwith an ebony-hued Nubian who had substituted an inferior article forsomething that Sam had purchased. The fellow denied having done so, andrefused to make good the difference, or to hand over the originalarticle.
"All-right; I can't lick you without causing internationalcomplications, as the captain calls it, but I'm going to have part ofyour clothes."
With that Sam snatched the fez from the Nubian's head and stuffed it inhis trousers' pocket. The merchant made a dive at the red-headed boy,but found himself face to face with a solid wall of jackies, who hadsuddenly stepped between the enraged merchant and his victim.
"See here, you man with the iron face," threatened one, "we'll take yourwhole shop along if you don't look out, and we won't buy it, either."
"Come along, boys; we can't afford to have any row here," warned Dan."We want to see the Pyramids, you know."
"Hurrah for the Pyramids!" shouted the boys.
"Donkey, sir, donkey?" questioned a group of native boys as the jackiescame from the bazaar.
"Who's a donkey?" demanded Sam Hickey.
"Want a donkey, sir?"
An idea occurred to Dan.
"How much do you charge for a ride?"
"Twenty piastres for half an hour," answered the lad, in very goodEnglish.
"Twenty pi----"
"That's about ten cents," spoke up a sailor who had been in Cairo on aformer cruise.
"Good! How many donkeys have you? Enough for all of us?"
"I get 'em. You wait."
"If you'll hurry we will wait. Don't be long. My friends are not in amood to wait for anything to-night. Run, boy!"
The boy darted away. In a few minutes donkeys began gathering, theiryoung masters prodding the lazy beasts, urging them along with shrillshouts and sundry twists of the animal's tails.
"Look at the donkeys," shouted the jackies. "What's going on here?"
"You are all going to take a ride with me," announced Dan Davis. "We'llwind up the evening with a parade; then we'll pipe up hammocks."
"Hurrah for Little Dynamite!" howled the men.
"Let's form a cavalry company and charge the town."
"The town will do all the charging, and then some more," laughed Dan."Mount."
With shouts of mirth the jackies swung themselves to the backs of thedonkeys.
"Forward, march!" commanded Dan.
The grotesque procession started away, while the sides of the narrowstreets were lined with natives and foreigners, all laughing at theludicrous spectacle.
It was harmless fun, the pent-up spirits of the sailor boys being givenfull play after weeks at sea.
"Somebody sing," suggested a voice.
"I'll sing," answered Hickey.
"No; let Dynamite. He's the only sweet-voiced warbler in the crew. Whatwill it be, Dynamite?"
Dan cleared his throat.
"The harbor's past, the breezes blow, Yeo ho, lads, ho! Yeo ho! Yeo ho! 'Tis long ere we come back, I know, Yeo ho, lads, ho! Yeo ho!"
The jackies greeted the effort with a howl of delight; then all joinedin with a shout that brought people from their beds to the flat roofs oftheir houses, from which they peered down wonderingly on the strangeprocession.
"But true and bright from morn till night my home will be, And all so neat and snug and sweet, for Jack at sea; And Nancy's face to bless the place, and welcome me; Yeo ho, lads, ho! Yeo ho!
"The bo's'n pipes the watch below, Yeo ho, lads, ho! Yeo ho! Yeow!"
The song ended in a roar of laughter that was taken up from thehousetops, running down the narrow street like a wave at sea.
At that moment the bluejackets were nearing the bazaar of the Nubianwith whom Sam Hickey had had the trouble. For some reason Sam's donkeywas taken with a sudden attack of the sulks. Sam prodded the beast andyelled at him; donkey boys punched the animal with their fingers to stirhim up, but still the animal refused to move.
"Twist his tail," suggested a shipmate jeeringly.
Hickey accepted the suggestion. Half turning, he grasped the beast'stail, giving it a violent twist.
"Hee--hee--hee-h-a-w--he-e-e-e-e," protested the donkey.
The jackies shouted.
"You better get a new horn for your automobile, red-head," jeered ashipmate.
"The one he has would make a good siren for the battleship," addedanother.
Hickey was having too much trouble, about this time, to give heed to thejeers of his companions. The lazy donkey had all at once taken mattersinto his own hoofs. These hoofs were flying in all directions. Withevery kick the circle about the Battleship Boy and his mount widened.
"I'm going to fall off. Somebody catch me!" yelled Sam.
Dan Davis, though fairly doubled up with laughter, sprang from hisdonkey and ran to Sam's assistance. He did not fear that Sam would beharmed, but he saw that, with every kick, the animal was getting nearerand nearer to the bazaar.
"Hang on, Sam!" encouraged his companions.
"Sprinkle some salt on the donkey's tail," suggested another.
Dan leaped to the donkey's head.
Instantly the animal whirled. Dan, seeing what was about to occur, threwhimself forward just as the hind hoofs of the animal shot out, the boyfalling against the donkey's legs and hips.
The Battleship Boy was lifted right up into the air. He landed in a heapsome fifteen feet away.
The jackies yelled themselves hoarse, while Dan got up, rubbing himselfand grinning sheepishly.
A crash at that instant attracted their attention to the bazaar. Mr.Donkey, with the red-headed boy's arms wrapped about its neck, hadbolted into the bazaar.
Sam and the Donkey Bolted Into the Bazaar.]
The Battleship Boys in Foreign Service; or, Earning New Ratings in European Seas Page 18