I'm sure.'
'All right, my boy,' cried old A-ll, softened at once, 'you are a nice little lad, but remember that if your peccadillo should be worked up into a scandalous story, it might seriously compromise those young ladies' reputations, and what is worse, spoil their market.'
'Quite so,' said I, 'I fully see the force of your reasoning. It shall not occur again.'
'That's a good boy,' said the hearty old skipper, shaking me by the hand with a vigour that numbed the digits for half an hour and brought the tears to my eyes with pain, 'you'll do; you're not a bad sort, I see; pity your friends didn't make a sailor, instead of a soldier, of you!'
And so the matter ended.
A few days afterwards, the calm still continuing, the captain ordered the planks to be slung over the ship's side, and half a dozen men were set to scrape the sides, remove the seaweed and brighten up the copper a bit. Now this is a job that Jack has a mortal aversion to, and with reason, for while his head is exposed to the vertical rays of a tropical sun, his feet are ever and anon immersed in the briny element at the risk of being snapped hold of by the sharks! So poor Jack was not in the best of humour. Now it happened that an old weatherbeaten tar, while scrubbing the ship's side immediately below the quartergallery that had been the scene of my escapade, was suddenly startled by a most unseemly explosion above him which sounded amazingly like a rousing fart. As a natural consequence Jack cast his eyes aloft, and beheld a pair of enchanting white buttocks and a hairy cunny, such as had not blessed his sight since
The last time he parted at Wapping Old Stairs
With Sally …
But just as he was admiring these symmetrical proportions, there came unfortunately another explosion, immediately followed by a round shot which hit poor Jack in the eye.
'Damn my bloody eyes!' cried the tar apostrophising, I presume, the offended organ of vision, and being armed with a boat-hook to steady himself withal, he inverted it, and gave a thrust with the butt end, with so sure an aim that he effectually stopped the vent of the gun that had shot him. There was a screech, of course, and the insulted fair was rescued from her perilous situation, Dr Porteus being called in to examine the wound.
A report having been made to the captain, the following amusing dialogue ensued.
Captain on the poop, leaning over the starboard side: 'Hullo, you fellow down there.'
'Aye-aye, sir.'
'What are you up to you rascal?'
Jack: 'Scrubbing the ship your honour.'
Captain: 'But what have you been up to with that boat-hook?'
Jack: 'Holding on, your honour.'
Captain: 'Holding on, you damned tailoring son of a b-h! What have you been doing to the girl?'
Jack: 'Blasted b-h sh-t in my eye, your honour.'
Captain: 'No reason, you son of a sea cook, that you should b-r her with the boat-hook.'
As this elegant conversation was carried on in a loud tone of voice, it was of course heard by everyone on board, and considered a capital joke by all but the sufferer, who I lament to say was poor Mrs Fraser, who, alas! had already had quite enough of the 'butt end of the boat hook' before she came aboard.
I must confess, however, that it so disgusted me that I could never poke her again. The idea of so sweet a creature etc., etc., quite cooled my amorous inclinations. I was voluptuous but not dirty, and that shot which hit poor Jack in the eye had quite denuded me of my ardent passion for Mrs Fraser's charms.
She, however, got plenty of poking from the mates of the ship, from the officers who were passengers on board and, I believe (but 'tell it not in Gath, repeat it not in the streets of Ascalon'), from the captain.
Three weeks after we arrived at Madras, all the Misses W-r were married; start not, courteous reader, and do not condemn such a statement as improbable; I assure you on the honour of a gentleman it is the truth. Henrietta married Captain F- of the — th Light Cavalry; Lucy espoused Captain O- of the same regiment, brother of the Earl of O-w, of Clan-n Park, in the county of G-, while Fanny the little filly of fourteen, was led to the hymeneal alter by the eccentric Lieutenant E-, whose greatest ambition was to 'fuck a lady'.
And so I lost sight of the darlings and proceeded to join my regiment.
'Oh, it's all damned fine,' I hear some fellow exclaim, 'but you don't expect us to believe all this,'
''Pon my soul,' says I in reply, ''tis true as the — ' 'Gospel', I was going to add, but feeling how very little guarantee of truth there is in the comparison, I will say, as true as women have cunts — a fact the most captious will not dispute.
CHAPTER 2
I had not been two days at the cadets' quarters at Fort St George, when I was ordered to do duty pro tempore with the — th Regiment at Vepery, a suburb of Madras, and I joined accordingly.
There being a suite of rooms to let in the mess house, I preferred taking them to going into cantonments; they were only 50 rupees a month (?2 10s. 6d.).
Now it happened that the bungalow adjoining the mess house was an establishment for young ladies — i.e., 'half caste' young ladies. Now these, 'nut-brown maidens' (as Thompson, the poet, I think it is, calls them) were accustomed to bathe naked in a lake (tank is the Indian word), before sunrise, which tank had been constructed in their compound (anglice, garden) for that purpose, and it also happened that my dubash (i.e. butler), who, par parenthesis, had a keen eye for his master's intrigues, had advised me of the fact.
The walls of the school compound were high, but as my rooms were upstairs and not on the ground floor of the mess house, I could very easily overlook them.
In India the houses are constructed with a deep verandah or collonnade all round, so that the apartments may be shaded from the fervent heat of the climate; from the front of these verandahs hang mats or blinds made of the sweet-smelling cuscus root, and these are kept wet, by having water continually thrown upon them, so that the air, however hot it is outside, enters the verandah and house at once cool and fragrant. It is very easy to see through these blinds from within, but persons outside can discern nothing. Every morning then, the moment I got out of bed, I would seat myself in a lounge chair, and with a cheroot and a cup of coffee, sit and smoke, watching the gambols of the young girls in the water.
The sight I then obtained so fired my imagination that I conceived an ardent longing to be amongst them. These half-caste girls have generally remarkably fine figures — some of the girls before me were perfect. Their hair was particularly luxuriant and beautiful, and one or two had pretty faces, though it must be confessed a slight tint of the rose would have freshened them up wonderfully.
However, Europeans get used to pale cheeks in time.
I called to Ballaram, my dubash; he was a fine looking fellow of the Mahratta caste, who never did any work, but merely catered for my table, and kept the other servants in order — a sort of gentlemanlike major-domo in fact. He approached as grave as a judge.
'You are a man of experience,' said I, 'cast your eyes over those girls and tell me which will make the best bedfellow?'
Ballaram examined them attentively.
'For make fuckee business, sahib, that girl who is splashing the other one would be too much good, but if master thinks about preety facee and fine body, the missee who is squeezing the water out her hair very brabher hie.'
'Do you think any gentleman has had her yet?'
'Dat ting who can tell, sahib?'
'But I suppose the old women who keep these schools turn a pagoda or two now and then by means of these girls who after all are only the daughters of small shopkeepers in the Black Town; of what manner of consequence can be the reputation of the little daughter of a half-caste shopkeeper?'
