the fort, with his pistols above his head.  When he gets over, bang goes one pistol, an’ he sets up a shout:  ’One and all, my boys! one and all, hurray!’—­a-dreamin’ I s’pose as he was captain of a boardin’ party an a crew o’ swabs behind him.  Up he goes, up the bastion; bang goes t’other pistol; then he outs with his cutlass, a-roarin’ hurray with a voice like a twelve pounder; down goes three o’ them Moors; another breaks Jack’s cutlass with his simitar; bless you, what’s he care? don’t care a straw, which his name is Strahan; he’ve got a fist, he have, an’ he dashes it in the Moor’s face, collars his simitar, cuts his throat and sings out, ’Ho, mateys! this ‘ere fort’s mine!’

“Up comes three or four of his mates what heard his voice; they swings round the cannon on the bastion an’ turns it on the enemy; bang! bang! and bless your heart, the Moors cut and run, an’ the fort was ourn.”

At the moment Desmond thought that Bulger was drawing the long bow.  But meeting Captain Speke of the Kent a little later, he asked how much truth there was in the story.

“’Tis all true,” said the captain, laughing, “but not the whole truth.  The day after Strahan’s mad performance the admiral sends for him:  discipline must be maintained, you know.  ‘What’s this I hear about you?’ says Mr. Watson, with a face of thunder.  Strahan bobbed, and scratched his head, and twirled his hat in his hand, and says:  ’Why to be sure, sir, ‘twas I took the fort, and I hope there ain’t no harm in it!’ By George! ’twas as much as the admiral could do to keep a straight face.  He got the fellow to tell us about it:  we had our faces in our handkerchiefs all the time.  Then Mr. Watson gave him a pretty rough wigging, and wound up by saying that he’d consult me as to the number of lashes to be laid on.

“You should have seen the fellow’s face!  As he went out of the cabin I heard him mutter:  ’Well, if I’m to be flogged for this ’ere haction, be hanged if I ever take another fort alone by myself as long as I live!’”

“Surely he wasn’t flogged?” said Desmond, laughing heartily.

“Oh, no!  Mr. Watson told us as a matter of form to put in a plea for the fellow, and then condescended to let him off.  Pity he’s such a loose fish!”

For two months Desmond remained with Clive.  He was with him at the capture of Hugli, and in that brisk fight at Calcutta on the fifth of February, which gave the Nawab his first taste of British quality.  Sirajuddaula was encamped to the northeast of the town with a huge army.  In a heavy fog, about daybreak, Clive came up at the head of a mixed force of king’s troops, sepoys and sailors, some two thousand men in all.  Hordes of Persian cavalry charged him through the mist, but they were beaten off, and Clive forced his way through the enemy’s camp until he came near the Nawab’s own tents, pitched in Omichand’s garden.  Sirajuddaula himself was within an ace of being captured.  His troops made but a poor stand against the British, and by midday the battle was over.