Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

GREEN HAT, THE TROUBLE-STARTER

"Dan," whispered Dave Darrin, Ensign, United States Navy, to his chum and brother officer, "do you see that fellow with the green Alpine hat and the green vest?"

"Yes," nodded Dan Dalzell.

"Watch him."

"Why?"

"He's a powerful brute, and it looks as though he's spoiling for a fight."

"You are not going to oblige him, are you?" asked Dalzell in a whisper, betraying surprise.

"Nothing like it," Darrin responded disgustedly. "Danny Grin, don't you credit me with more sense than that? Do you imagine I'd engage in a fight in a place like this?"

"Then why are you interested in what the fellow might do?" demanded Ensign Dan.

"Because I think there is going to be a lively time here. That fellow under the Alpine hat is equal to at least four of these spindling Spanish waiters. There is going to be trouble within four minutes, or I'm a poor guesser."

"Just let Mr. Green Hat start something," chuckled Ensign Dalzell in an undertone. "There are plenty of stalwart British soldiers here, and 'Tommy Atkins' never has been known to be averse to a good fair fight. The soldiers will wipe up the floor with him. Then there is the provost guard, patrolling the streets of Gibraltar. If Mr. Green Hat grows too noisy the provost guard will gather him in."

"And might also gather us in, if the provost officer thought us intelligent witnesses," muttered Darrin.

"That would be all right, too," grinned Dan. "There is bound to be a British army officer in command of the provost guard. As soon as we handed him cards showing us to be American naval officers he'd raise his cap to us, and that would be the end of it."

"I don't like to be present at rows in a place of this kind," Ensign Darrin insisted.

"Then we'd better be going," proposed Ensign Dalzell.

The place was Gibraltar, and the time nine o'clock in the evening. The two friends were seated well back in one of the several Spanish vaudeville theatres that flourish more or less in the city on the Great Rock, even in such times as this period of the great European War.

The theatre was not a low place, or it would not have been permitted to exist in Gibraltar, which, even in peace times, is under the strictest military rule, made much more strict at the beginning of the great war. The performance was an ordinary one and rather dull. At the moment three Spanish women occupied the stage, going rather hopelessly through the steps of an aimless dance, while three musicians ground out the music for the dancers. The next number, as announced on a card that hung at one side of the stage, was to be a pantomime.

One particularly unpleasant feature only was to be noted in the place. Wines and liquors were served to those who chose to order them, Spanish waiters passing up and down the aisles in search of custom.

Mr. Green Hat, to the knowledge of Ensigns Darrin and Dalzell, had been a much too frequent customer. He was now arguing with two waiters about an alleged mistake in the changing of the money he had handed one of them....