The officer told David to stay at his post, and hurried aft in the wake of the quartermaster. The cadet could hear seamen running from the other side of the ship to re-enforce the peace party, and presently one of them dashed up the pier as if to call the police patrol boat, which lay at the next dock. The cadet had seen enough of the fire-room force, a hundred and fifty strong, to know that the coal-passers and firemen were as brutal and disorderly men ashore as could be found in the slums of a great seaport. But such an uproar as this right alongside the ship was out of the ordinary.