Chapter Ten.“Under Fire!”“Look alive, my lads!” shouted out our tall commander, as we stumbled about the deck of the brig, the shock as her keel touched ground knocking us off our pins and making the poor seasick chaps who were holding their heads over the side pull them in pretty promptly. “Watch, furl sails! ’Way aloft!”The sheets and halliards were let go in a twinkling before we left the deck and the topsails dropped on the caps, as well as the jib downhaul manned and the spanker brailed up, so as to prevent our being forced farther upon the shoal; and, while we were shinning up the rigging, the clewlines and buntlines were hauled by the watch below, which got in all the slack of the sails preparatory to our passing the gaskets when we got aloft, thus enabling us to furl all the canvas, and make everything snug in less time than I take to tell of it.In the meanwhile our commander made himself busy in other ways, the cutter being lowered and a party of seamen and boys sent in her with a kedge to drop astern and try to warp off; the port bower anchor being dropped at the same time, and a spring set on the cable, which was buoyed so that we could slip it in a moment in the event of her suddenly floating.A ‘distant signal’ was also hoisted at the main, consisting of a square flag on top with a ball below, which meant that we were aground and wanted assistance, to let the men on watch at the Hurst Castle signal-station know what was up with us; and, in addition, our smart commanding officer put on a party of boys at the pumps, to see whether the brig might not have strained her timbers and sprung a leak, through working about on the nasty sand bottom of the Brambles.This latter precaution, however, proved a useless one; for the gang of eager lads working away with a will at the crank-handles of the pumps, soon cleared the little amount of water that was in the bilge, and the shaft sucked dry.“Ther’ ain’t a drop in her,” reported Mr Tarbolt, the quarter-master, ‘old Jellybelly,’ as we called him amongst ourselves. “I don’t think, sir, as how she’s made a h’inch since we passed the Needles and last cleared ship.”“Very good, quarter-master,” said the commander; “you can stop pumping.”The chaps who had gone off in the cutter had been equally spry with their job, bending on a stout hemp hawser through the ring of the kedge anchor, which they dropped some half a cable’s length from the brig, bringing back the other end aboard, where it was put round the capstan on the forecastle.This was at once manned, there being no want of volunteers, every one of us wanting to have a turn at the capstan bars, even before Mr Gadgett, the gunner, who was on duty forward, gave the word.But it was a case of ‘yo heave’ and ‘paul’ in vain, the hemp cable coming home as taut as possible, and then surging off the capstan without moving the poor littleMartina hair’s-breadth from her sandy bed.“We must get out the stream anchor, Mr Gadgett,” sang out the commander. “Look alive there and rig out the davits, and send some hands into the cutter to stow the anchor properly when we lower it down!”This was done, the heavy stream anchor, which was always kept ready on the forecastle in case of any such emergency, being eased down by means of its shank painter and the fish tackle until it rested comfortably across the sternsheets of the boat; while another stout hawser accompanying it, was coiled round the whole interior of the boat on top of the thwarts.The cutter then pulled off to about the same distance at which the kedge had been dropped, though more on the quarter of the brig than dead aft; and, the end of the second hawser being brought aboard like the first, all hands set to work with a cheery song, as we had no drum and fife band with us in the brig—for, though not strictly according to naval discipline, the commander permitted the licence so as to make the fellows move round all the smarter.“Yo—ho, my lads!” bawled out old Jellybelly, quite in his element, I believe, as he liked to hear his own voice. “Round she comes! Heave and paul with a yo—heave—ho!”“By jingo, she’s moving!” Mr Gadgett quivered out, more excited than I had ever seen the grey-haired gunner before. “Another turn or two, my lads, and she’ll be afloat!”His excitement communicated itself to the commander aft, who was looking over the stern and anxiously watching the water, to see if our rudder, which was kept amidships, made any ripple on the surface; though, wide awake, our officer was keeping a keen eye, too, on the manilla hawser attached to the stream anchor, which was in such a ticklish state of tension from the strain that it was singing out like a fiddle-string.“Hurrah!” he cried a moment after. “Sheismoving, Mr Gadgett. Stand by there, furrud, to veer off the cable of the port bower!”Tramp, tramp, went the fellows round the capstan; turn by turn, in came the slack of the warp; and then in another five minutes or so, with a harsh grating sound as her keel slid off a rocky bit of the shoal on which she had rested, the gallant littleMartinwas afloat again!Almost at the same instant as the dancing motion of her hull told us that the brig had been restored to her native element, the commander, wishing to get away as soon as he could from the dangerous neighbourhood of the Brambles, gave an order to the boatswain’s mate standing near him, who instantly put his whistle to his lips and blew a shrill call whose import we all well knew.“Watch, make sail!” then shouted the commander, rubbing his hands with much satisfaction. “Topmen, aloft and loose the topsails! Let go your topsail halliards! Man the head sheets!”While these directions were being carried out, the port bower was weighed; when the jib being hoisted and the topsails dropped and sheeted home, the brig paid off on the starboard tack, picking up the kedge and stream anchor as soon as we fetched over them in rounding-to.The cutter, which had remained alongside ready for further use if required, was then hoisted up to the davits; and theMartin, spreading her wings again properly, made off towards Cowes just as one of the Government tugs, which had been despatched to our assistance from the dockyard on the receipt of a telegraphic message from Hurst Castle telling of our mishap, came round the corner of Stokes Bay, puffing away at a fine rate, and throwing up a cloud of black smoke that spoilt the beauty of the landscape, and shut out everything to leeward from view.“Begorrah!” said Mick, from whom the fine fuss and fright and flurry had banished all traces of his previous illness, making him as right as ninepence again, “they’re jist in toime to be too late, sure!”Our commander exchanged signals with the people on the tug, however, telling them that their services were not required, though thanking them for the help they would have rendered us; and the wind, which had been shifting about to all parts of the compass while we had been ashore on the sand ledge, now veering to the south’ard and west’ard, we bore away before it with squared yards up the Solent towards Spithead, where we anchored for the night, almost in the fairway, abreast of Southsea Castle.Next morning we came into harbour, when a dockyard diver was sent down to see if the brig had sustained any damage from her pranks of the previous day; but, all being found staunch and sound below, only the copper on her keel having received a little extra polish, we were ordered to go out again into the Channel and continue our cruise.The most noteworthy feature of this, excepting, of course, the setting and reefing and taking in sail on board a moving vessel, instead of practising all these merely in dumb-show as had been our wont in a stationary ship like theSaint Vincent, was the exercise we had with the old-fashioned little muzzle-loading truck guns, which were mounted on wooden carriages of the sort only seen in the oldVictorynowadays, with which theMartinwas provided.It was great fun.The boys in turn detailed to act as crews of the guns used to be numbered off in regular fashion, according to the custom of the service, just as if they were grown men and working on board a ship going into action.Number 1, who was the captain of the gun, stood in the rear; Number 2, on the right of the former, but clear of the recoil, as if to teach one that prominent and distinguished positions have their drawbacks as well as their advantages; Number 3 stood close up to the ship’s side, by the breeching of the gun on the left; and Number 4 occupied a similar post on the right, while Numbers 5 and 6 stood in the rear of 3 and 4, and so on.Through the energetic instructions of Mr Gadgett, who was a most painstaking officer, and spared no trouble to teach us our duties properly, we had learnt when ashore on our drill-ground at Haslar to master all the necessary manipulation of our ‘little barkers,’ as the gunner used to call them, learning how to cast them loose from their lashings, run them back for loading, and prepare them for firing, all in similar dumb-show fashion to our sail-drill experiences in the old ship; and now, when we were able to load with real powder and shot, and make Mr Gadgett’s ‘barkers’ bark in earnest, the interest of our gunnery drill was increased tenfold.It was splendid work; and from the first order, ‘Cast loose!’ to the last, ‘Fire!’ it was exciting to the last degree, all of us sponging, loading, and running out the little guns in the highest of spirits, as if we were fighting the Battle of Trafalgar over again, and throwing shot and shell into any number of French and Spanish three-deckers alongside!We had hard work sometimes to check ourselves from uttering a wild cheer when the order was given to pull the trigger and the gun went off with a grand ‘Bang!’ sending a cloud of white smoke inboard from its muzzle as its fiery iron messenger leaped forwards and splashed into the sea, either ahead or abeam as the case might be, throwing up a tall column of water on its first plunge that was like a sort of fountain, while it skipped onward, playing ‘ducks and drakes’ on the top of the waves, until it sank out of sight in the distance, its energy exhausted.We often used to rig out a target, made up out of an old rum puncheon, fixed on a raft of spars, which we fired at as at a mark, making very good practice, too, after a bit.Mick soon became one of our best shots, Mr Gadgett complimenting him on having the sharpest eye on board the brig, my chum often, when acting as Number 1, who you must know invariably sights the gun, succeeding in smashing our improvised target all to pieces.“How is it, Donovan,” asked the gunner on one of these occasions, “you have such a steady aim? Why, boy, you haven’t been at it very long. Your eye is like a hawk, by jingo!”Mick scratched his head in father’s way, puzzled to explain his keenness of vision.“Faith, sor,” he said at length, “it moost ’a bin tryin’ to say if I could say any thin’ good turn up afore I jined the sarvice, sure; whin me fayther wor a blissid Oitalian organ-grinder an’ none of us had nothin’ to ate, bedad!”“By jingo!” exclaimed Mr Gadgett, smiling for once, for I never previously saw the slightest change of muscle on his thin, weather-beaten, grey-whiskered face, “you’ll do!”Before we came back again from this cruise, we had a bout of bad weather while knocking about in the Channel, which brought back to my mind the yarn Larrikins told the first evening I passed on board theSaint Vincent, in order to distract my attention while he was rigging up my hammock so that it would come down by the run—of seas that were ‘mountings ’igh,’ and winds that blew the ‘’air off ’is ’ead!’I took at the time, it may be recollected, Master Larrikins’ tale with a very good pinch of the proverbial salt, believing he only intended to ‘pull my leg’; but when on the present occasion the brig began to labour heavily and the green seas, rolling over from the open sea beyond Ushant, the wind having come on to blow a regular stiff sou’-wester, topped our bulwarks and made a clean sweep of the deck, I thought possibly the old joker Larrikins, who had left the training-ship long ere this and was serving as an ordinary seaman on a foreign station, might not have been ‘stretching’ to such an extent as I had at the time imagined.The little brig, however, was a staunch sea boat, having braved much worse weather than we now experienced; and, being well handled by our commander, who was a sailor every inch of him, we ran before the gale round the easternmost end of the Isle of Wight and snugly brought up under the lee of Saint Helens, where we dropped both our anchors, remaining in this sheltered roadstead until the weather broke, when we returned to Portsmouth.So far, everything had gone well with me since I entered on board theSaint Vincent, for I had never got into any trouble beyond a slight scrape or two; but tow the Fates, as if to condone the previous good fortune with which they had favoured me, all at once did me a very bad turn, getting me into sad disgrace.Serious as the matter was, no doubt, in the eyes of the authorities, it was not, however, such a very terrible crime in itself, though it got me into the bad books of the captain, who had been so friendly disposed towards me that he often used to let me take his dog ‘Gyp’ for a walk when I went ashore.The fact was, to confess my sin outright, I committed a breach of one of the strictest regulations of the training service.I was caught smoking.But, I had better tell you all about it from the first to the last, and then, you’ll be able to judge for yourself of the heinousness of my offence.
“Look alive, my lads!” shouted out our tall commander, as we stumbled about the deck of the brig, the shock as her keel touched ground knocking us off our pins and making the poor seasick chaps who were holding their heads over the side pull them in pretty promptly. “Watch, furl sails! ’Way aloft!”
The sheets and halliards were let go in a twinkling before we left the deck and the topsails dropped on the caps, as well as the jib downhaul manned and the spanker brailed up, so as to prevent our being forced farther upon the shoal; and, while we were shinning up the rigging, the clewlines and buntlines were hauled by the watch below, which got in all the slack of the sails preparatory to our passing the gaskets when we got aloft, thus enabling us to furl all the canvas, and make everything snug in less time than I take to tell of it.
In the meanwhile our commander made himself busy in other ways, the cutter being lowered and a party of seamen and boys sent in her with a kedge to drop astern and try to warp off; the port bower anchor being dropped at the same time, and a spring set on the cable, which was buoyed so that we could slip it in a moment in the event of her suddenly floating.
A ‘distant signal’ was also hoisted at the main, consisting of a square flag on top with a ball below, which meant that we were aground and wanted assistance, to let the men on watch at the Hurst Castle signal-station know what was up with us; and, in addition, our smart commanding officer put on a party of boys at the pumps, to see whether the brig might not have strained her timbers and sprung a leak, through working about on the nasty sand bottom of the Brambles.
This latter precaution, however, proved a useless one; for the gang of eager lads working away with a will at the crank-handles of the pumps, soon cleared the little amount of water that was in the bilge, and the shaft sucked dry.
“Ther’ ain’t a drop in her,” reported Mr Tarbolt, the quarter-master, ‘old Jellybelly,’ as we called him amongst ourselves. “I don’t think, sir, as how she’s made a h’inch since we passed the Needles and last cleared ship.”
“Very good, quarter-master,” said the commander; “you can stop pumping.”
The chaps who had gone off in the cutter had been equally spry with their job, bending on a stout hemp hawser through the ring of the kedge anchor, which they dropped some half a cable’s length from the brig, bringing back the other end aboard, where it was put round the capstan on the forecastle.
This was at once manned, there being no want of volunteers, every one of us wanting to have a turn at the capstan bars, even before Mr Gadgett, the gunner, who was on duty forward, gave the word.
But it was a case of ‘yo heave’ and ‘paul’ in vain, the hemp cable coming home as taut as possible, and then surging off the capstan without moving the poor littleMartina hair’s-breadth from her sandy bed.
“We must get out the stream anchor, Mr Gadgett,” sang out the commander. “Look alive there and rig out the davits, and send some hands into the cutter to stow the anchor properly when we lower it down!”
This was done, the heavy stream anchor, which was always kept ready on the forecastle in case of any such emergency, being eased down by means of its shank painter and the fish tackle until it rested comfortably across the sternsheets of the boat; while another stout hawser accompanying it, was coiled round the whole interior of the boat on top of the thwarts.
The cutter then pulled off to about the same distance at which the kedge had been dropped, though more on the quarter of the brig than dead aft; and, the end of the second hawser being brought aboard like the first, all hands set to work with a cheery song, as we had no drum and fife band with us in the brig—for, though not strictly according to naval discipline, the commander permitted the licence so as to make the fellows move round all the smarter.
“Yo—ho, my lads!” bawled out old Jellybelly, quite in his element, I believe, as he liked to hear his own voice. “Round she comes! Heave and paul with a yo—heave—ho!”
“By jingo, she’s moving!” Mr Gadgett quivered out, more excited than I had ever seen the grey-haired gunner before. “Another turn or two, my lads, and she’ll be afloat!”
His excitement communicated itself to the commander aft, who was looking over the stern and anxiously watching the water, to see if our rudder, which was kept amidships, made any ripple on the surface; though, wide awake, our officer was keeping a keen eye, too, on the manilla hawser attached to the stream anchor, which was in such a ticklish state of tension from the strain that it was singing out like a fiddle-string.
“Hurrah!” he cried a moment after. “Sheismoving, Mr Gadgett. Stand by there, furrud, to veer off the cable of the port bower!”
Tramp, tramp, went the fellows round the capstan; turn by turn, in came the slack of the warp; and then in another five minutes or so, with a harsh grating sound as her keel slid off a rocky bit of the shoal on which she had rested, the gallant littleMartinwas afloat again!
Almost at the same instant as the dancing motion of her hull told us that the brig had been restored to her native element, the commander, wishing to get away as soon as he could from the dangerous neighbourhood of the Brambles, gave an order to the boatswain’s mate standing near him, who instantly put his whistle to his lips and blew a shrill call whose import we all well knew.
“Watch, make sail!” then shouted the commander, rubbing his hands with much satisfaction. “Topmen, aloft and loose the topsails! Let go your topsail halliards! Man the head sheets!”
While these directions were being carried out, the port bower was weighed; when the jib being hoisted and the topsails dropped and sheeted home, the brig paid off on the starboard tack, picking up the kedge and stream anchor as soon as we fetched over them in rounding-to.
The cutter, which had remained alongside ready for further use if required, was then hoisted up to the davits; and theMartin, spreading her wings again properly, made off towards Cowes just as one of the Government tugs, which had been despatched to our assistance from the dockyard on the receipt of a telegraphic message from Hurst Castle telling of our mishap, came round the corner of Stokes Bay, puffing away at a fine rate, and throwing up a cloud of black smoke that spoilt the beauty of the landscape, and shut out everything to leeward from view.
“Begorrah!” said Mick, from whom the fine fuss and fright and flurry had banished all traces of his previous illness, making him as right as ninepence again, “they’re jist in toime to be too late, sure!”
Our commander exchanged signals with the people on the tug, however, telling them that their services were not required, though thanking them for the help they would have rendered us; and the wind, which had been shifting about to all parts of the compass while we had been ashore on the sand ledge, now veering to the south’ard and west’ard, we bore away before it with squared yards up the Solent towards Spithead, where we anchored for the night, almost in the fairway, abreast of Southsea Castle.
Next morning we came into harbour, when a dockyard diver was sent down to see if the brig had sustained any damage from her pranks of the previous day; but, all being found staunch and sound below, only the copper on her keel having received a little extra polish, we were ordered to go out again into the Channel and continue our cruise.
The most noteworthy feature of this, excepting, of course, the setting and reefing and taking in sail on board a moving vessel, instead of practising all these merely in dumb-show as had been our wont in a stationary ship like theSaint Vincent, was the exercise we had with the old-fashioned little muzzle-loading truck guns, which were mounted on wooden carriages of the sort only seen in the oldVictorynowadays, with which theMartinwas provided.
It was great fun.
The boys in turn detailed to act as crews of the guns used to be numbered off in regular fashion, according to the custom of the service, just as if they were grown men and working on board a ship going into action.
Number 1, who was the captain of the gun, stood in the rear; Number 2, on the right of the former, but clear of the recoil, as if to teach one that prominent and distinguished positions have their drawbacks as well as their advantages; Number 3 stood close up to the ship’s side, by the breeching of the gun on the left; and Number 4 occupied a similar post on the right, while Numbers 5 and 6 stood in the rear of 3 and 4, and so on.
Through the energetic instructions of Mr Gadgett, who was a most painstaking officer, and spared no trouble to teach us our duties properly, we had learnt when ashore on our drill-ground at Haslar to master all the necessary manipulation of our ‘little barkers,’ as the gunner used to call them, learning how to cast them loose from their lashings, run them back for loading, and prepare them for firing, all in similar dumb-show fashion to our sail-drill experiences in the old ship; and now, when we were able to load with real powder and shot, and make Mr Gadgett’s ‘barkers’ bark in earnest, the interest of our gunnery drill was increased tenfold.
It was splendid work; and from the first order, ‘Cast loose!’ to the last, ‘Fire!’ it was exciting to the last degree, all of us sponging, loading, and running out the little guns in the highest of spirits, as if we were fighting the Battle of Trafalgar over again, and throwing shot and shell into any number of French and Spanish three-deckers alongside!
We had hard work sometimes to check ourselves from uttering a wild cheer when the order was given to pull the trigger and the gun went off with a grand ‘Bang!’ sending a cloud of white smoke inboard from its muzzle as its fiery iron messenger leaped forwards and splashed into the sea, either ahead or abeam as the case might be, throwing up a tall column of water on its first plunge that was like a sort of fountain, while it skipped onward, playing ‘ducks and drakes’ on the top of the waves, until it sank out of sight in the distance, its energy exhausted.
We often used to rig out a target, made up out of an old rum puncheon, fixed on a raft of spars, which we fired at as at a mark, making very good practice, too, after a bit.
Mick soon became one of our best shots, Mr Gadgett complimenting him on having the sharpest eye on board the brig, my chum often, when acting as Number 1, who you must know invariably sights the gun, succeeding in smashing our improvised target all to pieces.
“How is it, Donovan,” asked the gunner on one of these occasions, “you have such a steady aim? Why, boy, you haven’t been at it very long. Your eye is like a hawk, by jingo!”
Mick scratched his head in father’s way, puzzled to explain his keenness of vision.
“Faith, sor,” he said at length, “it moost ’a bin tryin’ to say if I could say any thin’ good turn up afore I jined the sarvice, sure; whin me fayther wor a blissid Oitalian organ-grinder an’ none of us had nothin’ to ate, bedad!”
“By jingo!” exclaimed Mr Gadgett, smiling for once, for I never previously saw the slightest change of muscle on his thin, weather-beaten, grey-whiskered face, “you’ll do!”
Before we came back again from this cruise, we had a bout of bad weather while knocking about in the Channel, which brought back to my mind the yarn Larrikins told the first evening I passed on board theSaint Vincent, in order to distract my attention while he was rigging up my hammock so that it would come down by the run—of seas that were ‘mountings ’igh,’ and winds that blew the ‘’air off ’is ’ead!’
I took at the time, it may be recollected, Master Larrikins’ tale with a very good pinch of the proverbial salt, believing he only intended to ‘pull my leg’; but when on the present occasion the brig began to labour heavily and the green seas, rolling over from the open sea beyond Ushant, the wind having come on to blow a regular stiff sou’-wester, topped our bulwarks and made a clean sweep of the deck, I thought possibly the old joker Larrikins, who had left the training-ship long ere this and was serving as an ordinary seaman on a foreign station, might not have been ‘stretching’ to such an extent as I had at the time imagined.
The little brig, however, was a staunch sea boat, having braved much worse weather than we now experienced; and, being well handled by our commander, who was a sailor every inch of him, we ran before the gale round the easternmost end of the Isle of Wight and snugly brought up under the lee of Saint Helens, where we dropped both our anchors, remaining in this sheltered roadstead until the weather broke, when we returned to Portsmouth.
So far, everything had gone well with me since I entered on board theSaint Vincent, for I had never got into any trouble beyond a slight scrape or two; but tow the Fates, as if to condone the previous good fortune with which they had favoured me, all at once did me a very bad turn, getting me into sad disgrace.
Serious as the matter was, no doubt, in the eyes of the authorities, it was not, however, such a very terrible crime in itself, though it got me into the bad books of the captain, who had been so friendly disposed towards me that he often used to let me take his dog ‘Gyp’ for a walk when I went ashore.
The fact was, to confess my sin outright, I committed a breach of one of the strictest regulations of the training service.
I was caught smoking.
But, I had better tell you all about it from the first to the last, and then, you’ll be able to judge for yourself of the heinousness of my offence.
Chapter Eleven.I get into Disgrace.After that first cruise of mine in the littleMartin, I was at home one Saturday afternoon, having had permission from the captain—being what they call ‘a local boy,’ my parents residing in Portsmouth—to remain ashore till Sunday evening at sunset. It was now summer-time, and I was sitting in our back garden, which was more extensive than might have been expected from the surroundings of Bonfire Corner, the house, as I have said, being an old-fashioned one and father having bought the freehold for a mere song in the days when property in Portsea did not fetch such a high price as at present. The pink and white blossoms of the apple-trees, of which we had a tidy number round the garden, had dropped off long ere now and the fruit was beginning to form; but there were plenty of roses still out, and all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, filling the air with fragrance.I was enjoying myself to rights under the shade of an ancient mulberry-tree, which must have been planted in the time of Queen Elizabeth I should think, judging by its gnarled trunk and huge twisted branches.Some of these hung rather low, and Jenny had brought out Jack our thrush and suspended his cage along with those of our piping bullfinch and some of the canaries, just above a rustic table, having an old armchair that had seen its better days, in front of it, which was father’s favourite seat when at home and the weather was not too bad to go out of doors.Here was his pipe and tobacco-jar, just as he left them in the morning, it being his habit to take a whiff there after breakfast prior to shouldering his oars, which he always brought back to the cottage of a night for safety’s sake, and starting off to his wherry for the day.I felt rather lonesome, for Mick had not been able to get leave to come ashore with me, and Jenny was too busy helping mother house-cleaning to spare much time for a chat after the first greetings had passed on my arriving at the house; so, looking at father’s pipe and tobacco-jar, the thought came into my head—probably suggested by that wily old Serpent, who, the parson says, is always on the watch to put evil thoughts into empty minds—“Why shouldn’t I learn to smoke?”I don’t think I would have carried this thought into action had it not been for ‘Ally Sloper,’ our cockatoo, who just then came hopping down the garden-path from the scullery, where he had been having a rare carrying-on with the cat, the rum bird as soon as he caught sight of me flying up on the table and catching hold of the end of father’s favourite churchwarden with his claw.“Say-rah!” he shouted out in the very tones of father’s voice, so that I could almost fancy he were there sitting alongside of me. “Blest if I don’t have a pipe!”That settled the matter.The next moment I had taken the pipe from ‘Ally Sloper’s’ reluctant claw; and, filling it carefully, poking down the tobacco with the end of my finger just as father used to do, I struck a match and started smoking.I can’t say I absolutely liked it at first, the strong narcotic, bitter taste of the tobacco, combined with the smell, making me feel rather giddy; while a gulp of smoke which went the wrong way caused me to cough.But, I stuck at it all the same, feeling that now at last I was on the highroad to being a man, just like those able-bodied seamen belonging to our ship who used to enjoy ‘blowing their cloud,’ as they called it, of an evening on board theSaint Vincentwhen work was done for the day.My complacency, too, was heightened by Jenny coming out presently, and the admiration she expressed at my dignified attitude under the mulberry-tree, leaning back in father’s armchair, and smoking his very own churchwarden.“Good gracious me, Tom!” she exclaimed; Jack the thrush calling out “Jenny! Jenny! Jenny!” at sight of her, as he always did. “Why, you’re just like daddy!”This made me feel proud, I can tell you; though old ‘Ally Sloper’ didn’t appear to like my performance, for I was amusing myself by puffing the smoke in his face, making him put up his lemon crest and spread out his collar-like feathers, screaming for mother like mad.I had ‘crossed the Rubicon,’ however; and, ever after this, when at home of an afternoon, sometimes with Mick, who, of course, imitated me, sometimes without him on those occasions when he did not get permission to go ashore, I used to have a whiff at father’s pipe on the sly—without his knowledge though, you bet!By this means, I soon became a regular smoker; and, content no longer with an occasional draw at father’s churchwarden, I bought a fine briar-root pipe for myself out of my pocket-money, which was increased by my becoming a first-class boy now to a shilling a week.This pipe I carried about with me, in company with an old brass tobacco-box I found in the mud one day at Point, stowed carefully away with all my other portable gear in my cap, according to the custom of the service.I got so bold at last, that even on board the training-ship I would take a stray whiff of a while, when I got into some snug corner on deck where I thought I would be unobserved; though my chum Mick, who didn’t take kindly to the habit like myself, often cautioned me about the risk I ran in being caught.“Faith, Tom, me bhoy,” he would say to me, “Oi can’t say howivver ye can go fur to do it, sure, a gossoon loike yersilf who’s got a carrackter fur to loose; aye, an’ fur sich a dirthy, nasty thing as thit, a-spillin’ the tasthe ov good ghrub, so thit ye can’t tell whither ye’re aitin’ spuds or pay doo. Ef it wor a chap loike that ‘Ugly’ now, the sulky baste ez wouldn’t hev a koind wurrd fur ye, loike a Christian, since ye saved his rascally loife last year, begorrah, Oi could say the sinse ov it; but, fur a chap loike yersilf, Tom, fur to do it, with ivverythin’ to loose, Oi’m ashamed on ye!”Mick’s remonstrances, however, were all in vain; for, as mother frequently accused father of being, I was ‘obstinate like all the Bowlings,’ and once I had set my mind on a thing I’m sorry to say nothing would turn me from it.The first time I was caught thus smoking on board against the rules, I was let off with only a caution; Mr Brown, the ship’s corporal, who had always continued my friend, not bringing my offence to the notice of the authorities.“Don’t let it occur again, though, Tom Bowling,” said he to me, with a pinch of the ear, on seeing me once having a whiff behind the windlass bitts; “for, let me tell you, if you’re nabbed by me or any one else at it again, as I must inform the master-at-arms, though I know he won’t let it go further now, you’ll be brought up on the quarter-deck and receive punishment.”The ship’s corporal’s advice, however, went through one deaf ear and out of the other, like my chum’s remonstrance; and one fine day I was ‘brought up all standing’ in the very act of committing the same offence.Unfortunately for me, my captor on this occasion was a new corporal who had just been promoted to the police force of the ship, a young seaman whose good conduct had earned him the post, and who wished, of course, to show himself especially smart.Unthinking of my approaching doom, I was smoking away one evening between the lights, never dreaming for a moment that any one was near or noticing me, when all at once a hand gripped the back of my neck and slewed my head round.“Ha, my joker,” cried Nemesis, in the shape of this young corporal, who I saw was surrounded by a small crowd of my grinning shipmates, “I’ve caught you this time!”He had, with a vengeance; for not only had he seized me ‘flagrante delicto,’ as the captain said to me subsequently, he being a Latin scholar, the meaning of which was, I suppose, that I had the delicious fragrance of the ’baccy about me, but Smithers, the corporal, wrenched the pipe that was the cause of all the mischief from my hand, as I hastily removed it from my mouth and attempted to conceal it.He reported me in due course to ‘Jimmy the One,’ our first lieutenant, who in due course put me in the black list; and I was brought up the next day on the quarter-deck before the captain, when we all mustered for ‘divisions’ on the upper deck.The commanding officer spoke to me kindly, saying he was sorry to see me in such a position; but, all the same, the offence being one which he said he could not possibly excuse, as he was determined to stop the pernicious habit of smoking, which, if indulged in by young boys, would ruin their constitutions for life, he sentenced me to have six strokes, the usual penalty.Accordingly, ‘the horse’ kept for the purpose, a sort of rough and round wooden structure with four posts for legs, similar to those saddle-blocks seen in harness shops, was rigged, and one of the gunner’s mates gave me the allotted number of administrations of the cane that I had earned.The boys on board theSaint Vincentin their slang called this stroking business ‘stroniky’; and they have a rude rhyme anent it, which embodies likewise what they catalogue as the hardships of the service—“Pea doo and bolliky,Hard work and stroniky,Who wouldn’t join the Navy!”I bore my punishment unflinchingly, for, really I knew I deserved it; but, although the gunner’s mate did not spare his arm and the cuts he gave me with his cane stung sharply, sharper than the pain I felt physically was the consciousness that I had lost my good character!My leave, too, was stopped, so that I did not get home for a month; not that I cared about this much, for, to tell the truth, I hardly liked to face father and Jenny till the recollection of my punishment had become somewhat deadened by time and the chaff of my messmates.They did not attach the disgrace that I did to my experience of ‘stroniky.’On the contrary, many anecdotes were told anent it after turning in that evening, the time when we indulged in yarning amongst ourselves after ‘lights out’ was sounded, and all was darkness on the lower deck.One story told was that of a young Scotchman, who, with the characteristic thoughtfulness of his race, while blubbering, and yelling out ‘Mudder—Mudder—Mudder—Mudder!’ throughout the operation, yet calculated accurately the duration of his ordeal, shouting in the most matter-of-fact voice when given the last stroke, ‘That’s sax!’If not so particular as this Scotch lad in respect of numbering the strokes I received, their effect was much more lasting in my case; for, adopting Mick’s advice rather late in the day, I threw overboard the remaining stock of tobacco and pipes I had stowed in my ‘ditty box’ below and abjured smoking so long as I remained in the training-ship, not resuming the habit until some years later when I was grown up and was on active service abroad.My good character, too, returned to me after a time; and I may say, without boasting, I never lost it again while I remained on board theSaint Vincent, keeping steady and trying to do my duty through good report and ill until I left the ship.A couple of months later on, also, I became also restored to the captain’s favour in rather a funny fashion.I was out in theMartinduring her last cruise for the year, it having got to be late in the autumn, and approaching the time for her to be dismantled and lay up for the winter.We had run down to Plymouth as usual, and were on our way back up Channel, beating against strong headwinds, when the weather got thick, as on our former cruise, and it came on to blow pretty stiff, the sea getting up and the brig having such a bad time of it that it took four of us at the wheel, besides old Jellybelly the quarter-master, to keep her on her course.As luck would have it, ‘Gyp’ the captain’s dog had come with us for the trip, his master being away on leave, and the commander of theMartin, who had volunteered to take charge of him during the captain’s absence, thinking it best to keep him under his own eye.‘Gyp’ was very partial to me, as might be imagined from the fact of my having been so long in the habit of taking him ashore with me; and, consequently, during our cruise he attached himself with that strong bias for which his breed is proverbial to my humble self, preferring, when allowed the opportunity, to share my quarters even to enjoying the luxuries of the wardroom of the brig aft.His keen eye ever watched my movements when on deck and a word or look from me was sufficient to set his stumpy tail wagging as if it would never stop; while he would lick my bare feet in a most affectionate manner should I ever pass near him and give him the chance, showing me his ‘bad leg,’ if the slightest hint to that effect were given, by holding up one of his hind limbs and stretching it out in a most extraordinary manner, the captain’s valet having taught him this trick when he was a puppy and ‘Gyp’ never having forgotten it though he had arrived at maturer years.Nor, likewise, had he forgotten the art of balancing a biscuit on his nose and not dropping it or offering in any way to masticate the same, however much his feelings might be inclined thereto, without the permissive order, ‘Now you may have it,’ being uttered.‘Gyp,’ I am afraid, was not a born sailor like myself and family.No ancestral fox-terrier of his race could possibly, I fancy, have ‘gone aloft’ like the original head of our house; for, though he liked being at sea well enough in fine weather, he got in the dumps when it came on to blow, his apology for a tail becoming so limp that what there was of it drooped and lost its wag, so, that being left in the lurch through his rudder not answering the helm, he stumbled about the deck like any young Johnny Raw just come afloat.Rolling and labouring, heeling over gunwales under sometimes, theMartinmanaged to reach Spithead in the teeth of a stormy south-easter, which was sending the surf over Southsea Castle as the big rollers coming in from the offing broke against the pile-protected rampart below; and, we were just going to anchor in our usual berth under the lee of the Spit, ‘Gyp’ standing as well as he could with his rickety sea-legs by the taffrail.He was watching me coming down from aloft, where I had gone with some of the other boys of the starboard watch to furl the mizzen-topsail, waiting, poor fellow, to greet me with a sniff of welcome; when, in the excitement of my near approach, he wagged his tail somewhat incautiously and, thereby losing his footing, the affectionate animal fell overboard.
After that first cruise of mine in the littleMartin, I was at home one Saturday afternoon, having had permission from the captain—being what they call ‘a local boy,’ my parents residing in Portsmouth—to remain ashore till Sunday evening at sunset. It was now summer-time, and I was sitting in our back garden, which was more extensive than might have been expected from the surroundings of Bonfire Corner, the house, as I have said, being an old-fashioned one and father having bought the freehold for a mere song in the days when property in Portsea did not fetch such a high price as at present. The pink and white blossoms of the apple-trees, of which we had a tidy number round the garden, had dropped off long ere now and the fruit was beginning to form; but there were plenty of roses still out, and all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, filling the air with fragrance.
I was enjoying myself to rights under the shade of an ancient mulberry-tree, which must have been planted in the time of Queen Elizabeth I should think, judging by its gnarled trunk and huge twisted branches.
Some of these hung rather low, and Jenny had brought out Jack our thrush and suspended his cage along with those of our piping bullfinch and some of the canaries, just above a rustic table, having an old armchair that had seen its better days, in front of it, which was father’s favourite seat when at home and the weather was not too bad to go out of doors.
Here was his pipe and tobacco-jar, just as he left them in the morning, it being his habit to take a whiff there after breakfast prior to shouldering his oars, which he always brought back to the cottage of a night for safety’s sake, and starting off to his wherry for the day.
I felt rather lonesome, for Mick had not been able to get leave to come ashore with me, and Jenny was too busy helping mother house-cleaning to spare much time for a chat after the first greetings had passed on my arriving at the house; so, looking at father’s pipe and tobacco-jar, the thought came into my head—probably suggested by that wily old Serpent, who, the parson says, is always on the watch to put evil thoughts into empty minds—“Why shouldn’t I learn to smoke?”
I don’t think I would have carried this thought into action had it not been for ‘Ally Sloper,’ our cockatoo, who just then came hopping down the garden-path from the scullery, where he had been having a rare carrying-on with the cat, the rum bird as soon as he caught sight of me flying up on the table and catching hold of the end of father’s favourite churchwarden with his claw.
“Say-rah!” he shouted out in the very tones of father’s voice, so that I could almost fancy he were there sitting alongside of me. “Blest if I don’t have a pipe!”
That settled the matter.
The next moment I had taken the pipe from ‘Ally Sloper’s’ reluctant claw; and, filling it carefully, poking down the tobacco with the end of my finger just as father used to do, I struck a match and started smoking.
I can’t say I absolutely liked it at first, the strong narcotic, bitter taste of the tobacco, combined with the smell, making me feel rather giddy; while a gulp of smoke which went the wrong way caused me to cough.
But, I stuck at it all the same, feeling that now at last I was on the highroad to being a man, just like those able-bodied seamen belonging to our ship who used to enjoy ‘blowing their cloud,’ as they called it, of an evening on board theSaint Vincentwhen work was done for the day.
My complacency, too, was heightened by Jenny coming out presently, and the admiration she expressed at my dignified attitude under the mulberry-tree, leaning back in father’s armchair, and smoking his very own churchwarden.
“Good gracious me, Tom!” she exclaimed; Jack the thrush calling out “Jenny! Jenny! Jenny!” at sight of her, as he always did. “Why, you’re just like daddy!”
This made me feel proud, I can tell you; though old ‘Ally Sloper’ didn’t appear to like my performance, for I was amusing myself by puffing the smoke in his face, making him put up his lemon crest and spread out his collar-like feathers, screaming for mother like mad.
I had ‘crossed the Rubicon,’ however; and, ever after this, when at home of an afternoon, sometimes with Mick, who, of course, imitated me, sometimes without him on those occasions when he did not get permission to go ashore, I used to have a whiff at father’s pipe on the sly—without his knowledge though, you bet!
By this means, I soon became a regular smoker; and, content no longer with an occasional draw at father’s churchwarden, I bought a fine briar-root pipe for myself out of my pocket-money, which was increased by my becoming a first-class boy now to a shilling a week.
This pipe I carried about with me, in company with an old brass tobacco-box I found in the mud one day at Point, stowed carefully away with all my other portable gear in my cap, according to the custom of the service.
I got so bold at last, that even on board the training-ship I would take a stray whiff of a while, when I got into some snug corner on deck where I thought I would be unobserved; though my chum Mick, who didn’t take kindly to the habit like myself, often cautioned me about the risk I ran in being caught.
“Faith, Tom, me bhoy,” he would say to me, “Oi can’t say howivver ye can go fur to do it, sure, a gossoon loike yersilf who’s got a carrackter fur to loose; aye, an’ fur sich a dirthy, nasty thing as thit, a-spillin’ the tasthe ov good ghrub, so thit ye can’t tell whither ye’re aitin’ spuds or pay doo. Ef it wor a chap loike that ‘Ugly’ now, the sulky baste ez wouldn’t hev a koind wurrd fur ye, loike a Christian, since ye saved his rascally loife last year, begorrah, Oi could say the sinse ov it; but, fur a chap loike yersilf, Tom, fur to do it, with ivverythin’ to loose, Oi’m ashamed on ye!”
Mick’s remonstrances, however, were all in vain; for, as mother frequently accused father of being, I was ‘obstinate like all the Bowlings,’ and once I had set my mind on a thing I’m sorry to say nothing would turn me from it.
The first time I was caught thus smoking on board against the rules, I was let off with only a caution; Mr Brown, the ship’s corporal, who had always continued my friend, not bringing my offence to the notice of the authorities.
“Don’t let it occur again, though, Tom Bowling,” said he to me, with a pinch of the ear, on seeing me once having a whiff behind the windlass bitts; “for, let me tell you, if you’re nabbed by me or any one else at it again, as I must inform the master-at-arms, though I know he won’t let it go further now, you’ll be brought up on the quarter-deck and receive punishment.”
The ship’s corporal’s advice, however, went through one deaf ear and out of the other, like my chum’s remonstrance; and one fine day I was ‘brought up all standing’ in the very act of committing the same offence.
Unfortunately for me, my captor on this occasion was a new corporal who had just been promoted to the police force of the ship, a young seaman whose good conduct had earned him the post, and who wished, of course, to show himself especially smart.
Unthinking of my approaching doom, I was smoking away one evening between the lights, never dreaming for a moment that any one was near or noticing me, when all at once a hand gripped the back of my neck and slewed my head round.
“Ha, my joker,” cried Nemesis, in the shape of this young corporal, who I saw was surrounded by a small crowd of my grinning shipmates, “I’ve caught you this time!”
He had, with a vengeance; for not only had he seized me ‘flagrante delicto,’ as the captain said to me subsequently, he being a Latin scholar, the meaning of which was, I suppose, that I had the delicious fragrance of the ’baccy about me, but Smithers, the corporal, wrenched the pipe that was the cause of all the mischief from my hand, as I hastily removed it from my mouth and attempted to conceal it.
He reported me in due course to ‘Jimmy the One,’ our first lieutenant, who in due course put me in the black list; and I was brought up the next day on the quarter-deck before the captain, when we all mustered for ‘divisions’ on the upper deck.
The commanding officer spoke to me kindly, saying he was sorry to see me in such a position; but, all the same, the offence being one which he said he could not possibly excuse, as he was determined to stop the pernicious habit of smoking, which, if indulged in by young boys, would ruin their constitutions for life, he sentenced me to have six strokes, the usual penalty.
Accordingly, ‘the horse’ kept for the purpose, a sort of rough and round wooden structure with four posts for legs, similar to those saddle-blocks seen in harness shops, was rigged, and one of the gunner’s mates gave me the allotted number of administrations of the cane that I had earned.
The boys on board theSaint Vincentin their slang called this stroking business ‘stroniky’; and they have a rude rhyme anent it, which embodies likewise what they catalogue as the hardships of the service—
“Pea doo and bolliky,Hard work and stroniky,Who wouldn’t join the Navy!”
“Pea doo and bolliky,Hard work and stroniky,Who wouldn’t join the Navy!”
I bore my punishment unflinchingly, for, really I knew I deserved it; but, although the gunner’s mate did not spare his arm and the cuts he gave me with his cane stung sharply, sharper than the pain I felt physically was the consciousness that I had lost my good character!
My leave, too, was stopped, so that I did not get home for a month; not that I cared about this much, for, to tell the truth, I hardly liked to face father and Jenny till the recollection of my punishment had become somewhat deadened by time and the chaff of my messmates.
They did not attach the disgrace that I did to my experience of ‘stroniky.’
On the contrary, many anecdotes were told anent it after turning in that evening, the time when we indulged in yarning amongst ourselves after ‘lights out’ was sounded, and all was darkness on the lower deck.
One story told was that of a young Scotchman, who, with the characteristic thoughtfulness of his race, while blubbering, and yelling out ‘Mudder—Mudder—Mudder—Mudder!’ throughout the operation, yet calculated accurately the duration of his ordeal, shouting in the most matter-of-fact voice when given the last stroke, ‘That’s sax!’
If not so particular as this Scotch lad in respect of numbering the strokes I received, their effect was much more lasting in my case; for, adopting Mick’s advice rather late in the day, I threw overboard the remaining stock of tobacco and pipes I had stowed in my ‘ditty box’ below and abjured smoking so long as I remained in the training-ship, not resuming the habit until some years later when I was grown up and was on active service abroad.
My good character, too, returned to me after a time; and I may say, without boasting, I never lost it again while I remained on board theSaint Vincent, keeping steady and trying to do my duty through good report and ill until I left the ship.
A couple of months later on, also, I became also restored to the captain’s favour in rather a funny fashion.
I was out in theMartinduring her last cruise for the year, it having got to be late in the autumn, and approaching the time for her to be dismantled and lay up for the winter.
We had run down to Plymouth as usual, and were on our way back up Channel, beating against strong headwinds, when the weather got thick, as on our former cruise, and it came on to blow pretty stiff, the sea getting up and the brig having such a bad time of it that it took four of us at the wheel, besides old Jellybelly the quarter-master, to keep her on her course.
As luck would have it, ‘Gyp’ the captain’s dog had come with us for the trip, his master being away on leave, and the commander of theMartin, who had volunteered to take charge of him during the captain’s absence, thinking it best to keep him under his own eye.
‘Gyp’ was very partial to me, as might be imagined from the fact of my having been so long in the habit of taking him ashore with me; and, consequently, during our cruise he attached himself with that strong bias for which his breed is proverbial to my humble self, preferring, when allowed the opportunity, to share my quarters even to enjoying the luxuries of the wardroom of the brig aft.
His keen eye ever watched my movements when on deck and a word or look from me was sufficient to set his stumpy tail wagging as if it would never stop; while he would lick my bare feet in a most affectionate manner should I ever pass near him and give him the chance, showing me his ‘bad leg,’ if the slightest hint to that effect were given, by holding up one of his hind limbs and stretching it out in a most extraordinary manner, the captain’s valet having taught him this trick when he was a puppy and ‘Gyp’ never having forgotten it though he had arrived at maturer years.
Nor, likewise, had he forgotten the art of balancing a biscuit on his nose and not dropping it or offering in any way to masticate the same, however much his feelings might be inclined thereto, without the permissive order, ‘Now you may have it,’ being uttered.
‘Gyp,’ I am afraid, was not a born sailor like myself and family.
No ancestral fox-terrier of his race could possibly, I fancy, have ‘gone aloft’ like the original head of our house; for, though he liked being at sea well enough in fine weather, he got in the dumps when it came on to blow, his apology for a tail becoming so limp that what there was of it drooped and lost its wag, so, that being left in the lurch through his rudder not answering the helm, he stumbled about the deck like any young Johnny Raw just come afloat.
Rolling and labouring, heeling over gunwales under sometimes, theMartinmanaged to reach Spithead in the teeth of a stormy south-easter, which was sending the surf over Southsea Castle as the big rollers coming in from the offing broke against the pile-protected rampart below; and, we were just going to anchor in our usual berth under the lee of the Spit, ‘Gyp’ standing as well as he could with his rickety sea-legs by the taffrail.
He was watching me coming down from aloft, where I had gone with some of the other boys of the starboard watch to furl the mizzen-topsail, waiting, poor fellow, to greet me with a sniff of welcome; when, in the excitement of my near approach, he wagged his tail somewhat incautiously and, thereby losing his footing, the affectionate animal fell overboard.
Chapter Twelve.“Drafted.”Shouting out without thinking as loud as I could, “Man overboard!” I plunged into the tideway after him; and, before ‘Gyp’ knew where he was or had time to shake the water out of his eyes and ears after rising from his unexpected plunge, breasting the choppy seas with his quick-working paws and paddling all round in a circle in his flurry, I had struck out after him, gripping him by the collar in half a dozen strokes.Poor old chap, he whined and licked my face as I came alongside him, his wistful eyes saying as plainly as dog could speak, “Thank God, Tom, you’ve come to help me,” or something to that effect.I was a good swimmer, having won the long-distance prize in our summer sports off Haslar Creek; but, I now found the task of battling with the big billows brought in by the south-easter, which were all the rougher from the cross tide setting against them, none too easy, wind and sea-going one way and the tide another.I could hardly make a stroke towards the beach, which I aimed for at first, the undercurrent pulling me back and sweeping me out seaward; while, the rough water, smacking against my face, bothered me and palsied my every effort.They had let go the life-buoy, of course, on board the brig when I sang out before jumping off from the taffrail; but the buoy was more difficult to reach than the shore, the wind catching it up and tossing it from wave crest to wave crest till it was cast up on top of one of the piles in front of the Castle far ahead.Treading water to regain my breath after a futile struggle of some minutes’ duration, and holding poor ‘Gyp’s’ head well up so that he should not be drowned by the spent seas that broke against us, I squinted round to see what they were doing on board theMartinin the way of trying to pick us up.A boat, I saw, was being lowered to leeward; but, the brig was such a long way off now that I was afraid they wouldn’t be in time to save us.I must look for assistance in another direction.In an instant, an old yarn of father’s came back to my mind, one wherein he used to tell of having once been run down by a steamer when out trawling and having had to pass the night within the Spit Buoy.Why, I must be close on it now!Yes, that was the sound of the bell hung from within the cage-like framework surrounding the buoy, which is moored on the edge of the shoal skirting the fairway leading into Portsmouth Harbour.The broken water was rocking it to and fro; and, with every lurch the buoy made, this bell gave out a doleful knell as if ringing away the passing soul of some dead sailor gone to his last account.Perchance it was tolling for ‘Gyp’ and me!This thought flashed through me for a second; but the next second I dismissed it as a craven fear, my courage returning to me.I set my teeth, determined to fight it out to the end, when, if need be, I should die bravely.“Hurrah, ‘Gyp,’ whilst there’s life there’s hope!” I shouted, as much to encourage the poor dog as myself, turning on my side and cuddling him well up on my chest with my right arm to keep his head out of the water, while I struck out with all my strength with my left towards the buoy, now within a stone’s throw, the tide gradually sweeping us near it in spite of the wind and sea. “There’s no reason why the Spit Buoy shouldn’t rescue us, the same as it did father!”I believe ‘Gyp’ understood what I said, for I declare I felt his little stump tail wag against my arm, and he licked my cheek that was nearest, being otherwise too exhausted to give expression to his emotion by bark or whine.We did it too.After a stiff swim, though but such a short distance, I clutched hold of a becket attached to the side of the buoy; and then, drawing myself up out of the water, I landed ‘Gyp’ inside our refuge, climbing in after him myself.The lifeboat from theMartin, which was manned by four stout seamen, the commander himself coming in her as coxswain, meanwhile was making for us, the course of the cutter being directed by signals from the brig, where the signalman on duty had probably kept his glass on me from the moment I jumped overboard and rose to the surface; and, presently, after a long pull and a hard one too, the boat came up to the buoy and took us off.‘By the Lord Harry!’ as father used to exclaim sometimes when he was excited, you should have only heard the cheer that greeted us when the cutter got back to the brig, which had now dropped her anchor; the boys and older hands also, who were just on their way down from aloft after furling the sails, manning the rigging, and giving out a wild and hearty ‘Hooray’ that might have been heard in the dockyard.The commander complimented me on the quarter-deck, saying that my action was a plucky one to jump overboard as I did, whether to save man or dog; and then ordering the steward to fetch me a stiff glass of hot brandy-and-water, he told me to go below and turn in to my hammock.‘Gyp,’ however, would not leave me; and, as he insisted on joining company with me in my hammock, I made him go shares with the brandy-and-water as well, though I can’t say that he took his portion with as much satisfaction.His master, on coming to hear of the occurrence when he returned from leave, was, I need hardly say, delighted that ‘Gyp’ had been saved from a watery grave.He extolled, indeed, my really unpremeditated action in much higher terms than it actually deserved; for, really, I did it, as I have said before, without thinking.However, be that as it may, the captain, commending me on my good conduct generally since I had been attached to the training-ship under his command, passed over in the most honourable way that unfortunate smoking episode of mine, and promised to ‘keep his eye on me.’This, I may add, he did in a much more satisfactory manner than that smart chap, ship’s corporal Smithers; but, of this, you will learn anon.My days in theSaint Vincent, you must know, were now drawing to a close.Nine months of second-class boy instruction and four months as a first-class boy had pretty well taken me through the ordinary routine of the training-ship; the last two months of my stay on board being mainly devoted to arésuméof the various studies constituting seamanship which I had already gone through, as well as a grand rehearsal of gun practice and rifle drill and of the sword exercise.In this latter all the boys took the keenest delight, cutting and slashing at one another with a go and gusto worthy of all admiration.We pointed, guarded, and parried, with a nimbleness and correctness that excited the praise of our instructor; but when we got to what was called ‘general practice,’ and learnt cuts ‘One’ and ‘Two,’ with an extra ‘Point,’ before our teacher sang out ‘Guard!’ our enthusiasm knew no bounds, and all of us would fancy ourselves to be bluejackets in action, boarding a pirate or leading a storming-party and killing hecatombs of enemies on the war-path, our weapons mowing them down with every sweep!Sometimes our sword-play got us into scrapes, when two boys matched against each other by the instructor allowed their zeal to overcome their discretion; for, occasionally, they would lose their tempers when over the single-sticks and give one another such spiteful blows that the instructor would have to interfere and separate them by force of arms.In the majority of cases, however, the scratches we received were more the result of accident than of malice intent; and the little embroilments that happened when sword-play degenerated into horseplay were not, as a rule, worth mentioning.On one occasion, though, my chum Mick nearly had his nose carved off in an encounter with a comrade, though luckily his opponent did not succeed in spoiling Mick’s beauty.This would have been a pity; for, really, he was a very good-looking chap, and I am sure my sister Jenny, though she wouldn’t confess it, would have been sorry if anything had occurred to mar his comely face.It happened thus. When skylarking together on the upper deck one evening, Mick and another fellow caught up a couple of cutlasses that had been left inadvertently lying about the deck, and they commenced pointing and cutting and slashing at one another with the keen-edged weapons, just as if they had been mere basket-hilted single-sticks, a rap from which would have done no damage beyond a bruise.They were going it in fine style, when all at once Mick’s foot slipped; and, missing his guard as his opponent made a vicious cut ‘one’ at him, he received this on his chest, the cutlass cutting through his jumper and flannel and making a slight wound across his breastbone.Had his head not been thrown backwards as he slipped, poor Mick would have had the most striking feature of his merry countenance sliced off as dexterously as if it had been a carrot!The last seven weeks of my experiences of the old ship, which I had begun to look upon as much my home as the little cottage at Bonfire Corner, were devoted to practice with the big guns that are used in modern ships of war; and these, I may add, are so unlike the old twenty-four and thirty-two and sixty-four pounders that had been used in our early training, that any drill with them would have failed to have been of much assistance to us in getting the cross-cannon badge on our sleeve.So, for these seven weeks, all of us first-class boys who were near the end of our term had to go to theExcellentevery day to go through a course of gunnery; and were sent out to sea in sections in theBlazerorHandy, or some other gunboat attached to the gunnery school, so as to gain some sort of preliminary insight into the ways of the big breech-loading guns used in the armour-clads of to-day, as well as being made acquainted with their lesser satellites quick-firing and machine-guns.We did not leave our old ship altogether yet, though; for we used to take our dinners with us when we went away from her of a morning, returning back to theSaint Vincentof a night to sleep, when we would retail all of our experiences to our comrades who had remained behind.At last the day came, a day I shall remember all my life, when Mick and I, for we both went away together even as we had joined on the same day, left theSaint Vincentfor good and all.One forenoon, just before ‘cooks to their messes’ sounded, and prior to our dispersing after the usual assembly for ‘divisions’ on the upper deck, the captain ordered Mick and myself, with some half a dozen other first-class boys belonging to the starboard watch and a like number from the port, to step out of the ranks; when, telling us we were drafted to the guardship for service with the fleet, he addressed a few kindly words of advice to us as to our future conduct and then dismissed us to our dinner, telling us we were to pack up our gear and leave the ship early in the afternoon.He sent for me soon after I had disposed of the ‘two spuds and a Jonah,’ which composed the meal of the day, and on my going to his cabin he spoke to me very nicely, saying that I might write to him should I ever need help in getting on in the service, and that he would always, as he had previously promised, ‘keep an eye on me’!“Faith,” said Mick, on my telling him this, “it’ll be moighty onplisint fur ye, Tom, me bhoy; thet gimblet oye ov his sames to go roight thro’ an’ thro’ me, begorrah, if he ivver onst looks at me sure!”
Shouting out without thinking as loud as I could, “Man overboard!” I plunged into the tideway after him; and, before ‘Gyp’ knew where he was or had time to shake the water out of his eyes and ears after rising from his unexpected plunge, breasting the choppy seas with his quick-working paws and paddling all round in a circle in his flurry, I had struck out after him, gripping him by the collar in half a dozen strokes.
Poor old chap, he whined and licked my face as I came alongside him, his wistful eyes saying as plainly as dog could speak, “Thank God, Tom, you’ve come to help me,” or something to that effect.
I was a good swimmer, having won the long-distance prize in our summer sports off Haslar Creek; but, I now found the task of battling with the big billows brought in by the south-easter, which were all the rougher from the cross tide setting against them, none too easy, wind and sea-going one way and the tide another.
I could hardly make a stroke towards the beach, which I aimed for at first, the undercurrent pulling me back and sweeping me out seaward; while, the rough water, smacking against my face, bothered me and palsied my every effort.
They had let go the life-buoy, of course, on board the brig when I sang out before jumping off from the taffrail; but the buoy was more difficult to reach than the shore, the wind catching it up and tossing it from wave crest to wave crest till it was cast up on top of one of the piles in front of the Castle far ahead.
Treading water to regain my breath after a futile struggle of some minutes’ duration, and holding poor ‘Gyp’s’ head well up so that he should not be drowned by the spent seas that broke against us, I squinted round to see what they were doing on board theMartinin the way of trying to pick us up.
A boat, I saw, was being lowered to leeward; but, the brig was such a long way off now that I was afraid they wouldn’t be in time to save us.
I must look for assistance in another direction.
In an instant, an old yarn of father’s came back to my mind, one wherein he used to tell of having once been run down by a steamer when out trawling and having had to pass the night within the Spit Buoy.
Why, I must be close on it now!
Yes, that was the sound of the bell hung from within the cage-like framework surrounding the buoy, which is moored on the edge of the shoal skirting the fairway leading into Portsmouth Harbour.
The broken water was rocking it to and fro; and, with every lurch the buoy made, this bell gave out a doleful knell as if ringing away the passing soul of some dead sailor gone to his last account.
Perchance it was tolling for ‘Gyp’ and me!
This thought flashed through me for a second; but the next second I dismissed it as a craven fear, my courage returning to me.
I set my teeth, determined to fight it out to the end, when, if need be, I should die bravely.
“Hurrah, ‘Gyp,’ whilst there’s life there’s hope!” I shouted, as much to encourage the poor dog as myself, turning on my side and cuddling him well up on my chest with my right arm to keep his head out of the water, while I struck out with all my strength with my left towards the buoy, now within a stone’s throw, the tide gradually sweeping us near it in spite of the wind and sea. “There’s no reason why the Spit Buoy shouldn’t rescue us, the same as it did father!”
I believe ‘Gyp’ understood what I said, for I declare I felt his little stump tail wag against my arm, and he licked my cheek that was nearest, being otherwise too exhausted to give expression to his emotion by bark or whine.
We did it too.
After a stiff swim, though but such a short distance, I clutched hold of a becket attached to the side of the buoy; and then, drawing myself up out of the water, I landed ‘Gyp’ inside our refuge, climbing in after him myself.
The lifeboat from theMartin, which was manned by four stout seamen, the commander himself coming in her as coxswain, meanwhile was making for us, the course of the cutter being directed by signals from the brig, where the signalman on duty had probably kept his glass on me from the moment I jumped overboard and rose to the surface; and, presently, after a long pull and a hard one too, the boat came up to the buoy and took us off.
‘By the Lord Harry!’ as father used to exclaim sometimes when he was excited, you should have only heard the cheer that greeted us when the cutter got back to the brig, which had now dropped her anchor; the boys and older hands also, who were just on their way down from aloft after furling the sails, manning the rigging, and giving out a wild and hearty ‘Hooray’ that might have been heard in the dockyard.
The commander complimented me on the quarter-deck, saying that my action was a plucky one to jump overboard as I did, whether to save man or dog; and then ordering the steward to fetch me a stiff glass of hot brandy-and-water, he told me to go below and turn in to my hammock.
‘Gyp,’ however, would not leave me; and, as he insisted on joining company with me in my hammock, I made him go shares with the brandy-and-water as well, though I can’t say that he took his portion with as much satisfaction.
His master, on coming to hear of the occurrence when he returned from leave, was, I need hardly say, delighted that ‘Gyp’ had been saved from a watery grave.
He extolled, indeed, my really unpremeditated action in much higher terms than it actually deserved; for, really, I did it, as I have said before, without thinking.
However, be that as it may, the captain, commending me on my good conduct generally since I had been attached to the training-ship under his command, passed over in the most honourable way that unfortunate smoking episode of mine, and promised to ‘keep his eye on me.’
This, I may add, he did in a much more satisfactory manner than that smart chap, ship’s corporal Smithers; but, of this, you will learn anon.
My days in theSaint Vincent, you must know, were now drawing to a close.
Nine months of second-class boy instruction and four months as a first-class boy had pretty well taken me through the ordinary routine of the training-ship; the last two months of my stay on board being mainly devoted to arésuméof the various studies constituting seamanship which I had already gone through, as well as a grand rehearsal of gun practice and rifle drill and of the sword exercise.
In this latter all the boys took the keenest delight, cutting and slashing at one another with a go and gusto worthy of all admiration.
We pointed, guarded, and parried, with a nimbleness and correctness that excited the praise of our instructor; but when we got to what was called ‘general practice,’ and learnt cuts ‘One’ and ‘Two,’ with an extra ‘Point,’ before our teacher sang out ‘Guard!’ our enthusiasm knew no bounds, and all of us would fancy ourselves to be bluejackets in action, boarding a pirate or leading a storming-party and killing hecatombs of enemies on the war-path, our weapons mowing them down with every sweep!
Sometimes our sword-play got us into scrapes, when two boys matched against each other by the instructor allowed their zeal to overcome their discretion; for, occasionally, they would lose their tempers when over the single-sticks and give one another such spiteful blows that the instructor would have to interfere and separate them by force of arms.
In the majority of cases, however, the scratches we received were more the result of accident than of malice intent; and the little embroilments that happened when sword-play degenerated into horseplay were not, as a rule, worth mentioning.
On one occasion, though, my chum Mick nearly had his nose carved off in an encounter with a comrade, though luckily his opponent did not succeed in spoiling Mick’s beauty.
This would have been a pity; for, really, he was a very good-looking chap, and I am sure my sister Jenny, though she wouldn’t confess it, would have been sorry if anything had occurred to mar his comely face.
It happened thus. When skylarking together on the upper deck one evening, Mick and another fellow caught up a couple of cutlasses that had been left inadvertently lying about the deck, and they commenced pointing and cutting and slashing at one another with the keen-edged weapons, just as if they had been mere basket-hilted single-sticks, a rap from which would have done no damage beyond a bruise.
They were going it in fine style, when all at once Mick’s foot slipped; and, missing his guard as his opponent made a vicious cut ‘one’ at him, he received this on his chest, the cutlass cutting through his jumper and flannel and making a slight wound across his breastbone.
Had his head not been thrown backwards as he slipped, poor Mick would have had the most striking feature of his merry countenance sliced off as dexterously as if it had been a carrot!
The last seven weeks of my experiences of the old ship, which I had begun to look upon as much my home as the little cottage at Bonfire Corner, were devoted to practice with the big guns that are used in modern ships of war; and these, I may add, are so unlike the old twenty-four and thirty-two and sixty-four pounders that had been used in our early training, that any drill with them would have failed to have been of much assistance to us in getting the cross-cannon badge on our sleeve.
So, for these seven weeks, all of us first-class boys who were near the end of our term had to go to theExcellentevery day to go through a course of gunnery; and were sent out to sea in sections in theBlazerorHandy, or some other gunboat attached to the gunnery school, so as to gain some sort of preliminary insight into the ways of the big breech-loading guns used in the armour-clads of to-day, as well as being made acquainted with their lesser satellites quick-firing and machine-guns.
We did not leave our old ship altogether yet, though; for we used to take our dinners with us when we went away from her of a morning, returning back to theSaint Vincentof a night to sleep, when we would retail all of our experiences to our comrades who had remained behind.
At last the day came, a day I shall remember all my life, when Mick and I, for we both went away together even as we had joined on the same day, left theSaint Vincentfor good and all.
One forenoon, just before ‘cooks to their messes’ sounded, and prior to our dispersing after the usual assembly for ‘divisions’ on the upper deck, the captain ordered Mick and myself, with some half a dozen other first-class boys belonging to the starboard watch and a like number from the port, to step out of the ranks; when, telling us we were drafted to the guardship for service with the fleet, he addressed a few kindly words of advice to us as to our future conduct and then dismissed us to our dinner, telling us we were to pack up our gear and leave the ship early in the afternoon.
He sent for me soon after I had disposed of the ‘two spuds and a Jonah,’ which composed the meal of the day, and on my going to his cabin he spoke to me very nicely, saying that I might write to him should I ever need help in getting on in the service, and that he would always, as he had previously promised, ‘keep an eye on me’!
“Faith,” said Mick, on my telling him this, “it’ll be moighty onplisint fur ye, Tom, me bhoy; thet gimblet oye ov his sames to go roight thro’ an’ thro’ me, begorrah, if he ivver onst looks at me sure!”
Chapter Thirteen.I go to Sea.I did not mind Mick’s chaff, though. The captain had been a good friend to me while I had been on board, and I parted with him with as much regret as I felt when I said ‘good-bye’ to ‘Gyp.’Our meal that day was what we called aboard ship a ‘stamp and go,’ all of us who were drafted being too excited to think much of eating—all of us, that is, excepting Mick!He, as I have mentioned more than once previously, was a chap who was particularly partial to his grub, this being probably owing to the circumstance that he had experienced hard fare in his earlier days before he joined theSaint Vincent; but I can answer for this, that he endeavoured to the best of his ability, after that period, to make up for any shortcomings he had suffered from before!“Begorrah, Tom,” he answered me very philosophically, when I told him to hurry up, “ther’s no knowin’ whin, sure, ayther on us’ll git another good square male; an’, faith, the bo’sun towld me onst no will-app’inted shep ivver goes to say widout havin’ her proper regulation stores an’ purvisions aboord!”This was after I had my interview with the captain, of course; and I only tell it to show what sort of a fellow my chum was.When we had packed our bags and come up on the middle deck to leave the ship in one of the cutters, which was to land us at the King’s Stairs in the dockyard, the master-at-arms, who stood by the entry-port with Mr Brown the ship’s corporal, wished us both a cordial farewell.“Now, keep your hair on straight, Tom Bowling,” said the former to me, giving me a good grip of his fist, for he was a very hearty sort of man. “I have had my eye on you while you have been aboard here; and I quite believe you’ll turn out the right sort and work your way up to your warrant, if you only keep straight, long before I am laid on the shelf, my boy!”“Faith, Tom,” whispered Mick to me in an aside that was quite loud enough for the ‘Jaunty’ to catch his remark, “ivverybody, sure, ’s kapin’ ther’ oye on ye; an’ ef all the jokers go on loike thet, ye’ll be havin’ what ye’re moother called t’other day, bedad, a’ ’tack ov ‘oye-strikes,’ if ye don’t look out sharp!”“Ah, my h’Italian friend!” said the master-at-arms, who overheard him, with a broad grin on his face, which was reflected on that of Mr Brown; “so you’re going to leave us too, eh! Well, as some writing chap says somewhere or t’other in some book I’ve read, we could have better spared a better boy than you, Paddy. You’ve been a good lad too, in spite of your larks; and I hope you’ll get on well in the service, like your chum Tom Bowling here. Stick to him, and he’ll keep you straight.”So saying, he shook hands with Mick the same as he had done with me, Mr Brown following suit in an equally hearty fashion; and shouldering our bags, we all went down the accommodation ladder and took our seats in the cutter.Just as we were shoving off, Mick spied old Jellybelly on duty at the gangway, and he could not help giving him a parting shot.“Good luck to ye, Mr Tarbolt, an’ more power to yer elber, sor,” he cried out with much effusion. “Be jabers, Oi’ll kape me oye out fur to say ef Oi can pick up a roight-down comfable arm-cheer fur ye to take a sate whin ye gits toired, sure, a-standin’ whin ye’re on the watch!”There was a subdued titter from all the other fellows, both them in the boat and the rest who were out on the booms and standing by the entry-port, and old Jellybelly shook his fist in a threatening manner at Mick; but the smile on his face showed that he took the old joke in good part.The last I saw of the old ship as we rowed away up the harbour was a row of grinning faces looking in our direction, and the lines being triced up fore and aft with the hammock-cloths and clothes of the boys hung out to dry, Tuesday, the day we left, being ‘washing-day’ with us on board.I had experienced a happy time altogether on board her; and, when I come to look back now, the wonder to me, I’m sure, is that every boy who can possibly get permission from his people does not join the service, considering all the advantages he gets on donning the bluejacket rig.Just consider.Instead of living higgledy-piggledy in some close room with half a dozen others, as many poor boys have to do, and little or nothing to eat and that only at haphazard, while in the majority of cases his clothing will be none of the best, being more holey than pious; the same boy on entering theSaint Vincentfinds himself at once well fed, well clothed, and with clean and roomy quarters to breathe in!There is the discipline, to be sure, and that’s where the shoe pinches with the free Arab of the slums; but, in addition to the discipline, it should be recollected there is also the instruction in various things that nine boys out of ten look upon rather as pleasurable games than so many tasks.Besides this, they have real games in their play-hours aboard and in the recreation-ground at Haslar; and, besides, are allowed ashore once a week at least, to see their friends and relatives, if these live in the neighbourhood, having pocket-money given them to enjoy themselves with—more than they can say they ever had in their life on land.Then there are the ‘sports’ which theSaint Vincentboys have every year at midsummer, before the breaking-up for their holidays, when swimming races, boat races, egg-and-spoon races, and all sorts of jollities are all the go.But, there I am again, hauling my jawing tackle aboard according to the old Bowling family propensity, anent which mother used always to rate father; so, I must belay!Pulling steadily away from the old ship on the stream which was running up the harbour, making this appear one vast lake up to Fareham Creek under the base of the Portsdown hills, a lake whereon floated long lines of old hulks of the past, interspersed with many a specimen of the newer models of the present ships of the Navy, the cutter at last landed us at the foot of the King’s Stairs; when, unshipping our bags and shouldering them again, we crossed the dockyard in single file, under charge of a petty officer, making for the guardship to which we had been drafted, which was lying alongside the North Wall, not far from theExcellent.Our tramp was a most fatiguing one over the rough pigs of iron ballast arranged like cobble-stones, which some chap must have had put down in order to benefit his bootmaker, the pilgrimage of folk anxious to see the yard being rather trying on shoe-leather.We felt it all the more from having been accustomed to go in our bare feet on board the training-ship, and boots in themselves being irksome, without the hard road we had to travel adding to the penance.Ascending the ladder-way that led up from the jetty to the deck of the oldAsia, the guardship, we were soon allotted our billets; and quickly settled down to the routine of the ship, which, of course, was very different to that of theSaint Vincent.However, we did not very long remain here; for, it being now getting on well in the month of July, and several new ships having been ordered to be commissioned for the Naval Manoeuvres, Mick and I, good luck still attending us and keeping us always in company, were told off to join a smart cruiser attached to one of the squadrons, in which we presently sailed for Bantry Bay.Here my chum found himself once more in his native land, and under a sky as blue as that of Italy, to which country he had originally claimed to belong, in spite of the strong ‘brogue’ that readily betrayed his kinship to the inhabitants when we went ashore at Glengariff.Mick’s complaint now was that he could not find any one rejoicing in his name; for every one he and I met, strolling along from Castletown to Waterfall, the landing-place at the foot of Hungry Mountain, half round the bay, was either a Sullivan or an O’Brien—not a single Donovan being to be met with for love or money.“Begorrah, I can’t make it out at all, at all!” said my chum to me, after making inquiries at the various little shebeens on our way and chatting almost with every one of the groups of country people we passed, who all seemed mightily pleased at the sight of us bluejackets, most of them offering us hospitality in the shape of cups of milk at the corner of nearly every country lane, where some pretty colleen would stand, clad in her picturesque red cape and with stockingless feet, wishful to give thirsty folk a drink. “Me fayther s’id, faith, as how the Donovans wor kings ov Cark at one toime, Tom!”“Why,” I rejoined, giving him a twister, “you told the ‘Jaunty’ when you came aboard theSaint Vincentthat time to join, that your father was an ‘Oitalian!’”“Stow thet, Tom,” said he with a grin, digging me in the ribs, much to the amusement of one of the Irish girls who was near us, at whom Mick winked. “Sure, thet wor ownly me joke. Th’room pogue, ma colleen ogue?”The girl near, to whom he addressed the latter part of his speech, which sounded like Greek to me, blushed and laughed, turning away shyly.“Hullo!” I exclaimed. “What does that mean, Mick?”“Faith, it manes ‘Give me a kiss, me purty gurl,’ Tom,” he answered, bursting into a roar of laughter. “It’s a quishton ye’ll foind moighty convanient to axe some-toimes whin ye’re in these parts, mabouchal; an’ Oi’d advise ye to larn the languish ez soon ez ye can.”We remained at Bantry, coaling and preparing for action, for about a week, at the end of which time, ‘war’ being declared between the rival fleets engaged in the Manoeuvres, we filed out of the bay in single column line ahead and started off for the fray; the fleet I was with having some exciting episodes in the chops of the Channel during the time the mimic campaign lasted, in chasing and capturing the ships of the ‘enemy,’ our cruiser being a very fast vessel and easily able to overhaul most of their craft hand over hand.It was good fun too—almost like real fighting; and we got so eager at the game, that, on one occasion when we put into Plymouth Sound and found one of the ships belonging to the other side there, our fellows nearly had a row with the men belonging to her.This shows how very thoroughly we entered into the sport.It was the end of August when we came back from the Manoeuvres; and by the time we had paid off the cruiser, which, with the other ships specially commissioned for the purpose, was relegated to the reserve basin until she should be wanted to relieve some other vessel abroad, more than another month had elapsed before our rejoining the guardship.But no sooner had we done this than we had to make another move.The Training Squadron was under refit for its winter cruise, and a number of boys being required to fill up the complements of the ships composing it, one fine morning, just when Mick and myself began to feel at home again on board the oldAsia, we were paraded on deck with a number of others and ‘told off’ to join theActive.She was the commodore’s ship of the squadron, and the very one we had longed to be appointed to, her commander being a smart seaman well known in the service, and a friend of father’s old friend Captain Mordaunt.The latter, as luck would have it, had come to see us the previous Sunday, when I happened to be home and had promised me to put in a good word for me in the event of my being appointed to the ship.By a strange coincidence, Mick and I had been that very day talking of this while we were engaged cleaning some rusty rifles on the main-deck, which job one of the petty officers had put us at, from his seeing my chum and me star-gazing about, with nothing to do.“Be jabers!” said Mick, sighting his rifle and pretending to take aim at the swab as he went off after imposing this extra task on us, though he waited until the officious gentleman’s back was turned, as may be taken for granted, “Oi wud loike to spot thet chap roight in the bull’s-eye, bad cess to him! Och, but wait till we’re aboord theActive, Tom, an’, sure, we’ll hev no more of straight-backed jokers loike him to dale with!”“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched, Mick,” said I. “We’re not appointed to her yet.”“Blatheration!” exclaimed my chum, smacking the butt of his rifle on the deck and making the petty officer who was on the other side of the hatchway jump round in a jiffy, looking marline-spikes in our direction. “Ye jist say, now, if we don’t join her! Sure, I dramed ov her last noight, alannah. Oi’d dropped off into a swate shlape afther thet chap made sich a row toomblin’ out ov his hammick thet wor next moine, bein’ three sheets an’ more, faith, in the woind whin he come off from shore; an’ I dramed ez how, Tom, we two wor aboord theActive, which Oi wor lookin’ over ounly yisterday whin Oi come by Pitch-House Jetty, where she’s lyin’ preparin’ for say. Yis, we wor aboord her roight enuf; an’ Oi heerd the bo’sun poipe to ‘make sail,’ an’ the order guv ’way aloft, lay out on the yards an’ loose tops’ls. Thin Oi thinks ez how Oi’m ashore, ez will ez aboord; an’ Oi says theActivea-sailin’ out o’ harbour, ez nate ez ye plaize wid all her upper sails an’ flyin’ jib, an’ fore-topmast stays’l set!”“I don’t think you’re likely to see that, Mick,” said I, laughing. “It may do well enough in a dream; but I’ve heard father say that no ship has ever worked out of harbour under sail alone for the last forty years or more!”“Begorrah, just ye wait an’ say,” rejoined he. “Oi hed a paice ov shamrock, which I tuk out ov the fairy ring, sure, at Glasnevin, under me hid last noight whin Oi wor shlapin’, an’ me drame’s bound fur to come thrue!”Strangely enough, so it turned out, too.A week after we joined her, all things being ready and her preparation for sea being complete, theActivecast off the hawsers mooring her to the bollards on the jetty; and then, disdaining the assistance of any of the harbour tugs, the commodore sent the men aloft to make sail, and took her out to Spithead under her canvas alone, conning the ship himself from his station aft.I may say I assisted at the operation, being one of the hands who went aloft to set the mizzen-royal; and, I may add, that father told me when I came home on the termination of our cruise, at the end of the ensuing spring, our exploit was the talk of the town for months afterwards!
I did not mind Mick’s chaff, though. The captain had been a good friend to me while I had been on board, and I parted with him with as much regret as I felt when I said ‘good-bye’ to ‘Gyp.’
Our meal that day was what we called aboard ship a ‘stamp and go,’ all of us who were drafted being too excited to think much of eating—all of us, that is, excepting Mick!
He, as I have mentioned more than once previously, was a chap who was particularly partial to his grub, this being probably owing to the circumstance that he had experienced hard fare in his earlier days before he joined theSaint Vincent; but I can answer for this, that he endeavoured to the best of his ability, after that period, to make up for any shortcomings he had suffered from before!
“Begorrah, Tom,” he answered me very philosophically, when I told him to hurry up, “ther’s no knowin’ whin, sure, ayther on us’ll git another good square male; an’, faith, the bo’sun towld me onst no will-app’inted shep ivver goes to say widout havin’ her proper regulation stores an’ purvisions aboord!”
This was after I had my interview with the captain, of course; and I only tell it to show what sort of a fellow my chum was.
When we had packed our bags and come up on the middle deck to leave the ship in one of the cutters, which was to land us at the King’s Stairs in the dockyard, the master-at-arms, who stood by the entry-port with Mr Brown the ship’s corporal, wished us both a cordial farewell.
“Now, keep your hair on straight, Tom Bowling,” said the former to me, giving me a good grip of his fist, for he was a very hearty sort of man. “I have had my eye on you while you have been aboard here; and I quite believe you’ll turn out the right sort and work your way up to your warrant, if you only keep straight, long before I am laid on the shelf, my boy!”
“Faith, Tom,” whispered Mick to me in an aside that was quite loud enough for the ‘Jaunty’ to catch his remark, “ivverybody, sure, ’s kapin’ ther’ oye on ye; an’ ef all the jokers go on loike thet, ye’ll be havin’ what ye’re moother called t’other day, bedad, a’ ’tack ov ‘oye-strikes,’ if ye don’t look out sharp!”
“Ah, my h’Italian friend!” said the master-at-arms, who overheard him, with a broad grin on his face, which was reflected on that of Mr Brown; “so you’re going to leave us too, eh! Well, as some writing chap says somewhere or t’other in some book I’ve read, we could have better spared a better boy than you, Paddy. You’ve been a good lad too, in spite of your larks; and I hope you’ll get on well in the service, like your chum Tom Bowling here. Stick to him, and he’ll keep you straight.”
So saying, he shook hands with Mick the same as he had done with me, Mr Brown following suit in an equally hearty fashion; and shouldering our bags, we all went down the accommodation ladder and took our seats in the cutter.
Just as we were shoving off, Mick spied old Jellybelly on duty at the gangway, and he could not help giving him a parting shot.
“Good luck to ye, Mr Tarbolt, an’ more power to yer elber, sor,” he cried out with much effusion. “Be jabers, Oi’ll kape me oye out fur to say ef Oi can pick up a roight-down comfable arm-cheer fur ye to take a sate whin ye gits toired, sure, a-standin’ whin ye’re on the watch!”
There was a subdued titter from all the other fellows, both them in the boat and the rest who were out on the booms and standing by the entry-port, and old Jellybelly shook his fist in a threatening manner at Mick; but the smile on his face showed that he took the old joke in good part.
The last I saw of the old ship as we rowed away up the harbour was a row of grinning faces looking in our direction, and the lines being triced up fore and aft with the hammock-cloths and clothes of the boys hung out to dry, Tuesday, the day we left, being ‘washing-day’ with us on board.
I had experienced a happy time altogether on board her; and, when I come to look back now, the wonder to me, I’m sure, is that every boy who can possibly get permission from his people does not join the service, considering all the advantages he gets on donning the bluejacket rig.
Just consider.
Instead of living higgledy-piggledy in some close room with half a dozen others, as many poor boys have to do, and little or nothing to eat and that only at haphazard, while in the majority of cases his clothing will be none of the best, being more holey than pious; the same boy on entering theSaint Vincentfinds himself at once well fed, well clothed, and with clean and roomy quarters to breathe in!
There is the discipline, to be sure, and that’s where the shoe pinches with the free Arab of the slums; but, in addition to the discipline, it should be recollected there is also the instruction in various things that nine boys out of ten look upon rather as pleasurable games than so many tasks.
Besides this, they have real games in their play-hours aboard and in the recreation-ground at Haslar; and, besides, are allowed ashore once a week at least, to see their friends and relatives, if these live in the neighbourhood, having pocket-money given them to enjoy themselves with—more than they can say they ever had in their life on land.
Then there are the ‘sports’ which theSaint Vincentboys have every year at midsummer, before the breaking-up for their holidays, when swimming races, boat races, egg-and-spoon races, and all sorts of jollities are all the go.
But, there I am again, hauling my jawing tackle aboard according to the old Bowling family propensity, anent which mother used always to rate father; so, I must belay!
Pulling steadily away from the old ship on the stream which was running up the harbour, making this appear one vast lake up to Fareham Creek under the base of the Portsdown hills, a lake whereon floated long lines of old hulks of the past, interspersed with many a specimen of the newer models of the present ships of the Navy, the cutter at last landed us at the foot of the King’s Stairs; when, unshipping our bags and shouldering them again, we crossed the dockyard in single file, under charge of a petty officer, making for the guardship to which we had been drafted, which was lying alongside the North Wall, not far from theExcellent.
Our tramp was a most fatiguing one over the rough pigs of iron ballast arranged like cobble-stones, which some chap must have had put down in order to benefit his bootmaker, the pilgrimage of folk anxious to see the yard being rather trying on shoe-leather.
We felt it all the more from having been accustomed to go in our bare feet on board the training-ship, and boots in themselves being irksome, without the hard road we had to travel adding to the penance.
Ascending the ladder-way that led up from the jetty to the deck of the oldAsia, the guardship, we were soon allotted our billets; and quickly settled down to the routine of the ship, which, of course, was very different to that of theSaint Vincent.
However, we did not very long remain here; for, it being now getting on well in the month of July, and several new ships having been ordered to be commissioned for the Naval Manoeuvres, Mick and I, good luck still attending us and keeping us always in company, were told off to join a smart cruiser attached to one of the squadrons, in which we presently sailed for Bantry Bay.
Here my chum found himself once more in his native land, and under a sky as blue as that of Italy, to which country he had originally claimed to belong, in spite of the strong ‘brogue’ that readily betrayed his kinship to the inhabitants when we went ashore at Glengariff.
Mick’s complaint now was that he could not find any one rejoicing in his name; for every one he and I met, strolling along from Castletown to Waterfall, the landing-place at the foot of Hungry Mountain, half round the bay, was either a Sullivan or an O’Brien—not a single Donovan being to be met with for love or money.
“Begorrah, I can’t make it out at all, at all!” said my chum to me, after making inquiries at the various little shebeens on our way and chatting almost with every one of the groups of country people we passed, who all seemed mightily pleased at the sight of us bluejackets, most of them offering us hospitality in the shape of cups of milk at the corner of nearly every country lane, where some pretty colleen would stand, clad in her picturesque red cape and with stockingless feet, wishful to give thirsty folk a drink. “Me fayther s’id, faith, as how the Donovans wor kings ov Cark at one toime, Tom!”
“Why,” I rejoined, giving him a twister, “you told the ‘Jaunty’ when you came aboard theSaint Vincentthat time to join, that your father was an ‘Oitalian!’”
“Stow thet, Tom,” said he with a grin, digging me in the ribs, much to the amusement of one of the Irish girls who was near us, at whom Mick winked. “Sure, thet wor ownly me joke. Th’room pogue, ma colleen ogue?”
The girl near, to whom he addressed the latter part of his speech, which sounded like Greek to me, blushed and laughed, turning away shyly.
“Hullo!” I exclaimed. “What does that mean, Mick?”
“Faith, it manes ‘Give me a kiss, me purty gurl,’ Tom,” he answered, bursting into a roar of laughter. “It’s a quishton ye’ll foind moighty convanient to axe some-toimes whin ye’re in these parts, mabouchal; an’ Oi’d advise ye to larn the languish ez soon ez ye can.”
We remained at Bantry, coaling and preparing for action, for about a week, at the end of which time, ‘war’ being declared between the rival fleets engaged in the Manoeuvres, we filed out of the bay in single column line ahead and started off for the fray; the fleet I was with having some exciting episodes in the chops of the Channel during the time the mimic campaign lasted, in chasing and capturing the ships of the ‘enemy,’ our cruiser being a very fast vessel and easily able to overhaul most of their craft hand over hand.
It was good fun too—almost like real fighting; and we got so eager at the game, that, on one occasion when we put into Plymouth Sound and found one of the ships belonging to the other side there, our fellows nearly had a row with the men belonging to her.
This shows how very thoroughly we entered into the sport.
It was the end of August when we came back from the Manoeuvres; and by the time we had paid off the cruiser, which, with the other ships specially commissioned for the purpose, was relegated to the reserve basin until she should be wanted to relieve some other vessel abroad, more than another month had elapsed before our rejoining the guardship.
But no sooner had we done this than we had to make another move.
The Training Squadron was under refit for its winter cruise, and a number of boys being required to fill up the complements of the ships composing it, one fine morning, just when Mick and myself began to feel at home again on board the oldAsia, we were paraded on deck with a number of others and ‘told off’ to join theActive.
She was the commodore’s ship of the squadron, and the very one we had longed to be appointed to, her commander being a smart seaman well known in the service, and a friend of father’s old friend Captain Mordaunt.
The latter, as luck would have it, had come to see us the previous Sunday, when I happened to be home and had promised me to put in a good word for me in the event of my being appointed to the ship.
By a strange coincidence, Mick and I had been that very day talking of this while we were engaged cleaning some rusty rifles on the main-deck, which job one of the petty officers had put us at, from his seeing my chum and me star-gazing about, with nothing to do.
“Be jabers!” said Mick, sighting his rifle and pretending to take aim at the swab as he went off after imposing this extra task on us, though he waited until the officious gentleman’s back was turned, as may be taken for granted, “Oi wud loike to spot thet chap roight in the bull’s-eye, bad cess to him! Och, but wait till we’re aboord theActive, Tom, an’, sure, we’ll hev no more of straight-backed jokers loike him to dale with!”
“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched, Mick,” said I. “We’re not appointed to her yet.”
“Blatheration!” exclaimed my chum, smacking the butt of his rifle on the deck and making the petty officer who was on the other side of the hatchway jump round in a jiffy, looking marline-spikes in our direction. “Ye jist say, now, if we don’t join her! Sure, I dramed ov her last noight, alannah. Oi’d dropped off into a swate shlape afther thet chap made sich a row toomblin’ out ov his hammick thet wor next moine, bein’ three sheets an’ more, faith, in the woind whin he come off from shore; an’ I dramed ez how, Tom, we two wor aboord theActive, which Oi wor lookin’ over ounly yisterday whin Oi come by Pitch-House Jetty, where she’s lyin’ preparin’ for say. Yis, we wor aboord her roight enuf; an’ Oi heerd the bo’sun poipe to ‘make sail,’ an’ the order guv ’way aloft, lay out on the yards an’ loose tops’ls. Thin Oi thinks ez how Oi’m ashore, ez will ez aboord; an’ Oi says theActivea-sailin’ out o’ harbour, ez nate ez ye plaize wid all her upper sails an’ flyin’ jib, an’ fore-topmast stays’l set!”
“I don’t think you’re likely to see that, Mick,” said I, laughing. “It may do well enough in a dream; but I’ve heard father say that no ship has ever worked out of harbour under sail alone for the last forty years or more!”
“Begorrah, just ye wait an’ say,” rejoined he. “Oi hed a paice ov shamrock, which I tuk out ov the fairy ring, sure, at Glasnevin, under me hid last noight whin Oi wor shlapin’, an’ me drame’s bound fur to come thrue!”
Strangely enough, so it turned out, too.
A week after we joined her, all things being ready and her preparation for sea being complete, theActivecast off the hawsers mooring her to the bollards on the jetty; and then, disdaining the assistance of any of the harbour tugs, the commodore sent the men aloft to make sail, and took her out to Spithead under her canvas alone, conning the ship himself from his station aft.
I may say I assisted at the operation, being one of the hands who went aloft to set the mizzen-royal; and, I may add, that father told me when I came home on the termination of our cruise, at the end of the ensuing spring, our exploit was the talk of the town for months afterwards!