Captain ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The Sub.
First-class Passenger ... ... ... ... Mr. Meredith.
First Lieutenant and Boatswain ... ... The Pink Rat.
Officer of Marines and Master-at-Arms The War Baby.
Surgeon and Captain of the Main-top ... Dr. Gordon.
Chaplain and Official Photographer ... The Rev. Horace Gibbons.
Paymaster and Man-of-all-Work ... ... Uncle Podger.
Captain of the Fore-top ... ... ... ... The Lamp-post.
Foretopmen ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The Hun, The Orphan,
Rawlins
Maintopmen ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Bubbles, The Pimple.
Cabin Boy ... ... ... ... ... ... ... The China Doll.
Second Cabin Boy ... ... ... ... ... Barnes.
The Ancient Mariner ... ... ... ... ... Fletcher the Stoker.
The Albatross ... ... ... ... ... ... "Kaiser Bill".
*Uniform of the day--Pirate Rig.*
Coloured shirt, vest, or jersey.
Trousers or shorts.
Head-dress--any old thing, as long as it's hideous.
Fletcher they asked because they thought the old man would enjoy "a bit
of an outing", and "Kaiser Bill" was asked because Fletcher wouldn't
enjoy it without him.
Barnes, on reading the notice and seeing his own appointment, growled to
the messman: "What did them young gen'l'men a-think they was a-doin' of;
no, 'e wasn't a-goin' a-sailorisin' in that 'ere craft what murder 'ad
been done in, an' the blood-stain on 'er deck an' all--not 'e;" but he
changed his mind and went aboard with the Pirate Crew, grinning like a
huge schoolboy, with his big basket of food (including the War Baby's
sardines and sausages), a bucket of coal and wood to make a fire, a
kettle, frying-pan, and a barricoe of water. They climbed aboard,
handed up all the "gear" and their towels, and the Sub ran a boat's
ensign, which he had borrowed, up to the main masthead.
"Hello, Doc! brought your Harley Street bag with you, I see." Dr.
Gordon laughed. "Yes," he twinkled, "it might be useful." The little
Padre, beaming, passed aboard his camera, and climbed up after it.
To give you an idea of what this piratical crew looked like, the Orphan
wore a red tam-o'-shanter, a yellow-and-black sweater, running "shorts",
and gymnasium shoes; and Bubbles had an old kicked-in bowler hat on the
back of his head, a green football shirt stuffed into striped bathing
drawers, and a pair of sea-boots. He made a picturesque villain,
especially when he gripped a captured Turkish bayonet between his teeth
and gurgled at the China Doll. Most of them started with naked Turkish
bayonets tucked into their belts; but, on Uncle Podger's advice, the Sub
sent these back in the boat which had taken them all to the _What's Her
Name_. What a funny old-fashioned tub she was, and what stories she
could have told of all the years she had been toiling round the coast,
among the islands! Her high poop had rails round it, some of the wooden
posts beautifully carved, but most of them of rough wood, which showed
that she had "come down in the world" in her old age. Between the poop
and the still higher fo'c'sle was a "well" deck, with its dark
blood-stain, the foremast right amidships, and two big open hatchways,
one for'ard and one abaft the mast. Round her fo'c'sle were more rails,
some handsomely carved, and on it was an antediluvian windlass for
hoisting the anchor. The cable was so rusted and worn that it seemed
hardly possible that she could trust to it to ride out even the lightest
of gales.
Her masts--the lower masts at any rate--and the wide-spreading foreyard
were good, sound bits of timber, but the top-masts and fore-tops'l yards
looked anything but sound, and her "standing" rigging was so chafed and
so badly "set up" that her murdered crew must have been "past masters"
in the art of sailing her gently to prevent her masts carrying away.
"Well, what about it?" the Sub asked Mr. Meredith, with a note of
anxiety in his voice. "The breeze is blowing straight out of the
harbour; if we run to lee'ard, 'twill be too narrow there to beat back,
won't it? We'd best start beating to wind'ard, hadn't we? Look here,"
he said, "this is rather out of my line; you'd best run the show. You'd
better start a mutiny right away."
As Mr. Meredith had been in sailing-ships for years, and had been
Captain of a full-rigged ship before he was thirty, what he didn't know
about sailing wasn't worth knowing. "All right," he smiled, "I'm game;"
and seizing the unresisting Sub by the neck of his coloured jersey,
hurled him to the deck with fierce yells, and planting one foot on his
chest, roared: "Clear lower deck! I'm now the Captain of the _What's
Her Name_. Now, you dog," he hissed, as the pirate crew "fell in", "get
up and 'fall in' among those rascals; another word and you'll walk the
plank, and your bones shall bleach on the coral islands of the Spanish
Main. Ha! ha!"
The crew, overawed by his daring, and the ferocity of his appearance in
a Turkish fez, a red shirt, Sam Browne belt, and khaki riding-breeches,
gave three cheers for the new Captain; old Fletcher, who had put "Kaiser
Bill" in a safe place where he could not fall down the hatchways, smiled
indulgently; and Barnes, trying to enter into the spirit of the game,
grumbled in an undertone: "This 'ere 'clear lower deck' and 'fall in'
sounds too much like the real thing," and "'e didn't see quite where the
fun came in."
Then the Lamp-post and his foretopmen, the Hun, the Orphan, and Rawlins,
were sent off to clear the jibs and slack away the tops'l gaskets up
aloft, and to learn where their proper halyards "ran"; Dr. Gordon, the
Pimple, and Bubbles went aft to get the big spanker ready for setting;
Barnes and the China Doll were ordered to explore the little cook-house,
just under the fo'c'sle; Fletcher had strict orders to keep alight the
cigar which the Sub had brought him, and enjoy himself at all costs, and
all the others followed Mr. Meredith up on the fo'c'sle to heave up the
cable.
In five minutes after getting on board, the Orphan and Rawlins were
climbing out along the bowsprit and jib-boom, and the Lamp-post and the
Hun were up aloft, out along the tops'l-yard, unlashing the gaskets and
having a grand time; whilst the crowd on the fo'c'sle began levering
round the old horizontal windlass ("wild cat", Mr. Meredith told them,
was its proper name) with two long levers, like crowbars, stuck in the
holes at each end of it.
"Let's have a 'chanty'," they called, and the Sub started "We'll rant
and we'll roar"; but that did not "fit in", so Mr. Meredith gave them a
very old one:
"For the times are hard, and the wages low;
Leave her, Johnny, leave her.
Last night I heard the Old Man say,
'Tis time for us to leave her."
Whilst he sung the first line to a mournful dirge, they shifted the
crowbars into fresh holes, and then, hauling aft on them, joined in the
chorus: "Leave her, Johnny, leave her"; shifted them again whilst he
chanted the third line, and pulled to "'Tis time for us to leave her";
and each time they pulled the "wild cat" round, the links of the old
rusty cable came creaking in through the hawse-pipe, and the metal pawls
of the "wild cat" fell, "clink-clank", into the ratchet notches.
In a minute everybody had joined in the chanty, the Orphan and Rawlins
out beyond the fo'c'sle on the bowsprit, the Lamp-post and the Hun busy
aloft, Dr. Gordon and his "hands" aft. The China Doll, dashing up to
have one pull at the levers, chipped in too; whilst Barnes bellowed
"Leave her, Johnny, leave her" (thinking it was something about a girl)
from inside the cook-house; and old Fletcher, busy with his cigar,
beamed at everyone through his gold spectacles.
Presently Mr. Meredith, leaning over the bows, sang out: "She's 'up and
down'. Heave away, my hearties! 'Leave her, Johnny, leave her'," and
ran aft to take the wheel; the Orphan and Rawlins, scrambling back on
the fo'c'sle, hoisted the jib, and in a few more turns of the "wild cat"
the clumsy old "tub" began to pay off before the breeze.
Dr. Gordon, the Pink Rat, and the Pimple set the spanker, hauled taut
the clumsy "sheet", and the poor old _What's Her Name_ slowly pushed her
way through the water.
"Stand by aloft!" Mr. Meredith hailed the fore-top. "Let go gaskets!
Overhaul buntlines! Come down from aloft! You on deck, there! Sheet
home! Sheet home! Haul taut lee braces! Right you are!" as, somewhat
confused and muddled, the foretopmen managed at last to set that tops'l.
"Belay all!"
Mr. Meredith made a wry face. "She won't reach to wind'ard much, Doc,
with that old fore-tops'l drawing.
"Haul taut your lee braces, lads! Hoist your fore stays'l! Ease off
jib sheets!"
The foretopmen were having all the sport, so the maintopmen dashed
for'ard to help them; and by the time the anchor had been catted and
secured, the _What's Her Name_ was, as Mr. Meredith said, "moving as
fast as a snail and as sideways as a crab". "We shan't get far to-day,
Doc."
Nor did they; though what mattered that? They were as happy as kings;
the "going about" was such fun; everybody had something to do,
especially when the Padre, the China Doll, or the War Baby slacked off a
wrong rope at the right time or a right rope at the wrong time. It was
grand fun, and old Fletcher, sitting on the poop yarning with Uncle
Podger, thoroughly enjoyed himself; whilst from for'ard a little column
of grey smoke, and an occasional bellow of "Leave her, Johnny, leave
her", showed that Barnes, getting tea ready, was also quite happy.
The China Doll stole aft and called up to the Pimple, standing on the
main "cross-trees", above the spanker "jaws": "Pimple, I say, Pimple,
there are five tins of sausages. Isn't that grand?"
Suddenly, from for'ard, there came shrieks and agonized yells for
Fletcher.
"Fletcher! Hurry! Come quickly! Help! Help!"
The Orphan and the Hun flew up the rigging, yelling "that 'Kaiser Bill'
had broken loose, and was attacking them"; Bubbles, bursting with
laughter, climbed the dangerously weak ratlines after them; the
Lamp-post and Rawlins swarmed up the rigging on the other side, and even
the little Padre, catching the infection, sprang up as well.
"We won't come down till he's chained up. Look at him! Careering round
and snapping at everything. Save us, Fletcher! Save us!"
Old Fletcher, smiling kindly, came along from the poop, asking: "Where
is he?"
"There; there--near the water-butt! Do be careful! Get at him from
behind. Wave a lettuce leaf in front of him. We've brought a lettuce
in case he attacked us. Barnes! Barnes! Bring the lettuce! 'Kaiser
Bill' has broken out!"
The old stoker, peering about for the tortoise, found him just where he
had left him--his legs and head well tucked "inside"---picked him up,
placed him inside his "jumper"; got a lettuce from Barnes, who grunted
"they young gen'l'men will be a-breaking their blooming necks afore
long, I reckon"; and went aft again, to try and tempt the tortoise to
put his head out, and show some interest in the picnic.
Then the Padre and some of the snotties ventured on deck, again, though
most of them preferred to lie out on the tops'l-yard, which was so
frail, and its "lifts" so badly "set up", that it bent ominously, as did
the fore-topmast itself.
"Come down off that yard!" Mr. Meredith shouted. "Only two of you are to
be there at a time."
They begged him to let them set the upper tops'l, but that yard was more
like a broom-handle than anything else.
"The Hun can do it; no one else. The mast is rotten, and the yard too,"
Mr. Meredith shouted. (The Hun was the lightest of all the midshipmen.)
So the others gathered in the "top" and watched the Hun swarm up the
topmast, and so out on that tiny yard, casting off the gaskets of the
tiny sail.
Then they dashed down on deck, before Mr. Meredith's voice bellowed out:
"Let fall upper tops'l gaskets; overhaul your buntlines; sheet home,
sheet home. Belay all!"