While the boatswain was still speaking, and expressing his regret at not
being able to show the stevedores that he properly appreciated the mode
in which they had done their work, I noticed a boy come out from
somewhere on the deck below, just underneath where we were standing, and
make his way towards the forepart of the ship, apparently in a great
hurry about something or other.
I wondered what he was going to do, and was puzzling my head about the
matter, not liking to interrupt Tim Rooney, when the boy himself the
next instant satisfied my curiosity by going up to the ship's bell,
which was suspended in its usual place, under the break of the
forecastle, just above and in front of the windlass bits away forward;
when, catching hold of a lanyard hanging from the end of the clapper, he
struck four sharp raps against the side of the bell, the sound ringing
through the air and coming back distinctly to us aft on the poop. I
should, however, explain that I, of course, was not familiar with all
these nautical details then, only learning them later on, mainly through
Tim Rooney's help, when my knowledge of ships and of sea terms became
more extended.
Just as the last stroke of the bell rang out above the babble of the
men's voices and the shuffling noise of their feet moving about, the
four strokes being sounded in pairs, "cling-clang, cling-clang!" like a
double postman's knock, a slim gentlemanly young man, with brown hair
and beard and moustache, who was dressed in a natty blue uniform like
mine, save that he wore a longer jacket and had a band of gold lace
round his cap in addition to the solitary crown and anchor badge which
my head-gear rejoiced in, appeared on top of the gangway leading from
the wharf alongside. The next instant, jumping down from the top of the
bulwarks on to the main-deck, a couple of strides took him to the foot
of the poop ladder, quickly mounting which, he stood beside us.
"Sure, an' it's proud I am to say yez, sorr," exclaimed the boatswain,
touching the peak of his dilapidated cheese-cutter in salute, and with a
smile of welcome on his genial face; "though it's lucky, bedad, ye
didn't come afore, Misther Mackay, or faix ye'd have bin in toime to be
too soon."
"How's that, Rooney?" inquired the other with a pleasant laugh, showing
his nice white teeth. "Instead of being too early, I'm afraid I am a
little late."
"The divil a bit, sorr," replied Rooney. "We've only jist this viry
minnit struck down the last av the cargo; an' if ye'd come afore, why,
it's ruckshions there'd a bin about our skulkin', I know."
"No, no," laughingly said the young officer; who, I suppose, was older
than he looked, for Tim Rooney told me in a loud whisper while he was
speaking that he was the "foorst mate" of the ship. "I'm not half such
a growler as you are, bosun; but, all the same, I'm glad you've got the
job done. Who's been looking after the dock mateys below, seeing to the
stowage?"
"Misther Saunders, sorr," promptly answered Rooney. Adding aside for my
enlightenment as to who this worthy might be: "The `sicond mate,' sure,
mavourneen."
"Ah, then we need have no fears about its being well done," rejoined Mr
Mackay, or the first mate, as I'd better call him. "Who is our friend
here alongside of you, bosun? I don't recollect having the pleasure of
seeing him before. Another youngster from Leadenhall Street--eh?"
He looked at me inquiringly as he asked the question.
"Yes, sorr. He's Misther Gray-ham, sorr; jist come down to jine the
Silver Quane, sorr, as foorst-class apprentice," replied the boatswain
with a sly wink to the other, which I was quick enough to catch. Adding
in a stage whisper, which I also could not help overhearing: "An' it's
foorst-class he is entoirely--a raal broth av a bhoy, sure."
"Indeed," said Mr Mackay, smiling at the Irishman's irony at my
expense, in return no doubt for my whimsical assumption of dignity when
telling him who I was. "I suppose he's come to fill the place of young
Rawlings, who, you may remember, cut and run from us at Singapore on our
last voyage out?"
"I s'pose so, sorr," rejoined Tim laconically.
"I'm very happy, I am sure, to see you on board and make your
acquaintance," said the pleasant-faced young officer, turning to me in a
nice cordial way that increased the liking I had already taken to him at
first sight. "Have you got your traps with you all right, Mr Graham?"
"My father sent on my sea-chest containing all my clothes and things
last night by the goods train from our place, addressed to the brokers
in Leadenhall Street, as they directed, sir; so I hope it will arrive in
time," I replied, quite proud of a grown-up fellow like Mr Mackay
addressing me as "Mister."
"You needn't be alarmed about its safety, then, I suppose," observed he
jokingly. But, of course, although he might have thought so from my
manner, I had really no fears respecting the fate of my chest, and of
its being forthcoming when I wanted it. Indeed, until that moment, I
had not thought about it at all; for I knew father had despatched it all
right from Westham; and when he attended to anything no mishap ever
occurred--at least that was our opinion at home!
Fancying, from the expression of my face as these thoughts and the
recollection of those I had left behind at the rectory flashed through
my mind, that I was perhaps worrying myself about the chest, which of
course I wasn't, Mr Mackay hastened, as he imagined, to allay my fears.
"There, there! don't bother yourself about your belongings, my boy,"
said he kindly; "your chest and other dunnage came down to the ship
early this morning from the brokers along with that of the other
youngsters, and you'll find it stowed in that after-deckhouse below
there, where you midshipmen or apprentices will all live together in a
happy family sort of way throughout the voyage."
"Thank you, sir," I answered, much obliged for his courtesy and
information; although, I confess, I wondered where the "house" was of
which he spoke, there being nothing like even a cottage on the deck,
which with everything connected with it was utterly strange to me.
My face must again have reflected my thoughts; for even Tim Rooney
noticed the puzzled expression it bore, as I looked over the poop rail
in the direction Mr Mackay pointed.
"I don't think, sorr, the young gintleman altogether onderconstubbles
your manin'," he remarked to the mate in that loud whisper of his which
the poor man really did not intend me to hear, as I'm sure he wouldn't
have intentionally hurt my feelings. "Sure an' it's a reg'ler green
hand the bhoy is entoirely."
"Never mind that now; he'll soon learn his way to the weather earring,
if I don't mistake the cut of his jib," retorted Mackay in a lower tone
of voice than the other, although I caught the sense of what he said
equally well, as he turned to me again with the evident desire of
putting me at my ease. "Have you seen any of your mess-mates yet, my
boy--eh?"
"No, sir," I answered, smiling in response to his kindly look. "I have
seen no one since I came on board but you and Mr Rooney, who spoke to
me first; and, of course, those men working over there."
"Sure, sorr, all av 'em are down below a-grubbin' in the cuddy since
dinner-toime," interposed my friend the boatswain by way of explanation,
on seeing the mate looked surprised at hearing that none of the other
officers were about when all should have been so busy. "Ivery man Jack
av 'em, sorr, barrin' Misther Saunders; who, in coorse, as I tould you,
sorr, has bin down in the hould a-sayin' to the stowage of the cargy,
more power to his elbow! An', be the same token, I thinks I sayed him
jist now coom up the main-hatchway an' goin' to the cuddy too, to join
the others at grub."
"Oh!" ejaculated Mr Mackay with deep meaning, swinging round on his
heel, all alert in an instant; and taking hold of a short bar of iron
pointed at the end, lying near, which Tim Rooney told me afterwards was
what is called a "marling-spike," he proceeded to rap with it vigorously
against the side of the companion hatchway, shouting out at the same
time so that he could be heard all over the ship: "Tumble up, all you
idlers and stowaways and everybody! Below there--all hands on deck to
warp out of dock!"
"Be jabers, that'll fetch 'em, sorr," cried Tim with a huge grin, much
relishing this summoning of the laggards to work. "Sure, yer honour,
ye're the bhoy to make 'em show a leg when ye wants to, an' no misthake
at all, at all!"
"Aye, and I want them now," rejoined the other with emphasis. "We have
got no time to lose; for, the tide is making fast, and the tug has been
outside the lock-gates waiting for the last half-hour or more to take us
in tow as soon as we get out in the stream. Below there--look alive and
tumble up before I come down after you!"
In obedience to this last hail of Mr Mackay, which had a sharp
authoritative ring about it, a short, podgy little man with a fat neck
and red whiskers, who, as I presently learned, was Mr Saunders, the
second mate, came up the companion way; and as I perceived him to be
wiping his mouth as he stepped over the coaming of the hatchway, this
showed that the boatswain's surmise of his being engaged "grubbing" with
the others was not far wrong.
Mr Saunders was followed up from below by a couple of sturdy youths,
who appeared to be between eighteen and nineteen or thereabout; and,
behind them again, the last of the file, slowly stepped out on to the
deck a lanky boy of about the same age as myself--which I forgot to
mention before was just fifteen, although I looked older from my build
and height.
"You're a nice lot of lazy fellows to leave in charge of the work of the
ship!" cried Mr Mackay on the three presenting themselves before him,
slowly mounting the companion stairs, one after the other, as if the
exertion was almost too great for them, poor fellows, after their
dinner! "Here, you Matthews, look sharp and stir your stumps a bit--one
would think you were walking in your sleep. I want you to see to that
spring forwards as we unmoor!"
The boatswain had already descended from the poop and gone to his
station in the fore part of the ship; and now, with the first mate's
words, all was stir and action on board.
The tallest of the two youths immediately dashed off towards the bows of
the ship with an alacrity that proved his slow movements previously had
been merely put on for effect, and were not due to any constitutional
weakness; for, he seemed to reach the forecastle in two bounds, and I
could see him, from a coign of vantage to which he nimbly mounted on top
of the knightheads, giving orders to a number of men on the wharf, who
had gathered about the ship in the meantime, and directing them to pass
along the end of the fore hawser round a bollard on the jetty, near the
end of the lock-gates by which entrance was gained from the adjacent
river to the basin in which the vessel was lying.
Tom Jerrold, the second youth--I heard him called by that name--was sent
to look after another hawser passed over the bows of the ship on the
starboard side, the end of the rope being bent round a capstan in the
centre of the wharf.
Then, on Mr Mackay's word of command, the great wire cables mooring the
ship to the jetty were cast off; and, a gang of the dock labourers
manning the capstan, with their broad chests and sinewy arms pressed
against the bars, as they marched round it singing some monotonous
chorus ending in a "Yo, heave, ho!" the ship began to move--at first
slowly inch by inch, and then with increased way upon her as the _vis
inertiae_ of her hull was overcome--towards the lock at the mouth of the
basin, the gates of which had been opened, or rather the caisson floated
out shortly before, as the tide grew to the flood.
Dear me! What with the constant and varied orders to the gang of men
working the capstan, and the others easing off the hawser that had been
passed round the bollard, keeping a purchase on it and hauling in the
slack as the vessel crept along out of the dock so as to prevent her
"taking charge" and slewing round broadside on at the entrance where she
met the full force of the stream, I was well-nigh deafened with the
hoarse shouts and unintelligible cries that filled the air on all sides,
everybody apparently having something to say, and all calling out at
once.
"Bear a hand with that spring!" Mr Mackay would roar out one instant
in a voice that quite eclipsed that of Tim Rooney, loud as I thought
that on first going on board. "Easy there!" screamed Matthews from his
perch forwards, not to be outdone; while the boatswain was singing out
for a "fender" to guard the ship's bows from scrunching against the dock
wall, and Tom Jerrold overseeing the men at the bollard on the wharf
calling out to them to "belay!" as her head swung a bit. Even lanky
young Sam Weeks, the other middy like myself, had something or other to
say about the "warp fouling," the meaning of which I did not catch,
although he seemed satisfied at adding to the general hubbub. All the
time, too, there was the red-headed Mr Saunders, the second mate, who
had stationed himself in the main-chains, whence he could get a good
view of what was going on both forward and aft alike, continually urging
on the men at the capstan to "heave with a will!"--just as if they
wanted any further urging, when they had Mr Mackay at them already and
their tramping chorus, "Yo, heave, ho" to fall back upon!
It was a wonder, with so many contradictory commands, as these all
seemed to my ignorant ears, that some mishap did not happen. But,
fortunately, nothing adverse occurred to delay the ship; and those on
shore being apparently as anxious to get rid of the Silver Queen as
those on board were to clear her away from the berth she had so long
occupied when loading alongside the jetty, she was soon by dint of
everybody's shouting and active co-operation warped out of the basin
into the lock, drifting thence on the bosom of the tideway into the
stream.
Here, a little sturdy tug of a paddle steamer, which had been waiting
for us the last hour or more, puffing up huge volumes of dense black
smoke, and occasionally sounding her shrill steam whistle to give vent
to her impatience, ranged up alongside, someone on her deck heaving
dexterously a line inboard, which Tim Rooney the boatswain as
dexterously caught as it circled in the air like a lasso and fell
athwart the boat davits amidships.
The line was then taken forwards by Tim Rooney outside the rigging, he
walking along the gunwale till he gained the forecastle; there, another
man then lending a hand, the line was hauled in with the end of a strong
steel hawser bent on to it, that had been already passed over the stern
of the tug, and the bight carried across the "towing-horse" and firmly
fastened to the tug's fore-deck, while our end on reaching the
forecastle of the Silver Queen was similarly secured inboard, Tim
satisfying himself that it was taut by jumping on it.
"Are you ready?" now hailed the master of the tug from the paddle-box of
his little vessel, calling out to Mr Mackay who was leaning over the
poop of ours which seemed so big in comparison, the hull of the ship
towering above the tug and quite overshadowing her. "Are you ready,
sir?"
"Aye, aye!" sang out Mr Mackay in answer. "You can start as soon as
you like. Fire up and heave ahead!"
Then, the steamer's paddles revolved, the steel hawser, stretched over
her towing-horse astern and attached to our bows, tightened with a sort
of musical twang as it became rigid like a bar of iron; and, in another
minute or so, the Silver Queen was under good way, sailing down the
Thames outwards bound.
"Fo'c's'le, ahoy there!" presently shouted out Mr Mackay near me all of
a sudden, making me jump round from my contemplation of the river, into
which I was gazing down from over the stern, looking at the broad white
foaming wake we left behind us as we glided on. "Is the bosun there?"
"Aye, aye, sorr," promptly replied Tim Rooney, showing himself from
behind the deck-house between the mainmast and foremast, which had
previously hidden him from the view of the poop. "I'm here, sort."
"Then send a hand aft to the wheel at once," rejoined Mr Mackay. "Look
sharp, we're under steerage-way."
"Aye, aye, sorr," answered the boatswain as before; and as he spoke I
could see a tall seaman making his way aft in obedience to the first
mate's orders; and, before Mr Mackay had time to walk across the deck,
he had mounted the poop, cast off the lashings that prevented the wheel
from moving, and was whirling the spokes round with both hands in
thorough ship-shape style.
This man's name was Adams, as I subsequently learnt; and he was the
sailmaker--one of the best sailors on board, and one of the old hands,
having sailed with Tim Rooney, as the latter told me, the two previous
voyages. That sort of man, in the boatswain's words, who was always
"all there" when wanted.
I am anticipating matters, however, Mr Mackay being not yet done with
Tim; for, after telling Adams to go aft to take his trick at the wheel,
the worthy boatswain was just about disappearing again behind the
forward deck-house as before to resume some job on which he seemed very
intent, when his steps were once more arrested by the mate's hail,
"Bosun!"
"Aye, aye, sorr," cried Tim Rooney rather savagely as he stopped and
faced round towards the break of the poops on which Mr Mackay stood by
the rail; and I'm sure I heard him mutter something else below his
breath even that distance off.
"Is the anchor all clear?" asked the first mate. "You know we shall
want it for bringing up at Gravesend."
"Yis, sorr," said the other. "I ased off the catfalls an' shank painter
iver since the mornin'; an', sure, the blissid anchor is a-cockbill, all
riddy to lit go whin ye gives the worrud."
"And the cable--how many shackles have you got up?"
"Thray lingths, sorr. I thought that enough for the river, wid a fower
fathom bottom; so, I've bitted it at that, an' me an' Jackson are a-
sayin' about clearin' the cable range now."
"That's right," replied Mr Mackay, apparently satisfied that at last
everything forward was going on as it should; for he turned away from
the poop rail and entered into conversation with a stout thickset
strange man, dressed in sailor's clothes, but with a long black oilskin
or waterproof over his other garments reaching down to his heels,
although it wasn't raining at all, being a bright, fine afternoon.
Not only had this new-comer arrived on board without my noticing him,
although I had been looking out all the time, but he managed to get up
on the poop in the most mysterious way. I was certain he had not been
anywhere near the moment before, and yet, now, there he was.
He must be the captain at last, I thought, having been expecting to see
that personage appear on the scene every moment; and my impression of
his being one in authority was confirmed a moment later, when, from his
giving some order or command, Mr Mackay left him hastily, and coming
further aft took up a position nearer me, close to Adams, just abaft the
binnacle. The oilskin man, however, remained on the weather side of the
poop at the head of the ladder, whence he had a good look-out ahead,
clear of all intervening obstacles, and from which post he proceeded to
direct the steering of the ship by waving his arms this way and that as
if he were an animated windmill
The first mate interpreted as quickly these signals for the benefit of
Adams, passing on the words of warning they conveyed, "Hard up!" or
"Down helm!" or "Steady!" as the case might be. These frequent and
often contradictory orders were necessary, when, owing to some
unexpected bend in the river, the Silver Queen would luff up suddenly
and shoot her head athwart stream hard a-port, or else try to "take the
bit between her teeth," and sheer into the shore on the starboard hand
as if she wanted to run up high and dry on the mud, loth to leave her
native land.
She required good steering.
Aye, and careful watching too, on the part of the helmsman; for, in
addition to the natural turnings and windings of the channel-way, which
were many, the Thames curving about and twisting itself into the shape
of a corkscrew between London Bridge and the Nore, the tug had besides
continually to alter her course, thus, naturally, making us change ours
too, as the tow-rope slackening one moment would cause the ship's bows
to fall off, and then tightening like a fiddle-string the next instant
her head would be jerked back again viciously into its former position,
right astern of the little vessel at whose mercy we were, as if she
insisted on the Silver Queen following obediently in her wake.
This eccentric mode of procedure, however, must not be altogether
ascribed to any contrariness of disposition on the part of the gallant
tug, which, in spite of occasional stoppages and frequent alterations of
course, yet towed us along steadily down the river--a pigmy pulling a
giant. Such a monster we seemed, lumbering behind her as she panted and
puffed huge volumes of black smoke from her tall striped funnel, with
much creaking of her engines and groaning of her poor strained timbers,
and the measured rhythmical beat of her paddle-floats on the surface of
the water, that sounded as if she were "spanking" it out of spite.
No, it wasn't the fault of the little, dirty, toiling tug, whose daily
drudgery did not give her time to look after her toilet and study her
personal appearance like those bigger craft she had always tacked on to
her tail. For these turnings and twistings we had to take in our
downward journey to Gravesend and the open sea beyond; the innumerable
backings and fillings and bendings this way and that, now going ahead
full speed for a couple of minutes, now coming to a full stop with a
sharp order to let her drift astern, were all due to the fact of the tug
having to keep clear, and keep us clear, too, of the innumerable inward-
bound steamers, passenger boats, and other vessels coming up stream.
The tideway being crowded with craft of all sorts, navigation was
exceedingly difficult for a heavily-laden ship in tow, especially in
that awkward reach between Greenwich and Blackwall, where the river,
after trending south by east, makes an abrupt turn almost due north.
This place I thought the worst part of the journey then when I first saw
it; and, I am of the same opinion still, although now better acquainted
with the Thames and all its mysteries.
On the bustle that ensued when she began to warp out of dock, I had left
the poop, along with the boatswain and the others, going down the ladder
at the side on to the main-deck; but, when arrived there, I soon
discovered that an idler like myself, standing by with nothing to do,
was in the way alike of the ropes that were being thrown and dragged
about and of the men handling them--this knowledge being brought home
very practically by my getting tripped and knocked about from pillar to
post by those rushing here and there to execute the various orders
hoarsely bawled out to them each instant, and which would not admit of
delay.
"Look out there!" would shout one, nearly strangling me with the bight
of a line circling in the air round my unfortunate head. "By your
leave!" would cry another, jamming me, most certainly without my
consent, against the bulwarks, and making me feel as flat as a pancake
all over. So, first pushed this way and then driven that, and mauled
about generally, I got forced away by degrees from the forward part of
the deck, where I had taken up a position in the thick of the fray, back
again to my original starting-point, the poop; and here, now, ensconcing
myself by the taffrail at the extreme end of the vessel, I thought there
was no danger of anyone asking me to get out of the way or move on any
further, unless they shoved me overboard altogether.