"Keep at it, my lads, until she strikes!" cried the young commander, as
he fell.
Captain Saltwell had meantime, seeing what would occur, ordered two guns
to be run out at the after ports. Scarcely had they been fired when an
officer, springing into the forecastle of the French ship, waved his hat
and shouted that they had struck.
Oliver and Jack, on looking round for Rayner, and seeing him bleeding on
the deck, forgetful of everything else, sprang aft to his side. At that
moment the crew raised a cheer of victory; Rayner feebly attempted to
join in it. He was carried below. With anxious hearts his officers and
crew waited to hear the report of the surgeon.
It was Oliver's duty to go on board and take possession of the prize.
Unwillingly he left his friend's side. Of the _Lily's_ crew five had
been killed, and many more beside her commander, wounded. But Oliver
saw, as he stepped on board the prize, how much more severely she had
suffered. Everywhere lay dead and dying men. How dread and terrible a
fact is war! A lieutenant, coming forward, presented his sword.
"My captain lies there," he said, pointing to a form covered by a flag.
"The second lieutenant is wounded below; three other officers are among
the dead. We did not yield while we had a chance of victory."
"Yours is a brave nation, and I must compliment you on the gallant way
in which you fought your ship," answered Oliver, in the best French he
could command.
To lose no time, the prisoners were removed, the prize taken in tow, and
all sail made for Plymouth.
At length the surgeon come on deck.
"The commander will do well, I trust," he said; "but I shall be glad to
get him on shore as soon as possible. As soon as I had extracted the
bullet, he sent me off to look after the other wounded men, saying that
they wanted my care as well as he did."
The crew on this gave a suppressed cheer. It would have been louder and
more prolonged, but they were afraid of disturbing the commander and the
other wounded men.
All were proud of their achievement as they sailed up Plymouth Sound
with their prize in tow, but no one felt prouder than Jack Peek.
"I knew Captain would do something as soon as he had the chance," he had
remarked to Brown, who greatly shared his feelings.
Rayner was at once removed to the hospital. As he was unable to hold a
pen, Captain Saltwell wrote the despatches, taking care to give due
credit to the active commander of the corvette.
A short time afterwards Oliver carried to the hospital--to which he had
never failed to pay a daily visit--an official-looking letter.
"Ah! that will do him more good than my doctoring," said the surgeon, to
whom he showed it.
Oliver opened it at Rayner's request. It was from the Lords of the
Admiralty, confirming him in his rank, and appointing him to command the
_Urania_ (the English name given to the prize), which, being a fine new
corvette, a hundred tons larger than the _Lily_, had been bought into
the service.
"It will take some time to refit her, and you will, I hope, be about
again before she is ready for sea," said Oliver. "I have brought a
message from my mother, who begs, as soon as you are ready to be
removed, that you will come and stay at our house. She is a good nurse,
and you will enjoy more country air than you can here."
Rayner very gladly accepted the invitation. Neither Oliver nor Mrs
Crofton had thought about the result, but before many weeks were over
Commander William Rayner was engaged to marry Mary Crofton, who had
given him as loving and gentle a heart as ever beat in woman's bosom.
He told her how often he had talked about her when away at sea, and how
often he had thought of her, although he had scarcely dared to hope that
she would marry one who had been a London street boy and powder monkey.
"I love you, my dear Bill, for what you are, for being noble, true, and
brave, and such you were when you were a powder monkey, as you call it,
although you might not have discovered those qualities in yourself."
He was now well able to marry, for his agents had in their hands several
thousand pounds of prize-money, and he might reasonably hope to obtain
much more before the war was over.
Our hero was well enough to assume the command of the _Urania_ by the
time she was ready for sea. Oliver, as his first lieutenant, had been
busily engaged in obtaining hands, and had secured many of the _Lily's_
former crew. The commander had some time before sent for Jack Peek, and
urged him to prepare himself for obtaining a boatswain's warrant.
"Thank you, sir," said Jack; "but, you see, to get it I must read and
write, and that's what I never could tackle. I have tried pothooks and
hangers, but my fingers get all cramped up, and the pen splits open, and
I have to let it drop, and make a great big splash of ink on the paper;
and as for reading, I've tried that too. I know all the letters when I
see them, but I can't manage to put them together in the right fashion,
and never could get beyond a, b, ab, b, o, bo. I might in time, if I
was to stick to it, I know, and I'll try when we are at sea if I can get
a messmate to teach me. But while you're afloat I'd rather be your
coxswain, if you'll give me that rating; then I can always be with you,
and, mayhap, render you some service, which is just the thing I should
be proud of doing. Now, sir, there's Tom Fletcher; he's got plenty of
learning, and he ought to be a good seaman by this time. If you were to
recommend him to be either a gunner or a boatswain, he'd pass fast
enough."
Rayner shook his head. "I should be happy to serve Tom Fletcher for old
acquaintance' sake, but I fear that although he may have the learning,
as you say, he has not got the moral qualities necessary to make a good
warrant officer. However, send him to me, and I'll have a talk with him
on the subject."
Jack promised to look after Tom, whom he had not seen since the _Lily_
was paid off. He returned in a few days, saying that he had long
searched for him in vain, until at length he had found him in a low
house in the lowest of the Plymouth slums, his prize-money, to the
amount of nearly a hundred pounds, all gone, and he himself so drunk
that he could not understand the message Jack brought him.
"I am truly sorry to hear it," said Rayner. "But you must watch him and
try to get him on board. If he is cast adrift he must inevitably be
lost, but we will try what we can do to reform him."
"I will gladly do my best, sir," answered Jack. When the _Urania_ was
nearly ready for sea, Jack did contrive to get Tom aboard of her, but
the commander's good intentions were frustrated, for before the ship
sailed he deserted with could not again be discovered.
Of this Rayner was thankful, as he must of necessity have done what
would have gone greatly against his feelings--ordered Tom a flogging.
Honest Brown, however, who had gone to school as soon as the _Lily_ was
paid off; received what he well deserved, his warrant as boatswain of
the corvette he had helped to win. He had shortly to go to sea in a
dashing frigate, and from that he was transferred to a seventy-four, in
which he was engaged in several of England's greatest battles.
Some years passed, when after paying off the _Urania_, as Rayner was
passing along a street in Exeter, he heard a stentorian voice singing a
verse of a sea ditty. The singer, dressed as a seaman, carried on his
head the model of a full-rigged ship, which he rocked to and fro,
keeping time to the tune. He had two wooden legs in the shape of
mopsticks, and was supporting himself with a crutch, while with the hand
at liberty he held out a battered hat to receive the contributions of
his audience. Occasionally, when numbers gathered round to listen to
him, he exchanged his song for a yarn. As Rayner approached he was
saying, "This is the way our government treats our brave seamen. Here
was I fighting nobly for my king and country, when a Frenchman's shot
spoilt both my legs, and I was left to stump off as best I could on
these here timber toes without a shiner in my pocket, robbed of all my
hard-earned prize-money. But you good people will, I know, be kind to
poor Jack, and fill this here hat of his with coppers to give him a
crust of bread and a sup to comfort his old heart.
"`Come all ye jolly sailors bold,
Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould,
While England's glory I unfold,
Huzza to the _Arethusa_!'"
Suddenly he recognised Captain Rayner, who, from being dressed in plain
clothes, he had not at first observed. He started, and then began, with
an impudent leer, "Now, mates, I'll spin you another yarn about an
English captain who now holds his head mighty high, and would not
condescend to speak to poor Jack if he was to meet him. We was
powder-monkeys together, that captain and I. But luck is everything.
He went up, and I went down. That's the way at sea. If all men had
their deserts I should be where he is, in command of a fine frigate, in
a fair way of becoming an admiral. But it's no use complaining, and so
I'll sing on--
"`The famed _Belle Poule_ straight ahead did lie,
The _Arethusa_ seemed to fly,
Not a brace, or a tack, or a sheet did we slack
On board of the _Arethusa_.'"
"No, no, mate, you was not aboard the _Arethusa_!" cried Jack Peek, who
had followed his captain at a short distance, and looking Tom in the
face. "You was not aboard the _Arethusa_. I'll tell you what kept you
down. It was conceit, idleness, drink, and cowardice; and I'll tell you
what gave our brave captain his first lift in the service. It was his
truthfulness, his good sense, his obedience to the orders of his
superiors. It was his soberness, his bravery; and if you, with your
learning and advantages, had been like him, you too might have been in
command of a dashing frigate, and not stumping about on one wooden leg,
with the other tied up to deceive the people. It's hard things I'm
saying, I know, but I cannot stand by and hear a fellow who ought to
know better running monstrous falsehoods off his reel as you have been
doing. You might have borne up for Greenwich, and been looked after by
a grateful country; or you might have saved money enough to have kept
yourself in comfort to the end of your days; but it all went in drink
and debauchery, and now you abuse the government for not looking after
you. Howsumdever, Tom Fletcher, I'm very sorry for you, and if you'll
knock off this sort of vagabond life, which brings disgrace on the name
of a British sailor, I'll answer for it our good captain will exert his
influence and get you a berth in Greenwich or elsewhere, for he has
often spoken about you, and wondered where you were a-serving."
Jack Peek had probably never made so long a speech in his life. It was
perhaps too long, for it enabled the old sailor to recover his presence
of mind, and looking at Jack with a brazen countenance, he declared that
he had never seen him before, when off he went as fast as he could walk
on his wooden stumps, and turning down a by-lane was lost to view.
Jack had to hurry on to overtake his captain. It was the last time he
saw Tom Fletcher alive; but he afterwards heard that a man answering his
description, who had been sent to prison as a rogue and a vagabond, had
subsequently been killed in a drunken quarrel with another seaman of the
same character.
Jack had followed his old friend and captain from ship to ship, and at
length having overcome the difficulty not only of the alphabet, but of
pothooks and hangers, he obtained his warrant, and for several years had
charge of one of the ships in which he had fought and bled, now laid up
in Portsmouth harbour.
In the course of years there was found in the list of English Admirals
the names of Sir William Rayner, KCB, John Saltwell, and Oliver Crofton.