Sudden as had been my downfall, I was sufficiently awake, after the
first momentary giddiness caused by the sharp crack with which my head
came against the deck had passed away, to have a shrewd idea as to who
had brought about my sad calamity; the giggling and whispering, that
went on around, in the semi-darkness, telling me, had I needed any such
assurance, that my fall was due to no accident.
"Hullo, my joker!" I sang out, recognising the voice of Larrikins as I
fumbled about amongst the blankets and loose hammock cloth, feeling very
much as if I were tightly tied up in a sack, part of the lanyard having
taken a round turn round my neck. "I say, you first-class boy, there!
You with the mug on you like a vegetable marrow! Wait till to-morrow
morning and I'll serve you out for this--see if I don't!"
"Lor', yer doesn't mean fur to say as how ye've gone a downer?" cried my
tormentor, in a tone of great commiseration, lending a hand to extricate
me from the folds of the blankets. "I never seed a chap go down so
suddink. Lor'! Yer must hev made a slippery hitch when yer fastened up
the end on yer lanyard to the hook. Lor', I am that orful sorry!"
"Oh yes," said I, shaking myself free from the last of my encumbrances
and standing up erect, "you can just tell that to the marines!"
I was not, however, at all out of temper, having learnt long since from
my father, even were I not fond of a bit of practical-joking myself, not
to take umbrage at the skylarking of any of my comrades on board ship
where no malice was really intended. As he told me, the more a fellow
shows he's `riled,' the more his shipmates ever will tease him.
"If you want to have a happy life at sea, Tom," said he, "you must
always bear everything good-humouredly--everything; aye, should you
tumble from aloft and risk losing the number of your mess into the
bargain!"
Hearing the row and the sound of our talking after `lights out!' had
been called, one of the ship's corporals came up with a lantern to see
what was the matter; and he at once spotted Master Larrikins.
"Hi, young feller!" said he to that arch-conspirator; "what are you
doing here? How's it you haven't turned in on the lower deck, in your
proper billet?"
"The master-at-arms told me, sir, as how I wer fur to see as these
novices wos slung their hammicks propingly," replied Larrikins glibly.
"An' I wer jist a-seein' to do it, sir."
"Aye, and a precious fine way you have done it, too!" rejoined the
ship's corporal, whose face I could clearly see by the light of his own
lantern had a broad and beaming grin on it, as he proceeded to inspect
the lashings now of my hammock, the foot-end of which was still attached
to its hook in the deck beam. "Why, you've been and activally gone and
triced the poor beggar up with a bit of spunyarn. No wonder he come
down all standing on his cocoanut!"
The other fellows near me had wakened up by this, and there was a good
snigger all round; until the ship's corporal, having rigged up my
hammock again in the way it should have been rightly done at first, with
a double turn of the lanyard round the hook, shoved me in and kindly
tucked my blankets round me, before going off to complete his rounds;
telling us, as he disappeared forwards in the darkness, that if we did
not "keep quiet for the rest of the night we'd each get `four dozen' on
the quarter-deck next day, besides being spread-eagled in the weather
rigging as a caution to all novices about to join the ship!"
This warning, uttered in a deep, sepulchral voice, no doubt awed most of
the new boys, but it only made me laugh to myself, as I was pretty well
up to such `barney'; and, with little dread of any penalties in store--
though for that matter there was not much that could be said against me,
for I certainly had not tried the strength or the softness of the ship's
planks of my own free-will--I cuddled into my hammock and went to sleep
as soundly as if I were in my own old bed at home, in spite of the
snoring and choking noises made in his dreams by that ugly chap Moses
Reeks, who occupied the next hammock to mine.
"Whe-e-e-e-e! Who-e-o-e-o! Whe-eep!"
So the boatswain's whistle rang out through the ship with a shrill
iteration that pierced my ears in the fresh and chilly air next morning,
awaking me, if possible, in even yet more startling fashion than
Larrikins' successful trick of the previous evening.
"Whee-e-ah! Whee-e-ah!"
There it was again; and, should this not be sufficient to disturb the
slumbers of heavy sleepers, the sharp boatswain's pipe was supplemented
by the hoarse shouts of his `mates' up and down the hatchways far and
near, a very legion of voices!
"Rouse out! Rouse out! Rouse out! Show a leg."
I really thought the nor'-east wind had brought up a great haul with the
flood-tide, and that innumerable costers were calling out some strange
fish in the streets round Bonfire Corner; while our white cockatoo,
`Ally Sloper,' was having a bit of fun with himself and mother by
imitating the cry!
Presently, though, a rough shake of my hammock and the hail of one of
the boatswain's mates close by me told a different tale.
"Here, out of this, my lad!" said he, giving a twist to the swinging
concern that landed me on the deck in a twinkling. "You can't stop
there snoozing any longer! Don't you see the sun is scorching your eyes
out?"
He had a good deal of imagination, had that man; for it would have
puzzled the `Philadelphia lawyer,' whom father was so fond of quoting,
to have discovered the ghost of a ray of sunlight this cold, foggy,
February morning at Four Bells!
The rest of the novices--there being, as you know, ten other `unclothed'
boys besides myself--had been roughly aroused in like fashion; and to a
by-stander all of us must have looked a forlorn lot of shivering
creatures, adrift there on the cheerless deck in the half light of early
day, not knowing what to do with ourselves until somebody told us what
to do and bearing, I fancy, a strikingly strong resemblance to a flock
of lambs in some strange pasture deserted by their dams!
I make a mistake there, however, for the muttered growling exclamations
I heard uttered by one of the warrant-officers, who came past where we
stood clustered together, certainly sounded uncommonly like the name of
the lambs' mothers I have just mentioned, showing that its `eidolon'
remained.
The observation made by this officer, who, to my surprise, I
subsequently found was the boatswain, brought our old police friend, the
master-at-arms, on the scene.
"Here, boys," said he to us, "you must bestir yourselves, and not stand
star-gazing there, like so many country bumpkins at a fair! Tom
Bowling, if you're the son of your father, you ought to know that you've
got to unsling your hammock when the `lash up and stow' is sounded! And
you, too, my Irish-Italian friend over there, roll up your hammock, my
lad!"
"Sure, an' is it manin' me yez afther?" inquired Mick Donovan,
unhitching the lanyard of his hammock from the hook above in a brace of
shakes. "Faith, it's makin' a rowly-powly puddin' of it I will, sor,
entirely!"
The `Jaunty' grinned at Mick's naive remark, but soon mastered the
difficulty of teaching us by passing the job on to other hands.
"Ah, perhaps you'd better `go through the ropes,' my lads, properly, and
begin at once at your `bag and hammock drill,' as all new boys should;
though sometimes, they wait till they get uniforms first," said he,
hailing, as he spoke, one of the first-class boys standing by the police
office, detailed to act as messengers, like our friend Larrikins. "Boy,
there! See if you can find one of the instructors handy, and tell him,
with my compliments, I should like to see him for a minute!"
"Yes, sir," replied this chap, saluting. "I seed Mister Saunders by the
fore-hatchway jist now."
"He'll do," said the master-at-arms. "Carry on, my lad. Look sharp!"
The next instant, back came the boy with one of the instructors in his
wake, a stalwart seaman, dressed in the usual bluejacket rig, with a
petty officer's badge.
"These boys here, Mr Saunders," said the master-at-arms, pointing us
out with a collective sweep of his long brawny arm, "are all novices,
who came aboard yesterday, and don't know what to do with themselves
till they join the ship's company. Hadn't they better pass their `bag
and hammock' while waiting for their rig, instead of loafing about here?
Mr Gadgett, the bo'sun, was complaining just now of their taking up
all the fairway of the deck, and told me I must get rid of them from
here somehow or the other!"
"All right," responded the seaman-instructor to this suggestion of the
master-at-arms; and, turning to us, he said, "Take up your hammocks, my
lads, and follow me down to the lower deck. You'll have a practical
lesson in seeing how your shipmates do it, lads. We're just in time!"
We were, barely so; for, as we passed down the hatchway from the middle
deck to the lower region he had previously indicated, it was hard work
for us to shove by the surging crowd of boys who were hurrying up, each
with his hammock neatly made up and lashed in the regulation form, to be
stowed in the nettings on top of the bulwarks amidships the upper deck,
according to nautical routine.
Some, however, were slower at the work, and, taking stock of these, in
obedience to the instructor's orders, I got a very fair notion of how
the thing was done; the more especially, as father had shown me the way
he used to lash up his hammock in the old days when he was at sea, by
the aid of a biscuit bag and a piece of string.
But our instructor was not satisfied by our now having mere ocular
demonstration and doing nothing further; not he. On the contrary, he
took us up to make another requisition on the ship's steward for our
regular kit, which was promptly served out to us; and all the morning,
after a good breakfast, which made Mick Donovan open his eyes wider than
ordinarily and stare like a stockfish, consisting as it did of cold salt
pork and bread, with some splendid hot cocoa, that was more like
chocolate, and such as he had never tasted before, we were kept hard at
it till the `assembly' was bugled out before dinner--going through the
details of `bag and hammock drill' seriatim, from the initiatory stage
of plaiting the ends of the `nettles' to lashing it up with the
specified number of turns.
We new boys returned to Number 52 Mess on the middle deck for dinner,
when `cooks to their messes' was sounded.
Our meal this day, it being a Friday, was of a different kind, though
quite as substantial as we had experienced on the previous day; a well-
piled plate of beef and potatoes being allotted to each of us by the
presiding genius of the galley, the sight of which viands made our
mouths water.
"Lor', it ain't much to holler about!" exclaimed the fastidious
Larrikins, on Mick rubbing his hands at seeing those appetising viands;
while `Ugly' cried out joyously, on noticing his mealy mass of potatoes,
"Them's the raal jockeys fur I," thus paraphrasing the remark of a once
celebrated millionaire possessed of much lucre but boasting of little
conversational power, when at a state banquet, "Why, we only calls this
aboard `two spuds and a Jonah!'"
"I can see the `spuds' all right," said I; "but where's the Jonah?"
"That be the bone, silly!"
With which withering rejoinder, Larrikins left us to enjoy ourselves
with the food he contemned; though he probably went away to make a
hearty dinner off the same at his own mess on the deck below, where his
division "hung out."
Nothing further of any note occurred during the afternoon to mar the
harmony or vary the monotony of our `bag and hammock drill,' at which we
were religiously kept up to the time to leave off work; when we enjoyed
again our tea-supper, and skylarked afterwards till it was time to `turn
in,' which we managed to do now more comfortably as well as
expeditiously than on the night before; while, I may add, my dreams
happily were not disturbed by any storms and thunder-claps of that imp
Larrikins' contrivance.
The next day, Saturday, it was a case of `wash and scrub decks,' and
wash and scrub everything, I think, from early morning till dewy eve.
A very `dewy' eve it was, too, if dampness made it so; but if one did
feel wet and miserable, as I confess I was, the remembrance it brought
back to my mind of my mother's house-cleaning at home being almost too
vivid to be pleasant, still, everybody on board had the satisfaction of
knowing that the ship was as smart as holystone and sand could make her,
from upper deck to keelson, I verily believe!
I was none the less miserable, either, the following morning, when all
the boys were rigged out in their best and inspected by the captain; for
the tailor, true to the character of all `snips' since the days when
Adam started in that line with his fig-leaf costume, never sent on
board, as he promised, the uniforms of us unfortunate novices, so we
could neither make a decent appearance with the rest of our comrades,
nor have permission to go ashore--`unclothed' scarecrows, as some of us
were, would have seemed queer fish to come from a well-ordered ship.
On Monday, however, all things were made right in this respect; and,
having satisfactorily passed `bag and hammock drill,' the test of our
novitiate, I and my fellow-unfortunates became not only clad like our
fellows, but were enrolled amongst the rest of the second-class boys,
and appointed to our proper place in the ship.
My number being 2799, through some occult system of nautical numeration,
I was detailed to the `Third,' or second starboard, division of the
ship's company; so I joined mess Number 38, which was on the port side
on the lower deck, the first one aft of the schoolroom.
I also proceeded a day or two after, being thenceforth regarded as a
neophyte no longer, to take part in all the regular drills of the ship,
and one morning, subsequent to breakfast, underwent that rudimentary
stage of seamanship styled `boxing the compass'--though I might have
really told the painstaking instructor, who painfully and ploddingly
laboured to instil the cardinal points into my head as if I were an
ignoramus, that I not only knew the `lubber's point' probably as well as
he did, but could, on a pinch, have conned the ship in and out of
Portsmouth Harbour!
This `boxing the compass' business, though, brought me to loggerheads
with that brute `Ugly' somehow or other, strangely enough.
I don't know how it was, but from the moment, I believe, I first cast
eyes on his singularly unprepossessing face, Moses Reeks had been my
special antipathy!
It was not so much that he said anything to me or of me, as from the
fact of his always `putting it on' poor Mick Donovan, for whom I
entertained as great a liking as I disliked the other.
`Ugly' was always snarling at my chum, and ever giving him a chance kick
or blow, should he be able to do so unobserved and without being
directly taxed with it; though, of course, he would deny it if observed
by any of the other boys, being an unmitigated liar, in addition to
having a sour and vindictive disposition.
That very morning I noticed him deliberately stamp on poor Mick's bare
toes with all the weight of his big heavy foot, as we were coming down
the hatchway from early `divisions'; and when I spoke to him about it he
said coldly he "hadn't done nuthin' of the sort!"
I knew this was an untruth; but I bided my time, judiciously watching
for an opportunity to pay him out.
This came sooner than I expected; for during our compass lesson I
managed to get him into a fog about the points which the instructor was
explaining, drawing down on my joker the wrath and outspoken opprobrium
of that officer.
`Ugly' noted this, and in his turn bided his time.
The watch was dismissed, and the `stand by' had been bugled before
quarters, preparatory to our being dispersed for dinner; when `Ugly'
nudged me as we passed up the hatchway together, coming much closer to
me than I liked, the very touch of the unclean brute being obnoxious to
me.
"Wot d'yer mean by comin' the barney over me and a-makin' that codger of
a kinstructor bullyrag me afore all the t'other chaps fur?"
"What do you mean, Reeks?" said I, in reply to this, returning his nudge
with a good dig from the bony knob of my elbow in his ribs, and knocking
the wind pretty well-nigh out of him. "You jumped on poor Mick
Donovan's bare foot this morning, and now you try to shove me!"
"Oh!" he exclaimed, as we emerged on the upper deck, where our division
had by now already partly assembled on the starboard side, forward;
"that be it, mister?"
"Yes," said I, as I slipped into my place near Mick, "that's it!"
After `divisions,' when the other boys were rushing down below to their
messes to dinner, the bugle-call for which was braying out its cheerful
sounds, I stopped behind on the upper deck, as did "Ugly."
"Sure an' what are ye stoppin' fur, Tom, mabouchal?" said Mick to me in
surprise. "Begorrah, I can smill the mate alriddy, an', faith, the
praties, too! I can say their smilin' faces bickonin' to me an' sayin',
`Coom an' ate me!'"
"I'm not coming yet," I replied, in a more serious tone than Mick
evidently expected. "I've got some business with this chap here."
`Ugly' overheard me, as I intended he should.
"Hay," said he, "did yer speak to Oi?"
"Hay is meant for horses and asses," I answered drily, with a grin; "and
if you be one of them latter, as I think, and so does Mick here I know,
why, I did refer to you!"
"Want ter fight?"
"Yes," I said, launching out my fist straight towards his bullet head
and giving him a cropper on the mouth that sent him tumbling backwards
on the deck, all of a heap; "I do."
`Ugly' rose slowly to his feet, his face streaming with blood; and he
was just about making a rush at me like a mad bull at a gate, while I
put myself in a posture of defence in proper pugilistic fashion, when an
interruption, though but of a temporary character, came to these
proceedings.
The ubiquitous Larrikins was the intervener.
"Lor', you be green 'uns!" he cried, sinking his voice to a cautious
pitch. "Don't you fight here; why, the `crushers' will nab yer afore
yer can strike a blow comfortably! If fight yer must, coom up here on
the fo'c's'le, and then you can fight away theer to yer 'art's content,
without nobody not a-hinterfeerin' with yer!"