"Tom," said Mick to me, on my telling him this, when we were dismissed
anon from instruction drill and were going up on the upper deck during
the `break-off,' for a brief breath of fresh air before proceeding below
again to our tea, "wer that theer yarn thrue, sure, ye wos afther
tellin' me?"
He spoke earnestly, and I replied to him in the same tone. "It's true
enough, Mick, that one of our officers did manage to parbuckle a gun up
to the top of a high rock, or, rather, mountain, which commanded the
land defences of Castries, the principal town of Saint Lucia in the West
Indies! I've heard father speak about it many a time," said I. "But,
'pon my word, Mick, I can't precisely recollect if it was the gallant
Rodney or Sir Ralph Abercromby; for both of 'em were busy in those parts
at the time, and pretty well made their mark too! All I can say is,
though, that through this dodge they took the Frenchies unawares and
gave them a dressing as British sailors have always done when we've been
at loggerheads with them furrin chaps!"
Mick Donovan scratched his head, in the same solemn way father used to
do, as if trying to rub in this valuable piece of historical
information.
"Faith," said he, "I can't underconstubble it at all, at all!"
There our conversation came to an abrupt close; the bugle summoning us
to supper, and Mick being extremely particular, I found, never to be
late at meal-times if he could possibly help it!
The next morning, after the usual routine of lashing up and stowing our
hammocks in the nettings, on the completion of our breakfast, it was the
turn of the second division of the starboard watch, to which we
belonged, as I have already detailed, to go to school in the big room on
the lower deck aft, where we had passed our original initiatory
examination before signing our papers.
The boys were given very fair play in respect of their nautical
education, taking each department of their instruction turn and turn
about in regular order.
For instance, if the port watch attended school from Three Bells to
Seven Bells in the forenoon--that is, in shore time, from half-past nine
to half-past eleven o'clock in the morning--the starboard watch would be
engaged in seamanship or gunnery instruction; while, in the afternoon
their respective avocations would be reversed, the `starbowlines' going
to their books, and the port watch occupying themselves with the other
drills.
This day, as I have said, we went to school after inspection and prayers
by the chaplain on the upper deck, which, I should have mentioned, was
the usual routine every morning when breakfast was finished and the
mess-tables and decks below swept clean and made tidy.
I remember one of the schoolmasters impressed me very much during a
geography lesson, by showing us on the globe how extensive our national
possessions were, and how it became us as British sailors to maintain
our rights on every land and sea where the Union Jack of Old England had
ever once floated.