In an instant, an old yarn of father's came back to my mind, one wherein
he used to tell of having once been run down by a steamer when out
trawling and having had to pass the night within the Spit Buoy.
Why, I must be close on it now!
Yes, that was the sound of the bell hung from within the cage-like
framework surrounding the buoy, which is moored on the edge of the shoal
skirting the fairway leading into Portsmouth Harbour.
The broken water was rocking it to and fro; and, with every lurch the
buoy made, this bell gave out a doleful knell as if ringing away the
passing soul of some dead sailor gone to his last account.
Perchance it was tolling for `Gyp' and me!
This thought flashed through me for a second; but the next second I
dismissed it as a craven fear, my courage returning to me.
I set my teeth, determined to fight it out to the end, when, if need be,
I should die bravely.
"Hurrah, `Gyp,' whilst there's life there's hope!" I shouted, as much
to encourage the poor dog as myself, turning on my side and cuddling him
well up on my chest with my right arm to keep his head out of the water,
while I struck out with all my strength with my left towards the buoy,
now within a stone's throw, the tide gradually sweeping us near it in
spite of the wind and sea. "There's no reason why the Spit Buoy
shouldn't rescue us, the same as it did father!"
I believe `Gyp' understood what I said, for I declare I felt his little
stump tail wag against my arm, and he licked my cheek that was nearest,
being otherwise too exhausted to give expression to his emotion by bark
or whine.
We did it too.
After a stiff swim, though but such a short distance, I clutched hold of
a becket attached to the side of the buoy; and then, drawing myself up
out of the water, I landed `Gyp' inside our refuge, climbing in after
him myself.
The lifeboat from the _Martin_, which was manned by four stout seamen,
the commander himself coming in her as coxswain, meanwhile was making
for us, the course of the cutter being directed by signals from the
brig, where the signalman on duty had probably kept his glass on me from
the moment I jumped overboard and rose to the surface; and, presently,
after a long pull and a hard one too, the boat came up to the buoy and
took us off.
`By the Lord Harry!' as father used to exclaim sometimes when he was
excited, you should have only heard the cheer that greeted us when the
cutter got back to the brig, which had now dropped her anchor; the boys
and older hands also, who were just on their way down from aloft after
furling the sails, manning the rigging, and giving out a wild and hearty
`Hooray' that might have been heard in the dockyard.
The commander complimented me on the quarter-deck, saying that my action
was a plucky one to jump overboard as I did, whether to save man or dog;
and then ordering the steward to fetch me a stiff glass of hot brandy-
and-water, he told me to go below and turn in to my hammock.
`Gyp,' however, would not leave me; and, as he insisted on joining
company with me in my hammock, I made him go shares with the brandy-and-
water as well, though I can't say that he took his portion with as much
satisfaction.
His master, on coming to hear of the occurrence when he returned from
leave, was, I need hardly say, delighted that `Gyp' had been saved from
a watery grave.
He extolled, indeed, my really unpremeditated action in much higher
terms than it actually deserved; for, really, I did it, as I have said
before, without thinking.
However, be that as it may, the captain, commending me on my good
conduct generally since I had been attached to the training-ship under
his command, passed over in the most honourable way that unfortunate
smoking episode of mine, and promised to `keep his eye on me.'
This, I may add, he did in a much more satisfactory manner than that
smart chap, ship's corporal Smithers; but, of this, you will learn anon.
My days in the _Saint Vincent_, you must know, were now drawing to a
close.
Nine months of second-class boy instruction and four months as a first-
class boy had pretty well taken me through the ordinary routine of the
training-ship; the last two months of my stay on board being mainly
devoted to a _resume_ of the various studies constituting seamanship
which I had already gone through, as well as a grand rehearsal of gun
practice and rifle drill and of the sword exercise.
In this latter all the boys took the keenest delight, cutting and
slashing at one another with a go and gusto worthy of all admiration.
We pointed, guarded, and parried, with a nimbleness and correctness that
excited the praise of our instructor; but when we got to what was called
`general practice,' and learnt cuts `One' and `Two,' with an extra
`Point,' before our teacher sang out `Guard!' our enthusiasm knew no
bounds, and all of us would fancy ourselves to be bluejackets in action,
boarding a pirate or leading a storming-party and killing hecatombs of
enemies on the war-path, our weapons mowing them down with every sweep!
Sometimes our sword-play got us into scrapes, when two boys matched
against each other by the instructor allowed their zeal to overcome
their discretion; for, occasionally, they would lose their tempers when
over the single-sticks and give one another such spiteful blows that the
instructor would have to interfere and separate them by force of arms.
In the majority of cases, however, the scratches we received were more
the result of accident than of malice intent; and the little
embroilments that happened when sword-play degenerated into horseplay
were not, as a rule, worth mentioning.
On one occasion, though, my chum Mick nearly had his nose carved off in
an encounter with a comrade, though luckily his opponent did not succeed
in spoiling Mick's beauty.
This would have been a pity; for, really, he was a very good-looking
chap, and I am sure my sister Jenny, though she wouldn't confess it,
would have been sorry if anything had occurred to mar his comely face.
It happened thus. When skylarking together on the upper deck one
evening, Mick and another fellow caught up a couple of cutlasses that
had been left inadvertently lying about the deck, and they commenced
pointing and cutting and slashing at one another with the keen-edged
weapons, just as if they had been mere basket-hilted single-sticks, a
rap from which would have done no damage beyond a bruise.
They were going it in fine style, when all at once Mick's foot slipped;
and, missing his guard as his opponent made a vicious cut `one' at him,
he received this on his chest, the cutlass cutting through his jumper
and flannel and making a slight wound across his breastbone.
Had his head not been thrown backwards as he slipped, poor Mick would
have had the most striking feature of his merry countenance sliced off
as dexterously as if it had been a carrot!
The last seven weeks of my experiences of the old ship, which I had
begun to look upon as much my home as the little cottage at Bonfire
Corner, were devoted to practice with the big guns that are used in
modern ships of war; and these, I may add, are so unlike the old twenty-
four and thirty-two and sixty-four pounders that had been used in our
early training, that any drill with them would have failed to have been
of much assistance to us in getting the cross-cannon badge on our
sleeve.
So, for these seven weeks, all of us first-class boys who were near the
end of our term had to go to the _Excellent_ every day to go through a
course of gunnery; and were sent out to sea in sections in the _Blazer_
or _Handy_, or some other gunboat attached to the gunnery school, so as
to gain some sort of preliminary insight into the ways of the big
breech-loading guns used in the armour-clads of to-day, as well as being
made acquainted with their lesser satellites quick-firing and machine-
guns.
We did not leave our old ship altogether yet, though; for we used to
take our dinners with us when we went away from her of a morning,
returning back to the _Saint Vincent_ of a night to sleep, when we would
retail all of our experiences to our comrades who had remained behind.
At last the day came, a day I shall remember all my life, when Mick and
I, for we both went away together even as we had joined on the same day,
left the _Saint Vincent_ for good and all.
One forenoon, just before `cooks to their messes' sounded, and prior to
our dispersing after the usual assembly for `divisions' on the upper
deck, the captain ordered Mick and myself, with some half a dozen other
first-class boys belonging to the starboard watch and a like number from
the port, to step out of the ranks; when, telling us we were drafted to
the guardship for service with the fleet, he addressed a few kindly
words of advice to us as to our future conduct and then dismissed us to
our dinner, telling us we were to pack up our gear and leave the ship
early in the afternoon.
He sent for me soon after I had disposed of the `two spuds and a Jonah,'
which composed the meal of the day, and on my going to his cabin he
spoke to me very nicely, saying that I might write to him should I ever
need help in getting on in the service, and that he would always, as he
had previously promised, `keep an eye on me'!
"Faith," said Mick, on my telling him this, "it'll be moighty onplisint
fur ye, Tom, me bhoy; thet gimblet oye ov his sames to go roight thro'
an' thro' me, begorrah, if he ivver onst looks at me sure!"