I did not mind Mick's chaff, though. The captain had been a good friend
to me while I had been on board, and I parted with him with as much
regret as I felt when I said `good-bye' to `Gyp.'
Our meal that day was what we called aboard ship a `stamp and go,' all
of us who were drafted being too excited to think much of eating--all of
us, that is, excepting Mick!
He, as I have mentioned more than once previously, was a chap who was
particularly partial to his grub, this being probably owing to the
circumstance that he had experienced hard fare in his earlier days
before he joined the _Saint Vincent_; but I can answer for this, that he
endeavoured to the best of his ability, after that period, to make up
for any shortcomings he had suffered from before!
"Begorrah, Tom," he answered me very philosophically, when I told him to
hurry up, "ther's no knowin' whin, sure, ayther on us'll git another
good square male; an', faith, the bo'sun towld me onst no will-app'inted
shep ivver goes to say widout havin' her proper regulation stores an'
purvisions aboord!"
This was after I had my interview with the captain, of course; and I
only tell it to show what sort of a fellow my chum was.
When we had packed our bags and come up on the middle deck to leave the
ship in one of the cutters, which was to land us at the King's Stairs in
the dockyard, the master-at-arms, who stood by the entry-port with Mr
Brown the ship's corporal, wished us both a cordial farewell.
"Now, keep your hair on straight, Tom Bowling," said the former to me,
giving me a good grip of his fist, for he was a very hearty sort of man.
"I have had my eye on you while you have been aboard here; and I quite
believe you'll turn out the right sort and work your way up to your
warrant, if you only keep straight, long before I am laid on the shelf,
my boy!"
"Faith, Tom," whispered Mick to me in an aside that was quite loud
enough for the `Jaunty' to catch his remark, "ivverybody, sure, 's
kapin' ther' oye on ye; an' ef all the jokers go on loike thet, ye'll be
havin' what ye're moother called t'other day, bedad, a' 'tack ov `oye-
strikes,' if ye don't look out sharp!"
"Ah, my h'Italian friend!" said the master-at-arms, who overheard him,
with a broad grin on his face, which was reflected on that of Mr Brown;
"so you're going to leave us too, eh! Well, as some writing chap says
somewhere or t'other in some book I've read, we could have better spared
a better boy than you, Paddy. You've been a good lad too, in spite of
your larks; and I hope you'll get on well in the service, like your chum
Tom Bowling here. Stick to him, and he'll keep you straight."
So saying, he shook hands with Mick the same as he had done with me, Mr
Brown following suit in an equally hearty fashion; and shouldering our
bags, we all went down the accommodation ladder and took our seats in
the cutter.
Just as we were shoving off, Mick spied old Jellybelly on duty at the
gangway, and he could not help giving him a parting shot.
"Good luck to ye, Mr Tarbolt, an' more power to yer elber, sor," he
cried out with much effusion. "Be jabers, Oi'll kape me oye out fur to
say ef Oi can pick up a roight-down comfable arm-cheer fur ye to take a
sate whin ye gits toired, sure, a-standin' whin ye're on the watch!"
There was a subdued titter from all the other fellows, both them in the
boat and the rest who were out on the booms and standing by the entry-
port, and old Jellybelly shook his fist in a threatening manner at Mick;
but the smile on his face showed that he took the old joke in good part.
The last I saw of the old ship as we rowed away up the harbour was a row
of grinning faces looking in our direction, and the lines being triced
up fore and aft with the hammock-cloths and clothes of the boys hung out
to dry, Tuesday, the day we left, being `washing-day' with us on board.
I had experienced a happy time altogether on board her; and, when I come
to look back now, the wonder to me, I'm sure, is that every boy who can
possibly get permission from his people does not join the service,
considering all the advantages he gets on donning the bluejacket rig.
Just consider.
Instead of living higgledy-piggledy in some close room with half a dozen
others, as many poor boys have to do, and little or nothing to eat and
that only at haphazard, while in the majority of cases his clothing will
be none of the best, being more holey than pious; the same boy on
entering the _Saint Vincent_ finds himself at once well fed, well
clothed, and with clean and roomy quarters to breathe in!
There is the discipline, to be sure, and that's where the shoe pinches
with the free Arab of the slums; but, in addition to the discipline, it
should be recollected there is also the instruction in various things
that nine boys out of ten look upon rather as pleasurable games than so
many tasks.
Besides this, they have real games in their play-hours aboard and in the
recreation-ground at Haslar; and, besides, are allowed ashore once a
week at least, to see their friends and relatives, if these live in the
neighbourhood, having pocket-money given them to enjoy themselves with--
more than they can say they ever had in their life on land.
Then there are the `sports' which the _Saint Vincent_ boys have every
year at midsummer, before the breaking-up for their holidays, when
swimming races, boat races, egg-and-spoon races, and all sorts of
jollities are all the go.
But, there I am again, hauling my jawing tackle aboard according to the
old Bowling family propensity, anent which mother used always to rate
father; so, I must belay!
Pulling steadily away from the old ship on the stream which was running
up the harbour, making this appear one vast lake up to Fareham Creek
under the base of the Portsdown hills, a lake whereon floated long lines
of old hulks of the past, interspersed with many a specimen of the newer
models of the present ships of the Navy, the cutter at last landed us at
the foot of the King's Stairs; when, unshipping our bags and shouldering
them again, we crossed the dockyard in single file, under charge of a
petty officer, making for the guardship to which we had been drafted,
which was lying alongside the North Wall, not far from the _Excellent_.
Our tramp was a most fatiguing one over the rough pigs of iron ballast
arranged like cobble-stones, which some chap must have had put down in
order to benefit his bootmaker, the pilgrimage of folk anxious to see
the yard being rather trying on shoe-leather.
We felt it all the more from having been accustomed to go in our bare
feet on board the training-ship, and boots in themselves being irksome,
without the hard road we had to travel adding to the penance.
Ascending the ladder-way that led up from the jetty to the deck of the
old _Asia_, the guardship, we were soon allotted our billets; and
quickly settled down to the routine of the ship, which, of course, was
very different to that of the _Saint Vincent_.
However, we did not very long remain here; for, it being now getting on
well in the month of July, and several new ships having been ordered to
be commissioned for the Naval Manoeuvres, Mick and I, good luck still
attending us and keeping us always in company, were told off to join a
smart cruiser attached to one of the squadrons, in which we presently
sailed for Bantry Bay.
Here my chum found himself once more in his native land, and under a sky
as blue as that of Italy, to which country he had originally claimed to
belong, in spite of the strong `brogue' that readily betrayed his
kinship to the inhabitants when we went ashore at Glengariff.
Mick's complaint now was that he could not find any one rejoicing in his
name; for every one he and I met, strolling along from Castletown to
Waterfall, the landing-place at the foot of Hungry Mountain, half round
the bay, was either a Sullivan or an O'Brien--not a single Donovan being
to be met with for love or money.
"Begorrah, I can't make it out at all, at all!" said my chum to me,
after making inquiries at the various little shebeens on our way and
chatting almost with every one of the groups of country people we
passed, who all seemed mightily pleased at the sight of us bluejackets,
most of them offering us hospitality in the shape of cups of milk at the
corner of nearly every country lane, where some pretty colleen would
stand, clad in her picturesque red cape and with stockingless feet,
wishful to give thirsty folk a drink. "Me fayther s'id, faith, as how
the Donovans wor kings ov Cark at one toime, Tom!"
"Why," I rejoined, giving him a twister, "you told the `Jaunty' when you
came aboard the _Saint Vincent_ that time to join, that your father was
an `Oitalian!'"
"Stow thet, Tom," said he with a grin, digging me in the ribs, much to
the amusement of one of the Irish girls who was near us, at whom Mick
winked. "Sure, thet wor ownly me joke. Th'room pogue, ma colleen
ogue?"
The girl near, to whom he addressed the latter part of his speech, which
sounded like Greek to me, blushed and laughed, turning away shyly.
"Hullo!" I exclaimed. "What does that mean, Mick?"
"Faith, it manes `Give me a kiss, me purty gurl,' Tom," he answered,
bursting into a roar of laughter. "It's a quishton ye'll foind moighty
convanient to axe some-toimes whin ye're in these parts, mabouchal; an'
Oi'd advise ye to larn the languish ez soon ez ye can."
We remained at Bantry, coaling and preparing for action, for about a
week, at the end of which time, `war' being declared between the rival
fleets engaged in the Manoeuvres, we filed out of the bay in single
column line ahead and started off for the fray; the fleet I was with
having some exciting episodes in the chops of the Channel during the
time the mimic campaign lasted, in chasing and capturing the ships of
the `enemy,' our cruiser being a very fast vessel and easily able to
overhaul most of their craft hand over hand.
It was good fun too--almost like real fighting; and we got so eager at
the game, that, on one occasion when we put into Plymouth Sound and
found one of the ships belonging to the other side there, our fellows
nearly had a row with the men belonging to her.
This shows how very thoroughly we entered into the sport.
It was the end of August when we came back from the Manoeuvres; and by
the time we had paid off the cruiser, which, with the other ships
specially commissioned for the purpose, was relegated to the reserve
basin until she should be wanted to relieve some other vessel abroad,
more than another month had elapsed before our rejoining the guardship.
But no sooner had we done this than we had to make another move.
The Training Squadron was under refit for its winter cruise, and a
number of boys being required to fill up the complements of the ships
composing it, one fine morning, just when Mick and myself began to feel
at home again on board the old _Asia_, we were paraded on deck with a
number of others and `told off' to join the _Active_.
She was the commodore's ship of the squadron, and the very one we had
longed to be appointed to, her commander being a smart seaman well known
in the service, and a friend of father's old friend Captain Mordaunt.
The latter, as luck would have it, had come to see us the previous
Sunday, when I happened to be home and had promised me to put in a good
word for me in the event of my being appointed to the ship.
By a strange coincidence, Mick and I had been that very day talking of
this while we were engaged cleaning some rusty rifles on the main-deck,
which job one of the petty officers had put us at, from his seeing my
chum and me star-gazing about, with nothing to do.
"Be jabers!" said Mick, sighting his rifle and pretending to take aim at
the swab as he went off after imposing this extra task on us, though he
waited until the officious gentleman's back was turned, as may be taken
for granted, "Oi wud loike to spot thet chap roight in the bull's-eye,
bad cess to him! Och, but wait till we're aboord the _Active_, Tom,
an', sure, we'll hev no more of straight-backed jokers loike him to dale
with!"
"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, Mick," said I.
"We're not appointed to her yet."
"Blatheration!" exclaimed my chum, smacking the butt of his rifle on the
deck and making the petty officer who was on the other side of the
hatchway jump round in a jiffy, looking marline-spikes in our direction.
"Ye jist say, now, if we don't join her! Sure, I dramed ov her last
noight, alannah. Oi'd dropped off into a swate shlape afther thet chap
made sich a row toomblin' out ov his hammick thet wor next moine, bein'
three sheets an' more, faith, in the woind whin he come off from shore;
an' I dramed ez how, Tom, we two wor aboord the _Active_, which Oi wor
lookin' over ounly yisterday whin Oi come by Pitch-House Jetty, where
she's lyin' preparin' for say. Yis, we wor aboord her roight enuf; an'
Oi heerd the bo'sun poipe to `make sail,' an' the order guv 'way aloft,
lay out on the yards an' loose tops'ls. Thin Oi thinks ez how Oi'm
ashore, ez will ez aboord; an' Oi says the _Active_ a-sailin' out o'
harbour, ez nate ez ye plaize wid all her upper sails an' flyin' jib,
an' fore-topmast stays'l set!"
"I don't think you're likely to see that, Mick," said I, laughing. "It
may do well enough in a dream; but I've heard father say that no ship
has ever worked out of harbour under sail alone for the last forty years
or more!"
"Begorrah, just ye wait an' say," rejoined he. "Oi hed a paice ov
shamrock, which I tuk out ov the fairy ring, sure, at Glasnevin, under
me hid last noight whin Oi wor shlapin', an' me drame's bound fur to
come thrue!"
Strangely enough, so it turned out, too.
A week after we joined her, all things being ready and her preparation
for sea being complete, the _Active_ cast off the hawsers mooring her to
the bollards on the jetty; and then, disdaining the assistance of any of
the harbour tugs, the commodore sent the men aloft to make sail, and
took her out to Spithead under her canvas alone, conning the ship
himself from his station aft.
I may say I assisted at the operation, being one of the hands who went
aloft to set the mizzen-royal; and, I may add, that father told me when
I came home on the termination of our cruise, at the end of the ensuing
spring, our exploit was the talk of the town for months afterwards!