"Hullo, my lads! This won't do, this won't do!" shouted out a petty
officer just then, as he came tacking about the deck and trying to make
a straight course for the hatchway. "There'd be a fine row if Number
One came along here and saw that theer mess on the deck!"
"Faith, we couldn't hilp it, row or no row," said Mick, whose temper was
a little bit heated from the recollection of `Ugly's' conduct, and the
fright he really had experienced on my account in spite of his trying to
treat it as a joke. "Sure, sor, the toob toombled down atop ov this
poor bhoy here, an' a'most made gammy duff ov him!"
"Well, well, p'raps y'll have better luck next time," replied the man
jokingly; and, turning to me, he said in a kindly way, "A miss is as
good as a mile, my lad; but, accident or no accident, you'll have to
clear up that mess there, or there'll be ructions aboard, I can tell
you!"
"All roight, sor," said Mick, as he clutched hold of a swab which we had
brought with us, in case of such an emergency. "Oi'll make it roight,
sure, in a brace ov shakes, sor."
I, too, bore a hand with another swab, as did Finlayson; and we soon
made the place all shipshape again, another wave, which washed down the
hatchway when we had finished, putting a polish on our work.
Nothing further was seen of `Ugly,' however, either by Mick or myself,
the ill-tempered brute evidently keeping out of our way; and it was not
till late in the afternoon that I saw him again aft, when both watches
were called to treble-reef the topsails, and we boys belonging to the
ship had to go aloft to take in the mizzen.
We had not weathered Finisterre yet, though we had been bucketing about
in the Bay now for over three days; the wind, which had been blowing in
strong squalls from the north'ard and west'ard, suddenly backing to the
south-east and coming on to blow harder than ever.
The sea got up also in a corresponding degree, its huge billows, as they
rolled onward propelled by the gale, rearing themselves up in mid-air
till they seemed sometimes to be level with the top of our mainmast,
surpassing in height even those which my old friend Larrikins had
described as `mountings 'igh.'
I had seen already in my trips in the _Martin_ up and down Channel what
I fancied at the time to be rough weather; but, never in my life
previously had I ever seen such a scene of grandeur as the ocean
presented that stormy afternoon!
Far and wide, it seethed and boiled like a huge cauldron, its surface
covered with foam as white as snow, which the dark setting of inky
clouds along the horizon brought out in whiter relief.
Above, masses of ragged wrack scudded aimlessly across the sky, whose
leaden hue was cheerless and grim, save where, in the west, the sun went
down suddenly in a wrath of crimson majesty, the darkness of night
descending on the scene as if a curtain of _crepe_, had been let down
the moment after he vanished beneath the waste of angry waters,
unlightened by a single ray of his customary after-glow.
Apparently the tempest-loving demons of the deep were only waiting for
the shades of night in order to carry on their revels with the greater
`go' at our expense; for no sooner had the evening closed in than the
gale increased in force, and the sea waxed even angrier, so that by Four
Bells in the first watch, that is at ten o'clock, in landsman's
parlance, the ship had to lie-to under storm staysails--pitching and
plunging bows under, and taking in some of the huge rollers occasionally
over her forecastle, that swept down into the waist to such an extent
that it was as much as the scuppers could do to get rid of the water as
she rolled.
Fortunately, we did not get any of this below, the hatches having been
battened down early in the afternoon, subsequently to our mishap with
the `gashing-tub'; but, although this saved us some wet, it was far from
pleasant on our mess-deck, the steam from the wet clothes of the fellows
belonging to the watch just relieved, and the smell of the bilge from
the place being shut up, making it resemble towards morning something
like what I have read of an African slaver's hold being in the middle
latitudes.
When day broke, I found, on turning out of my hammock, our ship riding a
little easier, the rolling having abated considerably; and, on going on
deck shortly afterwards, though there was no order as usual to `lash up
and stow,' the weather being too rough for that, the reason for this
change for the better, so far as the uneasy motion was concerned, became
apparent enough.
The commodore had ordered a storm jib to be set, as well as the after-
trysail, which was about the size of a good old-fashioned pocket-
handkerchief; and, instead of laying-to as we had been when I turned in
close on midnight, the ship was now running before the south-easter and
making good progress, too, out of the neighbourhood of the treacherous
Bay.
By breakfast-time we were making so much better weather of it that we
were able to open the hatches, and the windsails were rigged up to let
down some fresh air below, which enabled us to have a better meal than
we expected; so our hot cocoa and bread possessed an additional relish,
not only from this circumstance, but also from the fact of our not
having enjoyed anything hot since the previous day at dinner, the galley
fires having been swamped out just before tea-time, thus forcing us to
turn in supperless.
Later on, as the gale slackened, we set our topsails close-reefed, and
more `fore-and-aft' sail; and, when the sun had got above our foreyard,
the commodore ordered the topgallant-masts to be sent up, these having
been housed when it came on to blow heavily. Our topgallants were
consequently set above our close-reefed topsails, which some of the
young seamen on board appeared to think a most extraordinary proceeding;
but one of the quarter-masters, who was an old hand, said he had often
seen it done when sailing "under old Fitzroy on the Pacific station,"
when their ship would be bowling along under this sail before a stiff
nor'-easter, in the run down from Vancouver to Callao, past the
inhospitable Californian coast.
At noon that day, the navigating officer, who took the sun on the poop,
surrounded by a lot of the young midshipmen we had on board for
instruction during the training cruise, like us boys on the lower deck
each in our respective billet, gave out that we were in latitude 44
degrees 10 minutes north, and longitude 10 degrees 15 minutes west, thus
showing that we were well to the westward of the ill-omened Cape
Finisterre and now safely out of the Bay of Biscay!
The navigator also told our commanding officer, in the usual stereotyped
nautical formula, that it was twelve o'clock.
"All right," replied the commodore. "Make it so!"
Accordingly, the sentry on the forecastle struck Eight Bells, and the
men were piped down to dinner; the boatswain's mates sounding their
shrill calls through the ship as the echo of the last stroke of the
clapper on the side of the ship's bell ceased to reverberate in the
noisy air, which was filled with the creaking of the blocks aloft and
the hum of the wind, the sea breaking against our counter alongside in a
sullen fashion as if old Neptune were disappointed at letting us slip
out of his clutches!
At One Bell, half-an-hour later, when the grog was served out to the
men--we boys, of course, having none of this, nor wanting it either--a
rather amusing incident occurred.
Some of the chaps on board, though passed for ordinary seamen, were
`green hands'; and the older sailors that leavened the company, used to
crack jokes on these and `pull their legs' pretty considerably, until
the green ones got too knowing to be taken in.
One fellow we had with us in the starboard watch, however, seemed to be
so naturally `raw' that nothing served to `salt' him; and he was the
butt not only of his own mess, but of the whole ship's company.
On this occasion Harris, a leading seaman, took a fine rise out of him.
"Say, Joblins," he called out, as he was going to light his pipe to have
a smoke forwards, we boys having set out the spittoons for the men along
the `'tween decks,' "got your grog all right, old ship?"
"Oh ay," answered the other. "I'se droonk un."
"But I means yer second 'lowance."
"Hay?" said Mr Johnny Raw, his eyes beginning to visibly brighten.
"What fur be that?"
"Yer second 'lowance," repeated the joker Harris. "All the noo hands
can git it if they axes fur it."
"Now, yer bean't a-joking?"
"No," declared Harris unblushingly, winking to the others around.
"Joking--why should I, man?"
The greenhorn grew quite excited at the prospect of another tot of grog
after his pipe.
"Say, shipmate," said he, rising from the bench at the mess-table where
he had been sitting having a whiff, "tell us wot I shall do fur to get
un?"
"Take hold on that `spud-net' there," said Harris, pointing to the net
in which the potatoes had been boiled for the mess, the other fellows
near turning their backs so that Joblins couldn't see them laugh as he
proceeded to carry out the joker's suggestion. "Ah, ye've got it all
right, then? Now, Joblins, ye can take that to the upper deck, where
they're now sarvin' out the grog for the port watch, and tell the
`Jaunty' that yer come fur yer second 'lowance."
Would you believe it?
Well, whether you do so or not, all I have to say is that the innocent
yokel actually went up on deck with the potato-net in his hand, holding
it out in front of him as he took his station beside those standing
round the grog-tub.
"Hullo!" exclaimed the ship's steward, who acts as master of the
ceremonies in this daily allowance of drink to the ship's company,
assisted by one of the corporals, and sometimes even by the master-at-
arms himself, the purveyor of the grog recognising him as having
previously received his quota. "What do you want here? You've had your
'lowance already!"
Joblins, however, was reluctant to give up the chance of getting an
additional supply without a struggle for it, so, he would not accept
this rebuff.
"They sez below, sir," explained he, still holding out the spud-net
straight in front of him, "as how I wer to tell yer, sir, as I wur a noo
hand, an' yer would give I a second 'lowance."
"Oh, you're a new hand are you?"
"Ay," replied Joblins, in a very satisfied tone, thinking the matter was
now satisfactorily settled. "That I be, sir."
"I thought so," said the ship's steward drily. "What are you going to
put the grog in if I gave it to you?"
Joblins did not reply in words, but held out the net.
"Well," exclaimed the steward, with a grin on his face that was
reflected in that of every one standing by, "I've heard of green hands
and greenhorns before; but of all the raw johnnies I ever saw on board
ship you take the cake!"
Strange to say, such was his denseness, that even then, the yokel could
not see the point of the joke and the steward had to order him away.
"Now, clear out of this," he cried, getting a bit angry when his laugh
was out. "Don't you see, you fool, if you can see anything at all, that
the rum would run out of the net like water out of a sieve? Be off with
you!"
Then at last the poor chap recognised the fact that Harris had been
`taking him in,' and darted down the ladder with the obvious intention
of `taking it out' of his tormentor; but the shout of merriment with
which he was received when he got forward amongst the men again, stopped
his saying anything, and the watch being just then called, his anger had
time to evaporate before he had any further chance of calling his
tormentor to account.
The weather continuing on the mend, the commodore gave orders to the
officer of the watch, soon after dinner, to shape a course for Madeira,
that being the appointed rendezvous of the squadron in the event of
their parting company at any time in this first part of our cruise; for
we had seen nothing of any of them since the beginning of the gale, the
little _Ruby_ being the last we had sighted shortly before our being
forced to lie-to.
During the afternoon, however, the horizon clearing to the nor'ard and a
gleam of sunshine lighting up the sea, a distant sail was seen hull down
on our lee quarter.
"Signalman," hailed the officer of the watch, "what do you make her out
to be?"
"Can't say yet, sir," replied the man, with the glass screwed to his
eye, squinting to leeward. "She's too fur off, sir."
After a short pause the officer repeated his question.
"Make her out yet, Jones?"
"No, sir," replied the signalman; "but she's rising now, sir, an' I
thinks she's closing us."
"Ay."
Another short interval elapsed; and then, being down in the waist, right
under the break of the poop, the quarter-master having set me to work
flemishing down the slack ends of some of the sheets that he did not
think were tidily arranged, I heard the signalman mumble some
exclamation or other which he could not get out properly from his
excitement.
"What is it, you say?" said the officer of the watch, who had gone to
the binnacle to look at the compass and did not quite catch what the man
said. "Speak distinctly, my man. I can't hear you!"
"It's the _Ruby_, sir!" shouted out the signalman, in a voice that could
be heard, I believe, at the distance by which our consort was separated
from us, making the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Robinson, jump off
the deck, he having come up quite close in the meantime. "I knows her
by the clew on her tops'l."
"All right, my man," blurted out the lieutenant, who was a crusty, ill-
tempered, sour sort of chap, one always speaking to the men as if he had
a bad liver and who couldn't look a chap square in the eye if he stood
up before him, having underhung brows and a nasty way of looking from
under them. "You needn't roar at me like a grampus, Jones. I've a
great mind to put you in the list for disrespectful conduct to your
superior officer! What did you say?"
"The _Ruby_, sir," repeated the signalman, as tenderly now as a sucking
dove. "It's the gallant little _Ruby_ sure enough, sir."
The irate lieutenant did not appear, though, to share the enthusiasm of
Jones; and I afterwards heard that he had some grudge against the `boss'
of the _Ruby_, as indeed he had against most people with whom he came in
contact; and I don't think many were sorry when he left the service
subsequently to our cruise, starting in some line of civil life where
his uncivil demeanour has probably gained him as many friends as he got
afloat!
"I don't want any of your opinions, my man," said he; "and, if you talk
of gallantry, I don't think she has stuck to us as she might have done
in the gale. Probably, though, she couldn't help this; for she's a
wretched tub and has the misfortune of having a nincompoop for a
commander besides!"
Luckily for the sour-tempered chap, whom I had time to reckon up since I
had been on board the corvette, the commodore did not hear what he said,
or he would most probably, officer of the watch though he might be, have
given him a `dressing down' before us all.
The fact of our having sighted the _Ruby_ had already been communicated
by one of the midshipmen to our chief, who was down in his cabin having
a rest, never having left the deck either day or night, I believe, since
the gale overtook us; and, as soon as we got within signalling distance,
he ordered the yeoman at the signal halliards to make our number.
Although the weather was becoming finer, as I have said, the wind was
still gusty and chopping about between the east and nor'-east quadrants;
and, hardly had our pennant been run up to the mizzen truck than the
`fly' of the flag got foul of the halliards.
"Hi, boy!" cried Lieutenant Robinson, wishing to be very smart, now the
commodore was on deck. "'Way aloft there and free that flag!"
I thought he spoke to me, and jumped towards the weather shrouds to obey
the order, but as I got into the rigging I saw `Ugly' was before me.
He was in the chains and on his way up to the top before the lieutenant
spoke, and naturally he had first addressed him.
`Ugly,' however, was so sluggish in his movements through the corvette
rolling a bit and the ratlines being none too steady, that Lieutenant
Robinson grew impatient.
"Here, you boy!" he roared at me even louder than Jones had spoken to
him shortly before. "See if you can't teach that lubber how to climb
aloft and free a flag when he is told, without taking a month of Sundays
over the job!"
Almost before he had spoken I had sprung into the rigging after `Ugly';
and by the time the lieutenant's last word was uttered I was more than
half-way up to the top, overhauling `Ugly' at the crosstrees.
From thence, he and I proceeded upward, he on one side of the mast, I on
the other, and neither speaking a word as we shinned up the `Jacob's
ladder.'
So we climbed up to the cap of the topgallant-mast in company; but, as
far apart as the poles, though so close together.
Then, each of us set about in his own fashion, without minding the
other, to disentangle the fly of the pennant, which had been whipped by
the wind round the halliards till it had formed itself into half a dozen
granny's knots.
We were holding on to the royal lift and brace, both of us, each with
one hand while with the other we tried to unloose the closely knotted
bunting, our faces almost touching each other, and still without ever
saying a word; when, all at once, through some one having neglected his
duty when the topgallant-mast was sent aloft after the gale, the ends of
the lift and brace slipped off the jack, to which they had been only
loosely secured, leaving `Ugly' and I suspended in the air partly by the
signal halliards and partly by the flag, which latter parted with a
ripping sound that I hear now in my ears as I speak of it. Aye, and as
I always shall hear it, I believe!
I heard also at the time, confused cries and orders from below, singing
out I know not what.
My companion's face was close to mine as we swung from the feeble cord
and more fragile stuff that interposed between us and eternity; a fall
to the deck beneath or into the sea meaning death in one way or the
other, either by drowning or by a more cruel fate.
I could see into his very soul, I think, at that awful moment, and he
into mine!
It all occurred in an instant, recollect!
But in that instant `Ugly' had time to break the silence that had
existed between us since our fight on the forecastle of the _Saint
Vincent_ and my rescue of him aboard the same ship later on.
He spoke to me, at last, now.
"To-am Bowlin'," whispered he hoarsely, "two chaps can't hang on yere
fur long. I'll give oop fur 'ee, me lad. Here goes!"