"Well!" exclaimed little Tommy Mills, a little later, when he and I,
with young Morgan, the mate and Ned Anstruther, on being relieved by the
starboard watch, all went down to the gunroom and sat down to have our
breakfast, "I call this a beastly shame."
"Hullo," said Popplethorne, one of the other middies, looking up from
the plate on which he was busily engaged; while several other fellows,
similarly employed ceased operations likewise, staring at Tommy in
astonishment. "What's up?"
"Nothing's up, but everything seems down," replied my little chum in an
aggrieved tone. "I don't see a crumb left for a poor, hungry chap; no
bloaters, no marmalade, no nothing. When I was in the _Illustrious_, if
they did grind a fellow a bit, one always had something decent to eat,
at all events!"
"First come, first served," mumbled Phil Plumper, the senior mate of our
watch, who had his mouth full and was tucking in some species of
"burgoo," or porridge with much gusto. He was an awfully fat fellow and
looked just like a boiled lobster bursting out of its shell, for the
buttons of his jacket were continually carrying away at odd moments.
"If you don't look out for yourself on board ship you'll find nobody 'll
look after you; and, you'll come off _minus_!"
"That'll never be your case," retorted Tommy, with a snigger. "Judging
by appearances, I should say your condition represents a _plus_
quantity!"
"Beg pardon, sir," apologised Dobbs, the gunroom steward, who from his
comical little screwed-up eyes and manner must have been first cousin to
my old friend the waiter at the "Keppel's Head," noticing the disdainful
expression with which Tommy Mills continued to glance round the empty
table, seeking in vain something appetising in the way of food for his
hungry eye to rest upon,--"Beg pardon, sir, but the bumboat woman didn't
come off this morning. Sunday, you know, sir."
"That's all gammon, steward," said Master Tommy, still looking about
here and there and finding nothing but a desert of empty dishes and
dirty plates. "You ought to have sent one of the ship's boats ashore if
you didn't have enough on board for everybody in the mess. Our steward
in the _Illustrious_ always kept a good look out and sent himself for
them when the things were not brought off in time. Why didn't you do
the same?"
"I'm sure I'm werry sorry, sir," answered Dobbs, humbly, awed by the way
in which little Tommy spoke to him; for my old comrade, I noticed, had
lost none of his cheek since our separation, and now put on the air of a
post captain at the least. "Begging y'r pardon, sir, but getting ashore
from Spithead, with a northerly wind a-blowin', ain't quite so easy as
landing from Point and you're moored over against Blockhouse Fort!"
"That may be, but it's none of my business," said young Mills, loftily,
waiving Dobbs's plea aside as a mere trivial matter. "I want some
breakfast. What have you at all fit for a christian to eat? I see
nothing here, nothing at all."
"Got some werry nice cold 'am, sir, in my pantry," cried Dobbs, with
effusion, at this opening, glad of having something he could offer.
"Shall I cut you a plate o' that, sir--just try a wee bit off the
knuckle end, sir?"
"All right, if there is nothing else, but I suppose it will be all bone
and gristle, or as hard as a cat-block," replied Tommy; heaving a most
portentous sigh of disappointment, though winking slily to me to show
that he was only `putting all this on' to astonish the other fellows,
who were gazing at him with open mouths in wonder at his assurance and
grand seigneur manner. "You may get me a couple of eggs, also, while
you're about it, steward. Mind they're fresh and have no chickens in
them; I don't like poultry in the morning so early!"
Of course there was a loud guffaw at this, the three purser's clerks,
who were eating bread and butter at the lower end of the table, not
daring to put in a word of objection to the fare, seeming to enjoy the
joke mightily.
Not so, however, Dobbs.
"Werry sorry, sir, but there's no heggs," he replied to this somewhat
imperative order from Master Tommy, looking absolutely crestfallen at
having thus to confess the shortcomings of his commissariat. "The
caterer of the mess, sir, forgot to horder 'em, sir."
"No eggs!" cried Tommy, in the tone of tragic denunciation which Cicero
might have used when exposing the iniquities of Cataline. "This is
really impardonable!"
"Never mind, sir," hastily whispered Dobbs, holding out a gleam of hope,
as he thought, "we'll get some at Plymouth as soon as we anchor in the
Sound, sir. You shall get some there, sir, never you fear, sir."
"Plymouth? Why, I may lose the number of my mess myself long before I
ever reach there!" said Tommy, contemptuously. "A caterer who forgets
to provide eggs for the mess ought to be keel-hauled! Who _is_ the
caterer, steward?"
"Mr Stormcock, sir."
"Oh, indeed! Stormcock, eh?" repeated little Mills, making me choke
with suppressed laughter. "Then you can tell Mister Stormcock, with my
compliments, that unless he looks after the mess catering better, he'll
precious soon find himself in foul weather with me!"
"Highty, tighty, my young bantam!" cried out the gentleman in question,
the master's mate, a thick-set, full-grown fellow, old enough to be
Tommy's father, who happened to be stretched at full length on one of
the lockers at the further end of the gunroom, and was roused from his
nap on hearing his name mentioned. "You seem to have a pretty
considerable stock of impudence of your own for so young a shaver, and
crow so loudly you must want to have your comb cut, I think!"
"Not to-day, thank you, sir, all the same," answered Master Tommy,
demurely, but with a grimace that made us all laugh. "If I'm a shaver,
of course I can cut it myself, can't I?"
"Hang me, but you _are_ a cheeky young beggar, the cheekiest we have on
board, I think, and that's saying a good deal!" ejaculated the other,
utterly dumbfounded at his effrontery. "What are you rowing the poor
steward about, eh?"
"Nothing--only I thought we might have had a better spread for breakfast
than I see on the table as we're not yet at sea, that's all!"
"Oh, that's all, is it, young gentleman?" cried the master's mate, not
liking to hear his catering criticised so frankly. "I'm sorry you
didn't let us know we had a lord coming aboard; for, if we had heard in
time, we'd have hired a French cook and laid in every delicacy you could
desire. By jingo! when I was a youngster and joined my ship for the
first time, I remember, I was glad enough to get a mouthful of salt junk
and hard tack, without any of your bloaters and marmalade and foreign
kickshaws--ay, and thought myself doocid lucky, I can tell you, if I
didn't get a thrashing from one of the oldsters in the mess, if I
grumbled, to make me relish my grub the better. Things are coming to a
pretty pass nowadays for a young jackanapes to growl about his vittles
and call his seniors to account!"
"Pardon me, sir, but my name is Tom Mills, not `Jack Napes,'" said my
cheeky chum, with meek subservience; and, turning then to Dobbs, he
called out, "a cup of tea, please, steward, with plenty of milk in it."
"Werry sorry, sir, but there ain't no milk," replied Dobbs, still more
apologetically, at this further demand which he was unable to supply, as
if he grieved from his inmost heart thereat. "Mr Jones 'as 'ad the
werry last drop, sir."
"We'll send ashore for a cow for you, Master Impudence," put in Mr
Stormcock, ironically, before Tom could say anything. "Just wait a bit
for your breakfast till we can get it off. Dobbs, you know the sort of
cow the young gentleman wants--one with an iron tail!"
"Did I ever tell you that yarn about a cow we had on board the _Duke_,
eh?" observed a tall gentleman with long whiskers, regular "weepers" of
the Dundreary type, who was seated on another locker at the after end of
the gunroom, right opposite to the irascible master's mate. "I mean the
cow old Charley Napier took with him in his flagship when we went up the
Baltic?"
"Good Lord! Jones, don't get your jaw tacks aboard now," cried Mr
Stormcock, as I pricked up my ears on hearing the name of Sir Charles
Napier, Dad's old captain. "We've heard that yarn of yours three times
at least since we started fitting out; and, I'm hanged if it'll stand
telling again!"
"Oh, very well, then," said the whiskered gentleman in a displeased
tone. He wore a plain undress sort of uniform, I noticed, and Dobbs,
the steward, told me he was the paymaster's assistant and kept the
ship's books; though, he messed in the gunroom with all the midshipmen
and cadets, like the master's mate, both of them seeming to my mind far
too old to associate on such a footing with a parcel of boys like
ourselves. "I may as well spare my breath to cool my porridge! I
assure you, Mr Stormcock, I have no wish to bore you."
"Do tell us about the cow, sir," I interposed anxiously, afraid he would
not continue his story. "I have often heard Dad, I mean my father,
speak about Admiral Napier; and, I saw him myself when I was in London
last summer. It was he who got me my nomination for a cadetship."
"Ah, then you know what a queer old customer he is?" went on Mr Jones,
evidently mollified by the interest I took in his yarn. "It isn't much
of a story, as Mr Stormcock appears to think; but, if you care to hear
it, I'll tell you all about it."
"I do care, sir," I replied, "very much indeed, sir."
"Well, then, youngster," he proceeded, "the Baltic fleet was lying at
Spithead, where we mustered, you must know, before sailing up the North
Sea; and one fine day, when we were about to weigh anchor for the Queen
to review us as she passed us in the royal yacht, up comes the dockyard
tug alongside, with `Sally,' that was the admiral's daughter, bringing
along with her the old ship's cow and pigeons and a lot of other stock
he had ordered from his place t'other side of Portsdown Hill on the road
to Petersfield, `Merchiston Hall,' I think he called it, or some other
Scotch name sounding like that."
"Oh, yes," put in Mr Stormcock, satirically--"I recollect it all quite
well. Heave ahead, my hearty!"
The assistant-paymaster, however, took no notice whatever of the
interruption, pursuing the even tenor of his narrative.
"The admiral had the cow and stock taken in; but just as his daughter
Sally was coming across the gangway, he ordered her back, for the royal
yacht was now coming up. `Stop where you are, Sally!' he shouted out
from the poop. `Stop, Sally, stop!' bawling out the words so loudly
that you could have heard him in Common Hard, for he had a powerful pair
of lungs had Old Charley, and could raise his voice above a gale.
Almost in the same breath, too, he sang out to the wives and friends of
the sailors who had come out from Portsmouth to wish them good-bye,
`Now, all you women and people there! go aboard the tug with my darter,
and when Her Majesty has passed you may come back again.' Of course,
they all cleared out at once, the master-at-arms and his corporals
assisting them over the side; but when they were all comfortably landed
on board the tug, she steamed off right away for the harbour, with a
long string of wherries and shore boats pulling like blue niggers after
her, the men in them swearing like anything at being cheated of their
fares. We all the while were getting up anchor and in another minute or
two were under weigh. Captain Gordon, who was the admiral's flag
captain, spoke to him about the poor watermen and bumboat women being
robbed of their money by our starting so suddenly; but he could get no
satisfaction from old Charley. `Bumboat women be hanged!' was all he
said. `Let 'em take their payment out of the fore tops'l, and the main
topgallant s'l shall be witness to the bargain!' With that, he orders
the men, who were muttering to be piped down."
"But the cow, sir," said I, on the paymaster's assistant thus coming to
a conclusion, without alluding to what I considered the principal point
of his story. "You haven't told us yet about that, sir."
"Oh, yes, I forgot," said he. "It was a fine beast, I remember, one of
the red Alderney breed. Well, this cow was first stowed away in a pen
the admiral had rigged up for her on the starboard side of the main
deck, forrud; but on the gunner objecting to the mess the animal made
there, she was then shifted to the port side, in the middle of the mess
deck of the foretopmen. Here, too, she was found such a nuisance that
the hands in a very short time determined to get rid of her as quickly
as they could, either by fair means or foul; and, of course, they
managed this right enough. Let sailors alone for that!"
"But, how did they manage it, sir?" asked Tommy Mills, who appeared to
take as much interest in the narrative as myself. "Did they kill her,
or chuck her overboard?"
"They did neither directly; but, indirectly, I may say they did both,"
answered Mr Jones, enigmatically, smiling and pulling his long whiskers
caressingly through his fingers, as if particularly proud of these
hirsute adornments. "The fact was, the unprincipled scoundrels gave her
alternately buckets full of dry biscuit-dust and water which so inflated
the poor beast that she became the size of a balloon in less than a
week; and, if she had not through this been suffocated, she would of
course have burst from the `abnormal expansion!' That is how our
doctor, old Nettleby, the same we've got on board here now, described it
to the admiral when he was sent to inspect the cow, when the butcher
reported her dead."
"What did the admiral say, sir, when he heard this?"
"Oh, he stormed and let fly a volley of picturesque language," replied
Mr Jones to this inquiry of mine; "but what could he do? `Throw her
out of the bow port,' he said to the gunner, who pitched a yarn about it
being the foretopmen who had done the fell deed. `I don't know whether
its your foretopmen or maintop-men that are to be blamed for it, and I
don't care; but, you've stopped my milk between you, and I'm hanged if I
don't stop your grog!'"
"And did he, sir?" asked little Tom Mills. "Did he stop their grog for
it?"
"No," replied Mr Jones. "He was too good-natured an old chap for
that."
"More than you were half-an-hour ago," observed Mr Stormcock,
sarcastically, rising up from his recumbent position. "You didn't think
of the fellows coming down from their watch on deck, when you drained
off the last remains of the milk, eh? Yes, my joker, you left this
cheeky youngster here to go without any in his tea, making him think of
home and his mammy! yes, all through your selfishness."
"Now, really, Stormcock," expostulated the paymaster, "upon my word I
didn't think of that, or I wouldn't have been so greedy. Really, now,
upon my honour!"
Just then, the boatswain's call was heard ringing through the ship, and
the drummers began beating to quarters, which made us all jump up.
"By jingo, I wonder what's in the wind now!" exclaimed Mr Stormcock,
making a grab at his sword-belt, which he had unfastened for comfort
after his breakfast, laying it alongside him on the locker while taking
his snooze. "It's always `All hands,' or `Quarters,' or the `Fire
Bell,' or something! I was just thinking of going into my cabin and
having a fair lay off the land till noon, for there's nothing for me to
do on deck; when here comes this hanged rattle of the drum, confound it,
to upset my caulk. A fellow can't call his soul his own aboard ship--a
sailor's life's a dog's life, by jingo!"