Chapter Four.
Down the River.
I remained for some time very quiet on the poop, for Mr Mackay was too busy giving his orders, first as we worked out of dock and, afterwards, in directing the steersman, when we were under way, to notice me; and seeing him so occupied, of course I did not like to speak to him.
I did not like to talk to Adams either for he was equally busy, besides which I did not know him then; and the same obstacle prevented my entering into conversation with the fat man in the oilskin, although I felt sure he could tell me a lot I wanted to know, I having a thousand questions simmering in my mind with reference to the ship and her belongings, and all that was going on around me on board the Silver Queen, in and on the river, and on either shore.
Still, I had plenty to interest me, even without speaking, my thoughts being almost too full, indeed, for words; for, the varied and ever-varying panorama through which we were moving was very new and strange to one like myself who had never been on board a vessel of any sort before, never sailed down the river Thames, never before seen in all its glory that marvellous waterway of all nations.
I was in ecstasies every moment at the world of wonders in which I now found myself;—the forests of masts rising over the acres of shipping in the East and West India docks away on our right, looking like the trunks of innumerable trees huddled together, and stretching for miles and miles as far as the eye could see; the deafening din of the hammermen and riveters, hammering and riveting the frames of a myriad iron hulls of vessels building in the various shipwright yards along the river bank from Blackwall to Purfleet; the shriek of steam whistles in every key from passing steamers that seemed as if they would come into collision with us each moment, they sheered by so dangerously near; the constant succession of wharfs and warehouses, and endless rows of streets and terraces on both sides of the stream; the thousands of houses joined on to other houses, and buildings piled on buildings, forming one endless mass of massive bricks and mortar, with the river stealing through it like a silver thread, that reached back, behind, up the stream to where, in the dim perspective, the dome of Saint Paul’s, rising proudly above a circlet of other church spires, stood out in relief against the bright background of the crimson sky glowing with the reflection of the setting sun just sinking in the west,—all making me wonder where the people came from who lived and toiled in the vast city, whose outskirts only I saw before me, seemingly boundless though my gaze might be.
All this flashed across me; but most wonderful of all to me was the thought that my dream of months past was at length realised; and that here I was actually on board a real ship, going towards the sea as fast as the staunch little Arrow tug could tow us down the river, aided by a good tide running under us three knots the hour at least.
It was almost incredible; and, unable to contain myself any longer I felt I must speak to somebody at all hazards.
My choice of this “somebody,” however, was a very limited one, for Mr Mackay and the mysterious man in the oilskin coat, and Adams, the steersman, the only persons on the poop besides myself, were all too busy to talk to me; albeit the former good-naturedly gave me an occasional kindly glance, as if he wished me to understand that his silence was not owing to any unfriendliness, or intended to make me “keep my distance,” as I might otherwise have thought.
As for Mr Saunders, the second mate, he had dived down the companion way into the cuddy below as soon as we had got out into the river and were in tow of the tug; and was probably now engaged in finishing his interrupted dinner, as his services were no longer required on deck. Matthews, the biggest of the three young fellows who had come up with him to help unmoor the ship and warp out of dock, had also followed his example in the most praiseworthy fashion.
Jerrold, the other youth, in company with the lanky boy of my own size were still hovering about, though neither had spoken to me; and the two were just now having a chat together by the door of the after-deckhouse, which Mr Mackay had pointed out to me as set apart for the accommodation of us “middies,” or apprentices, although I had not yet had an opportunity of inspecting its interior arrangements.
But, strange to say, the noisy gangs of men, who had been only a short time before bustling about the deck below, rushing from the forecastle aft and then back again, and pulling and hauling and shoving everywhere, so effectively as to push me to the other end of the ship and almost overboard, seemed to have disappeared in almost as unaccountable a fashion as the man in the oilskin had made his appearance.
Beyond this latter gentleman, therefore, and Mr Mackay, and Adams the steersman—to whom I was going to speak once only Mr Mackay shook his head—and my fellow apprentices on the main-deck below, I could only see Tim Rooney forward, with a couple of sailors helping him to range the cable in long parallel rows along the deck fore and aft, the trio lifting the heavy links by the aid of chain-hooks and turning it over with a good deal of clanking, so as to disentangle the links and make it all clear for running out without fouling through the hawse-hole when the anchor was let go.
The boatswain looked quite as busy as Mr Mackay, if not more so, his work being more noisy at any rate; but he wore so good-humoured an expression on his face, and had made friends so nicely with me after our little difficulty when I first came on board, that I thought I really could do no great harm in speaking to him and asking him to solve some of the difficulties that were troubling me about everything.
So resolving, I made my way down the poop ladder for the third time, passing my fellow apprentices, who did not speak, though the lanky one, Sam Weeks, put out his tongue at me very rudely; and, at last I came to where Rooney was standing by the windlass bitts below the topgallant forecastle.
“Hullo, Misther Gray-ham!” he cried on seeing me approach, “I was jist a wondtherin’ how long ye’d be acting skipper on the poop! You looked all forlorn up there, ma bouchal, loike Pat’s pig whin he shaved it, thinkin’ to git a crop o’ wool off av its back. Aren’t ye sorry now ye came to say, as I tould ye—hey?”
“Not a bit of it,” said I stoutly. “I’m more glad than ever now that I came; and I wouldn’t go back on shore if I could.”
“Be jabers, that’s more’n you’ll say, me bhoy, a fortnight hince!” he retorted with a grim chuckle, while the other men grinned in appreciation of the remark. “Sure now, though, there’s no good anyhow in fore-tastin’ matthers, as the ould jintleman aid whin he onhitched the rope from off his nick which he was agoin’ to hang himsilf wid. Is there innythin’ I can do in the manetoime to oblige ye, Misther Gray-ham?”
“I wish you would tell me a lot of things,” I replied eagerly.
“Be aisy, me darlint,” he rejoined in his funny way; “an’ if ye can’t be aisy, be as aisy as ye can! Now, go on ahid wid ye’r foorst question—‘one dog, one bone,’ as me ould friend Dan’l sez.”
“Well, what have become of all the sailors?” I asked to begin with.
“The sailors? Why, here we are, sure, all aloive an’ kickin’! What do ye take me an’ me lazy mates here for, ma bouchal?”
“Oh, but I mean all those men you were ordering about when I first came on board,” I said.
“Bedad, my hearty, there’s no doubt but ye ought for to go to say, as ye aid y’rsilf,” rejoined the boatswain indignantly. “It shows how grane yez are to misthake a lot av rowdy rapscallion dock loompers for genuine Jack Tars! Them fellers were ownly the stevedores, hired at saxpence the hour to load the ship; an’ they wint off in a brace av shakes, as you must have sayn for y’rsilf, whin their job was done! No, me bhoy, them weren’t the proper sort av shellbacks. There’s ownly fower raal sailors, as ye call’s ’em, now aboard, barrin’ Misther Mackay and the second mate; an’ them’s Adams over thar aft at the wheel, these two idle jokers here beside me, the ship’s bhoy, an’ thin mesilf—though, faix, me modesty forbids me say’n it, sure!”
“And are you really the only sailors on board?” I said, much surprised at this piece of information, being under the impression that the others had all gone below.
“Iv’ry ha’porth,” he answered; “that is, lavin’ out ye’re brother middies, or ‘foorst-class apprentices’ loike y’rsilf, Misther Gray-ham—faix, though, they aren’t sailors yit by a long shot. There’s that Portygee stooard, too, that the cap’an’s got sich a fancy for, I’m sure I can’t till why, as he’s possissed av the timper av ould Nick himsilf, an’ ain’t worth his salt, to me thinkin’!”
“And is that the captain up there now with Mr Mackay?” I asked.
“That the skipper? Bless ye, no, me lad—that’s ownly the river pilot!”
“Where is the captain, then?” was my next query, without stopping to think.
“By the powers, ye bates Bannagher for axin’ quistions, Misther Gray-ham!” cried Tim, amused at my cross-examination of him—just as if he were in a court of justice, as he afterwards said when he brought up the matter one day.—“Sure, how can I till where he or any other mother’s son is that I can’t say before my eyes? I can till you, though, where I belaives him to be this blissid minnit; an’ that is, by the ‘Crab an’ Lobster’ at Gravesend, lookin’ out for to say if he can say the Silver Quane a-sailin’ down the sthrame.”
“And will he come on board there?” I asked.
“Arrah, will a dook swim?” replied the boatswain in Irish fashion. “Av coorse he will, in a brace av shakes. Ould Jock Gillespie ain’t the sort av skipper to lit the grass grow under his cawbeens, whin he says his ship forninst him!”
“Oh, he’ll come on board at Gravesend,” I repeated after him, my mind greatly relieved; for I had been much concerned as to how and when the captain would make his appearance as well as the remainder of the crew, having read enough about ships to know that the Silver Queen could not well be navigated with such a small number of hands as were only in her then. “And will he bring any more sailors with him?”
“Aye, sonny, the howl bilin’ av the crew, barrin’ us chaps here alriddy. Yis, an’ our say pilot will come aboord there, the river one lavin’ us there.”
“I’m glad of that,” I said. “I thought there weren’t enough on board to sail the ship, with only you four men and the boy who struck the bell!”
“Did ye? Then, sure, ye’ve got the makin’s av a sailor in yez afther all, as Misther Mackay aid whin he foorst clapped eyes on ye. An’, sure, it’s now me toorn to be afther axin’ quistions, me bhoy—don’t ye feel peckish loike?”
“Peckish?” I echoed, unable to understand him.
“Now, don’t go on loike an omadhawn, an’ make me angry, as ye did at foorst,” he cried. “I mane are yez houngry? For I don’t belaive you’ve hid a bit insoide yer little carcase since ye came aboord this forenoon; an’ we’re now gittin’ through the foorst dog-watch.”
I declare I never thought of it before, but, now he mentioned it, I did feel hungry—very much so, indeed, not having tasted a morsel since the hasty meal that morning before leaving home; when, as might be supposed, I did not have over much of an appetite, with the consciousness that it might possibly be the last time I should breakfast with father and mother and sister Nell. The parting with Tom did not affect me much, as he had got priggish and rather above a boy like me since he had been to Oxford.
“By the powers!” exclaimed the kind Irishman when I confessed to feeling “peckish,” as he called it, telling him I had not had anything since eight o’clock that morning, “ye must be jist famished, me poor gossoon; an’ if I’d been so long without grub, why it’s atin’ me grandfather I’d be, or my wife’s sister’s first coosin, if I had one! But, now I’ve got this cable snug, jist you come along o’ me, me bhoy, an’ we’ll say what that Portygee stooard hez lift in his panthry; for I’ve got no proper mess yit an’ have to forage in the cabin.”
“I thought you said, though, he was bad tempered,” I observed as I followed the boatswain along the deck towards the door opening into the cuddy from the main-deck under the break of the poop, and only used generally by the steward and cook going to and from the galley forward, the other entrance by the companion way, direct down from the poop, being reserved for the captain and officers, as a rule. “Perhaps he’ll say he has nothing left, now that the others have all had their dinner?”
I said this rather anxiously; for, now that I came to think of eating at all, I felt all the hungrier, although until Tim asked me the question I had not once thought about the matter, nor experienced the slightest qualm from that neglected little stomach he had pitied!
“Bedad, whatsomedever he may say, me lad, he’ll have to git somethin’ for us to ate, an’ purty sharp too, if he’s forced to fry that oogly ould mahogany face av his!”
So saying, Tim entered the door of the passage leading into the cuddy, which seemed very dark coming in from the open deck, and was all the darker as we proceeded, the skylight in the poop having been covered over to protect the glass-work while the ship was loading in the dock, and the tarpaulin not having been yet taken off.
It was like going from the day into the night at one jump; but, after fumbling after my leader for a step or two, almost feeling my way and stumbling over the coaming at the entrance, placed there to prevent the water the ship might take in over the side when at sea from washing in from the main-deck, I all at once found myself in a wide saloon stretching the whole length of the after part of the ship, with a series of small cabins on either side and two larger ones at the end occupying the stern-sheets. The doors of the latter, however, were closed so that no light came through the slanting windows that opened out on either side of the rudder-post, above which is usually fitted what is called the stern gallery on board of an East Indiaman or man-of-war.
The skylight above being now blocked up and the ports and side scuttles closed, the cuddy was only dimly illuminated by a couple of glass bull’s-eyes let into the deck above, and one of the swinging lamps that were suspended at intervals over the long table that occupied the centre of the saloon, the rest being untrimmed and only this one lit.
The light was certainly dim, but quite enough for me to see how finely fitted-up the saloon was, with bird’s-eye maple panelling to the cabins and gilt-mouldings; while the butt of the mizzen-mast that ran up through the deck and divided the table, was handsomely decorated all round its base, the Silver Queen having been originally intended for the passenger trade, although since turned into a cargo ship, and now going out to Shanghai with a freight of Manchester goods, and Sheffield and Birmingham hardware.
A nicely-cushioned seat with a reversible back, so that people could either face their cabins or the table as they pleased by shifting it this way and that, was fixed along either side of the table; and at the extreme aftermost end of this, behind the mizzen-mast, I saw Mr Saunders and Matthews. They were comfortably enjoying themselves over their tea, judging by the cups and saucers before them, and other accompaniments of that meal; and evidently not hurrying themselves about it, for it was more than an hour since they had left the deck.
Our appearance did not at all discompose them; both looking up at our entrance, while Mr Saunders motioned to Tim to take a seat beside him.
“Hullo, bosun! Come in to forage—eh?” he cried, with his mouth still full and his jaws wagging away, “Bring yourself to an anchor, old ship; and bear a hand.”
“Thank ye kindly, Misther Saunders; I will sorr, savin’ y’r prisince,” said Tim Rooney, seating himself, however, on the other side of the table close to the end of the passage way by which we had entered. “I thought it toime to have a bit atwane me teeth as I haven’t tasted bit nor sup since dinner, an’ that war at eight bells. This youngster, too, wor famished, an’ so I brought him along o’ me.”
“I’m sure you’re welcome,” answered the second mate, losing no time though at his eating, but still keeping up his knife and fork play while talking. “Ah, the new apprentice Mr Mackay was telling me about just now—eh?”
“Yes, sir,” said I for he glanced over towards me as he spoke.
“Well, I hope you’ll get on well with your shipmates.”
He did not say any more, completing his sentence by draining his tea-cup; and my friend the boatswain, apparently taking this as a hint, shouted out in a tone that made my ears tingle: “Ahoy there, stoo-ard!”
“Yase, yase, I coom,” replied someone in a queer squeaky voice, that had a strong foreign accent, from somewhere in the darkness beyond the foot of the the companion way, where the gleam of the solitary saloon lamp did not quite penetrate; “I coom, sare, queek, queek.”
“Ye’d betther come sharp, sharp, or I’ll know the rayson why,” growled Tim Rooney, however, before he could say any more a little dark man with black crinkly hair like a negro’s emerged into the light, looking by no means amiable at being disturbed by the boatswain’s hail.
“What you want—hey?” he asked angrily. “I got my bizness to do in pantry, ’fore ze cap’in coom aboard.”
“What do I want, me joker?” returned Tim, in no way put out by his rude address. “I want somethin’ to ate for me an’ this young jintleman here. D’ye hear that?”
“Zere’s nuzzing left,” surlily answered the man. “You should coom down in ze propare time.”
“The dickens I should? Confound y’r impudence, ye mangy Porteegee swab! Allow me to till ye, Misther Paydro Carvalho—an’ be the powers it’s a sin ag’in the blessed Saint Pater to name such an ugly thafe as ye afther him—that I’ll pipe down to grub whin I loikes widout axin y’r laive or license. Jist ye look sharp, d’ye hear, an’ git us somethin’ to ate at once!”
To emphasise his words, the boatswain jumped up from his seat as he spoke; and the other, thinking he was going to make an attack on him, dodged to the opposite side of the table so as to have this as a sort of bulwark in between the irate Irishman and himself, vehemently protesting all the while that there was “nuzzing” he could put on the table.
“Nonsense, steward,” interposed the second mate, who with Matthews seemed highly amused at the altercation, the two grinning between their bites of bread and butter. “There’s that tin of corned-beef you opened for me just now, bring that.”
“An’ tay,” roared out Tim Rooney, resuming his seat again, which seeing, the dark little man, who had grown almost pallid with fright, swiftly retreated into the darkness of his pantry, muttering below his breath; while Tim, turning to me, asked, “Ye’d loike some tay wid y’r grub, Misther Gray-ham, wouldn’t ye now?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Tay for two, ye spalpeen!” he thereupon roared out a second time; “an’ ye’d betther look sharp, too, d’ye hear?”
The answer to this was a tremendous smash from the pantry, and the sound of things clattering about and rolling on the floor, as if all the crockery in the ship was broken, whereat Tim and the second mate and Matthews burst altogether into one simultaneous shout of laughter.
“Tare an’ ’ouns, he’s at it ag’in!” cried the boatswain when he was able to speak; “he’s at it ag’in!”
“Aye, he’s at it again. A rum chap, ain’t he?” said Mr Saunders.
“It’s ownly his nasty timper, though; an’ he vints it on them poor harmless things bekase he’s too much av a coward to have it out wid them that angers him,” replied Tim Rooney, adding, as another crash resounded from the distance: “Jist he’r him now. Bedad he’s havin’ a foine fling this toime, an’ no misthake at all, at all!”
“What is he doing?” I asked, seeing that the boatswain and the other two took the uproar as a matter of course, and were in no way surprised at it. “Is he breaking things?”
“No, ma bouchal,” replied Tim carelessly. “He’s ownly kickin’ presarved mate tins about the flure av his panthry, which he kapes especial fur such toimes as he’s in a rage wid anyone as offinds him, whin, instead av standin’ up loike a man an’ foightin’ it out wid the chap that angers him, he goes and locks himsilf in the panthry an’ kicks the harmless ould tins about, an’ bangs ’em ag’in the bulkhead at the side, till ye’d think he was smashin’ the howl ship!”
“What a funny man!” I exclaimed.
“He’s all that,” said the boatswain sententiously. “An’ the strangest thing av all is, that whin he’s done kickin’ the tins about an’ has vinted his passion, he’ll come out av his panthry as cool an’ calm as a Christian, an’ do jist what ye wants him, as swately as if he’d nivir bin in a timper at all, at all. Jist watch him now.”
It was as Tim Rooney explained.
While he was yet describing the steward’s peculiar temperament and strange characteristics, the clattering sounds all at once ceased in the pantry; and the Portuguese presently appeared with a tray on which were clean plates and cups and saucers, which he proceeded to lay neatly and dexterously at one end of the table, looking as calm and quiet as if “butther wouldn’t milt in his mouth, sure,” as Tim remarked.
Making a second journey back to the pantry, he returned with a dish of cold beef and a cheese, besides a plate piled up with slices of bread and butter, which he certainly must have been cutting all the time he was kicking the tins about. Then, taking a large bronze teapot from the top of a stove in the after part of the cabin, where it had been keeping hot all the while without my noticing it before, the steward poured out a cup of tea apiece for Tim Rooney and myself, asking politely if there was anything more he could get us.
“No, thank ye, Paydro,” replied Tim rubbing his hands at sight of the eatables; “this will do foorst rate, me bhoy. Misther Gray-ham, why don’t ye fire away, ma bouchal? Sure an’ y’r tay’s gettin’ cowld.”
I hardly needed any pressing, feeling by this time as hungry as a hunter; the waiting having sharpened my appetite, as well as the sight of the second mate and Matthews at work at the other end of the table, they only just finishing their meal and going up on deck again as we commenced ours.
We did not lose any time, though, for all that, when once we began, I can tell you, following to the full the second mate’s praiseworthy example.
No; for, we made such good use of our opportunities that in less than a quarter of an hour we had both assuaged our hunger—Tim appearing as bad in this respect as myself—by making a general clearance of everything eatable on the table, the corned-beef and bread and butter and piece of cheese vanishing as if by magic, washed down by sundry cups of tea, which, if not strong, made up for this deficiency by being as sweet as moist brown sugar could make it.
“Sure, an’ that Paydro ain’t such a bad sort av chap afther all,” observed Tim Rooney complacently as he rose from his seat, feeling comfortable as to his interior economy, the same as I did, and at peace with all mankind. “Bedad, I’d forgive him ivrythin’, for a choild could play wid me now!”
Any further remark on his part, however, was cut short at the moment by a hail from Mr Mackay down the companion.
“Bosun, ahoy, below there!”
“Aye, aye, sorr!” cried Tim Rooney starting up and making a rush for the doorway leading to the main-deck from the cuddy, “I’m a-coming, sorr!”
And the next moment he was out on the deck, “two bells,” or five o’clock, as I knew by this time, just striking from the fore part of the ship as we both emerged from below the break of the poop in view of those standing above—I having followed close on Tim Rooney’s heels like his very shadow.
“Oh, you’re there, bosun!” exclaimed Mr Mackay as soon as he caught sight of Tim out on the deck below him. “We’re just abreast of Tilbury, and the pilot thinks we had better bring up in accordance with Captain Gillespie’s orders. Are you ready for anchoring?”
“Quite riddy, sorr,” replied Tim, looking up at the first mate and the man in the oilskin, whom I now knew to be the Thames pilot, as they leaned over the poop rail. “Lasteways, as soon as iver I can rache the fo’c’s’le.”
“Carry-on then. You’ll find Mr Saunders already in the bows to help you,” said Mr Mackay, hailing at the same time the master of the tug that had brought us so far down the river, and who was at his post on the paddle-box waiting for the pilot’s orders to “stand by,” the little steamer, having already stopped her engines and now busy blowing off her waste steam, waiting for us to cast off her towing-hawser from our bollard, where it was belayed on the forecastle.
While I was noticing these details, Tim was scrambling forwards towards the windlass bitts, mounting thence on to the forecastle, where Mr Saunders and Matthews, with the other middies, were assembled.
Adams, who had been relieved from the wheel, and the other two sailors, as well as the boy who remained with the rest after coming out to strike the bell, was attending to the compressor and watching the cable on the main-deck, just below the group above, which I now joined, racing after my friend Tim.
Looking back astern as soon as I attained this elevated position in the bows of the ship, I noticed the pilot on the poop bring his arm down, whereupon Mr Mackay by his side, putting both his hands to his mouth for a speaking trumpet, shouted out towards us on the forecastle:
“Are you all ready for’ard?”
“All ready!” yelled back Mr Saunders in reply.
“Let go!” then called out Mr Mackay, the second mate supplementing his cry with a second shout—
“Stand clear of the cable!”
At the same moment, Tim Rooney giving the tumbler a smart stroke with a hammer which he had picked up from off the windlass, the cathead stopper was at once released and the anchor fell from the bows into the water with a great heavy splash, the chain cable jiggle-joggling along the deck after it, and rushing madly through the hawse-hole with a roaring, rattling noise like that of thunder!