Chapter Eleven.
I get into Disgrace.
After that first cruise of mine in the little Martin, I was at home one Saturday afternoon, having had permission from the captain—being what they call ‘a local boy,’ my parents residing in Portsmouth—to remain ashore till Sunday evening at sunset. It was now summer-time, and I was sitting in our back garden, which was more extensive than might have been expected from the surroundings of Bonfire Corner, the house, as I have said, being an old-fashioned one and father having bought the freehold for a mere song in the days when property in Portsea did not fetch such a high price as at present. The pink and white blossoms of the apple-trees, of which we had a tidy number round the garden, had dropped off long ere now and the fruit was beginning to form; but there were plenty of roses still out, and all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, filling the air with fragrance.
I was enjoying myself to rights under the shade of an ancient mulberry-tree, which must have been planted in the time of Queen Elizabeth I should think, judging by its gnarled trunk and huge twisted branches.
Some of these hung rather low, and Jenny had brought out Jack our thrush and suspended his cage along with those of our piping bullfinch and some of the canaries, just above a rustic table, having an old armchair that had seen its better days, in front of it, which was father’s favourite seat when at home and the weather was not too bad to go out of doors.
Here was his pipe and tobacco-jar, just as he left them in the morning, it being his habit to take a whiff there after breakfast prior to shouldering his oars, which he always brought back to the cottage of a night for safety’s sake, and starting off to his wherry for the day.
I felt rather lonesome, for Mick had not been able to get leave to come ashore with me, and Jenny was too busy helping mother house-cleaning to spare much time for a chat after the first greetings had passed on my arriving at the house; so, looking at father’s pipe and tobacco-jar, the thought came into my head—probably suggested by that wily old Serpent, who, the parson says, is always on the watch to put evil thoughts into empty minds—“Why shouldn’t I learn to smoke?”
I don’t think I would have carried this thought into action had it not been for ‘Ally Sloper,’ our cockatoo, who just then came hopping down the garden-path from the scullery, where he had been having a rare carrying-on with the cat, the rum bird as soon as he caught sight of me flying up on the table and catching hold of the end of father’s favourite churchwarden with his claw.
“Say-rah!” he shouted out in the very tones of father’s voice, so that I could almost fancy he were there sitting alongside of me. “Blest if I don’t have a pipe!”
That settled the matter.
The next moment I had taken the pipe from ‘Ally Sloper’s’ reluctant claw; and, filling it carefully, poking down the tobacco with the end of my finger just as father used to do, I struck a match and started smoking.
I can’t say I absolutely liked it at first, the strong narcotic, bitter taste of the tobacco, combined with the smell, making me feel rather giddy; while a gulp of smoke which went the wrong way caused me to cough.
But, I stuck at it all the same, feeling that now at last I was on the highroad to being a man, just like those able-bodied seamen belonging to our ship who used to enjoy ‘blowing their cloud,’ as they called it, of an evening on board the Saint Vincent when work was done for the day.
My complacency, too, was heightened by Jenny coming out presently, and the admiration she expressed at my dignified attitude under the mulberry-tree, leaning back in father’s armchair, and smoking his very own churchwarden.
“Good gracious me, Tom!” she exclaimed; Jack the thrush calling out “Jenny! Jenny! Jenny!” at sight of her, as he always did. “Why, you’re just like daddy!”
This made me feel proud, I can tell you; though old ‘Ally Sloper’ didn’t appear to like my performance, for I was amusing myself by puffing the smoke in his face, making him put up his lemon crest and spread out his collar-like feathers, screaming for mother like mad.
I had ‘crossed the Rubicon,’ however; and, ever after this, when at home of an afternoon, sometimes with Mick, who, of course, imitated me, sometimes without him on those occasions when he did not get permission to go ashore, I used to have a whiff at father’s pipe on the sly—without his knowledge though, you bet!
By this means, I soon became a regular smoker; and, content no longer with an occasional draw at father’s churchwarden, I bought a fine briar-root pipe for myself out of my pocket-money, which was increased by my becoming a first-class boy now to a shilling a week.
This pipe I carried about with me, in company with an old brass tobacco-box I found in the mud one day at Point, stowed carefully away with all my other portable gear in my cap, according to the custom of the service.
I got so bold at last, that even on board the training-ship I would take a stray whiff of a while, when I got into some snug corner on deck where I thought I would be unobserved; though my chum Mick, who didn’t take kindly to the habit like myself, often cautioned me about the risk I ran in being caught.
“Faith, Tom, me bhoy,” he would say to me, “Oi can’t say howivver ye can go fur to do it, sure, a gossoon loike yersilf who’s got a carrackter fur to loose; aye, an’ fur sich a dirthy, nasty thing as thit, a-spillin’ the tasthe ov good ghrub, so thit ye can’t tell whither ye’re aitin’ spuds or pay doo. Ef it wor a chap loike that ‘Ugly’ now, the sulky baste ez wouldn’t hev a koind wurrd fur ye, loike a Christian, since ye saved his rascally loife last year, begorrah, Oi could say the sinse ov it; but, fur a chap loike yersilf, Tom, fur to do it, with ivverythin’ to loose, Oi’m ashamed on ye!”
Mick’s remonstrances, however, were all in vain; for, as mother frequently accused father of being, I was ‘obstinate like all the Bowlings,’ and once I had set my mind on a thing I’m sorry to say nothing would turn me from it.
The first time I was caught thus smoking on board against the rules, I was let off with only a caution; Mr Brown, the ship’s corporal, who had always continued my friend, not bringing my offence to the notice of the authorities.
“Don’t let it occur again, though, Tom Bowling,” said he to me, with a pinch of the ear, on seeing me once having a whiff behind the windlass bitts; “for, let me tell you, if you’re nabbed by me or any one else at it again, as I must inform the master-at-arms, though I know he won’t let it go further now, you’ll be brought up on the quarter-deck and receive punishment.”
The ship’s corporal’s advice, however, went through one deaf ear and out of the other, like my chum’s remonstrance; and one fine day I was ‘brought up all standing’ in the very act of committing the same offence.
Unfortunately for me, my captor on this occasion was a new corporal who had just been promoted to the police force of the ship, a young seaman whose good conduct had earned him the post, and who wished, of course, to show himself especially smart.
Unthinking of my approaching doom, I was smoking away one evening between the lights, never dreaming for a moment that any one was near or noticing me, when all at once a hand gripped the back of my neck and slewed my head round.
“Ha, my joker,” cried Nemesis, in the shape of this young corporal, who I saw was surrounded by a small crowd of my grinning shipmates, “I’ve caught you this time!”
He had, with a vengeance; for not only had he seized me ‘flagrante delicto,’ as the captain said to me subsequently, he being a Latin scholar, the meaning of which was, I suppose, that I had the delicious fragrance of the ’baccy about me, but Smithers, the corporal, wrenched the pipe that was the cause of all the mischief from my hand, as I hastily removed it from my mouth and attempted to conceal it.
He reported me in due course to ‘Jimmy the One,’ our first lieutenant, who in due course put me in the black list; and I was brought up the next day on the quarter-deck before the captain, when we all mustered for ‘divisions’ on the upper deck.
The commanding officer spoke to me kindly, saying he was sorry to see me in such a position; but, all the same, the offence being one which he said he could not possibly excuse, as he was determined to stop the pernicious habit of smoking, which, if indulged in by young boys, would ruin their constitutions for life, he sentenced me to have six strokes, the usual penalty.
Accordingly, ‘the horse’ kept for the purpose, a sort of rough and round wooden structure with four posts for legs, similar to those saddle-blocks seen in harness shops, was rigged, and one of the gunner’s mates gave me the allotted number of administrations of the cane that I had earned.
The boys on board the Saint Vincent in their slang called this stroking business ‘stroniky’; and they have a rude rhyme anent it, which embodies likewise what they catalogue as the hardships of the service—
“Pea doo and bolliky,
Hard work and stroniky,
Who wouldn’t join the Navy!”
I bore my punishment unflinchingly, for, really I knew I deserved it; but, although the gunner’s mate did not spare his arm and the cuts he gave me with his cane stung sharply, sharper than the pain I felt physically was the consciousness that I had lost my good character!
My leave, too, was stopped, so that I did not get home for a month; not that I cared about this much, for, to tell the truth, I hardly liked to face father and Jenny till the recollection of my punishment had become somewhat deadened by time and the chaff of my messmates.
They did not attach the disgrace that I did to my experience of ‘stroniky.’
On the contrary, many anecdotes were told anent it after turning in that evening, the time when we indulged in yarning amongst ourselves after ‘lights out’ was sounded, and all was darkness on the lower deck.
One story told was that of a young Scotchman, who, with the characteristic thoughtfulness of his race, while blubbering, and yelling out ‘Mudder—Mudder—Mudder—Mudder!’ throughout the operation, yet calculated accurately the duration of his ordeal, shouting in the most matter-of-fact voice when given the last stroke, ‘That’s sax!’
If not so particular as this Scotch lad in respect of numbering the strokes I received, their effect was much more lasting in my case; for, adopting Mick’s advice rather late in the day, I threw overboard the remaining stock of tobacco and pipes I had stowed in my ‘ditty box’ below and abjured smoking so long as I remained in the training-ship, not resuming the habit until some years later when I was grown up and was on active service abroad.
My good character, too, returned to me after a time; and I may say, without boasting, I never lost it again while I remained on board the Saint Vincent, keeping steady and trying to do my duty through good report and ill until I left the ship.
A couple of months later on, also, I became also restored to the captain’s favour in rather a funny fashion.
I was out in the Martin during her last cruise for the year, it having got to be late in the autumn, and approaching the time for her to be dismantled and lay up for the winter.
We had run down to Plymouth as usual, and were on our way back up Channel, beating against strong headwinds, when the weather got thick, as on our former cruise, and it came on to blow pretty stiff, the sea getting up and the brig having such a bad time of it that it took four of us at the wheel, besides old Jellybelly the quarter-master, to keep her on her course.
As luck would have it, ‘Gyp’ the captain’s dog had come with us for the trip, his master being away on leave, and the commander of the Martin, who had volunteered to take charge of him during the captain’s absence, thinking it best to keep him under his own eye.
‘Gyp’ was very partial to me, as might be imagined from the fact of my having been so long in the habit of taking him ashore with me; and, consequently, during our cruise he attached himself with that strong bias for which his breed is proverbial to my humble self, preferring, when allowed the opportunity, to share my quarters even to enjoying the luxuries of the wardroom of the brig aft.
His keen eye ever watched my movements when on deck and a word or look from me was sufficient to set his stumpy tail wagging as if it would never stop; while he would lick my bare feet in a most affectionate manner should I ever pass near him and give him the chance, showing me his ‘bad leg,’ if the slightest hint to that effect were given, by holding up one of his hind limbs and stretching it out in a most extraordinary manner, the captain’s valet having taught him this trick when he was a puppy and ‘Gyp’ never having forgotten it though he had arrived at maturer years.
Nor, likewise, had he forgotten the art of balancing a biscuit on his nose and not dropping it or offering in any way to masticate the same, however much his feelings might be inclined thereto, without the permissive order, ‘Now you may have it,’ being uttered.
‘Gyp,’ I am afraid, was not a born sailor like myself and family.
No ancestral fox-terrier of his race could possibly, I fancy, have ‘gone aloft’ like the original head of our house; for, though he liked being at sea well enough in fine weather, he got in the dumps when it came on to blow, his apology for a tail becoming so limp that what there was of it drooped and lost its wag, so, that being left in the lurch through his rudder not answering the helm, he stumbled about the deck like any young Johnny Raw just come afloat.
Rolling and labouring, heeling over gunwales under sometimes, the Martin managed to reach Spithead in the teeth of a stormy south-easter, which was sending the surf over Southsea Castle as the big rollers coming in from the offing broke against the pile-protected rampart below; and, we were just going to anchor in our usual berth under the lee of the Spit, ‘Gyp’ standing as well as he could with his rickety sea-legs by the taffrail.
He was watching me coming down from aloft, where I had gone with some of the other boys of the starboard watch to furl the mizzen-topsail, waiting, poor fellow, to greet me with a sniff of welcome; when, in the excitement of my near approach, he wagged his tail somewhat incautiously and, thereby losing his footing, the affectionate animal fell overboard.