Chapter Four.
I am “Cut down in my Prime.”
After dinner, which, by the way, my friend Mick Donovan appeared to enjoy mightily, not having had a decent meal for more than a month past, as he confessed to me afterwards, the bugle loudly sounded the ‘assembly,’ when all the boys below came rushing up the hatchway near us, trooping onwards by the ladder above to the upper deck. They jostled and shoved past each other, I thought, as if Old Nick were after them, none wishing to occupy the unenviable position of last man, or rather boy.
There wore eight other new boys in addition to us three, the latest of the novices, who had joined the ship that morning; and, although we all rose up from the mess-table, where we had very satisfactorily polished off our dinners in company, the lot of us hung together about the spot, not knowing what to do, or where we should go.
We were, besides, pretty well confused with all the bustle and hurry, and scurry catch-me-who-can business, going on around us.
It seemed, indeed, to bewilder even ‘Ugly,’ free and easy chap as he appeared to be.
Our friend the master-at-arms, however, solved the difficulty for us before we were many minutes older, as you will see.
“Ha, my lads!” said he, advancing towards us from the office with the glass windows, through which he could overhaul all that was going on on deck, and where he probably had been enjoying his own meal on the quiet; “got through your dinners, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” we shouted in chorus, Mick Donovan adding a very appropriate grace, which most of us had forgotten. “Thanks be to God, yer ’anner!”
“Ah, I needn’t have asked the question,” said the ‘Jaunty’ to this, glancing meaningly at the empty plates that littered the table, not a scrap or a crumb being left by any of us. “But now, my lads, you must set to work to pay for your grub. Here, look sharp and clear up! We always have things shipshape aboard here, and the sooner you learn your duties the better.”
The same first-class boy who had previously got our dinners for us from the cook’s galley, and who, you may remember, had tried a ‘barney’ on me when he brought them, happening to be passing by at the time again, the master-at-arms hailed him.
“Where are you going, my joker?” said he. “You seem to be having a good time of it!”
“Jist goin’ a message fur the bosun,” stammered he. “He sent me to ax the gunner, sir, fur a copy o’ the mornin’ paper.”
“That’s a bouncer,” rejoined the ‘Jaunty,’ who, no doubt, was up to such tricks. “Why, you’re going away from the gunner’s cabin and not towards it, as you very well know. You just stop here and show these new boys how to clean up the mess-table.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the boy very humbly; and then a grin came over his face as he looked at the empty plates, like as the master-at-arms had done previously, asking demurely, “Shall I show ’em where to chuck the scraps, sir?”
“Yes, if you can find them,” answered the ‘Jaunty’ shortly. “It strikes me, Larrikins, you’ll soon be on short allowance yourself if you don’t keep a better hold on your tongue! Let me see these mess-tables all cleared up before I come back from the wardroom, or you’ll smell powder before Six Bells, I promise you, and shan’t go ashore to-day.”
This threat had the effect of sobering down our lively friend, who then put us in the way of what we were to do; and, all of us lending willing hands, we soon had the place as trim as it was before we had sat down to our dinners.
After this, taking the dirty plates back to the galley, we washed all of them up in a bucket of water and restored them to their proper racks, returning to the entry-port just as the master-at-arms came sauntering back along the deck from the officers’ quarters aft.
“Ha, done that job all right, I see,” said he in an approving tone. “Now, let me see what we can find for you, to keep your hands out of mischief. Corporal, have they told off any hands yet to clear the bilge?”
“Yes, sir,” replied one of the ship’s corporals who had just come up the forward hatchway from the lower deck. “I jest heered the bosun givin’ orders for a gang to go down on the orlop deck.”
“Then, take th’s lot of new boys with you and show them the way down. They’re almost enough to man the pumps all by themselves!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” responded the corporal, turning to retrace his steps down the hatchway which he had just ascended. “Come along, my lads, follow me!”
Down we all trooped accordingly, on to the lower deck, where we saw a number of the boys, who had been dismissed from quarters, busy at their various instruction drills; which we, unhappy ‘unclothed’ ones, could not participate in till we had been clad in uniform and become part and parcel of the ship’s company.
Giving these the go-by, and also passing the schoolroom, leaving that astern on our starboard hand, we descended yet lower to the orlop deck, the lowest in the ship, being just above the hold where lies the ballast, and the water-tanks are stowed, as well as spare gear.
Here, some twenty other boys, under the superintendence of one of the petty officers, were working away at the cranks of the Downton pumps with the energy of so many convicts on the treadmill; clink-clanking at such a rate, that one could hear the suck of the pumps and the rush of the water through the pipes, ending with a sort of gurgle at the end of the stroke!
In the ‘dim religious light’ produced by a couple of ship’s lanterns hung at the head of the hatchways, widely apart, not very much could be seen of the interior, save the broad substantial deck beams and curved knees at the sides; but I noticed that the faces of two or three of the boys nearest one of these lights were streaming with perspiration, which showed that the work was “taking it out of them.”
“Tail on here!” shouted out the petty officer, who seemed a rather grumpy individual, on our coming down to join the gang. “We don’t want no idlers here!”
With that, Mick Donovan and I gripped the handle of one of the cranks, two others of the new boys facing us; and we soon all found our places, clink-clanking away like the rest had done before we joined in. Indeed, we couldn’t stop once we had started, but had to ‘sling on’ whether we liked it or not, the handles of the pumps keeping up their up and down motion through the action of the others; so that if we had let go, we should have got either a tidy crack under the chin, or else been tumbled over on the deck.
After half-an-hour’s experience of this exhilarating labour, the petty officer sang out, “Spell ho!” and we left off the job, the pumps having sucked dry, and the bilge being thus clear for the day.
We then returned up the two hatchways to the middle deck above, the boy messenger Larrikins being sent down by the direction of the master-at-arms to fetch us to be measured for our uniforms, the tailor having come aboard.
The ‘snip’ did not take long over his business; for he and his assistant, after putting their tapes round us, and punching ‘Ugly,’ who would stoop, to make him really stand upright, promised that we should all have our new clothes by the following Saturday.
“Hurrah!” said one of the novices near me. “I’ll then be able to go home and see mother again!”
“G–a–a, cry babby!” jeered ‘Ugly.’ “Yer oughter ’a bin tied to yer mother’s aprun string!”
“Begorrah!” interposed Mick Donovan, “that’s more’n ye could be afther! I doesn’t think ye’re afther havin’ a moother at all. Faith, ye’re too ugly fur inny one to own ye, save the divvle; an’ he’d be a born fool fur his pains if he did.”
A laugh went round amongst us, which was only quenched by the master-at-arms singing out “Silence there!” and then; the lot of us were taken by Larrikins to the ship’s steward, who served out to each of us a hammock and a pair of blankets, part of the outfit to which all second-class boys are entitled on joining the Navy, when a grateful country makes them a present of six guineas to furnish themselves with a rig-out!
Mind you, though, this sum is not allowed to be spent at the sucking seaman’s own discretion, but is laid out for him in a wardrobe of the most approved nautical type, suited alike to his wants and the requirements of the service.
The afternoon, through these means, passed away so quickly, that though I was once or twice near the entry-port on the starboard side, close by to which the tailor had measured us, I declare I never once thought of looking out over the waterway to see what had become of father and his wherry; albeit, from the tide having ebbed, my outlook was now much more circumscribed than when I had come afloat in the morning, it seeming but a stone’s throw to Point; while on the port side of the ship one could almost have walked ashore, the mud flats of Haslar Creek being out in all their glory, and stretching up almost to the old Saint Vincent’s rudder-post!
On account of its being Thursday, a lot of the boys were allowed ashore; and in the quiet that generally reigned, the majority of the others being occupied drilling below, the middle and upper decks were comparatively deserted, and things apparently at a standstill.
At Eight Bells, however, all this was altered, the boys scuttling about to their respective messes to supper, or what we call ‘tea’ time ashore.
This meal was as fairly nourishing as the dinner that was served out, each boy having ten ounces of bread, an ounce of sugar, and one-eighth of an ounce of tea, to his own cheek.
Tea, you must know, is styled ‘plew’ on board, in the slang of the training-ship; possibly, through some association with the ‘sky blue’ known in the boarding-schools of shore folk.
Larrikins was put by the master-at-arms to ‘show us the ropes’ in getting our supplies from the galley for this supper, as previously; and amused himself considerably at our expense, chaffing some of the new chaps about their not having “smelt such a thing as tea before,” so he hinted.
“I s’pose now,” he said to Mick Donovan, whose queer description of himself had already got wind through the ship. I’m afraid from the corporal who took us to the sick-bay having ‘split’ upon him, “in your country you’d eat them tea leaves, instead o’ wettin’ on ’em, stooed in ile, same as the I-talians cook everything I’m told, hey?”
“Faith, if I had ye in the ould counthry,” answered back Mick, not for a moment nonplussed, “I’d soon show ye how an Oitalian of the raal sort, loike me fayther, sor, lives! Bedad, it’s praties an’ crame we hev fur tay, sure, ivvery day in the wake!”
This created a good deal of noisy merriment as we sat round the mess-table near the entry-port, causing the sharp-eared, lynx-eyed ‘Jaunty’ to spot the offender from his convenient post of observation hard by.
“Be quiet there, Paddy!” he sang out, poking his head above the window-sill. “Do you think you’re in your own mud cabin in the wilds of Connemara? As for you, Larrikins, I have warned you before, and you had better keep your weather eye open, my joker!”
We were all as quiet as lambs in an instant, not a sound being heard above the clatter of the cups and saucers, and the gulps made by ‘Ugly’ in swallowing his tea, that individual being as piggish in his habits as he was in his appearance; and, presently, this clatter was increased by our collecting the mess-traps after finishing our meal, when the same process of cleaning up was effected as before, everything being left as tidy in and around the vicinity of Mess Number 52 as we had found it when first installed there.
From Six to Eight Bells, in the second dog-watch, the boys, I found, were allowed to skylark about the upper deck and aloft, playing ‘follow my leader’ up and down the rigging, without any interference or interruption from the officers and instructors, save when it seemed to them the larking might degenerate into horseplay.
Then, it was put a slop to, so far as the particular incident was concerned, in a twinkle.
Not being in uniform, I kept aloof from these mad pranks, sticking close to Mick Donovan, who I saw was ashamed of his ragged clothes, being afraid of the boys jeering him, like Larrikins.
That worthy soon picked us out, though; aye, in spite of our sheltering under the lee of the bridge, and being almost concealed in the evening gloom.
“S’pose yer afeerd o’ clim’in’ riggin’?”
“Divvle a bit!” replied Mick in a moment. “Oi’d cloimb in a jiffey; ounly the jintleman downstairs, faith, tould us all we wasn’t.”
This allusion to the ‘Jaunty’ silenced the incorrigible Larrikins for the nonce; though he sniggered at Mick saying ‘downstairs’ instead of below, as most landsmen do when new to board-ship life.
The next moment, however, Master Larrikins was at it again, trying to ‘take a rise out of me,’ Mick having thus discouraged his advances in that direction.
“You’ll be havin’ orful times when yer goes aloft,” he said, in a sort of awesome tone meant to frighten me. “I’ve bin up theer on the main crosstrees when yer jist couldn’t ’old yer ’air on yer ’ead, let alone ’oldin’ on with one ’and fur yerself and t’other for the Navy.”
“Stow that,” said I, laughing in his face. “Why, I’ve been up to the main truck of a line-o’-battle ship before to-day and am not afraid of climbing! I’m not strange to the sea, my smart chap, let me tell you. My father, though he’s a waterman now, is an old sailor, and has taught me pretty well all he learnt.”
“Aye, aye, that’s right enuff; but ’earin of it an’ a-seein’ it’s two different things. You jist wait till yer gets to sea and ain’t a-plying bark’ards and forruds in Porchmouth ’arbour. My stars, won’t yer be flummuxed then.”
“Don’t you believe it,” I retorted. “I’ve been to sea, I tell you, before to-day.”
“Oh aye, that’s right enuff; but there’s goin’ to sea, an’ goin’ to sea. Lor! Yer ’aven’t ever bin out in the Martin brig, have yer, now?”
“No, of course not,” I replied. “I’ve only just joined the service, I tell you.”
“Ah, you jist wait then,” said he, taking this observation of mine for a fresh lead. “I wer’ out once, I tells yer, in the brig when the sea wos mountings ’igh, an’ the wind—Lor’! Yer shood ’a ’errd it blow! It took the mizzen to’s’le right clean out of ’er; an’ there wos four on us at the wheel, ay, ’sides old Jellybelly.”
“Why,” I exclaimed, “who is he?”
“The quarter-master, in course,” rejoined Larrikins indignantly. “Where wos yer raised not fur to know that afore? He allers goes by that name aboard ship, as everybody knows.”
He was proceeding to tell me some thrilling and highly adventurous experiences he had had in the Channel and off the Isle of Wight, out on the autumn cruise in the training-brig, when the bugle sounded, and the boys all mustered at quarters before turning in for the night.
Staying on the upper deck for a time, Mick Donovan and I witnessed the mad race which presently took place on the order being given to sling hammocks; each boy scurrying to the nettings and hurrying below, hammock under arm, to rig up the same in the billet allotted to him on the lower deck.
Ere long, the idea struck both Mick and myself, almost simultaneously, that it was high time for us to think of our sleeping accommodation for the night; and so, we hurried down at the tail end of the crowd of other fellows, to seek the aid of our old friend the master-at-arms, the ‘Deus ex machina’ of our hopes and fears.
Our new hammocks had been left in the police office of the ship under his immediate eye; so, on ascertaining the doubt that harassed our minds anent the night-lodging question, the ‘Jaunty,’ as heretofore, solved the difficulty at once by saying that we were to sling our hammocks on the middle deck, adjacent to the mess-place where we had dined and supped so sumptuously. Just then, as luck would have it, Larrikins, our old cicerone, came up abreast of where we were standing.
“Hi there!” sang out the master-at-arms. “Come and show these boys how to sling their hammocks.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Larrikins, with a scrape and a touch of his cap. “Werry good, sir.”
So saying, he set about knotting the lanyard of Irish Mick’s hammock; and, after slinging it from the hooks in the deck beams, over the mess-table where the famished lad had enjoyed such a rare ‘tuck out’ that day, Larrikins went on to explain how the blankets should be ‘tucked in’ to the frail structure and wrapped round the occupant, so as to prevent him from tumbling out, which Larrikins declared, almost with tears in his eyes, he should deeply regret were such a catastrophe to occur.
“Lor’,” he asseverated, “I’d never forgive myself—strike me silly if I would!”
“Faith an’ sure, is it ai’ther expectin’ me now for to schlape in that thare outlandish consarn yez are?” exclaimed Mick, to whom a hammock was an entire novelty. “It’s jokin’, faith, ye are entirely, sure!”
However, after, like ‘vaulting ambition,’ overleaping himself when trying to jump into his unaccustomed bed-place, falling, equally unceremoniously, ‘on t’other side,’ Mick succeeded in ensconcing himself very comfortably in his hammock.
Now came my turn, my friend Larrikins being even more obsequious in his aid to me than to Mick.
The result amply justified his solicitude, for, although I managed to jump in all right, and even to go to sleep presently soundly enough, wearied out with all the excitement of the day, I was in the midst of a terrible dream, in which I thought I was at sea in the Martin brig, in a fearful tempest, with the waters overwhelming us, and the vessel on the point of foundering, when I was awakened by a crash that seemed to resound through the ship, and then I’m sure I saw more stars than were ever seen by mortal in the bright blue firmament of heaven!
I had been ‘cut down,’ as the nautical phrase goes.