In the Undaunted, the midshipmen were taught to make their own canvas jumpers and trousers.
I used to keep two or three extra guns for the use of the midshipmen, whom I took out shooting whenever an opportunity occurred. Some of the boys had never handled a gun before. A midshipman once shot a hare when the animal was right at my feet.
"Wasn't that a good shot, sir!" said he joyously.
It did not occur to his innocence that he might have brought me down instead of the hare.
On Saturdays, I took out shooting the torpedo classes of midshipmen, which were conducted by my old friend, Captain Durnford (now Admiral Sir John Durnford, K.C.B., D.S.O.). We advanced in very open order, placing the midshipmen some 200 yards apart from one another, for fear of accidents, and we fired at everything that came along, in every direction. Upon one such occasion, I took out the warrant officers, among whom was the carpenter, who had never shot anything in his life. We were after snipe—I think at Platea—a bird whose flight, as all sportsmen know, is peculiar. A snipe in mid-flight will dive suddenly, dropping to earth out of sight. The old carpenter raised his gun very slowly, and aimed with immense deliberation, the muzzle of his gun cautiously tracing the flight of the bird, thus expending cartridge after cartridge. Suddenly his bird dropped. He shouted with delight and, holding his gun high over his head, ran as hard as he could pelt towards the spot upon which, as he believed, the bird had fallen dead. We saw it rise behind him; but nothing would persuade him that he had not slain his quarry. He searched and searched, in vain. Going back in the boat, I noticed that he was sunk in a profound melancholy, and bade him cheer up.
"It do seem 'ard, sir," he said sadly, "that the only bird I ever shot in my life, I shouldn't be able to find it." And sad he remained.
After one of these excursions, a midshipman brought to me the gun I had lent to him, with the barrels bent.
"I am very sorry, sir," he said. "The fact is, I slipped on the rocks, and fell with the barrels under me. But," he added eagerly, "it shoots just as well as it did before, sir."
I turned to another midshipman who had been of the party.
"Did you see him shoot before the accident?"