“We sha’n’t mind that,” Will said; “we have had to deal with some tough ones already in our own village, and have proved that we are better than most of our own age. At any rate we won’t be licked easily, even if they are a bit bigger and stronger than ourselves, and after all a licking doesn’t go [pg 39]for much anyway. What ship do you think they will send us to, sir?”
“Ah, that is a good deal more than I can say! There is a cutter that acts as a receiving-ship at Whitby, and you will be sent off from it as opportunity offers and the ships of war want hands. Like enough you will go off with a batch down to the south in a fortnight or so, and will be put on board some ship being commissioned at Portsmouth or Devonport. A large cutter comes round the coast once a month, to pick up the hands from the various receiving-ships, and as often as not she goes back with a hundred. And a rum lot you will think them. There are jail-birds who have had the offer of release on condition that they enter the navy; there are farm-labourers who don’t know one end of a boat from the other; there are drunkards who have been sold by the crimps when their money has run out; but, Lord bless you, it don’t make much difference what they are, they are all knocked into shape before they have been three months on board. I think, however, you will have a better time than this. Our lieutenant is a kind-hearted man, though he is strict enough in the way of business, and I have no doubt he will say a good word for you to the commander of the tender, which, as he is the senior officer, will go a long way.”
The two boys were soon on good terms with the crew, who divined at once that they were lads of mettle, and were specially attracted to Will on account of the persecution he had suffered by refusing to act as the smugglers’ watcher, and also when they heard from Tom how he had saved his life.
“You will do,” was the verdict of an old sailor. “I can see that you have both got the right stuff in you. When one [pg 40]fellow saves another’s life, and that fellow runs away and ships in order to be near his friend, you may be sure that there is plenty of good stuff in them, and that they will turn out a credit to His Majesty’s service.”
They were a week on board before the cutter finished her trip at Whitby. Both boys had done their best to acquire knowledge, and had learnt the names of the ropes and their uses by the time they got to port.
“You need not go on board the depot ship until to-morrow,” the lieutenant said. “I will go across with you myself. I have had my eye upon you ever since you came on board, and I have seen that you have been trying hard to learn, and have always been ready to give a pull on a rope when necessary. I have no fear of your getting on. It is a pity we don’t get more lads of your type in the navy.”
On the following morning the lieutenant took them on board the depot and put them under the charge of the boatswain. “You will have to mix with a roughish crew here,” the latter said, “but everything will go smoothly enough when you once join your ship. You had better hand over your kits to me to keep for you, otherwise there won’t be much left at the end of the first night; and if you like I will let you stow yourselves away at night in the bitts forward. It is not cold, and I will throw a bit of old sail-cloth over you; you will be better there than down with the others, where the air is almost thick enough to cut.”
“Thank you very much, sir; we should prefer that. We have both been accustomed to sleep at night in the bottom of an open boat, so it will come natural enough to us. Are there any more boys on board?”
“No, you are the only ones. We get more boys down in the west, but up here very few ship.”
They went below together. “Dimchurch,” the boatswain said to a tall sailor-like man, “these boys have just joined. I wish you would keep an eye on them, and prevent anyone from bullying them. I know that you are a pressed man, and that we have no right to expect anything of you until you have joined your ship, but I can see that for all that you are a true British sailor, and I trust to you to look after these boys.”