“Oh, yes, I suppose so, sir. You see, we’ve all come out this time ready for the job; our officers on the Prince George only did their bit just for a day or two’s holiday like, and our job was to look after the mounseers’ cruisers, not to catch tittlebats and winkles, and it wasn’t so very long after that we was at it hammer and tongs with a big French frigate, making work for the doctor of a precious different kind, and for our ship’s carpenters too. Different sort of nat’ral history that was, sir, I can tell you, for we lost nineteen of our men and had a lot wounded; but we took the frigate, and carried her safe into Portsmouth Harbour.”
“Ah!” cried Rodd softly, as his eyes flashed at the thoughts of the deeds of naval daring carried out by our men-of-war. “I wish I’d been there!”
“You do, sir?” said Joe. “Mean it?”
“Mean it? Of course! There, don’t look at me like that. I wasn’t thinking of being a man, but a reefer—one of those middies that we used to see at Plymouth.”
“Ah, it’s all very fine, sir,” said Joe, shaking his head, “and it sounds very nice about firing broadsides and then getting orders to board when the two big men-of-war get the grappling-irons on board and you have to follow your officers, scrambling with your cutlass in your hand out of the chains from your ship into the enemy’s; and all the time there’s the roaring of the guns and the popping away of the marines up in the tops, and the men cheering as your officers lead them on. It’s a very different thing, sir, to what you think, and so I can tell you.”
“Why, Joe,” cried Rodd, almost maliciously, “you talk as if you felt afraid!”
“Afraid, sir?” said the man, quietly and thoughtfully. “No, sir. No, sir; I never felt afraid, and I never knowed one of my messmates as said he was.”
“Oh no, of course they wouldn’t say so,” cried Rodd, laughing.
“No, sir, that’s right. But I aren’t bragging, sir. I’ve been in several engagements like that, and my messmates always seemed to feel just as I did. You see, they’d got it to do, sir, and we always felt that it was only mounseers that we’d got to beat and captur’ their ship; and then as soon as we had begun, whether we was crews of guns, stripped and firing away, or answering the orders to board, why, then we never had time to feel afraid.”
“What, not when you saw your messmates shot down beside you?” cried Rodd.