“I say, Chester, what fools we are! Let’s go aboard the old ‘Juno’ and wait until the skipper returns, and when he calls for volunteers we’ll be the first to step to the front. Old Hood,” (it was in this unpardonably disrespectful manner he alluded to the admiral) “has forgotten all about us by this time, and so he will never think of mentioning to the skipper our request, and I don’t see why we haven’t a good chance yet. Do you?”
No sooner said than done. We knew that the chiefs would at that moment be seated in the admiral’s cabin, so, filling upon the cutter, we bore away and ran down under the lee of the “Juno,” whose deck we gained just as the captains’ gigs were shoving off from the “Victory’s” accommodation-ladder.
Ten minutes afterwards Captain Hood came up the side, and immediately gave orders for all hands to come aft. He then, accompanied by Mr Annesley, went up on the poop, and stood there, watching the eager and expectant faces of the men as they clustered thickly in the waist on both sides of the deck. The officers were all grouped together upon the quarter-deck.
Waiting until all hands were present, the skipper stepped forward to the head of the poop-ladder, and, waving his hand for silence, said,—
“My lads, I have just weturned from a conference with the admiwal, at which every captain in the fleet was pwesent. And I am—ah—charged by Lord Hood to expwess to you all—officers and men alike—his thanks for your wecent exertions in waising the guns to the top of yonder wock. The battewy thus—er—ah—placed in position will, it is expected, effect a—a pwacticable bweach in the wall of the Convention Wedoubt by sunset this evening, and it is intended to storm the place as soon as—ah—darkness sets in. The storming-party is to be made up of an equal number of soldiers and bluejackets,”—here the speaker was interrupted by an enthusiastic cheer from his audience, the repetition of which was checked by the skipper’s uplifted hand—“the storming-party,” he continued, “is to be composed equally, I say, of soldiers and bluejackets, and the admiwal has authowized each captain to call for fifty volunteers—keep steady, men; be silent and—ah—wait until I have quite finished, if you please. I am authowized to call for fifty volunteers; but I wish you all distinctly to understand that no man who has in any way misconducted himself will be accepted. Now let those who volunteer for the storming-party come abaft the mainmast.”
Bob and I, knowing what was coming, had gradually edged to the front—we were of course, with the rest of the officers, already abaft the mainmast—and, directly the skipper ceased, we stepped smartly out and posted ourselves at the foot of the poop-ladder, to show that we were volunteering; and then faced round to witness the effect of Captain Hood’s speech upon the crew.
The scene was irresistibly comic. In the first place we found that the group of officers had simply shifted position in a compact body, so that we all stood pretty much as we were before. The front ranks of the men had also advanced until they were well abaft the mainmast, when they halted—that is, they would have baited had it not been for the pressure behind, which was pretty steady in the front portion of the mass, but in the rear something very like a panic ensued, and almost before one could count ten those unfortunates who had not already gained the coveted position began to clamber over the booms, along the hammock-rail, and actually out through the ports, along the main-channels, and in again through the ports farther aft, in their eagerness to volunteer. The struggling and elbowing increased until it became almost desperate, when one of the boatswain’s mates—a brawny, muscular, old sea-dog, with a mahogany visage, a gigantic pig-tail, and his chest and arms elaborately tattooed—stepped out, and, facing round, exclaimed in stentorian tones,—
“Avast heaving there, ye unmannerly swabs; do you take his Majesty’s quarter-deck,”—lifting his hat—“for a playhouse-booth on Southsea common? Belay all, and stand fast, every mother’s son of ye, and let me speak to the skipper for ye.”
Then, facing the poop once more, he stepped forward out of the crowd, and doffing his hat, while he made an elaborate sea-scrape with his right foot and gave a tug at his forelock, he addressed the skipper somewhat as follows,—
“I hope your honour’ll kindly overlook this little bit of a scrimmage that’s just took place, and forgive our unperliteness, seeing as how a many of us has never had a chance of larnin’ how to behave ourselves in delicate sitivations. Your honour doesn’t need to be told—at least, we hopes not—that we didn’t mean nothing in any way unbecoming or disrespectable to you or the rest of the hofficers—no, not by no manner of means whatsomever. All we want to say is just this here: that all hands on us, down to the powder-monkeys, begs most respectably to wolunteer for this here boardin’-party; and we hopes as how you’ll take the whole kit of us, ’ceptin’ of course the black-sheep as your honour spoke of just now, and let them and the ‘jollies’ look arter the old barkie, who won’t mind takin’ care of herself for an hour or two—God bless her!—while us, her precious hinfants, is havin’ a little bit of a lark with the Crapoos ashore there.”