These were all the signs of life afloat in our immediate vicinity on the whilom teeming, busy tideway; and the shore on either side was equally still, only an occasional light, twinkling here and there like a Will o’ the Wisp, bearing evidence that some people were stirring, or beginning to wake up as the darkness grew, with that topsy-turvy habit which those who live on land have sometimes of turning day into night!
We aboard ship, though, preserved the regular ways of sea-folk; and beyond myself and Tim Rooney, who remained behind on the forecastle, to keep me company more than to act as look-out, I believe, not a soul was to be seen on the upper deck of the Silver Queen during this last half-hour of the first dog-watch, now just expiring.
No, not a soul. For Mr Saunders, the second mate, with Matthews and the other apprentices had started aft to their quarters the moment the anchor had been dropped and all things made snug forwards; Mr Mackay had disappeared from the poop, having taken our river pilot down into the cuddy for a glass of grog prior to his departure for the shore to make his way back by land to the docks he had started from, unless he could pick up a job of another vessel going up, and so “combine business with pleasure,” as Sam Weeks remarked to Matthews with a snigger, as if he had said something extremely funny; while Adams and the other two sailors, the remaining hands we had aboard, had likewise proceeded towards the cuddy by the boatswain’s advice to try and wheedle the steward Pedro into giving them some tea, there not being as yet any cook in the ship to look after the messing arrangements of the crew, so that they were all adrift in this respect, having no proper provision made for them.
Then, all was still inboard and out; nothing occurring, until, presently, the same boy I had noticed before, and who I found was helping the steward stowing provisions in the after-hold beneath the saloon, came out from under the break of the poop at six o’clock to strike the ship’s bell, or “make it four bells,” nautically speaking, in the same way as he had done previously.
I think I can hear the sound now as I heard it that calm evening when we were anchored off Gravesend. The “cling-clang, cling-clang!” of our tocsin, tolling and telling the hour, being echoed by the “pong-pang, pong-pang!” of the merchantman lying near us, and that again answered a second or so later by the “ting-ting, ting-ting!” of the other vessel further away, the different tones lingering on the air and seeming to me like the old church bells of Westham summoning the laggards of the congregation to prayers. Father wasn’t an extreme high churchman, or otherwise I would have said vespers!
After sunset, it grew colder, the wind coming from the eastwards up the open reach of the river; and so, what with my wet things and standing so long on the forecastle I began to shiver. The boatswain noticed this on the sound of the ship’s bell waking him up from a little nap into which he had nearly fallen when things became quiet and I ceased to talk.
“Bedad ye’re tremblin’ all over, loike a shaved monkey wid the ag’ey, sure,” he said as he yawned and stretched himself, rising from his seat on the knightheads, where he was supposed to be keeping a strict look-out in the absence of the other men from forward. “Why the dickens don’t ye go into the cuddy aft an’ warrum y’rsilf, an’ dhry y’r wit clothes be the stowve there, youngster?”
“I was just thinking of it,” I replied.
“Ye’d betther do it, that’s betther nor thinkin’,” he retorted; “or ilse ye’ll be catching a cowld an’ gittin’ them nasty screwmatics as makes me howl av a winther sometimes.”
As Tim spoke, I heard a splashing noise in the distance, with the rattling sound of oars moving in the rowlocks; and, looking over the bows to the left, I noticed a large boat rowing rapidly up to us from the direction of Gravesend.