“I don’t believe a word of your story,” I heard the doctor answer to this long and circumstantial yarn. “Why, Macan, you’re drunk now!”
“Me droonk now, sor?” repeated the other in a tone of mingled sorrow and solemnity. “Faith I’m as sobher as a jidge this very minnit, as I’m a livin’ sinner!”
“Don’t tell me any more of your lies!” cried out the doctor irascibly at this juncture, interrupting what further asservation the corporal might have made in support of his unblushing assertion. “You can go forrud now and thank your stars I don’t report you, as I had more than half a mind to at first. If I did, you’d be put into the black list and lose your stripes to a dead certainty.”
“May the saints presarve yer honner,” exclaimed Macan with effusion as he was thus dismissed, but he was still not satisfied apparently at his word being doubted; for, as he passed us, working his way forward by a series of short tacks, he kept on muttering half aloud, much to our amusement, “It’s all through that blissid Scotch sawbones wid his long ‘dog nose’ as he calls it, sayin’ it wor whisky. I’m as shober as a jidge, faith—as shober as a jidge!”
No more unfortunate circumstance, however, could have occurred for the corporal of marines, in spite of the doctor having let him off so easily, for, through our overhearing this dialogue between the two, the yarn he had told of meeting his “cousin Bridget” soon got round the ship, and the men could always put him in a rage whenever they liked by an allusion to the “taypot” and his cousin’s friend “Missis Wilkins.”
We stopped a little longer listening outside the sick bay, but soon gave up the pastime, nothing occurring to interest us during the medical examination of the new hands, a fresh batch of whom came aft, by the way, at Four Bells; for all of them were quickly passed by the doctor and were detailed for duty aloft and below, where many jobs were at a standstill for want of men.
This enabled the commander to press on with the work of rigging the ship, the crossjack, or “crochet” yard being sent up by the aid of the mizzen burton hooked on in front of the top; after which the jack was slung and the trusses fixed on, the spar brought home to the mast, the lifts and braces having been fitted before swaying, as is the case with all the lower yards in men-of-war.
The mizzen-trysail mast, on which the spanker is set, was also got up by means of the same tackle; and, what with hoisting in some of the main deck guns and sails and other gear, the afternoon quickly passed.
I was not sorry when dinner-time came, Five Bells in the first dog watch, for I was pretty well tired to death with this, my first day’s experience on board the Candahar, in running up and down the decks fore and aft as Commander Nesbitt’s special messenger. It was, however, a very good introduction to the life I should have to lead for the next few years of my career; for, as a junior officer, I would be at the beck and call of everyone on the quarter-deck and “hardly able to call my soul my own,”—as Dad had more than once warned me beforehand.
Still, I must say, notwithstanding certain drawbacks, which subsequent experience brought to light in due course, I liked it all, taking the rough side of sea life with the smooth, and would not change my lot if I had the opportunity of making my choice over again, even knowing what I do now of the service!