“Aye, aye, sir,” responded the corporal, turning to retrace his steps down the hatchway which he had just ascended. “Come along, my lads, follow me!”
Down we all trooped accordingly, on to the lower deck, where we saw a number of the boys, who had been dismissed from quarters, busy at their various instruction drills; which we, unhappy ‘unclothed’ ones, could not participate in till we had been clad in uniform and become part and parcel of the ship’s company.
Giving these the go-by, and also passing the schoolroom, leaving that astern on our starboard hand, we descended yet lower to the orlop deck, the lowest in the ship, being just above the hold where lies the ballast, and the water-tanks are stowed, as well as spare gear.
Here, some twenty other boys, under the superintendence of one of the petty officers, were working away at the cranks of the Downton pumps with the energy of so many convicts on the treadmill; clink-clanking at such a rate, that one could hear the suck of the pumps and the rush of the water through the pipes, ending with a sort of gurgle at the end of the stroke!
In the ‘dim religious light’ produced by a couple of ship’s lanterns hung at the head of the hatchways, widely apart, not very much could be seen of the interior, save the broad substantial deck beams and curved knees at the sides; but I noticed that the faces of two or three of the boys nearest one of these lights were streaming with perspiration, which showed that the work was “taking it out of them.”
“Tail on here!” shouted out the petty officer, who seemed a rather grumpy individual, on our coming down to join the gang. “We don’t want no idlers here!”
With that, Mick Donovan and I gripped the handle of one of the cranks, two others of the new boys facing us; and we soon all found our places, clink-clanking away like the rest had done before we joined in. Indeed, we couldn’t stop once we had started, but had to ‘sling on’ whether we liked it or not, the handles of the pumps keeping up their up and down motion through the action of the others; so that if we had let go, we should have got either a tidy crack under the chin, or else been tumbled over on the deck.
After half-an-hour’s experience of this exhilarating labour, the petty officer sang out, “Spell ho!” and we left off the job, the pumps having sucked dry, and the bilge being thus clear for the day.
We then returned up the two hatchways to the middle deck above, the boy messenger Larrikins being sent down by the direction of the master-at-arms to fetch us to be measured for our uniforms, the tailor having come aboard.
The ‘snip’ did not take long over his business; for he and his assistant, after putting their tapes round us, and punching ‘Ugly,’ who would stoop, to make him really stand upright, promised that we should all have our new clothes by the following Saturday.