“Hurrah!” said one of the novices near me. “I’ll then be able to go home and see mother again!”
“G–a–a, cry babby!” jeered ‘Ugly.’ “Yer oughter ’a bin tied to yer mother’s aprun string!”
“Begorrah!” interposed Mick Donovan, “that’s more’n ye could be afther! I doesn’t think ye’re afther havin’ a moother at all. Faith, ye’re too ugly fur inny one to own ye, save the divvle; an’ he’d be a born fool fur his pains if he did.”
A laugh went round amongst us, which was only quenched by the master-at-arms singing out “Silence there!” and then; the lot of us were taken by Larrikins to the ship’s steward, who served out to each of us a hammock and a pair of blankets, part of the outfit to which all second-class boys are entitled on joining the Navy, when a grateful country makes them a present of six guineas to furnish themselves with a rig-out!
Mind you, though, this sum is not allowed to be spent at the sucking seaman’s own discretion, but is laid out for him in a wardrobe of the most approved nautical type, suited alike to his wants and the requirements of the service.
The afternoon, through these means, passed away so quickly, that though I was once or twice near the entry-port on the starboard side, close by to which the tailor had measured us, I declare I never once thought of looking out over the waterway to see what had become of father and his wherry; albeit, from the tide having ebbed, my outlook was now much more circumscribed than when I had come afloat in the morning, it seeming but a stone’s throw to Point; while on the port side of the ship one could almost have walked ashore, the mud flats of Haslar Creek being out in all their glory, and stretching up almost to the old Saint Vincent’s rudder-post!
On account of its being Thursday, a lot of the boys were allowed ashore; and in the quiet that generally reigned, the majority of the others being occupied drilling below, the middle and upper decks were comparatively deserted, and things apparently at a standstill.
At Eight Bells, however, all this was altered, the boys scuttling about to their respective messes to supper, or what we call ‘tea’ time ashore.
This meal was as fairly nourishing as the dinner that was served out, each boy having ten ounces of bread, an ounce of sugar, and one-eighth of an ounce of tea, to his own cheek.
Tea, you must know, is styled ‘plew’ on board, in the slang of the training-ship; possibly, through some association with the ‘sky blue’ known in the boarding-schools of shore folk.