I also proceeded a day or two after, being thenceforth regarded as a neophyte no longer, to take part in all the regular drills of the ship, and one morning, subsequent to breakfast, underwent that rudimentary stage of seamanship styled ‘boxing the compass’—though I might have really told the painstaking instructor, who painfully and ploddingly laboured to instil the cardinal points into my head as if I were an ignoramus, that I not only knew the ‘lubber’s point’ probably as well as he did, but could, on a pinch, have conned the ship in and out of Portsmouth Harbour!
This ‘boxing the compass’ business, though, brought me to loggerheads with that brute ‘Ugly’ somehow or other, strangely enough.
I don’t know how it was, but from the moment, I believe, I first cast eyes on his singularly unprepossessing face, Moses Reeks had been my special antipathy!
It was not so much that he said anything to me or of me, as from the fact of his always ‘putting it on’ poor Mick Donovan, for whom I entertained as great a liking as I disliked the other.
‘Ugly’ was always snarling at my chum, and ever giving him a chance kick or blow, should he be able to do so unobserved and without being directly taxed with it; though, of course, he would deny it if observed by any of the other boys, being an unmitigated liar, in addition to having a sour and vindictive disposition.
That very morning I noticed him deliberately stamp on poor Mick’s bare toes with all the weight of his big heavy foot, as we were coming down the hatchway from early ‘divisions’; and when I spoke to him about it he said coldly he “hadn’t done nuthin’ of the sort!”
I knew this was an untruth; but I bided my time, judiciously watching for an opportunity to pay him out.
This came sooner than I expected; for during our compass lesson I managed to get him into a fog about the points which the instructor was explaining, drawing down on my joker the wrath and outspoken opprobrium of that officer.
‘Ugly’ noted this, and in his turn bided his time.
The watch was dismissed, and the ‘stand by’ had been bugled before quarters, preparatory to our being dispersed for dinner; when ‘Ugly’ nudged me as we passed up the hatchway together, coming much closer to me than I liked, the very touch of the unclean brute being obnoxious to me.