Bear in mind, too, that the Saint Vincent is only one of some six or seven regular training-ships stationed at the principal ports round the kingdom, for the especial purpose of licking boys into shape for Her Majesty’s Service; and that these aspirants for naval fame and glory number altogether ten thousand, such being really the quota of young boy-sailors provided for in the Admiralty estimates and added to the Navy every year.
Thinking thus, I rather lagged behind my comrades in going up the hatchway, only just succeeding in the nick of time in getting into my proper place forward on the starboard side of the ship as befitted my station; and where, being ahead of the line, I had a good view, while the inspection lasted, of the scene of my fight with ‘Ugly.’
The boys were all drawn up in two long double rows facing each other, the ranks stretching away from where Mick and I stood near the knight-heads, to right abaft the mainmast; the first and third divisions, which together comprised the starboard watch, being on the right-hand side of the deck looking towards the bows, while the port watch was on the left, of equal strength and similarly stretched out—the watch stripes on the right or left arm, as the case might be, telling any chap who might chance to lose his latitude to which side he properly belonged.
I had already, of course, seen the imposing display which this muster of the boys on the upper deck invariably presented; but never before had I taken such stock of its various details.
However, before I could come to any conclusion in the matter, revolving, as I did, more things than I have yet spoken of in my busy brain, which seemed ‘all wool-gathered’ this morning, as father would have said had he been there and seen me star-gazing all round the compass, the boy-bugler on the bridge, who “had a purty foine chake of his own,” as Mick observed to me on noticing his puffed-out mouth, blew a resonant blast.
It was the ‘disperse.’
Hi, presto!
As if by magic, the imposing array of ‘sucking bluejackets’ whom I had just been gazing upon with a sort of personal admiration from the fact of my being one of their number, an admiration which was tempered by a slight feeling of awe of the discipline that controlled them, melted away almost noiselessly, like those Arabs who ‘folded their tents’ according to the poem, the boys being all in their bare feet, and their patter along the deck and down the hatchways not making any sound above a faint shuffling; and soon this was drowned by the eldritch screeching of our friends the seagulls circling round on the wing in their wonted manner, and poising themselves anon in mid-air above the ship, looking down to see whether it was dinner-time yet aboard, and there was a chance of any stray scraps being chucked over the side from the ‘gashing-tub,’ or waste butt in which the refuse of our meals was thrown on the lower deck.
The new boys of both watches were told to stand by, by one of the seaman-instructors; and so, instead of racing down below with our older comrades, Mick and I, with the other nine who had lately joined, remained on the fore part of the deck.
“These boys, sir,” said the instructor, touching respectfully his cap as he advanced towards the officer of the watch, who stood on the quarter-deck, a thin grey-haired old chap, whom I subsequently learnt was the gunner, though I never had the pleasure of seeing him before, “haven’t been over the masthead yet, sir.”