By this means, I soon became a regular smoker; and, content no longer with an occasional draw at father’s churchwarden, I bought a fine briar-root pipe for myself out of my pocket-money, which was increased by my becoming a first-class boy now to a shilling a week.
This pipe I carried about with me, in company with an old brass tobacco-box I found in the mud one day at Point, stowed carefully away with all my other portable gear in my cap, according to the custom of the service.
I got so bold at last, that even on board the training-ship I would take a stray whiff of a while, when I got into some snug corner on deck where I thought I would be unobserved; though my chum Mick, who didn’t take kindly to the habit like myself, often cautioned me about the risk I ran in being caught.
“Faith, Tom, me bhoy,” he would say to me, “Oi can’t say howivver ye can go fur to do it, sure, a gossoon loike yersilf who’s got a carrackter fur to loose; aye, an’ fur sich a dirthy, nasty thing as thit, a-spillin’ the tasthe ov good ghrub, so thit ye can’t tell whither ye’re aitin’ spuds or pay doo. Ef it wor a chap loike that ‘Ugly’ now, the sulky baste ez wouldn’t hev a koind wurrd fur ye, loike a Christian, since ye saved his rascally loife last year, begorrah, Oi could say the sinse ov it; but, fur a chap loike yersilf, Tom, fur to do it, with ivverythin’ to loose, Oi’m ashamed on ye!”
Mick’s remonstrances, however, were all in vain; for, as mother frequently accused father of being, I was ‘obstinate like all the Bowlings,’ and once I had set my mind on a thing I’m sorry to say nothing would turn me from it.
The first time I was caught thus smoking on board against the rules, I was let off with only a caution; Mr Brown, the ship’s corporal, who had always continued my friend, not bringing my offence to the notice of the authorities.
“Don’t let it occur again, though, Tom Bowling,” said he to me, with a pinch of the ear, on seeing me once having a whiff behind the windlass bitts; “for, let me tell you, if you’re nabbed by me or any one else at it again, as I must inform the master-at-arms, though I know he won’t let it go further now, you’ll be brought up on the quarter-deck and receive punishment.”
The ship’s corporal’s advice, however, went through one deaf ear and out of the other, like my chum’s remonstrance; and one fine day I was ‘brought up all standing’ in the very act of committing the same offence.
Unfortunately for me, my captor on this occasion was a new corporal who had just been promoted to the police force of the ship, a young seaman whose good conduct had earned him the post, and who wished, of course, to show himself especially smart.
Unthinking of my approaching doom, I was smoking away one evening between the lights, never dreaming for a moment that any one was near or noticing me, when all at once a hand gripped the back of my neck and slewed my head round.