Young Tom Bowling / The Boys of the British Navy

by John C. Hutcheson

But, there I am again, hauling my jawing tackle aboard according to the old Bowling family propensity, anent which mother used always to rate father; so, I must belay!

Pulling steadily away from the old ship on the stream which was running up the harbour, making this appear one vast lake up to Fareham Creek under the base of the Portsdown hills, a lake whereon floated long lines of old hulks of the past, interspersed with many a specimen of the newer models of the present ships of the Navy, the cutter at last landed us at the foot of the King’s Stairs; when, unshipping our bags and shouldering them again, we crossed the dockyard in single file, under charge of a petty officer, making for the guardship to which we had been drafted, which was lying alongside the North Wall, not far from the Excellent.

Our tramp was a most fatiguing one over the rough pigs of iron ballast arranged like cobble-stones, which some chap must have had put down in order to benefit his bootmaker, the pilgrimage of folk anxious to see the yard being rather trying on shoe-leather.

We felt it all the more from having been accustomed to go in our bare feet on board the training-ship, and boots in themselves being irksome, without the hard road we had to travel adding to the penance.

Ascending the ladder-way that led up from the jetty to the deck of the old Asia, the guardship, we were soon allotted our billets; and quickly settled down to the routine of the ship, which, of course, was very different to that of the Saint Vincent.

However, we did not very long remain here; for, it being now getting on well in the month of July, and several new ships having been ordered to be commissioned for the Naval Manoeuvres, Mick and I, good luck still attending us and keeping us always in company, were told off to join a smart cruiser attached to one of the squadrons, in which we presently sailed for Bantry Bay.

Here my chum found himself once more in his native land, and under a sky as blue as that of Italy, to which country he had originally claimed to belong, in spite of the strong ‘brogue’ that readily betrayed his kinship to the inhabitants when we went ashore at Glengariff.

Mick’s complaint now was that he could not find any one rejoicing in his name; for every one he and I met, strolling along from Castletown to Waterfall, the landing-place at the foot of Hungry Mountain, half round the bay, was either a Sullivan or an O’Brien—not a single Donovan being to be met with for love or money.

“Begorrah, I can’t make it out at all, at all!” said my chum to me, after making inquiries at the various little shebeens on our way and chatting almost with every one of the groups of country people we passed, who all seemed mightily pleased at the sight of us bluejackets, most of them offering us hospitality in the shape of cups of milk at the corner of nearly every country lane, where some pretty colleen would stand, clad in her picturesque red cape and with stockingless feet, wishful to give thirsty folk a drink. “Me fayther s’id, faith, as how the Donovans wor kings ov Cark at one toime, Tom!”

“Why,” I rejoined, giving him a twister, “you told the ‘Jaunty’ when you came aboard the Saint Vincent that time to join, that your father was an ‘Oitalian!’”