I was with the party of men under Mr. Whitmore sent to bring them off. The steam pinnace was to tow them, one by one, but got a rope round her screw, and delayed everything whilst it was being cleared. I happened to be on board one of them with six men, preparing to be taken in tow, and it struck me that it would be a jolly good "wheeze" to sail off. Mr. Whitmore sung out that I might try, and I did, and got her off quite comfortably, without breaking anything when I came alongside.
I had had a jolly lot of experience in sailing at Upton Overy, both before and after going to the Britannia, and I don't want to be cheeky or anything like that, but it seemed to come quite naturally to me to sail any boat, and I always seemed to be able to feel exactly what was wanted to make it sail its best.
The Captain was very pleased with me for doing this, and that is how I got the command of my junk.
He had all of us Midshipmen and Cadets fallen in on the quarterdeck, glared at us and growled, "Now, you young gentlemen, you've got a job to do at last—no skrim-shanking about it either—jolly hard job—and I want those of you who can sail 'em best to take charge of 'em. You've got to get hold of some of those pirate fellows for me—don't care how you get 'em, but get some of 'em alive. Can't get anything out of the dead 'uns, umph!"
You can't imagine how excited that made all of us, and when the six junks had all been lashed alongside, we had to clean them first and fit them out afterwards.
The Commander told me that I could have the one which I had sailed off, and told me that I could choose one of the cadets to go with me. Dicky came and offered to do any mortal thing for me if I would take him—he was nearly blubbing with keenness—so I said I would, and we both had to start the job of cleaning her out. The Commander gave me twelve hands, and it was a jolly beastly job. She was perfectly filthy, and we had to scrape away half an inch of stuff from her inside with shovels before we could even commence scrubbing. The smell in the holds was almost enough to knock anyone down, and we worked till long after it was dark, and they had hoisted big yardarm group lights to make it easier for us.
It rained too, but we didn't worry about that in the least, because we were so jolly happy. I'd never seen Dicky like it before. He was chirping about like a bloated sparrow, and was much too happy even to speak.
You can see what the junk was like by the picture. The great stern place was where we all had to live, and it was something like a huge pigeon loft with three sliding-door places in it. One opened from the deck into a fairly big place, where the rudder head came up through the stern and the long tiller worked. The ten bluejackets were to live there. Above it and under the poop deck were two little places about eight feet square, and only just a little more than four feet high. In one of them Dicky and I were going to live, and the two petty officers who were coming had the other.
H.M.S. Sally