Ford of H.M.S. Vigilant: A Tale of the Chusan Archipelago

by T. T. Jeans

A narrow platform was below the two upper doors, with a ladder running down on deck at one end, and one running up to the poop at the other. It looked exactly like a pigeon loft.

All the time we were busy scraping and shovelling and scrubbing, the carpenters and blacksmiths were busy fitting two great balks of timber with some cross-pieces to take a six-pounder Hotchkiss quick-firer and its mounting. They were bolting them down to the deck and the sides of the junk, just in front of the mainmast, and on the top of the poop they mounted a Maxim gun. The Vigilant hadn't enough Maxim guns for all six of the junks, so three had had Nordenfelt machine guns from the gunboats. I had never seen the ship so busy; she was humming from morning to night, and for most of the night too, for four whole days. Besides the carpenters' and blacksmiths' work, the anchor gear and all the standing and running rigging had to be refitted or overhauled. I only wish, as you will know by and by, that more of it had been refitted, because it really was not strong enough.

You can just imagine how excited Dicky and I were when they did at last lower a six-pounder down into our junk, and we saw it sitting in its mounting, and knew we might soon have to use it.

We got most of the filth out of ours by the middle of the second day, and the holds didn't smell so badly, though we could never get the Chinese kind of smell out of the living places under the stern. What troubled us most were the fleas and bugs and cockroaches. They were perfectly awful, and we couldn't get rid of them in the few days we had. We must have drowned thousands of them, but there seemed to be just as many left, and we were itching all over and covered with bite marks, even whilst we were only working in her.

The cockroaches would watch us cleaning the bottom boards, and when we went on to another spot they would swarm down over the clean places, and squashing the brutes made them dirtier than ever again.

It was Dicky who first thought of giving our junk a name. I wanted to call her Nan, because Nan was my chum, but then I thought perhaps the Captain wouldn't like it, and Dicky suggested Sally instead. It turned out that all the others wanted the same name, but Dicky was the only one of them that got it. You see, the letters had to be cut out in wood first, and as all the carpenter people were so frightfully busy, it was almost impossible to get anything extra done at all. But Dicky had made great friends with the old Boatswain and Carpenter. He used to go and yarn with them in their cabins on the other side of the gunroom flat, and used to take refuge there sometimes when we had driven him out of the gunroom with our chaff, and sometimes hide there when he was afraid of being bullied, and Jim was not there to protect him. It was really owing to this that we were the only ones who did manage to get it done, and then Dicky actually had the pluck to ask the Commander for some gold leaf to gild the letters. He volunteered to do that too, and I went with him to the Commander's cabin—outside the door—to give him courage. When he knocked timidly, and we heard the Commander sing out, "Yes, what is it?" in his gruff voice, Dicky looked as if he would have bolted away—I expect he would have done so if I hadn't been there and the sentry as well—but he just squeezed his lips together, wriggled in at the side of the curtain, and squeaked out, "Please, sir, gold leaf," and couldn't say another word, he was so frightened. I went in then, "Please, sir, we've got Mr. Williams, the Carpenter, to cut out Sally for our junk—in big wooden letters—and we want gold leaf, please."

The Commander grinned at us—he was a perfect ripper—took a book of gold leaf out of a drawer, and gave it to Dicky. "D'you boys think I'm made of gold leaf?" We didn't even thank him, we were so excited, but rushed for'ard to the "paint shop" under the fo'c'stle to see old Modley, the painter, and ask him to put the gold leaf on for us. We couldn't get anything out of him, though. He was a bit of a sea lawyer, and he "wasn't going to do nothink but what he'd orders to do from the Commander or the First Lootenant".

We didn't know what to do then, and went on deck and climbed down to the junk, feeling miserable. Scroggs was there screwing the letters on to a board—Scroggs was the petty officer who was coming with us—and we told him all that had happened, and how we'd got the gold leaf, but couldn't get Modley to gild the letters.

"You just give it to me, sir," he said; "that 'ere Modley be a bit of a 'ard nut, but we both comes from the same village down Dorset way, an' 'is missus goes to the same chapel as my old missus, and 'e may do it for me."

He managed to get round him somehow, and when, next morning, Dicky and I ran up on deck in our pyjamas, as soon as it got light, to have another look at the junk, the first thing we saw was the board on her stern, and the letters all beautifully gilded. We had to climb down, just as we were, and lean over and look at them. They looked simply gorgeous, and there were Scroggs, and Sharpe, the other petty officer, and one of the carpenter's crew, and old Modley grinning at us. They had just finished fixing the board to the stern. "Thank you very much," was all we could think of saying; and when we all climbed up aboard the Vigilant again, the ship's cocoa was just being served out, and Scroggs brought us a bowl of it and said, "Here's luck to the Sally," and we all sipped it, and Modley said, "May the Lord have mercy on the little lass!" but the carpenter's crew didn't say anything religious, because he burnt his mouth.