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

by T. T. Jeans

She worried very much because she was a girl and couldn't go to sea, but of course that wasn't her fault—I told her so, often—and it always made me feel what a jolly good thing it was to be a man, and that I was going to sea. I had made up my mind to that, and had never forgotten what the Captain had said. I simply longed for the sea, and used to spend every moment I could down among the fishing boats, helping to spread the nets out along the shore to dry, and sometimes taking a hand in mending them. I made chums, too, of the boys in the smaller smacks, which worked close inshore, and one of them took me out several times in his uncle's boat.

But just skirting along the coast was not enough for me, so one night I did a very silly thing. Upton Overy owned six deep-sea trawlers, which were generally away on the fishing grounds for a whole week, and one night, I couldn't stand it any longer, and crept out of the house, round by the back of the church, down a cliff path to the harbour, crawled aboard one of these trawlers, and hid myself under the nets. I knew that they were all going out before daylight, and that I shouldn't be found till we were right out of sight of land.

When they did pull me out in the morning, old Gurridge—it was his boat I'd crept into—was rather beastly about it, and jawed at me till he was tired. He'd had some row with my father, and thought it a jolly good opportunity of having a "dig" at him, and the way he'd brought me up; but I didn't mind what he said—not in the least—for all round me was sea, no land whichever way I looked, and I simply felt mad with delight.

It came on to blow, too, and I don't think that old Gurridge could have taken me back, even if he'd wanted to—and he didn't want to either, because of that row with my father—and all the time he made me work, scrubbing and cleaning, and jawing at me for being so wicked as to run away.

Of course I got back safely, had a jolly good beating, and was sent to bed; but, honestly, I couldn't feel wicked, because, right down inside me, I knew that I'd done it because the Captain wanted me to go to sea, and, as I told you before, I simply worshipped him. Most people did—even the "grown-ups"—so it was no wonder that I did.

He heard about it too—my trip in the trawler, I mean—and that was one reason, I fancy, why he gave me a nomination for the Britannia, and when I had passed in, promised to look after me if I did well there.

I can't help remembering the first time I came home in cadet's uniform, and rushed up to the House to show myself to Mrs. Lester and the girls. Nan was most respectful, and she'd never been so before, and that pleased me more than anything else. I expect that I put on a frightful amount of "side", and must have been a horrid little bounder.

I only saw Captain Lester twice whilst I was in the Britannia, and then he commissioned the Vigilant for the China station. Of course, what I really wanted to do was to go to his ship, but I thought that probably he'd forgotten all about me. He hadn't, though; for when, during my last term, my father had to write out to him about some church repairs, he wrote in his reply, "Tell the young 'un he can come out to my ship, if he passes out of the Britannia well".

This news simply made me boil all over, and you may guess how hard I worked that term, and what I felt like when the lists came out. My name—Dick Ford—was seventh of my term, and next below me was Jim Rawlings, my best chum, and we both had just got enough marks to scrape out as midshipmen straight away.

Wasn't that splendid? It was grand, too, to see the little white badges sewn on the collars of our monkey jackets, and to know that we'd finished being cadets.