Courage, True Hearts Part 24

So after a hearty supper of sea-pie the men got up a dance, Frank and the man who played the clarionet forming, as usual, the chief portion of the band.

Old Pen was in grand form to-night, and his antics, as he danced and whirled around with little Johnnie Shingles, were laughable in the extreme. It would be impossible to say that Pen tripped it--

"On the light fantastic toe".

For his feet were about as broad and flat as a couple of kippered herrings, but he made the best use of them he could, and no one could have done more.

After the dance the chief yarn-spinners a.s.sembled in a wide circle around the galley fire. Frank and Conal made two of the party, with n.o.ble Vike in the rear.

It hardly would have needed the rum that the cabin steward dealt out to make these good fellows happy to-night or to cause them to spin short yarns and sing, so jolly were they to know the ship was homeward bound--

"Across the foaming billows, boys, Across the roaring sea, "We'll all forget our hardships, lads, With England on the lee".

But the crew of the brave _Flora M'Vayne_ took their cue from the skipper, and never a Sat.u.r.day night pa.s.sed without many a song and many a toast, and always an original yarn of some adventure afloat or ash.o.r.e.

Sings Dibdin:--

"The moon on the ocean was dimmed by a ripple, Affording a chequered delight; The gay jolly tars pa.s.sed the word for the tipple And the _toast_--for 'twas Sat.u.r.day night, Some sweetheart or wife that he lov'd as his life, Each drank, while he wished he could hail her, But the standing toast that pleased the most was-- Here's the wind that blows and the ship that goes, And the la.s.s that loves a sailor!"

So thoroughly old-fashioned was Captain Talbot that on some Sat.u.r.day nights he did not think it a bit beneath him to join his men around the fire, and they loved him all the better for it too.

Well, no matter how crowded the men might be of a night like this, there was always room left in the inner circle for Viking, old Pen, and Jim the monkey.

Jim, with his red jacket on, used to sit by Viking, looking very serious and very old, and combing the dog's coat with his long slender black fingers.

This was a kind of shampoo that invariably sent Vike off to sleep.

Then Jim would lie down alongside him, draw one great paw over his body, and go off to sleep also.

But old Pen would be very solemn indeed. He was troubled with cold feet, and it was really laughable enough to see him standing there on one leg while he held up and exposed his other great webbed pedal apparatus to the welcome glow emitted by the fire.

Sometimes yarns were at a discount, though songs never were, and no matter how simple, they were always welcome, even if told without any straining for effect and in ordinary conversational English, if they had truth in them.

On this particular Sat.u.r.day night Captain Talbot came forward and took a seat in a corner to smoke his long pipe, while the steward brewed him a tumbler of punch with some cinnamon and b.u.t.ter in it, for the skipper had a cold.

"It's long since we've had a yarn from you, sir," remarked the carpenter.

The skipper took a drink, and then let his eyes follow the curling smoke from his pipe for a few seconds before replying.

"Well, Peters," he said, "I've had so many adventures in my time that I hardly ever know which to tell first. Once upon a time I served in a Royal Navy ship on the coast of Africa, and it is just the odour of the 'baccy, boys, that brings this little yarn to my mind."

"Out with it, sir," cried one.

"Yes, out with it, Captain. We'll listen as if it were a sermon, and we were old wives."

"First and foremost," said Talbot, "let me give you a toast--Here's to the loved ones at home!"

"The loved ones at home!" And every gla.s.s was raised, and really that toast was like a prayer.

CHAPTER VIII.--CAPTAIN TALBOT SPINS A YARN.

"Why, boys, and you youngsters," said Captain Talbot, "when I look back to those dear old times I feel old myself, and that's a fact. As I said before, we were cruising about the East African coast, making it just as hot for the slaver Arabs as we knew how to. We had a bit of a fight now and then, too, both on sh.o.r.e and afloat.

"Well, your man-o'-war's-man likes that, simple and all though he seems to be. Simplicity, indeed, is one of the chief traits in the character of the true British sailor. I'm not sure that it might not be said with some degree of truth, that no one who wasn't a little simple to begin with, would ever become a sailor at all. n.o.body, not even a landsman, grumbles and growls more at existence afloat than does Jack himself, whether he be Jack in epaulets or Jack in a jumper, Jack walking the weather-side of the quarter-deck or Jack mending a main-sail. But for all that, when Jack has a spell on sh.o.r.e, especially if it be of a few months' duration, he forgets all the asperities of the old sea life, and remembers only its jollities and pleasantnesses, and the queer adventures he had--of which, probably, he boasts in a mitigated kind of way--and by and by he gets tired of the dull sh.o.r.e, and maybe sings with Proctor:

'I never was on the dull, tame sh.o.r.e, But I loved the great sea more and more'.

And then he goes back again. Another proof of Jack's simplicity.

"Well, but some of the very bravest men or officers I have met with were, or are, as simple in their natures as little children--simple but brave.

"Gallant and good--how well the two adjectives sound together when applied to a sailor. Did not our Nelson himself apply them in one of his despatches to Captain Riou, mentioned by Thomas Campbell in his grand old song 'The Battle of the Baltic':

'Brave hearts! to Britain's pride Once so faithful and so true, On the deck of fame that died With the gallant, good Riou, Soft sigh the winds of heaven o'er their grave!

While the billow mournful rolls, And the mermaid's song condoles-- Singing glory to the souls Of the brave!'

"There never was a more simple-looking sailor than a.s.sistant-Paymaster Mair (let us call him Mair). He was round-faced, fat, and somewhat pale, but always merry, and on good terms with himself and everybody else. He had the least bit in the world of a squint in his starboard eye. This ocular aberration was more apparent, when he sat down and commenced playing an asthmatical old flute he possessed. I don't think anybody liked this flute except Mair himself, and no wonder it was asthmatical, for we were constantly playing tricks on it. We have tarred it and feathered it ere now, and once we filled it with boiling lard, and left it on Mair's desk to cool. But Mair didn't care; our practical joking found him in employment, so he was happy.

"Mair had never been in an engagement, though some members of our mess had; and, when talking of their sensations when under fire, Mair used frankly to confess himself 'the funkiest fellow out'.

"It came to pa.s.s that the old _T----_ had to engage a fort, and preparations were made for a hot morning. The captain was full of spirit and go--one of those sort of men who, when both legs are shot away, fight on their stumps.

"Mair had his orders the night before, given verbally, in an easy, off-hand kind of way. He was to stand by the captain on the bridge or quarter-deck, and take notes during the engagement or battle. Poor Mair! he didn't sleep much, and didn't eat much breakfast. We met just outside the ward-room door, Mair and I. We were both going to duty, only Mair was going up, while I was bound for the orlop deck. With the noise of hammering, and stamping, and shouting, I couldn't catch what Mair said, but it was something like--'Lucky dog, you'.

"Though stationed below--safe, except from the danger of smothering in horrid smoke--I soon had evidence enough we were getting badly hammered.

I wasn't sorry when "Cease firing" sounded, and I could crawl up and breathe.

"But how about simple Mair? Why, this only--he had done his duty n.o.bly, coolly, manfully; he had gained admiration from his fire-eating captain, and got specially mentioned in a despatch. Mair looked red and excited all the afternoon, but the flute never sounded half so cheerily before as it did that same evening after dinner.

"Talking about simplicity brings poor Nat Wildman of ours before my mind's eye.

"There wasn't a pluckier sailor in the service than Nat, nor a greater favourite with his mess-mates, nor a simpler-souled or kindlier-hearted.

He was very tall and powerful--quite an athlete in fact. Once when a company or two of marines and blue-jackets were sent to enact punishment of some native tribes on the West African coast, for the murder of a white merchant, and for having fired on Her Majesty's boats, they encountered a strongly-palisaded village. Our fellows had no ladders nor axes, and the dark-skins were firing through. The village must be carried, and reduced to terms--and ashes; so the men hoisted each other over. Nat worked hard at this pitch-and-toss warfare; indeed, he could have thrown the whole ship's company over. But, lo! he found himself the last man--left out in the cold--for there was no one to help him across. When the row was over, Nat was found--simple fellow that he was--sitting on the ground crying with vexation, or, as one of his mess-mates phrased it, 'blubbering like a big baby'.

"I often think, boys, that it must be very hard to have to die at sea, especially if homeward bound; all the bustle and stir of ship's work going on around you; the songs of the men, the joking and laughing, and the din--for silence can seldom be long maintained.

"Jack Wright of ours--captain of the main-top--might have been called a tar of the real Tom Bowling type. He, too, like Nat Wildman, whom I mentioned above, was a very great favourite with his mess-mates. He was always kind and merry, but ever good, obedient, and brave. We were coming home in the old _T----_. Dirty weather began shortly after we left Madeira, and while a.s.sisting in taking in sail one forenoon, poor Jack fell from aloft. His injuries were of so serious a nature that his life was despaired of from the first. He lost much blood, and never rallied.

"This sailor had a young wife, who was to have met him at Plymouth. She was in his thoughts in his last hours. I was a.s.sisting the doctor just at that time of my life, a kind of loblolly-boy, and I heard the man say, as he looked wistfully in the surgeon's face: 'It seems a kind o'

hard, doctor, but I've always done my duty--I've always obeyed orders without asking questions. I'm ready when the Great Captain calls, though--yes, it do seem a kind o' hard.'

"He appeared to doze off, and I sat still for an hour. It was well on in the middle watch, and the ship was under easy sail; there was now and then a word of command, but no trampling overhead, for even the officers liked and respected Jack. I sat still for an hour, then took his wrist in my hand. There was no pulse there. He was gone.

"I covered him up and went on deck, for something was rising and choking me. It was a heavenly night--bright stars shining, and a round silvery moon, with the waves all sparkling to leeward of us.