Crown and Anchor Part 3

Since then, though I have travelled, more often than I care to count now, from London to the famous old seaport which is veritably the nursery of our navy, and whence the immortal Nelson sailed, ninety odd years ago, to thrash the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar and establish England's supremacy afloat while ridding the world of the tyranny of Napoleon Buonaparte, not a single incident connected with my first trip thither has escaped my memory.

Yes, I recollect every detail of the journey, from the time of our leaving Waterloo station to our arrival at the terminus at Landport, just without the old fortifications that shut in Portsea and the dockyard, with all its belongings, within a rampart of greenery. The n.o.ble elms on the summit of the glacis, are now, alas! all cut down and demolished, but they once afforded a shady walk for miles, making the dirty moats and squalid houses in their rear, which are now also numbered, more happily, amongst the things of the past, look positively picturesque.

I could not forget anything that happened that day; for, then it was that I saw that dear old sea again which I had loved from the time my baby eyes first gazed on it, and which I had not now seen for months.

On reaching "ye ancient and loyale toune," as Portsmouth was quaintly designated by Queen Bess of virginal memory on the occasion of her visiting the place, our little party, I can well call to mind, put up at the "Keppel's Head" on the Hard.

This was a hostelry which Dad had been accustomed to patronise when at the naval college in the dockyard learning all about the new principle of steam just then introduced into the service before I was "thought of," as he said, and, no doubt, the place is as well known to young fellows and old "under the pennant" in these prosaic days of "floating flat-irons and gimcrack fighting machines," as the "Fountain Inn" in High Street and the "Blue Posts" at Point were to Peter Simple and Mr Midshipman Easy in the early part of the century, when, to quote dear old Dad again, "a ship was a ship, and sailors were seamen and not all stokers and engineers!"

There was no harbour station then, as now, fronting and affronting Hardway; no trace of the hideous railway viaduct shutting out all the foresh.o.r.e, both of which at present exist in all their respective native uglinesses!

No; for the upper windows of the old hotel commanded a splendid view of the whole of the harbour and the roadstead of Spithead beyond, and I seem to see myself a boy again that August afternoon, looking out over the picturesque scene in glad surprise.

After our early dinner, Dad pointed out to me the various objects of interest; the old _Victory_, flagship then as she is now again after an interval of thirty years or more, during which time she was supplanted by the _Duke of Wellington_, which she has in time supplanted once more; the _Ill.u.s.trious_, the training-ship for naval cadets, near the mouth of the harbour, where the _Saint Vincent_ is now moored; and the long line of battered old hulks stretching away in the distance up the stream to Fareham Creek, the last examples extant of those "wooden walls of old England" which Dibdin sang and British sailors manned and fought for and defended to the death, sacrificing their lives for "the honour of the flag!"

Yes, I remember the name of every ship that Dad then pointed out to me.

I can picture, too, the whole scene, with the tide at the flood and the sunshine shimmering on the water and the old _Victory_ belching out a salute in sharp, rasping reports from the guns of her main deck battery, that darted out their fiery tongues, each in the midst of a round puff ball of smoke in quick succession, first on the port and then on the starboard side, until the proper number of rounds had been fired and a proportionate expenditure of powder effected to satisfy the requirements of naval etiquette for the occasion, when the saluting ceased, as suddenly as it began.

The afternoon wore on apace after this, the sun sinking in the west over Gosport, beyond Priddy's Hard, amid a wealth of crimson and gold that nearly stretched up to the zenith, lighting up the spars of the ships and making their hulls glow again with a ruddy radiance while touching up the bra.s.s-work and metal about them with sparks of flame.

Still, I did not tire of standing there at the window of the old "Keppel's Head," looking out on the harbour in front, with the wherries plying to and fro and men-of-war's boats going off at intervals with belated officers to their respective ships.

Until, by-and-by the Warner lightship, afar out at sea beyond Spithead, and the Nab light beyond her again, could be seen twinkling in the distance, while the moon presently rose in the eastern sky right over Fort c.u.mberland; and then, all at once, there was a sudden flash, which, coming right in front of me, dazzled my eyes like lightning.

This was followed by a single but very startling "Bang!" that thundered out from the flagship, which, swinging round with the outgoing ebb tide, was now lying almost athwart stream, with her high, square stern gallery overhanging the sloping sh.o.r.e below the hotel, looking as if the old craft had taken the ground and fired the gun that had startled us as a signal of distress--so, at least, with the vivid imagination of boyhood, thought I!

"Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed my mother, almost jumping out of her chair at the unexpected report and making me jump, too, by her hurried movement towards the window where I stood, "what is the matter, Jack?"

"Nothing to be alarmed about, my dear," said Dad soothingly to her. "It is only the admiral tumbled down the hatchway."

"Dear, dear," replied poor mother in a voice full of the deepest sympathy, "I hope the old gentleman has not hurt himself much. He must have fallen rather heavily!"

Dad roared with laughter at her innocent mistake.

"You'll kill me some day, I think, my dear," said he when he was able to speak, after having his laugh out. "I only used an old nautical expression which you must have heard before, I'm sure. We always say that on board ship when the nine-o'clock gun is fired!"

"Oh!" rejoined mother, a little bit crossly at being made fun of. "I do wish, Frank, you would explain what you mean next time beforehand, instead of puzzling people with your old sailor talk, which n.o.body can understand!"

"Humph!" said Dad; but, presently, I saw mother put out her hand and tenderly touch him on the shoulder, as if to tell him that her temporary tiff had been dispelled, like the smoke from the discharge of the _Victory's_ last gun, whereat I could hear him whisper under his breath as he kissed her cheek softly, "All's well that ends well, my dear!"

CHAPTER FOUR.

DOWN AT PORTSMOUTH.

Next morning, ere I seemed to have been asleep five minutes, it came upon my dreams so suddenly, I was awakened by a terrible din of drumming and bugling from the adjacent barracks close to the line of fortifications which at that time enclosed Portsmouth--but whose moats and ramparts were pulled to pieces, as I have already said, some few years ago to make room for the officers' and men's recreation grounds and gymnasium, with other modern improvements.

Then, I could hear the heavy tramp of men marching, followed by the hoa.r.s.e sound of words of command in the distance, "Halt! Front!

Dress!"

I a.s.sure you, I really thought for the moment that the long-talked-of French invasion, about which I had been recently reading in my historical researches, had actually come at last and that the garrison had been hurriedly called to arms to resist some unexpected attack on the town.

This reminiscence of my cramming experiences, mixed up in hotch-potch fashion with the martial echoes that caught my ear from the banging drum and brazen bugle, at once recalled the gruesome fact that this was the eventful day fixed for my examination on board the _Excellent_; so, dreading lest I should be late, I incontinently jumped out of bed in a jiffy, proceeding; albeit unconsciously, to obey the last gruff order of the sergeant of the guard, relieving the sentries.

This, as Dad subsequently explained, was the reason for all the commotion, the sergeant parading his men as he came up to each "post" in turn, with the usual stereotyped formula, "Halt! Front! Dress!"

Dear me! I did "dress;" though in rather a different sense to that implied by the sergeant's mandate, huddling on my clothes in my haste so carelessly that I broke the b.u.t.ton off my shirt collar and put on my jacket the wrong way!

All my hurry, too, was to very little purpose; for, when I reached the coffee-room of the hotel below, after getting confused and losing my proper course amongst the many intricate pa.s.sages and curving corkscrew staircases that led downwards from the little dormitory I had occupied right under the tiles at the back of the building, I found that neither Dad nor mother had yet put in an appearance for breakfast.

I was in such good time, indeed, that old Saint Thomas's clock in High Street was only just chiming Eight; while the ships' bells over the water were repeating the same piece of information in various tones and the shrill steam whistle from the dockyard workshops hard by screeching its confirmation of the story.

There was no fear of my being late, therefore; so, consoling myself with this satisfactory reflection, I was making my way to the nearest window of the coffee-room to look out on the harbour beyond as I had done the evening before when, like as then, a big bouncing "Bang!" came from the _Victory_, making me jump back and feel almost as nervous as poor mother was on the previous occasion.

"Yezsir, court-martial gun, sir, aboard the flagship, sir," said the wiry little c.o.c.k-eyed head waiter, who was hopping about the room "like a parched pea on a griddle," as dad expressed it, stopping to flick the dust from the mantelpiece with his napkin as he replied to the mute inquiry he could read in my glance. "Look, sir! They've h'isted the Jack at the peak, sir, yezsir."

"Oh, yes, I see," said I, as if I had not observed this before and was perfectly familiar with the signal. "I did not notice it at first."

"No, sir? W'y, in course not, sir, or else ye'd ha' known wot it were,"

answered the sly old fellow, ascribing to me a knowledge of naval matters which he knew as well as myself I did not possess, thus pandering, with the ulterior view, no doubt, of a substantial tip, to a common weakness of human nature to which most of us, man and boy alike, are p.r.o.ne--that of wishing to appear wiser than we really are!

"But, as I was a-saying only last night to Jim Marksby, the hall-porter, sir," he continued, "court-martials, sir, isn't wot they used to was.

Lord-sakes! sir, I remembers, as if it were yesterday, in old Sir t.i.tus Fitzblazes's time, sir, when they was as plentiful as the blackberries on Browndown!

"W'y, sir, b'lieve me or not if yer likes, but there wasn't a mornin'-- barring Sundays in course--as yer wouldn't hear that theer blessed gun a-firin' for a court-martial, sir, j'est the same as ye heerd j'est now, sir, yezsir! Ah, them was fine times, they was, for the watermen on Hardway; for they usest to make a rare harvest a-taking off witnesses and prisoners' 'friends,' as they calls 'em, and lawyers and noospaper chaps to the flagship, they did. The old chaps called the signal gun 'old Fitzblazes's Eight o'clock Gun,' sir. They did so, sir, yezsir!"

"Indeed, waiter?" said I, feeling quite proud of his thus speaking to me as if I were a grown-up person. "But who was this gentleman, old Fitz-- what did you call him?"

"Old Sir t.i.tus Fitzblazes, sir," glibly replied the coffee-room factotum, flicking off a fly as he spoke from the table-cloth whereon he had just arranged all the paraphernalia of our breakfast. "Lord-sakes, sir, yer doesn't mean for to say, sir, as a well-growed young gen'leman like yerself, sir, as is a naval gent, sir, as I can see with arf an eye, haven't heard tell o' he? Well, sir, he were port admiral here, sir, a matter of eight or ten year ago, sir, yezsir; and, wot's more, sir, he were the tautest old sea porkypine ye'd fetch across 'in a blue moon,' as sailor folk say!

"Yezsir, I've heerd when he were commodore on the West Coast, he used for to turn up the hands every mornin' regular and give 'em four dozen apiece for breakfast, sir!"

"Good gracious me, waiter!" I exclaimed, aghast at this statement.

"Four dozen lashes?"

"Yezsir. Lor'! four dozen lashings was nothink to old Sir t.i.tus, for he were pertickeler partial to noggin', he were, and took it out of the men like steam, he did!

"The ossifers, in course, he couldn't sarve out in the same way, not being allowed for to do so by the laws of the service, sir; but he'd court-martial 'em, sir, as many on 'em as would give him arf a chance, and the court-martial gun used for to fire in his time here as reg'lar as clock-work every mornin' at eight, winter and summer alike, jest the same as when the flag's h'isted at sunrise, yezsir!"

"What an old martinet he must have been!" I said in response to this.

"Perhaps, though, the poor old admiral suffered from bad health, and that made him cross and easily put out?"

"Bad health, sir? Not a bit of it!" exclaimed my friend, the waiter, repudiating such an excuse with scorn. "It were bad temper as were _his_ complaint.

"Lord-sakes, though, sir, he were bad all over, was Sir t.i.tus; ay, that he were, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. As bad as they makes 'em!

"W'y, he 'ad the temper, sir, of old Nick hisself, ay, that he had!