Crown and Anchor Part 39

At Singapore, we sweltered from the month of April, when our relief was due, up to June without her even putting in an appearance; and, we were all beginning to believe she had gone down to "Davy Jones's locker" and that we were never going to be relieved at all, when one fine morning, as our hearts were getting sick within us, the ship was sighted in the offing.

I don't think I can ever forget the excitement and enthusiasm aroused on board as the news became known, and on her coming up with the sea breeze at breakfast-time everybody seemed to go mad with joy, the officers shaking hands with each other all round and the men crowding the rigging and cheering the _Daphne_ as she pa.s.sed up to her anchorage inside of us.

That very same afternoon, being all ready and waiting, we sailed from Singapore for the Cape, "homeward bound."

What a night that was down below in the gunroom.

Although it was not Sat.u.r.day evening, when our weekly sing-song was usually celebrated, youngsters and oldsters alike united with a common impulse to have a general hullabaloo, their efforts resulting in such a row as never had been heard, I believe, on board the old _Candahar_ before, and, I am equally positive, has not been equalled since, even after she became a harbour ship and was reduced to her present condition of "Receiving Hulk."

I can fancy I see the scene now before me as I write these last lines of my yarn.

There were Larkyns and Ned Anstruther, both of whom, like myself, had pa.s.sed through the chrysalis stage of midshipmen and came within the category of oldsters, the one with a banjo, and the other handling a broken-down concertina, very wheezy about the gills; with little Tommy Mills, who was only a "midshipmite" still, in every sense of the word, accompanying them with a rattling refrain from a pair of ivory castanets which he had purchased for a paper dollar in a curio shop at Canton.

All the rest of the fellows were shouting out at the pitch of their voices, as only middies and mates and such-like fry can shout, the chorus of the old sailors' song:--

"We'll rant and we'll roar like true British sailors, We'll rant and we'll roar all on the salt seas, Until we strike soundings in the Channel of Old England; From Ushant to Scilly 'tis thirty-five leagues!"

Those on the deck above, however, did not wait until we had arrived "in soundings"; for, just as the song was being repeated by acclamation for the third time, the chorus getting louder and louder after each repet.i.tion, Sergeant Macan, as he now was, having gained his extra stripes soon after his reinstatement as corporal for his gallantry in the a.s.sault on the Taku Forts, appeared at the door of the gunroom in his old fashion, being yet retained by express permission as Dr Nettleby's factotum.

"Plaize, yer 'onner," said he, addressing Larkyns, who was still caterer of the mess and the senior in rank of those present, as he was tw.a.n.ging away at his banjo with infinite zest, "the docthor sez if ye can't be aisy he axes ye to be as aisy as ye can."

An uproarious shout was all the answer he got; and, grinning from ear to ear, he retreated, only to be succeeded by the master-at-arms, who came down to put out the lights by the commander's orders, when those who had not to go on night duty turned in and peace was restored.

Sailing with the south-west monsoon, we did not have so speedy a pa.s.sage homeward as we did when outward bound, but we made way southward as well as we could, close-hauled, and reached the Cape two months after pa.s.sing through Java Heads.

At Simon's Bay we refitted ship and took in fresh supplies; and while we remained getting these latter on board several old friends came to see us from Cape Town.

Amongst these was no other than Don Ferdinando Olivarez, who told us he had given up the sea as a profession.

He still adventured on the deep, however, despite his memorable experiences of its perils; for, he said, he had to voyage about a good deal from port to port in the prosecution of his new avocation as the agent for a large firm of wine exporters at Cadiz, where he lived when at home, being now married.

At Captain Farmer's request, Don Olivarez took pa.s.sage with us to Madeira; and while on board with us made himself, if possible, better liked than before.

All of us parted with him with regret when he left us at Funchal, where we put in to land him and correct an error in our chronometers, which had gone wrong from an accident resulting from a violent thunderstorm we fell in with when crossing the Equator for the last time, in which the ship got struck by the lightning, when the captain's cabin, where the chronometers were kept, was seriously damaged by the electric fluid.

From Madeira to England we had fair winds and fine weather, crossing the Bay of Biscay, which had given us so much trouble going out, with all our kites flying and the wind well in the quarter, which made all the old hands say that the "Portsmouth girls had got hold of our towrope."

Talking of the men, Master "Downy," the ex-gravedigger, although he had been sc.r.a.ped into something of a sailor in appearance in the time he had been afloat, now nearly five years, in which period, by the way, he had acc.u.mulated enough prize-money to more than discharge the debts he had left behind on quitting his country, could never be taught to be smart in his movements, always going about the deck as if he were engaged at a funeral.

One day, a wag on the forecastle, as we heard through the marine sentry, took a good rise out of this slow-going individual.

"Hi, Downy!" said he, seeing him creeping forward, with his eyes bent down, counting the planks, apparently. "Chips, the carpenter's mate, wants to see you, sonny."

"See me?" repeated the other, wonderingly. "What does he want to see me for?"

"Why," said the other, "he wants to measure you for your coffin. He says you're more'n half dead already, cos you crawls about like a cripple. Only you're so bloomin' lazy, you'd die out and out at once and be chucked overboard comfortable like!"

Downy did not make any reply to this, which was an acknowledgment of his having the worst of it, as he was generally credited with possessing the gift of the gab and not easily silenced.

Another queer old stick came to the sick bay complaining of being ill, notwithstanding that he looked hale and hearty.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Dr Nettleby, in his sharp, incisive manner, which had not grown any milder from his sojourn in the China Sea and an attack of liver complaint. "You seem all right, my man."

"I've got overhand knots in my gaffs, sir."

"What on earth do you mean?" cried the doctor, puzzled by the name of this new disease.

"Overhand knots in your gaffs--why, you must be drunk!"

"No, sir, I ain't," replied the old sailor, soberly enough, holding out his hands, which were twisted about, the fingers resembling the strands of a rope overlaying each other, and the knuckles distorted out of shape. "My spars, sir, refuses duty."

He had very aptly described his complaint, although it might not be similarly designated in any medical dictionary.

The poor fellow was suffering from rheumatism!

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

"PAID OFF!"

But it is time to bring this long yarn of mine to a close.

It was a fine, bright day, in the early part of October, that we hove the ship to for soundings, our observations then showing us that we were near Scilly and closing the land; so, on getting sand and sh.e.l.ls at five-and-thirty fathoms, which proved that we were well within the Chops of the Channel, we squared away our mainyard before a brisk sou'-west breeze and made for the Lizard, which we sighted at Four Bells in the forenoon watch.

We then bore up Channel direct, and, the wind holding fair, we pa.s.sed Saint Catharine's Point next morning; saluting the port admiral on our rounding Bembridge Ledge and anchoring at Spithead somewhere about mid-day.

"By jingo!" cried Mr Jellaby, who was now our first lieutenant, having gained a step by the promotion of our former chief officer, "gla.s.s-eye;"

though most of the old officers who had sailed with me from England paid off in the ship with us, there having been few changes in our complement, whether through death, disease or desertion, beyond the losses we had experienced in our unsuccessful attack on the Taku Forts, and from the subsequent sickness we had aboard when we were up the Gulf of Pechili in the hot season. "How jolly glad I shall be to see the general's daughters again, young Vernon; what chawming gurls they were, to be sure! I do hope they're not all married!"

"Indeed, sir?" said I, interrogatively. "I hope they're not, I'm sure, for your sake, if not for their own. But, I'm not thinking, now of any young ladies, sir. I'm looking forward to seeing my dear old Dad again, and my mother and sister."

"Ah, that's what you say now, my boy," he retorted, with his genial laugh. "But, when your whiskers are grown, like mine, you'll be thinking of some other fellow's sister, I bet."

His surmise might have been correct; though all I need add on this point is that my old friend "Joe" is now an admiral, with grown-up daughters of his own, and from his austere manner no one would ever dream of his susceptible nature and flirtive disposition in the days of which I speak.

Not so Larkyns, who is the same sprightly, merry fellow as of old, albeit his hair is streaked with grey, and the crowsfeet winkle in the corners of his eyes when he laughs, as he is ever doing.

But, my dear old Dad, who came on board the ship to see me while she was at Spithead, without waiting for her to go into harbour, he, like "Poor Tom Bowling" of the song, has now "gone aloft;" my mother following him, within an early date of his departure to that bourne whence no traveller returns.

Gone where I hope to meet them both by-and-by; for, I can honestly say, that, beyond trying to do my duty when wearing Her Majesty's uniform, I have considered myself always as serving "Under the Pen'ant" of even a higher power, and hope, perhaps, to earn a crown like that which I know my poor father strove for ever, when I come also to my last anchorage.

Ay, even as our dead laureate has sung in his deathless verse:--

"For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar."

THE END.