First in the Field Part 8

"But there's a big draft of the 300th Regiment and their officers too, and they'll take care of us, boy, so you won't mind."

"Oh! no," cried Nic, "I shall not mind."

In fact, he failed to see what there would be to mind, for it did not occur to him that it might be unpleasant and awkward for the governor's wife.

The bustle of departure had commenced when they reached the dock, and the quay swarmed with the friends and relatives of the company of infantry off on foreign service, while dock officials were busy issuing the orders which began to take effect a few minutes after Nic had seen Lady O'Hara into her cabin and hurried back on deck to gaze on the novel scene.

For hawsers were being secured round posts, men were leaving, a couple of boats were out ahead ready to tow, and soon the great three-masted vessel began to move slowly along by the quay to the great gates, with the soldiers cheering and waving their caps, and shouts and cries rising from those being left behind, till the gates were pa.s.sed, and the long narrow channel between stone walls gave place to the river, with its tide at the height; the faces began to grow smaller and smaller, and soon the _Northumbrian_, with her littered decks and bustle and confusion, began to drop slowly down with the tide.

There was plenty to see as well as plenty to learn. The first thing was to be able to see in peace, and to do this Nic found he had to learn to get out of the way of the men busy lowering down packages, getting rid of the litter of the deck, and blunderingly making matters shipshape-- blunderingly, for the crew, almost without exception, were suffering from the effects of their holiday ash.o.r.e, and were working the mate and boatswain into a state of red-hot indignation at the slow progress made.

The latter, too, a big, burly, red-faced man with stiff whiskers, was every now and then asking people how he could be expected to have clear decks when his ship was being turned into a farmyard.

This recalled the live stock on board, and Nic went forward to have a look at the cattle in their pens, where they were contentedly enough munching away at the hay placed ready for them, while the dogs, which recognised Nic, began to tug furiously at their chains, and made their eyes seem ready to start from their heads as they tried to strangle themselves by straining at their collars.

Nic was leaning over the pen in which they were chained up, patting and caressing them, when a gruff voice cried fiercely:

"Those dogs yours?"

"Not exactly. They're for Sir John O'Hara."

"Then I wish he'd got 'em. Who's to move with all these things on board?"

"What's, the matter, Buller?" said a bronzed man, coming up.

"Matter, sir? everything. There isn't a man aboard fit to pull a rope, and I can't move without breaking my shins over cats and dogs, and all this here Tower mynadgery. Is the skipper going to start a farm?"

"Get on, man, and don't make so much noise."

"Noise, sir!" growled the boatswain, for it was he; and he looked hard at a couple of officers in undress uniform, whose attention had been taken by the dogs.

"It's enough to make any one grumble. I'm 'customed to tea and rice and a few pa.s.sengers. I don't understand all this--ship turned into a live-stock show, a barracks, and a farm all in one."

He went off growling, and the mate turned to the officers.

"A bit rusty, gentlemen," he said, smiling. "It will soon wear off, as we get shipshape."

"Sooner the better," said one of the officers, who turned to the dogs, and had a look at them before speaking to Nic.

"Yours?" he said.

"I have charge of them."

"Then you are a pa.s.senger?"

"Yes; I'm going out with Lady O'Hara."

"The governor's wife! Well, how do you think you will like the sea?"

"Oh, very well," said Nic. "Of course I shan't like it when it's rough."

"Nor anybody," said the officer, "eh, Harvey?"

"I shall not," said the gentleman addressed, as he pulled the setter's long ears.

"So long as it isn't rough. Well, as we are to be fellow-pa.s.sengers all through the voyage, we may as well be friends and go through our introductions. Who are you?"

Nic told him.

"Going to join your people, eh? Well, that's pleasant. We are going to leave ours."

"Who are you?" said Nic, taking his new acquaintance's tone.

"I?" said the officer, laughing at the manner in which the question was put. "Lieutenant Lance, His Majesty's 300th Light Infantry. This is Ensign Harvey of my company. Both at your service, sir, and our company too."

"Thank you," said Nic, laughing; "but I'm not likely to need it."

"Unless the birds want to take _flight_," said the ensign.

Nic looked at him inquiringly.

"He means the gaol birds, youngster," said the elder officer, laughing, "if they rise against us. Not a very nice arrangement for your lady coming out in a ship like this."

"Is there any danger?" said Nic anxiously.

"No," said the ensign, rather importantly; "we shall see that there's not."

"Then you are here to guard them?" asked Nic.

"Bah, no! We are going to join our regiment. There is a warder guard.

Of course, if there was any necessity--"

Nic looked rather startled, and the lieutenant said, smiling:

"There'll be nothing to mind, my lad. The winds and waves will trouble you more than the convicts; but they're not pleasant fellow-pa.s.sengers to have, on board."

Nic did not think so the next morning, when, after guard had been mounted under the lieutenant's charge, just as they were getting well out of the mouth of the river, with the soldiers stationed at intervals with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, orders were given, and the stern-looking warders ushered up the convict gang of fifty men from below to take their allotted amount of air and exercise in the forward part of the deck; for almost without exception they were a villainous-looking lot, their closely cropped hair and ugly prison garb adding to the bad effect.

Talking was strictly forbidden, every movement being carefully watched, and not least by Nic, at whom the prisoners looked curiously as they pa.s.sed, one man putting on a pleading, piteous aspect, as if asking for the boy's compa.s.sion, and twice over his lips moved as if he were saying something.

But somehow, though the man was not bad-looking, and formed one of the exceptions to the brutally fierce faces around, his pleading look did not excite Nic's pity, but caused a feeling of irritation that he could not explain.

This happened again and again, when, attracted by the daily coming up of the men on deck, Nic found himself watching them, unconscious of the fact that he was watched the while.

Every now and then the chief warder, a stern, fierce-looking man with a cutla.s.s in his belt, shouted out some order; and as it was obeyed by this or that man the boy soon began to know them as Number Forty-nine or Hundred and eighty, or some other number. One particularly scoundrelly-looking fellow, who made a point of catching his eye whenever he could, for the purpose of winking, thrusting his tongue in his cheek, or making some hideous grimace, and following it up with a grin of satisfaction if he saw it caused annoyance, was known as Twenty-five; a singularly brutal-visaged man with a savage scowl, who never once looked any one full in the face, was Forty-four; and the mild, pleading-looking man, who annoyed Dominic by his pitiful, fawning air, was Thirty-three.

"Well, sir, what do you think of them?" said a familiar voice one day; and turning sharply, Nic found himself face to face with the chief warder.

"Think? I hardly know," said Nic. "I feel sorry for them."