From Powder Monkey to Admiral Part 61

It was Oliver's duty to go on board and take possession of the prize.

Unwillingly he left his friend's side. Of the _Lily's_ crew five had been killed, and many more beside her commander, wounded. But Oliver saw, as he stepped on board the prize, how much more severely she had suffered. Everywhere lay dead and dying men. How dread and terrible a fact is war! A lieutenant, coming forward, presented his sword.

"My captain lies there," he said, pointing to a form covered by a flag.

"The second lieutenant is wounded below; three other officers are among the dead. We did not yield while we had a chance of victory."

"Yours is a brave nation, and I must compliment you on the gallant way in which you fought your ship," answered Oliver, in the best French he could command.

To lose no time, the prisoners were removed, the prize taken in tow, and all sail made for Plymouth.

At length the surgeon come on deck.

"The commander will do well, I trust," he said; "but I shall be glad to get him on sh.o.r.e as soon as possible. As soon as I had extracted the bullet, he sent me off to look after the other wounded men, saying that they wanted my care as well as he did."

The crew on this gave a suppressed cheer. It would have been louder and more prolonged, but they were afraid of disturbing the commander and the other wounded men.

All were proud of their achievement as they sailed up Plymouth Sound with their prize in tow, but no one felt prouder than Jack Peek.

"I knew Captain would do something as soon as he had the chance," he had remarked to Brown, who greatly shared his feelings.

Rayner was at once removed to the hospital. As he was unable to hold a pen, Captain Saltwell wrote the despatches, taking care to give due credit to the active commander of the corvette.

A short time afterwards Oliver carried to the hospital--to which he had never failed to pay a daily visit--an official-looking letter.

"Ah! that will do him more good than my doctoring," said the surgeon, to whom he showed it.

Oliver opened it at Rayner's request. It was from the Lords of the Admiralty, confirming him in his rank, and appointing him to command the _Urania_ (the English name given to the prize), which, being a fine new corvette, a hundred tons larger than the _Lily_, had been bought into the service.

"It will take some time to refit her, and you will, I hope, be about again before she is ready for sea," said Oliver. "I have brought a message from my mother, who begs, as soon as you are ready to be removed, that you will come and stay at our house. She is a good nurse, and you will enjoy more country air than you can here."

Rayner very gladly accepted the invitation. Neither Oliver nor Mrs Crofton had thought about the result, but before many weeks were over Commander William Rayner was engaged to marry Mary Crofton, who had given him as loving and gentle a heart as ever beat in woman's bosom.

He told her how often he had talked about her when away at sea, and how often he had thought of her, although he had scarcely dared to hope that she would marry one who had been a London street boy and powder monkey.

"I love you, my dear Bill, for what you are, for being n.o.ble, true, and brave, and such you were when you were a powder monkey, as you call it, although you might not have discovered those qualities in yourself."

He was now well able to marry, for his agents had in their hands several thousand pounds of prize-money, and he might reasonably hope to obtain much more before the war was over.

Our hero was well enough to a.s.sume the command of the _Urania_ by the time she was ready for sea. Oliver, as his first lieutenant, had been busily engaged in obtaining hands, and had secured many of the _Lily's_ former crew. The commander had some time before sent for Jack Peek, and urged him to prepare himself for obtaining a boatswain's warrant.

"Thank you, sir," said Jack; "but, you see, to get it I must read and write, and that's what I never could tackle. I have tried pothooks and hangers, but my fingers get all cramped up, and the pen splits open, and I have to let it drop, and make a great big splash of ink on the paper; and as for reading, I've tried that too. I know all the letters when I see them, but I can't manage to put them together in the right fashion, and never could get beyond a, b, ab, b, o, bo. I might in time, if I was to stick to it, I know, and I'll try when we are at sea if I can get a messmate to teach me. But while you're afloat I'd rather be your c.o.xswain, if you'll give me that rating; then I can always be with you, and, mayhap, render you some service, which is just the thing I should be proud of doing. Now, sir, there's Tom Fletcher; he's got plenty of learning, and he ought to be a good seaman by this time. If you were to recommend him to be either a gunner or a boatswain, he'd pa.s.s fast enough."

Rayner shook his head. "I should be happy to serve Tom Fletcher for old acquaintance' sake, but I fear that although he may have the learning, as you say, he has not got the moral qualities necessary to make a good warrant officer. However, send him to me, and I'll have a talk with him on the subject."

Jack promised to look after Tom, whom he had not seen since the _Lily_ was paid off. He returned in a few days, saying that he had long searched for him in vain, until at length he had found him in a low house in the lowest of the Plymouth slums, his prize-money, to the amount of nearly a hundred pounds, all gone, and he himself so drunk that he could not understand the message Jack brought him.

"I am truly sorry to hear it," said Rayner. "But you must watch him and try to get him on board. If he is cast adrift he must inevitably be lost, but we will try what we can do to reform him."

"I will gladly do my best, sir," answered Jack. When the _Urania_ was nearly ready for sea, Jack did contrive to get Tom aboard of her, but the commander's good intentions were frustrated, for before the ship sailed he deserted with could not again be discovered.

Of this Rayner was thankful, as he must of necessity have done what would have gone greatly against his feelings--ordered Tom a flogging.

Honest Brown, however, who had gone to school as soon as the _Lily_ was paid off; received what he well deserved, his warrant as boatswain of the corvette he had helped to win. He had shortly to go to sea in a dashing frigate, and from that he was transferred to a seventy-four, in which he was engaged in several of England's greatest battles.

Some years pa.s.sed, when after paying off the _Urania_, as Rayner was pa.s.sing along a street in Exeter, he heard a stentorian voice singing a verse of a sea ditty. The singer, dressed as a seaman, carried on his head the model of a full-rigged ship, which he rocked to and fro, keeping time to the tune. He had two wooden legs in the shape of mopsticks, and was supporting himself with a crutch, while with the hand at liberty he held out a battered hat to receive the contributions of his audience. Occasionally, when numbers gathered round to listen to him, he exchanged his song for a yarn. As Rayner approached he was saying, "This is the way our government treats our brave seamen. Here was I fighting n.o.bly for my king and country, when a Frenchman's shot spoilt both my legs, and I was left to stump off as best I could on these here timber toes without a shiner in my pocket, robbed of all my hard-earned prize-money. But you good people will, I know, be kind to poor Jack, and fill this here hat of his with coppers to give him a crust of bread and a sup to comfort his old heart.

"'Come all ye jolly sailors bold, Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould, While England's glory I unfold, Huzza to the _Arethusa_!'"

Suddenly he recognised Captain Rayner, who, from being dressed in plain clothes, he had not at first observed. He started, and then began, with an impudent leer, "Now, mates, I'll spin you another yarn about an English captain who now holds his head mighty high, and would not condescend to speak to poor Jack if he was to meet him. We was powder-monkeys together, that captain and I. But luck is everything.

He went up, and I went down. That's the way at sea. If all men had their deserts I should be where he is, in command of a fine frigate, in a fair way of becoming an admiral. But it's no use complaining, and so I'll sing on--

"'The famed _Belle Poule_ straight ahead did lie, The _Arethusa_ seemed to fly, Not a brace, or a tack, or a sheet did we slack On board of the _Arethusa_.'"

"No, no, mate, you was not aboard the _Arethusa_!" cried Jack Peek, who had followed his captain at a short distance, and looking Tom in the face. "You was not aboard the _Arethusa_. I'll tell you what kept you down. It was conceit, idleness, drink, and cowardice; and I'll tell you what gave our brave captain his first lift in the service. It was his truthfulness, his good sense, his obedience to the orders of his superiors. It was his soberness, his bravery; and if you, with your learning and advantages, had been like him, you too might have been in command of a dashing frigate, and not stumping about on one wooden leg, with the other tied up to deceive the people. It's hard things I'm saying, I know, but I cannot stand by and hear a fellow who ought to know better running monstrous falsehoods off his reel as you have been doing. You might have borne up for Greenwich, and been looked after by a grateful country; or you might have saved money enough to have kept yourself in comfort to the end of your days; but it all went in drink and debauchery, and now you abuse the government for not looking after you. Howsumdever, Tom Fletcher, I'm very sorry for you, and if you'll knock off this sort of vagabond life, which brings disgrace on the name of a British sailor, I'll answer for it our good captain will exert his influence and get you a berth in Greenwich or elsewhere, for he has often spoken about you, and wondered where you were a-serving."

Jack Peek had probably never made so long a speech in his life. It was perhaps too long, for it enabled the old sailor to recover his presence of mind, and looking at Jack with a brazen countenance, he declared that he had never seen him before, when off he went as fast as he could walk on his wooden stumps, and turning down a by-lane was lost to view.

Jack had to hurry on to overtake his captain. It was the last time he saw Tom Fletcher alive; but he afterwards heard that a man answering his description, who had been sent to prison as a rogue and a vagabond, had subsequently been killed in a drunken quarrel with another seaman of the same character.

Jack had followed his old friend and captain from ship to ship, and at length having overcome the difficulty not only of the alphabet, but of pothooks and hangers, he obtained his warrant, and for several years had charge of one of the ships in which he had fought and bled, now laid up in Portsmouth harbour.

In the course of years there was found in the list of English Admirals the names of Sir William Rayner, KCB, John Saltwell, and Oliver Crofton.

THE END.