Young Tom Bowling Part 17

"Ah, my h'Italian friend!" said the master-at-arms, who overheard him, with a broad grin on his face, which was reflected on that of Mr Brown; "so you're going to leave us too, eh! Well, as some writing chap says somewhere or t'other in some book I've read, we could have better spared a better boy than you, Paddy. You've been a good lad too, in spite of your larks; and I hope you'll get on well in the service, like your chum Tom Bowling here. Stick to him, and he'll keep you straight."

So saying, he shook hands with Mick the same as he had done with me, Mr Brown following suit in an equally hearty fashion; and shouldering our bags, we all went down the accommodation ladder and took our seats in the cutter.

Just as we were shoving off, Mick spied old Jellybelly on duty at the gangway, and he could not help giving him a parting shot.

"Good luck to ye, Mr Tarbolt, an' more power to yer elber, sor," he cried out with much effusion. "Be jabers, Oi'll kape me oye out fur to say ef Oi can pick up a roight-down comfable arm-cheer fur ye to take a sate whin ye gits toired, sure, a-standin' whin ye're on the watch!"

There was a subdued t.i.tter from all the other fellows, both them in the boat and the rest who were out on the booms and standing by the entry- port, and old Jellybelly shook his fist in a threatening manner at Mick; but the smile on his face showed that he took the old joke in good part.

The last I saw of the old ship as we rowed away up the harbour was a row of grinning faces looking in our direction, and the lines being triced up fore and aft with the hammock-cloths and clothes of the boys hung out to dry, Tuesday, the day we left, being 'washing-day' with us on board.

I had experienced a happy time altogether on board her; and, when I come to look back now, the wonder to me, I'm sure, is that every boy who can possibly get permission from his people does not join the service, considering all the advantages he gets on donning the bluejacket rig.

Just consider.

Instead of living higgledy-piggledy in some close room with half a dozen others, as many poor boys have to do, and little or nothing to eat and that only at haphazard, while in the majority of cases his clothing will be none of the best, being more holey than pious; the same boy on entering the _Saint Vincent_ finds himself at once well fed, well clothed, and with clean and roomy quarters to breathe in!

There is the discipline, to be sure, and that's where the shoe pinches with the free Arab of the slums; but, in addition to the discipline, it should be recollected there is also the instruction in various things that nine boys out of ten look upon rather as pleasurable games than so many tasks.

Besides this, they have real games in their play-hours aboard and in the recreation-ground at Haslar; and, besides, are allowed ash.o.r.e once a week at least, to see their friends and relatives, if these live in the neighbourhood, having pocket-money given them to enjoy themselves with-- more than they can say they ever had in their life on land.

Then there are the 'sports' which the _Saint Vincent_ boys have every year at midsummer, before the breaking-up for their holidays, when swimming races, boat races, egg-and-spoon races, and all sorts of jollities are all the go.

But, there I am again, hauling my jawing tackle aboard according to the old Bowling family propensity, anent which mother used always to rate father; so, I must belay!

Pulling steadily away from the old ship on the stream which was running up the harbour, making this appear one vast lake up to Fareham Creek under the base of the Portsdown hills, a lake whereon floated long lines of old hulks of the past, interspersed with many a specimen of the newer models of the present ships of the Navy, the cutter at last landed us at the foot of the King's Stairs; when, unshipping our bags and shouldering them again, we crossed the dockyard in single file, under charge of a petty officer, making for the guardship to which we had been drafted, which was lying alongside the North Wall, not far from the _Excellent_.

Our tramp was a most fatiguing one over the rough pigs of iron ballast arranged like cobble-stones, which some chap must have had put down in order to benefit his bootmaker, the pilgrimage of folk anxious to see the yard being rather trying on shoe-leather.

We felt it all the more from having been accustomed to go in our bare feet on board the training-ship, and boots in themselves being irksome, without the hard road we had to travel adding to the penance.

Ascending the ladder-way that led up from the jetty to the deck of the old _Asia_, the guardship, we were soon allotted our billets; and quickly settled down to the routine of the ship, which, of course, was very different to that of the _Saint Vincent_.

However, we did not very long remain here; for, it being now getting on well in the month of July, and several new ships having been ordered to be commissioned for the Naval Manoeuvres, Mick and I, good luck still attending us and keeping us always in company, were told off to join a smart cruiser attached to one of the squadrons, in which we presently sailed for Bantry Bay.

Here my chum found himself once more in his native land, and under a sky as blue as that of Italy, to which country he had originally claimed to belong, in spite of the strong 'brogue' that readily betrayed his kinship to the inhabitants when we went ash.o.r.e at Glengariff.

Mick's complaint now was that he could not find any one rejoicing in his name; for every one he and I met, strolling along from Castletown to Waterfall, the landing-place at the foot of Hungry Mountain, half round the bay, was either a Sullivan or an O'Brien--not a single Donovan being to be met with for love or money.

"Begorrah, I can't make it out at all, at all!" said my chum to me, after making inquiries at the various little shebeens on our way and chatting almost with every one of the groups of country people we pa.s.sed, who all seemed mightily pleased at the sight of us bluejackets, most of them offering us hospitality in the shape of cups of milk at the corner of nearly every country lane, where some pretty colleen would stand, clad in her picturesque red cape and with stockingless feet, wishful to give thirsty folk a drink. "Me fayther s'id, faith, as how the Donovans wor kings ov Cark at one toime, Tom!"

"Why," I rejoined, giving him a twister, "you told the 'Jaunty' when you came aboard the _Saint Vincent_ that time to join, that your father was an 'Oitalian!'"

"Stow thet, Tom," said he with a grin, digging me in the ribs, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of one of the Irish girls who was near us, at whom Mick winked. "Sure, thet wor ownly me joke. Th'room pogue, ma colleen ogue?"

The girl near, to whom he addressed the latter part of his speech, which sounded like Greek to me, blushed and laughed, turning away shyly.

"Hullo!" I exclaimed. "What does that mean, Mick?"

"Faith, it manes 'Give me a kiss, me purty gurl,' Tom," he answered, bursting into a roar of laughter. "It's a quishton ye'll foind moighty convanient to axe some-toimes whin ye're in these parts, mabouchal; an'

Oi'd advise ye to larn the languish ez soon ez ye can."

We remained at Bantry, coaling and preparing for action, for about a week, at the end of which time, 'war' being declared between the rival fleets engaged in the Manoeuvres, we filed out of the bay in single column line ahead and started off for the fray; the fleet I was with having some exciting episodes in the chops of the Channel during the time the mimic campaign lasted, in chasing and capturing the ships of the 'enemy,' our cruiser being a very fast vessel and easily able to overhaul most of their craft hand over hand.

It was good fun too--almost like real fighting; and we got so eager at the game, that, on one occasion when we put into Plymouth Sound and found one of the ships belonging to the other side there, our fellows nearly had a row with the men belonging to her.

This shows how very thoroughly we entered into the sport.

It was the end of August when we came back from the Manoeuvres; and by the time we had paid off the cruiser, which, with the other ships specially commissioned for the purpose, was relegated to the reserve basin until she should be wanted to relieve some other vessel abroad, more than another month had elapsed before our rejoining the guardship.

But no sooner had we done this than we had to make another move.

The Training Squadron was under refit for its winter cruise, and a number of boys being required to fill up the complements of the ships composing it, one fine morning, just when Mick and myself began to feel at home again on board the old _Asia_, we were paraded on deck with a number of others and 'told off' to join the _Active_.

She was the commodore's ship of the squadron, and the very one we had longed to be appointed to, her commander being a smart seaman well known in the service, and a friend of father's old friend Captain Mordaunt.

The latter, as luck would have it, had come to see us the previous Sunday, when I happened to be home and had promised me to put in a good word for me in the event of my being appointed to the ship.

By a strange coincidence, Mick and I had been that very day talking of this while we were engaged cleaning some rusty rifles on the main-deck, which job one of the petty officers had put us at, from his seeing my chum and me star-gazing about, with nothing to do.

"Be jabers!" said Mick, sighting his rifle and pretending to take aim at the swab as he went off after imposing this extra task on us, though he waited until the officious gentleman's back was turned, as may be taken for granted, "Oi wud loike to spot thet chap roight in the bull's-eye, bad cess to him! Och, but wait till we're aboord the _Active_, Tom, an', sure, we'll hev no more of straight-backed jokers loike him to dale with!"

"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, Mick," said I.

"We're not appointed to her yet."

"Blatheration!" exclaimed my chum, smacking the b.u.t.t of his rifle on the deck and making the petty officer who was on the other side of the hatchway jump round in a jiffy, looking marline-spikes in our direction.

"Ye jist say, now, if we don't join her! Sure, I dramed ov her last noight, alannah. Oi'd dropped off into a swate shlape afther thet chap made sich a row toomblin' out ov his hammick thet wor next moine, bein'

three sheets an' more, faith, in the woind whin he come off from sh.o.r.e; an' I dramed ez how, Tom, we two wor aboord the _Active_, which Oi wor lookin' over ounly yisterday whin Oi come by Pitch-House Jetty, where she's lyin' preparin' for say. Yis, we wor aboord her roight enuf; an'

Oi heerd the bo'sun poipe to 'make sail,' an' the order guv 'way aloft, lay out on the yards an' loose tops'ls. Thin Oi thinks ez how Oi'm ash.o.r.e, ez will ez aboord; an' Oi says the _Active_ a-sailin' out o'

harbour, ez nate ez ye plaize wid all her upper sails an' flyin' jib, an' fore-topmast stays'l set!"

"I don't think you're likely to see that, Mick," said I, laughing. "It may do well enough in a dream; but I've heard father say that no ship has ever worked out of harbour under sail alone for the last forty years or more!"

"Begorrah, just ye wait an' say," rejoined he. "Oi hed a paice ov shamrock, which I tuk out ov the fairy ring, sure, at Glasnevin, under me hid last noight whin Oi wor shlapin', an' me drame's bound fur to come thrue!"

Strangely enough, so it turned out, too.

A week after we joined her, all things being ready and her preparation for sea being complete, the _Active_ cast off the hawsers mooring her to the bollards on the jetty; and then, disdaining the a.s.sistance of any of the harbour tugs, the commodore sent the men aloft to make sail, and took her out to Spithead under her canvas alone, conning the ship himself from his station aft.

I may say I a.s.sisted at the operation, being one of the hands who went aloft to set the mizzen-royal; and, I may add, that father told me when I came home on the termination of our cruise, at the end of the ensuing spring, our exploit was the talk of the town for months afterwards!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"IN THE BAY OF BISCAY, O!"

"Tom," said Mick to me, when we came down from the yards, by which time the ship was abreast of Southsea Pier on her way out in the fairway, "Oi'm afther settin' oop, faith, fur a conjirer, now me drame's coom roight!"