Young Tom Bowling Part 19

By breakfast-time we were making so much better weather of it that we were able to open the hatches, and the windsails were rigged up to let down some fresh air below, which enabled us to have a better meal than we expected; so our hot cocoa and bread possessed an additional relish, not only from this circ.u.mstance, but also from the fact of our not having enjoyed anything hot since the previous day at dinner, the galley fires having been swamped out just before tea-time, thus forcing us to turn in supperless.

Later on, as the gale slackened, we set our topsails close-reefed, and more 'fore-and-aft' sail; and, when the sun had got above our foreyard, the commodore ordered the topgallant-masts to be sent up, these having been housed when it came on to blow heavily. Our topgallants were consequently set above our close-reefed topsails, which some of the young seamen on board appeared to think a most extraordinary proceeding; but one of the quarter-masters, who was an old hand, said he had often seen it done when sailing "under old Fitzroy on the Pacific station,"

when their ship would be bowling along under this sail before a stiff nor'-easter, in the run down from Vancouver to Callao, past the inhospitable Californian coast.

At noon that day, the navigating officer, who took the sun on the p.o.o.p, surrounded by a lot of the young midshipmen we had on board for instruction during the training cruise, like us boys on the lower deck each in our respective billet, gave out that we were in lat.i.tude 44 degrees 10 minutes north, and longitude 10 degrees 15 minutes west, thus showing that we were well to the westward of the ill-omened Cape Finisterre and now safely out of the Bay of Biscay!

The navigator also told our commanding officer, in the usual stereotyped nautical formula, that it was twelve o'clock.

"All right," replied the commodore. "Make it so!"

Accordingly, the sentry on the forecastle struck Eight Bells, and the men were piped down to dinner; the boatswain's mates sounding their shrill calls through the ship as the echo of the last stroke of the clapper on the side of the ship's bell ceased to reverberate in the noisy air, which was filled with the creaking of the blocks aloft and the hum of the wind, the sea breaking against our counter alongside in a sullen fashion as if old Neptune were disappointed at letting us slip out of his clutches!

At One Bell, half-an-hour later, when the grog was served out to the men--we boys, of course, having none of this, nor wanting it either--a rather amusing incident occurred.

Some of the chaps on board, though pa.s.sed for ordinary seamen, were 'green hands'; and the older sailors that leavened the company, used to crack jokes on these and 'pull their legs' pretty considerably, until the green ones got too knowing to be taken in.

One fellow we had with us in the starboard watch, however, seemed to be so naturally 'raw' that nothing served to 'salt' him; and he was the b.u.t.t not only of his own mess, but of the whole ship's company.

On this occasion Harris, a leading seaman, took a fine rise out of him.

"Say, Joblins," he called out, as he was going to light his pipe to have a smoke forwards, we boys having set out the spittoons for the men along the ''tween decks,' "got your grog all right, old ship?"

"Oh ay," answered the other. "I'se droonk un."

"But I means yer second 'lowance."

"Hay?" said Mr Johnny Raw, his eyes beginning to visibly brighten.

"What fur be that?"

"Yer second 'lowance," repeated the joker Harris. "All the noo hands can git it if they axes fur it."

"Now, yer bean't a-joking?"

"No," declared Harris unblushingly, winking to the others around.

"Joking--why should I, man?"

The greenhorn grew quite excited at the prospect of another tot of grog after his pipe.

"Say, shipmate," said he, rising from the bench at the mess-table where he had been sitting having a whiff, "tell us wot I shall do fur to get un?"

"Take hold on that 'spud-net' there," said Harris, pointing to the net in which the potatoes had been boiled for the mess, the other fellows near turning their backs so that Joblins couldn't see them laugh as he proceeded to carry out the joker's suggestion. "Ah, ye've got it all right, then? Now, Joblins, ye can take that to the upper deck, where they're now sarvin' out the grog for the port watch, and tell the 'Jaunty' that yer come fur yer second 'lowance."

Would you believe it?

Well, whether you do so or not, all I have to say is that the innocent yokel actually went up on deck with the potato-net in his hand, holding it out in front of him as he took his station beside those standing round the grog-tub.

"Hullo!" exclaimed the ship's steward, who acts as master of the ceremonies in this daily allowance of drink to the ship's company, a.s.sisted by one of the corporals, and sometimes even by the master-at- arms himself, the purveyor of the grog recognising him as having previously received his quota. "What do you want here? You've had your 'lowance already!"

Joblins, however, was reluctant to give up the chance of getting an additional supply without a struggle for it, so, he would not accept this rebuff.

"They sez below, sir," explained he, still holding out the spud-net straight in front of him, "as how I wer to tell yer, sir, as I wur a noo hand, an' yer would give I a second 'lowance."

"Oh, you're a new hand are you?"

"Ay," replied Joblins, in a very satisfied tone, thinking the matter was now satisfactorily settled. "That I be, sir."

"I thought so," said the ship's steward drily. "What are you going to put the grog in if I gave it to you?"

Joblins did not reply in words, but held out the net.

"Well," exclaimed the steward, with a grin on his face that was reflected in that of every one standing by, "I've heard of green hands and greenhorns before; but of all the raw johnnies I ever saw on board ship you take the cake!"

Strange to say, such was his denseness, that even then, the yokel could not see the point of the joke and the steward had to order him away.

"Now, clear out of this," he cried, getting a bit angry when his laugh was out. "Don't you see, you fool, if you can see anything at all, that the rum would run out of the net like water out of a sieve? Be off with you!"

Then at last the poor chap recognised the fact that Harris had been 'taking him in,' and darted down the ladder with the obvious intention of 'taking it out' of his tormentor; but the shout of merriment with which he was received when he got forward amongst the men again, stopped his saying anything, and the watch being just then called, his anger had time to evaporate before he had any further chance of calling his tormentor to account.

The weather continuing on the mend, the commodore gave orders to the officer of the watch, soon after dinner, to shape a course for Madeira, that being the appointed rendezvous of the squadron in the event of their parting company at any time in this first part of our cruise; for we had seen nothing of any of them since the beginning of the gale, the little _Ruby_ being the last we had sighted shortly before our being forced to lie-to.

During the afternoon, however, the horizon clearing to the nor'ard and a gleam of sunshine lighting up the sea, a distant sail was seen hull down on our lee quarter.

"Signalman," hailed the officer of the watch, "what do you make her out to be?"

"Can't say yet, sir," replied the man, with the gla.s.s screwed to his eye, squinting to leeward. "She's too fur off, sir."

After a short pause the officer repeated his question.

"Make her out yet, Jones?"

"No, sir," replied the signalman; "but she's rising now, sir, an' I thinks she's closing us."

"Ay."

Another short interval elapsed; and then, being down in the waist, right under the break of the p.o.o.p, the quarter-master having set me to work flemishing down the slack ends of some of the sheets that he did not think were tidily arranged, I heard the signalman mumble some exclamation or other which he could not get out properly from his excitement.

"What is it, you say?" said the officer of the watch, who had gone to the binnacle to look at the compa.s.s and did not quite catch what the man said. "Speak distinctly, my man. I can't hear you!"

"It's the _Ruby_, sir!" shouted out the signalman, in a voice that could be heard, I believe, at the distance by which our consort was separated from us, making the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Robinson, jump off the deck, he having come up quite close in the meantime. "I knows her by the clew on her tops'l."

"All right, my man," blurted out the lieutenant, who was a crusty, ill- tempered, sour sort of chap, one always speaking to the men as if he had a bad liver and who couldn't look a chap square in the eye if he stood up before him, having underhung brows and a nasty way of looking from under them. "You needn't roar at me like a grampus, Jones. I've a great mind to put you in the list for disrespectful conduct to your superior officer! What did you say?"

"The _Ruby_, sir," repeated the signalman, as tenderly now as a sucking dove. "It's the gallant little _Ruby_ sure enough, sir."

The irate lieutenant did not appear, though, to share the enthusiasm of Jones; and I afterwards heard that he had some grudge against the 'boss'

of the _Ruby_, as indeed he had against most people with whom he came in contact; and I don't think many were sorry when he left the service subsequently to our cruise, starting in some line of civil life where his uncivil demeanour has probably gained him as many friends as he got afloat!

"I don't want any of your opinions, my man," said he; "and, if you talk of gallantry, I don't think she has stuck to us as she might have done in the gale. Probably, though, she couldn't help this; for she's a wretched tub and has the misfortune of having a nincomp.o.o.p for a commander besides!"