Young Tom Bowling Part 22

Whether this term of endearment of his was meant by Mick to apply to Jenny or the bird, I can't say; but I could see clearly enough in what direction his thoughts were concentrated.

"Begorrah, Tom," he said after a pause, during which his eyes were apparently fixed on the celebrated 'Peak' for which Teneriffe is better known in the present day than on account of its canaries; for it is over four hundred years since these little songsters were first discovered by the Spaniards and imported into Europe, so that any novelty that might have been attached to them has long since disappeared, "Oi'll git some ov the purty craychurs fur yer sisther if we're 'lowed ash.o.r.e afore we lave."

"I don't think you will be able to do that," said the signalman, who had remained alongside of us looking at the darkeys pa.s.sing to and fro on the jetty below, from which a gangway of planks led through one of the midship ports to the coal-bunkers. "We're not likely to stop here after we've coaled ship."

Mr Jones was mistaken, however; for we remained at Santa Cruz some four-and-twenty hours longer, so that Mick and I had the opportunity of landing with the wardroom steward the next morning, when he went to buy some fresh milk and other things for the officers' mess.

We then, during a short walk we had in the vicinity of the town, saw numbers of canaries flitting about amid the trees, just like you see sparrows at home; and it seemed very strange, to me especially, accustomed as I was to mother's bird-shop and its live stock, that the little things should be uncaged and roaming about there free, at their own will and pleasure!

The birds, though, did not have anything like the bright plumage of those bred in captivity at home; and I would have backed, so far as their looks went, a splendid little chap Jenny had called 'Tubby,'

against the lot of them; while 'Corry,' another canary of a more reflective character and retiring disposition than the first, could have afforded a dust of the golden hue of his feathers to make his Teneriffean cousins more presentable without being much less yellow himself--their hue, so far as Mick and I noticed, being more of a dingy white than chrome.

As to bringing any of them to England, however, that we found an impossibility; for there were so many young midshipmen and other youngsters aboard the various ships of the squadron, that if all of them had been free to take birds into their cabins, the ships would have been so many floating aviaries!

So, to prevent this, the commodore had issued strict orders that no pets of any description were to be taken on board by any one.

"I s'pose, though, my corns don't count," observed the wardroom steward, as we were stepping into the boat on our return to the ship and one of his a.s.sistants trod on his foot. "I've a favourite one on my starboard toe, Smith, as might be called a pet o' mine; and, by jingo, you lubber, you just then made marmalade of it. You wait till we get aboard and I'll put you on short rations! See if I don't!"

Later on in the afternoon the squadron sailed for Barbados, starting off out of Santa Cruz harbour before a spanking ten-knot breeze in line of single column ahead, the old _Active_ leading and showing her heels to our less speedy consorts.

This was early in the month of December, the weather being beautiful and balmy, as it continued all the time we were bowling across the Atlantic on our way to our goal, the West Indies; and, as we enjoyed the warmth of the southern lat.i.tudes through which our good ship ploughed her way, Mick and I could not help contrasting our surroundings with those of the poor folk at home shivering in all the dreariness of an English mid- winter, when, if it isn't freezing or snowing or hailing, it is bound to be raining--a cold, raw, nasty sort of rain--and damp and foggy and dirty, at all events, such being the pleasurable conditions of our delightful climate usually at that time of year!

With us, now, things were very different!

A blue sky above, unflecked by a single cloud, was reflected in a sea that was yet more blue, its hue turning to azure as we approached farther west in the tropics; until, on reaching the confines of the Caribbean Sea, the colour of the water verged into that of the purest ultramarine.

Day after day the scene was ever the same--blue sky above, blue sea below; while a bright sun shone down, ever lighting up both sky and sea with a sort of opal glow and lending warmth to the buoyant, exhilarating, champagne air.

Under these circ.u.mstances, washing decks every morning used to be a positive pleasure to everybody on board, as we careered about in our bare feet with our trousers rolled up above the knee, when the cold water, instead of being 'moighty onpleasint,' as Mick would have said, was gratifying in the extreme.

Such of the officers, too, who had not been on duty keeping the middle watch, used to turn out in their oldest pyjamas, accompanied by most of the midshipmen, when we were at this task and have a regular sluice down on the forecastle; some of them catching hold of the hose and playing it on each other in turn, skylarking and making no end of fun.

Our drills, of course, went on all the time in the usual clockwork fashion observed on board ship, 'quarters' and 'divisions' and all the rest; all of the men and boys belonging to the ship's company being polished up quite as smartly as the bra.s.swork and drilled to the highest state of efficiency.

It was not all work, though, on board the _Active_; for our commodore, taut disciplinarian as he was and as anxious to lick us all into shape as he was to make the ships of his squadron manoeuvre handily, exercising them at all hours both of day and night to this end, did not forget the old adage that a bow should not always be bent.

No, he always allowed us plenty of time for relaxation and enjoyment, besides permitting us to fish overboard, which some commanders would not have allowed.

This was rare sport, I can tell you, the bonetta, a fish common to the tropics and eating uncommonly well when fried, biting freely at a piece of white bunting or any other attractive object attached to a hook, as did the many-hued dolphin, and many a hearty supper did we have on the lower deck through the kindly aid of these beneficent denizens of the deep.

One of the foretopmen who hailed from Newfoundland was an expert with the harpoon, spearing with that weapon as many dolphins as he liked; these beggars being in the habit of plying to and fro under the corvette's cut.w.a.ter as she sailed onward, delighting apparently in showing us the dexterity with which they could wheel about and leap athwart the ship's course as they pleased, keeping up with her or going ahead according to their bent.

We saw lots of flying-fish also; and they, when we had the chance of catching the few that came aboard, were even better fare for hungry sailor-boys of an evening than the dolphins and bonetta.

These latter used to hunt the poor flying-fish like a pack of hounds after some prey on land, the fish leaping out of the sea and making short flights by the aid of the membraneous fins they have, which they extended like wings, flying for some twenty yards or so till exhaustion compelled their return to their native element--a characteristic feature that has gained the 'flying-fish' its name.

Unfortunately for the poor beggars, however, they have an enemy aloft as well as one below; and, when they leave the water to escape the bonetta, they fall into the clutches of the sea-hawks that hover over the surface on the watch for them; and so, thus situated 'between two stools,' as it were, 'their lot,' like that of the 'Bobby' in the song, being 'not a happy one!'

Amid such varied changes of life and scene, our three weeks' voyage from Teneriffe to Barbados pa.s.sed quickly and pleasantly enough, all hands being surprised one fine morning when we cast anchor in Carlisle Bay, the harbour of 'Little England,' as the Barbadians proudly style their happy island, which is of the same size and shape nearly as the Isle of Wight and is the gem of the Antilles!

Here we had a rare time of it for a week, it being Christmastide, and the inhabitants, who are English to the backbone, black, mongrel, and copper-coloured, as well as white, keeping up that festival with like enthusiasm to what we do at home.

As at Madeira, the ship's company were allowed leave to go on sh.o.r.e, watch and watch in turn: so, belonging as we both did to the starboard division, Mick and I were amongst those who had the first go-off.

I recollect, as if it were but yesterday, our landing alongside the jetty on the carenage, right in front of one of Da Costa's big warehouses, whose green jalousies relieved the effect of the staring white building under the hot West Indian sun; the glare of which, cast back by the rippling translucent water that laved the stone jetty, through which one could see the little fishes gliding about as clearly as in the Brighton Aquarium, almost blinded us with its intensity.

There were a lot of negro women hanging round the wharf in front of Da Costa's place, all of whom had big baskets, either balanced on their heads or put down on the ground by their side, which were filled with huge melons and pine-apples and bananas, besides many other tropical fruits the names of which are unknown to me.

Of course, we made for these at once; and there was a lot of chaffering and bargaining between our fellows and the negresses, who were all laughing and showing their white teeth, trying their best to wheedle the 'man-o'-war buckras' to buy their luscious wares at double the price, probably, such would fetch in open market from regular customers in Bridgetown.

Presently, we all got skylarking and pitching the fruit about; when a big mulatto, who was along with one of the fruit-sellers--her husband most likely and doing nothing just as likely, like most of his colour, for the household of which he was the head, save to collect the money his better half in every respect earned--seemed very much aggrieved at some damage Mick did to a bunch of ripe bananas, claiming a 'bit' or fourpence as compensation.

Mick, who, you must know, had grown a strapping fellow by now, took the tawny-complexioned gentleman's demand very good-humouredly.

"All roight, ould Patchwork," he called out, with a laugh. "Thare's a sh.e.l.lin' fur ye, which is more, bedad, than yer howl sthock-in-thrade is worth! Changee fur changee, black dog fur whoite moonkey, sure, as my ould fayther used fur to say!"

Whatever mollifying effect the sight of the silver coin might have produced on the mulatto's mind was entirely swamped by Mick's unfortunate quotation from his paternal archives.

"Say, you sailor buckra, who dat you call one black dog, hi!" said he, coming up to my chum in a threatening manner, brandishing his arms and working his head about like a teetotum in a fit. "I'se no n.i.g.g.ah slabe, you white trash! I'se free 'Badian born, an' 'low no man make joke ob me!"

Mick roused up in a minute.

"Faith, ye oogly yaller-faced raskil," he cried, putting up his fists in the scientific way we had learnt from long practice on board with the gloves under our gymnasium instructor, "Oi'll knock ye into the middle of nixt Soonday wake, ef ye don't kape a civil toongue in yer hid an'

put yer owld dhrumsticks behint ye!"

Instead of acting on Mick's advice, however, the mulatto, screaming with rage, and his whole face distorted with pa.s.sion, made a wild rush at him, trying to b.u.t.t him in the stomach.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

"REEF TOPSAILS!"

"A ring! A ring! Form a ring, all you Actives!" shouted out Mr Jones the signalman, who had come ash.o.r.e with us, wishing to see the battle between our representative and the darkey conducted in regular shipshape fashion, in accordance with the rules observed in polite pugilistic circles at home. "Form a ring, my lads, and let 'em fight it out fair.

If any of them blooming n.i.g.g.e.rs tries to h'interfere, boys, you jest fetch 'em a crack on the shins with yer dancing pumps; it's no good trying to hit 'em on their n.o.bs, as they're made of the same stuff of the cocoa-nuts, and you might hit at 'em till doomsday without ever their feelin' on it, jist the same as if ye were hammerin' at the watertight bulkhead forrud!"

No sooner said than done.

With the help of the other bluejackets who had come ash.o.r.e with us in the second cutter, the ring which the signalman suggested was at once formed, our chaps artfully manoeuvring so as to shut out all the black and coloured gentry who instantly flocked to the scene of action, the news of the fight having got abroad in some mysterious way or other.

Before this had been done, however, Mick Donovan received and repulsed the mulatto's first onslaught in a highly satisfactory manner for our side.

Lifting his left knee suddenly as the infuriated beggar rushed in upon him in catapult fashion, with his body doubled and his head bent low, Mick at the same time, with all the force of his good right arm, struck downwards at the darkey's exposed ear, which was about the size of a small plate, catching him thus between his knee and fist like a piece of iron a blacksmith might be at work on at the forge beaten flat between hammer and anvil.

Result--down dropped the mulatto as if he were a felled ox!

"Hooray!" yelled out all the Actives; while there was a groan and a rush from the surrounding compatriots of Mick's opponent to pick up their champion. "Give the bloomin' n.i.g.g.e.r fits, me boy! You've pretty nearly done for him already."

But, the mulatto was not by any means settled yet.