Young Tom Bowling Part 28

He had a sharp eye, had father, and had caught Mick winking at me.

So, there being now no longer any need, or indeed chance, of concealment, especially with Jenny's eyes fixed on him, Mick thought it best to make a clean breast of it at once.

"Coom down out o' thet, ye divvle. 'Tenshin, Jocko!" cried he, patting his shoulder, to which his friend the monkey at once jumped from the tree; and then, turning to my sister, he said, with a roguish look in his black eyes, "Oi've brought ye a little prisint, Miss Jenny, ez Oi hopes ez how ye'll be afther acceptin'."

Jenny smiled.

"What," said she--"a monkey?"

"No, Miss Jenny," replied Mick, grinning, while Jocko chattered in sympathetic glee. "He ain't a monkey at all, at all. Sure, he's what I calls a Saint Michael's canary!"

This was a settler for all of them; father leaning back in his chair and holding his sides, while mother and Jenny enjoyed the joke as much as we could both wish, 'Ally Sloper' adding to the merriment of us all by shrieking out at intervals alternately, "Say-rah! Say-rah!" and "Blest if I don't have a smoke!" in father's very own voice.

On returning to the _Active_ after our leave was up, Mick and I were sent to the guardship, or depot, having to leave our old ship through getting our new rating as ordinary seamen, we having been drafted to her as 'boys'; for, being no longer held to be such, we, of course, had no 'local habitation or name,' according to the saying, on board her.

We did not have much of a stay at home, however, all the same, Mick getting appointed within the next fortnight to the flagship on the Cape station, when he and I parted for the first time since we became chums, more than two years previously, on our joining the _Saint Vincent_ together.

A sailor's life, though, is made up of partings, not only with one another, but with the old folks at home as well, and sometimes with certain persons even dearer than these; so, wringing my hand in his hearty grip and leaving a tender farewell for Jenny, whom he was unable to see before going away, she being on a visit to a cousin of ours who lived at Chichester, Mick and I said good-bye to one another. Really, I envied his luck of getting the chance of seeing active service so soon!

I did not have to envy him long; for, a week later, I was turned over to the _Mermaid_, a new second-cla.s.s cruiser just commissioned to join the eastern division of the Mediterranean Fleet, to take the place for the time of one of the smaller ships belonging to the squadron, under refit at Malta, our orders being then to proceed to the Red Sea, where it was expected that Osman Digna would be making matters warm in and about Suakin later on in the year.

Some three days subsequently to my going on board her, with a complete new rig-out, bag, baggage, and all, the _Mermaid_ sailed for the Straits; if sailing it can be called in a ship going by steam alone, and which had not a royal-yard to cross, or any other spars to speak of aloft for that matter, the cruiser being rigged to carry fore-and-aft sail in case of emergency should her engines break down.

It might be thought from this that my early training in a sailing-ship was thrown away, there being no longer any necessity for me to display my activity in racing up the rigging and running out on a yard to reef topsails.

The contrary, however, was the case; and I've found, even during my short experience afloat--ay, and in spite of the ridiculous a.s.sertions of some sh.o.r.e folk, who know about as much of life in the navy as they do to club-haul a ship off a lee sh.o.r.e--that the men who have learnt to hold on by the skin of their teeth in a heavy gale, from the apt.i.tude they have gained in the old-fashioned cla.s.s of ships, are the handiest and the readiest at a pinch in the new!

Of course, though, I only found out this afterwards; as on first joining the _Mermaid_ the ship was as strange to me as I, sore at parting with Mick, felt myself a complete stranger to all on board.

So I thought, at least.

But I was mistaken.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

"Hullo!" exclaimed a voice that seemed very familiar to me, on my getting down to the mess-deck below with my bag, when I had got my number, and been told off to my watch and division. "Who'd ha' thought o' meeting yer here?"

The speaker was a broad-shouldered chap, with a lot of hair all over his face, and I did not recognise him for the moment.

"You've got the advantage of me, mate," said I civilly, not wishing to hurt his feelings if he had made a mistake in addressing me, as I believed he had. "I can't place you."

"Lor', carn't yer?" replied the chap, with a broad grin stealing over his face. "I fancies, Tom Bowlin', I hed th' adwantage on yer onst, an'

placed yer too, that time I cut yer down in yer hammick aboard the _Saint Vincent_, hey, old ship?"

It was Larrikins.

Needless to say how glad I was to meet him again, or what yarns we had to tell each other of what had happened to us respectively since last we met.

He was the same frolicsome, good-tempered chap that he had been on board the training-ship, I found, after a very few minutes' talk; but his love of practical-joking had been sobered down a bit within due bounds, and, on the whole, he was very much improved in every way.

"I s'pose ye've never bin aboard a hooker like this afore," he said to me presently, after we had made an end of exchanging reminiscences, noticing that I was all at loggerheads in finding my way below. "It's them bloomin' watertight compartments as does it; but come along o' me, Tom, and I'll show yez the ropes."

So saying, he took me over the ship, pointing out how the _Mermaid_ had a steel-protected deck running fore and aft, that sheltered her engines and boilers beneath; the s.p.a.ce in beneath this and the bottom of the vessel being subdivided by a series of vertical iron bulkheads, completely shutting off the various 'flats,' or lower decks, from each other.

An arrangement so complex naturally necessitated a fellow having to climb up one hatchway and go down another before he could speak to his chum in the next flat, thus causing one to go through 'sich a getting upstairs' like that mentioned in the celebrated negro ballad. The difference of the deck plan of a modern cruiser, as compared with that of my old ship the _Active_, was not the only thing I had to learn on being drafted to the _Mermaid_; for the drills were quite as strange to me at first as her complicated build inboard.

The stokers, of course, had to see to driving her through the water, that being their special duty, under the superintendence of the engineers; so, as this job was taken out of the hands of us bluejackets, and there was nothing for us to do in the way of setting and taking in sail, the executive officers managed to find other work for us to keep our minds from mischief when we were aboard.

One of these tasks was 'collision mat' drill; when we would be tumbled up on deck to rig out a roll of oak.u.m that was plaited into the semblance of a gigantic doormat, right over the side, dragging it by means of guys and springs under our forefoot, to fill up some imaginary hole that had been knocked into us by too friendly a craft pa.s.sing by and running athwart our hawse!

Another favourite drill in vogue with the johnnies of our new regime was that of 'closing watertight doors.'

The signal for this being about to be carried out was the blowing of a particularly excruciating sort of foghorn at some unexpected hour of the day or night--it used to be in every watch on the _Mermaid_; and at the sound of this melodious instrument, which was most likely selected by the authorities in recollection of the story of Joshua and his trumpet, the 'walls,' or, rather, bulkheads, of the ship did not 'come down,' but were run up!

By this means every compartment throughout the ship was isolated and all communication cut off between the various flats.

The officers were shut into their wardroom; the engineers and stokers in their own special domain; and the men forward, perhaps, on their mess- deck; until the officer of the watch had made the rounds and those in charge of the respective watertight doors had affirmed the fact, from personal supervision, that all these were closed, when, this gratifying intelligence was communicated to the captain, and he gave the order to open them again.

In addition to these exercises, there was the old 'fire quarters' drill, to which I was accustomed; and 'man and arm ship,' when all of us hurried to our stations on the main-deck batteries--those who formed part, that is, of the crews of the several guns of different types we had aboard; while the rest of us lined the sides of the upper deck, prepared to pepper away with our rifles at any approaching foe, and repel, with our sword-bayonets at the 'charge,' all possible boarders.

We had about a week's cruising in the Channel, to knock us into shape as well as test our machinery, the _Mermaid_ being a new vessel and not long delivered over from the contractors; but, Captain Hankey being a smart officer, besides being ably seconded by his subordinates, this was so satisfactorily achieved, as regards both ship and men, that ere we reached old Gib, whose couching lion-head facing out to sea reminded me strongly of the more familiar Bill of Portland, any one inspecting us would really have thought the _Mermaid_ an old stager and that our raw company had been working together for months, instead of only a week or two!

'Old Hankey Pankey,' though, as he was called on the lower deck--sailors having always a nickname for their officers, whether they like them or dislike them--possessed the rare art of managing those under his command to such a degree that he would have turned out a likely enough crew from much worse material; while he 'got to win'ard' of the engineers so cleverly that they never grumbled at any orders he gave--unlike those gentry in general--thus enabling us to pile on steam and make the pa.s.sage out from England in far less time than we expected, there being no complaints from the stokehold of 'leaking tubes' and 'priming'

boilers necessitating our having to 'slow down.'

After pa.s.sing through the Gut of Gibraltar, we made for Malta; which place seems to have such a magnetic attraction for our men-of-war, both homeward and outward bound, that none by any chance ever gives it the go-by, there being always some little defect to 'make good,' or despatches to wait for, or letters to post, or something that obliges them to cast anchor in Valetta harbour, if they are only allowed to remain an hour or two!

We fortunately stopped here for three days; and, though the men generally were not given leave ash.o.r.e, Larrikins and I, being both in the first cutter, we had the chance of landing more than once.

We had a bit of fun, too, on one of these occasions when going up the Nix Mangiare stairs, leading up from the place where the men-of-war boats put in to the town above.

These stairs are so named, it may be explained for the benefit of those who have not been there, from being the haunt of a number of beggars who frequent the steep ascent, demanding alms of all bluejackets and others that may chance to pa.s.s up or down, their whining plea being that they have nothing to eat-- "Nix mangiare, buono Johnny, nix mangiare!"

We had already been accosted by three or four of these chaps, to each of whom we had given a trifle, moved by their poverty-stricken appearance and Maltese whine; when, on reaching the top of the steps, an old fellow, who from his venerable look seemed above that sort of thing, repeated a like request to his compeers lower down the stairs, holding out the palm of a lean clawlike hand resembling one of Jocko's paws.

"No, no, that won't wash," said Larrikins, in a chaffy way, catching hold of a fine-looking malacca cane the old fellow was leaning on, and which seemed more fit for a grand seignior than a beggar. "None of your bono johnnies with me, you old reprobate. Yer oughter be ashamed on yerself, yer ought, axing fur charity from poor sailors like we--you with this fine walkin'-stick here, good enough for 'old Hankey Pankey'

hisself!"

With that, Larrikins, wrenching the malacca from the unwilling hands of the old fellow, gave it a shake in the air as if he were going to apply it to the shoulders of its owner.

"By jingo," I cried out, "there's something c.h.i.n.king in it that sounds like money, Larry!"

"Lor', it is money, Tom," exclaimed Larrikins, at once giving the stick a good bash against the side of the wall. "The thunderin' old cheat of a Maltese scoundrel is a regular take-in, askin' on us fur to help him and he a-rollin' in gold all the time, the blessed old miser!"