"There"s a row-boat coming up astern, sir," ventured the boy--"rowing like mad."
"I have ears, sir, and I"m usin em," snapped the other, and stumped forward, leaning heavily on a stick, thick and surly as himself.
They were the first words he had spoken to the lad, this block-of-granite little man, across whose knees his father had died at St. Vincent; and the boy did not find them encouraging.
"Send im victoriush, Appee and gloriush, Long to reign o er--i--ush, Goshave----
"Uncle George!" bawled a bibulous voice. "Row, ye devil, row!--or I"ll split y"up, and chuck y"overboard."
A boat pelted up under the counter of the sloop. The singer rose suddenly, clutched at a man-rope, and came swinging up the side.
The light of the binnacle-lamp fell upon him.
He was a tall fellow, with bushy black whiskers, a long tallowy nose that in some old-time battle had been broken, and eyes with a wild wet gleam in them. Now he sheered up against the bulwark, waving riotously.
"Three cheers for the lirrel _Tremendous_! Ooray! ray! ray!--We"re alf our ship"s company short. There"s only old Ding-dong left on the quar"er-deck. I"m drunk as David"s sow. And we"re off to cur out the Grand Armee. Ooray! ray! ray!" and he fell hiccoughing away into foolish laughter.
"Hadn"t you better go below?" said a pure treble at his side. "You"re beastly drunk."
The man pulled himself together, and stared through the gloom.
"Lumme!" he whispered. "A tottie!--a tottie for Lushy!... Lemme cuddle ye, darlin, _do_."
"I"m a midshipman," said the boy briefly. "Shut up; and behave yourself."
The man tried to stand up, and swept off his hat.
"Ow de do, sir? Ow de do? By all means ow de do? Lemme introjuice you all round. I"m Mr. Lanyon, commonly called Lushy, because? one? me failins: Gunner aboard this packet by rights, and Actin Fust Lieutenant by the grace o G.o.d--there bein no one else to act, see? This ere," he continued, smacking the bulwark, "is His--Majesty"s--ship--_Tremendous_, well known and respected between the Lizard and the Nore. Not lookin her sauciest just now, I grant you: shrouds tore to tatters, mizzen spliced, bowsprit splintered, plugged fore and aft, and alf her weather bulwark carried away. But that"s _ex tempore_, as the sayin is. We only put in at dawn to refit, and land wounded."
"Where"s she been?" asked the boy.
"Been!" cried the other with rollicking laughter. "That"s a good un.
Ere"s a kid ain"t eard where we been. Been!" the sudden thunder in his voice. "Why, in Boulong Arbour among Boney"s craft. H"in and h"out, under Nap"s nose. Stormed the Arbour Battery; set the gun-vessels afire; and came out under their guns, colours at the truck, and the bosun"s boy in the mizzenchains singin--
O it"s a snug little island, A right little tight little island."
He clutched the boy"s shoulder, and thrust flaming eyes into his.
"Old man"s got a game leg since Camperdown. Fust Lieutenant led the landin party--Mr. Wrot. Dessay you"ve heard tell of him. Dry Wrot, they called him. Tubby little bloke, all belly and big voice. Fine chap to fight, though, be G.o.d--only so thirsty, same as me. He took it in the tummy, crawlin through the embrasure--hand-grenade, I fancies.
I was next man on the ladder." He was marching up and down, his hands swinging, seeming to smoulder almost in the gloom.
"Pretty work in the battery, be G.o.d, as ever I see!--One time we was bungin round-shot at each other across the cas.e.m.e.nt, like marbles.
Give the Mossoos their due they fought like eroes; but not like h"us, sir! not like h"us!"
He strode up and down, breathing flame.
"Ah, you should ha seen us. I were in me glory. A b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.sacree, that"s what it were. b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.sacree. Enough to make a blessed saint weep for joy. Pommesoul it were."
He turned in his stride, and the lamp showed the tears dribbling down his face.
"And when we"d mushed up the blanky caboodlum: spiked the guns; sent the gunners to glory; and blow"d up the battery, who led the boys out?"
He stopped dead.
"Old Lush!--Lushy, the Gunner, Gorblessim!" swelling his chest, and patting it. "And why?--because there wasn"t a quarter-deck officer, not so much as a middy or mate, left to do it."
He resumed his strut with fighting hands.
"That"s our sort aboard the _Tremendous_, sir. We"re the halleloojah lads to fight. And what we are, old Ding-dong made us."
"Who"s old Ding-dong?" asked the boy, breathlessly.
The Gunner shot a finger at the block-of-granite figure forward.
"That"s the man as won the battle o the Nile," he whispered with husky magnificence. "And ere"s the man that elped him."
He bowed with wide hands. Drunk as he was there was yet a dilapidated splendour about the fellow as about an historic ruin. The boy felt it through his disgust.
"I thought Nelson did a bit," he said.
"Nelson did much; I did more; _e_ did most," with a wave forward.
"Why!" shouting now. "Who was it led the line inside the shoal--creepin it, leadsman in the chains, soundin all the way?--We _Thunderers_, the _Goliath_ treadin mighty jealous on our heels. And who commanded the _Thunderer_?--Old Ding-dong. And what did he get for it?"
He smacked a hand down on the boy"s shoulder.
"Broke him, sir!--broke him back to a sloop o war!--old Ding-dong, the damdest, darndest, don"t-care-a-cursest old sea-dog as ever set his teeth in a French line o battle ship, and wouldn"t let go, though they fired double-shotted broadsides down his throat."
"But why did they break him?" gasped the boy. "It doesn"t sound like Nelson."
The other smacked his long nose with a finger mysteriously.
"I don"t know what you mean," said the boy, short and sharp.
"Ah, and just as well you don"t," replied the other loftily. "Some day, Sonny, you"ll know all there is to know and a leetle bit more--same as me. Plenty time first though. If you"ve done suckin it"s more"n you look."
He began to march again.
"Yes, sir: he"d ha hoisted his broad pendant afore this, would old Ding-dong, pit-boy and powder-monkey and all, only for that. And as I"d ha gone h"up with him as he went h"up, so I goes down with him when he goes down. I know"d old Ding-dong. He was the man for me. Talk o fightin!--d.i.c.ky Keats, Ned Berry, the Honourayble Blackwood: good men all and gluttons at it!--but for the real old style stuff, ammer-and-tongs, fight to a finish, takin punishment and givin it, there ain"t a seaman afloat as"ll touch our old man."
He spat over the side.
"Yes, sir, when he went, I went along, and never regretted it--never. We"ve seen more sport aboard this blame little packet than the rest of the Fleet together. Clear"d the Channel, be G.o.d, we ave!--prowlin up and down, snow and blow, fog and shine, like a rampin champin lion. Why, sir, we"ve fought a first-rate from Portland Bill to Dead Man"s Bay--this blame little boat you could sail in a babby"s bath! _Took her too!_ and towed her into Falmouth Roads, all standin, like a kid leadin its mother by the and. Talk o Cochrane and the _Speedy_!--Gor blime!--what"s he alongside us?"
He steadied suddenly.
"Ush! ere comes the old man."
The boy could hear the stump of a stick on the deck.