"Well done, my lad; I see you have been on board a ship before!" cried out the instructor, as I at once proceeded now to climb up to the crosstrees and over the head of the mast. "Look alive, you other chaps!
That boy there will have done the job while you are thinking about it.
Stir your stumps!"
"Ugly" was the last of the lot; and, as I came down on the weather or starboard side of the ship, the wind then blowing from the nor"ard and eastward, he was just trying to creep through "the lubber"s hole" into the top.
"No you don"t," shouted up the instructor after him. "You must climb out by the futtock shrouds, as every proper sailor does."
Seeing, however, that poor "Ugly" was quite in a fog, he turned to me as I stepped down from the chains and stood up in front of him, touching my cap to report myself as having accomplished my task.
"I say, my boy," said he, "what"s your name?"
Of course I had to reply to this, and so I told him--
"Tom Bowling, sir."
"Ha!" he exclaimed, apparently surprised. "Any relation of that chap in the song who "went aloft and did his duty"?"
I grinned.
"Yes, sir, I believe so," I said. "Father says as how our family is descended from him."
"I can quite believe it," observed the instructor kindly, with a pleasant smile on his face. "At all events, a sailor"s blood runs in your veins, my lad; and, as you"re such a good climber and know your way up the ratlines, just go up now and show that lubber of a greenhorn how to get up the futtock shrouds without tumbling, and so over the masthead."
Accordingly, I raced aloft the second time and soon fetched up to "Ugly," who, in a mortal funk, was trying to step out from the lower rigging on to the futtock shrouds, which, I may explain for the benefit of those who have not been to sea, stretch out laterally from the mast, and not in towards it, like the ordinary standing rigging below.
In spite of his difficulty, however, the surly brute now accepted my help with a very ill grace; muttering under his breath to himself some very unfriendly wishes in my respect, as, with some difficulty, I lugged him up into the top, almost by the scruff of his neck.
The rest of the journey up and down was easy enough; and "Ugly,"
rendered bold by having crossed his goal, the crosstrees, disdaining any further help from me, now started, after he had arrived in the top, again on the return voyage to climb down the shrouds by himself.
But hardly had he got his foot over the side of the top than his courage failed him; and I, looking up, on account of feeling the rigging shake, for I had gone down in advance from his telling me he "didn"t want no help from sich a cove as me," saw that he was trembling like an aspen leaf, while his face was as pale as death.
"Hold on," I cried, "I"ll be up with you in half a minute, and lend you a hand!"
I don"t know whether he heard me or not as I scrambled up hastily towards him; but the next instant, losing his grip of the rope he was hanging on to somehow or other, he fell back on top of me, uttering a wild yell that was almost a scream, and which could have been heard ash.o.r.e at Gosport!
CHAPTER EIGHT.
"THE SWEETS OF FRIENDSHIP."
"How did you manage it, my boy?" panted out the instructor, out of breath by his rapid climb up the rigging to my aid, as I held on desperately to the shrouds, against which I pressed the body of my unconscious shipmate with my own, to prevent him from falling. "Lord!
My lad, I thought you were both gone! Thank G.o.d, you saved him!"
But I could not tell him then, or after, how I contrived to catch "Ugly"
when he let go his hold; and to this very day, though it is pretty nearly six years or more agone, and many things have happened since even stranger, too, I put down the spontaneous act that prompted me to stretch out my hand in the nick of time and grip him by his waistbelt before it was too late, to the interposition of Providence--an intervention, indeed, not only on his behalf, but on my own, as subsequent events proved, though I will speak of this when the proper time comes.
The instructor, even in his hurry aloft to our a.s.sistance, had managed to s.n.a.t.c.h up on the way a coil of half-inch; and with this he now proceeded, breathing heavily the while from his exertions, to secure "Ugly" temporarily to the ratlines until a whip could be rigged for sending down the still insensible fellow to the deck below.
This was a great relief to me, for it was as much as I could do to support his body, although, as I"ve said, I pressed him against the rigging, the chap weighing over ten stone at least, I should think, as he was a thickset yokel and inclined to be corpulent.
It all happened in a moment, though I seem to take so long telling about it; for, almost before the instructor could take a double turn with his half-inch round "Ugly"s" body and the rigging, half-a-dozen seamen, who had been hailed by the officer of the watch, the grey-haired gunner, had footed it up the ratlines and were in the top fixing a whip and purchase, to which one of the hammocks had been attached.
In this impromptu cradle "Ugly" was let down very carefully and taken to the sick-bay, where, as I was afterwards told, Mr Trimmens the sick- berth steward being my informant, it required the application of the galvanic battery to bring him to, the fright he had undergone, and consequent shock to his system, having been so great!
"You saved his life, though, my lad, let me tell you," said the instructor to me, when we had followed the rescued boy down, and were again on the safe footing of the deck. "Why, Tom Bowling, that chap ought to be your friend for life after this."
I could not help shrugging my shoulders, with a grin "on the left side of my mouth," as sailors say; for, of course, I could not very well explain matters anent our recent fight.
The instructor looked at me inquiringly; and, seeing he expected some sort of a reply from me, I said, "He"ll have to change very much, sir.
He and I haven"t been very friendly up to now, sir."
"Ah!" rejoined the instructor, "that don"t count, my boy. The dearest friend I have in the world at the present time was once my bitterest enemy. He and I fell out about some trifle or other on joining the same ship and never spoke a single word to each other throughout the whole commission, though we were up the Straits at the time, and saw some queer rigs there, I can tell you. We"ve often laughed over it together since, and thought what fools we were."
"I don"t think, sir," said I, "that Moses Reeks and I will ever be friends, so far as I can see."
"Well, time will tell," observed my good-natured adviser, who was a man like father, I saw, one always anxious to make the best of everything.
"None of us ever know what will happen in this life, especially with sailor folk; and though you may think it difficult to "make a silk purse out of a sow"s ear," for I can see, my lad, with half an eye that that unfortunate yokel is of a different stamp to you, still I"ve known stranger things occur. I wouldn"t mind betting, if I ever did such a thing, that one day you and he will be the fastest chums."
"Perhaps, sir," I answered, in a very doubting manner; and I couldn"t help adding, as I turned to go below to my dinner, if there should be any left for me, the other fellows having pretty well done by this time, "Some day, as father says, pigs may fly, sir!"
The instructor laughed.
"Your father, Tom Bowling," said he, giving me a friendly pat on the shoulder as I went down the after-hatchway, "must be a knowing hand; and I think, my lad, you take after him."
It being "pea doo and bolliky" day, my fast friend Mick, who, from his highly developed instincts in the grub line, had been elected cook of our mess on the lower deck, had saved me a good basin of soup and hunch of bread, with which I managed to a.s.suage the cravings of my appet.i.te, this having been accentuated not only by my long wait but by my exercise aloft.
"Begorrah, Tom," said he, as he watched me tucking into the stuff with great complacency, while the rest of the fellows were cleaning up the mess-table and generally making things snug, "it"s as good as aitin"
onesilf fur to say how ye git outside that pay-soup. An ould play- acting chap I onst sayd a-swallerin" knoives an" sich loike onnatural stuff, worn"t a patch on ye, me hearty!"
I had, however, to make short work of my meal, for the "a.s.sembly" just then sounded; and, after our usual parade again on deck, according to the routine, a part of our division went ash.o.r.e to a large field between Blockhouse Fort and Haslar on the Gosport side of the water, belonging to the _Saint Vincent_, and which is used for drilling the boys in marching and small-arm instruction.
Some of the remainder of us were put to signalling on the upper deck, carrying on highly interesting dialogues with small flags that were waved to and fro between the bows and stern of the ship; but the major part of the division--I, much to my delight, being one of the number-- practised all the afternoon at boat-pulling. In this my experience with father"s wherry during the last three or four years stood me in good stead; though I had some little difficulty at first in mastering the usual man-o"-war stroke with the long ash oars in the heavy launch which we pulled, the boat being double-banked.
The next day was the most exciting I had pa.s.sed since I had been on board the ship, now over a week.
To begin with, it was "pay-day," the whole ship"s company marching up to the paymaster in turn at the temporary office he had rigged up _al fresco_, as Mick"s "Oitalian" friends would say, on the upper deck, and receiving each his weekly pay; the boys being allowed, those of the first-cla.s.s a shilling, and those of the second sixpence, for pocket- money, the balance being saved up to their account or else forwarded to their parents.
Much amus.e.m.e.nt was caused amongst us as we received the respective coins to which we were ent.i.tled, each holding out his cap for them; for a sailor, you know, puts everything in his cap. Pocketing our coin as we went below, Mick created the greatest fun of all as he spit on his and spun it in the air. "Hooray!" he cried out, against the regulations, though, fortunately for himself, not too loud, as he skated down the hatchway. "Begorrah, it"s the foorst money Oi iver arnt in me loif!
Faith, Tom mabouchal, we"ll spind it togither an" hev a rig"ler jollification ash.o.r.e!"
The bugle sounded "cooks to their messes" as Mick was saying this; and so off he hurried to the galley on the fore part of the middle deck when we had got down the hatchway, I following after him.
On pa.s.sing the entry-port, however, my old friend the master-at-arms hailed me.
"Hi, Tom Bowling!" he called out, beckoning me into the office; "I hope you haven"t been getting into any row?"
"Not that I know of, sir," said I, flabbergasted by his question. "Why, sir?"