A LITTLE SURPRISE.

"I suppose," said I, after we had cast anchor, to Larkyns, who had kindly noticed me the first day I came aboard and had been very friendly with me since, patronising me in the way the elder boys of the sixth form sometimes do the younger fellows at school, "we'll sail to-morrow, eh?"

"Sail to-morrow? Your grandmother!" he answered with his usual grin. I believe that chap would have grinned if you had told him his father was dead, for he looked on everything from a humorous point of view and could not help laughing even when the captain spoke to him, which often got him in for an extra mast-heading. "Why, we haven't got in our lower deck guns yet, b.o.o.by, let alone our powder and ammunition; besides all sorts of stores we could not ship in harbour!"

"Oh!" I exclaimed, somewhat crestfallen at his "snub", "I didn't think of that."

"I suppose not," replied he, mimicking me, "but you have a good deal to learn yet, let me tell you. Hullo, though, Master Squaretoes, what do you mean by coming on the quarter-deck with nails in your boots? You'll have the first lieutenant after you, my joker, if he notices it, and there'll be the d.i.c.kens to pay, I can tell you!"

"What do you mean?" I retorted indignantly. "I have not got any nails in my boots at all."

"Haven't you, young shaver?" said he, grinning again and looking down with mock pity at the pumps I wore, which were guiltless of even the smallest tack, being all sewn, as I held up the soles for his inspection. "Then, all I can say is I'm sorry for you! I really didn't think you were deformed--and such a young and promising chap, too!"

I got alarmed at this.

"Deformed!" I repeated. "What do you mean?"

"Why, if you haven't any nails in your boots, or shoes--it doesn't matter which, but we'll say boots for argument's sake," said my tormentor quizzingly--"it follows, naturally and logically, that you have none on your toes! In which case, my poor young friend, you must be suffering from a malformation of the feet; or, in other words, you are deformed, according to Euclid, _quid demonstrandum est_, twiggy vous?"

"Oh, yes, I see," said I, feeling rather nettled, I confess, at his thus taking a rise out of me. "You think that funny, I suppose; but, I call it both silly and vulgar!"

"'Silly!' 'vulgar!' You very small fragment of impudence," rejoined Larkyns, highly delighted at being thus successful in "pulling my leg"

and making me angry, "I'll have you keel-hauled for speaking so disrespectfully to your superior officer, sir. Beg my pardon instantly, or--"

What he would have done, however, in case of my non-compliance with his imperative request remains a mystery to the present day; for, as at that moment, the commander, who had been surveying the maintop from the p.o.o.p-rail above us, hearing my funny gentleman's voice, which he had raised in speaking to me, called out to him--

"Below there," he cried--"Mr Larkyns!"

"Yes, sir," answered my "superior officer" humbly enough, touching his cap and looking up at Commander Nesbitt. "Want me, sir?"

"Yes," said the other, "There's something wrong with the bunt of that tops'l, I think. It does not appear to me quite ship-shape somehow or other, Mr Larkyns. Go up to the maintop and see what's the matter with it at once."

"Ay, ay, sir," replied my tormentor, springing nimbly into the rigging and shinning up the ratlines almost as soon as the words were out of the commander's mouth, "I'll see, sir."

I looked up at the moment, and, catching Commander Nesbitt's eye I'm sure he gave a sort of sly wink, the which impressed on my mind the conviction that he must have overheard our conversation and, wishing to give Master Larkyns some employment for his spare time, had sent him aloft on a wild-goose chase.

The topsail was stowed snugly enough, so, my friend the middy's missive was set-off to his chaff at my expense.

This conviction was confirmed when the commander immediately afterwards ordered me to go forwards and tell the boatswain to get the fish tackle clear for hoisting in the lower deck guns as soon as they came alongside next morning in the dockyard lighters.

The old _Candahar_, you must know, although she was described in the "Navy List" of that day as a "two-decker," had really four decks--the upper deck, main deck, lower deck and orlop deck.

The distinction of the designation lay in the fact that she carried guns on two decks besides her upper one, the armament of which, as well as that of her main deck had been got on board easily enough when she was in harbour; but, as she was then lashed alongside the hulk and the lower tier of guns had to be taken in through the ports, this operation could not be very well managed until her broadside was clear of the hull of the other ship, so that the cannon could be lifted out of the lighters and swung inboard, without any intervening obstacle blocking the way and possibly fouling the hoisting tackle and steadying gear, which was not the case until we reached Spithead.

Even then, it was no trifling task swaying the heavy guns out of the holds of the two lighters that brought them out to us early in the morning from the gun-wharf, one of these craft coming under our mainyard on either side; for, the guns were long thirty-two pounders, weighing fifty-six hundredweight, or nearly three tons apiece, and, even after they were hoisted up in mid air from the lighters they had then to be hauled through one of the midship ports, mounted on their carriages and run along the lower deck to their proper position, when the breechings and side tackle had to be fitted before the job was completed.

It was accomplished in good time, however, much to our commander's satisfaction; and, by the aid of the fish davit with its tackle and another purchase, it did not take more than a couple of hours to ship the whole thirty of these guns that comprised our lower deck armament.

What formidable weapons I thought them! But, they were only babies to the big rifled breechloaders now in vogue; albeit they did tidy enough work in the destructive line in their day, as the annals of our navy can tell, and other nations have experienced to their cost both on land and sea!

"Pretty little barkers, ain't they?" observed Mr Triggs, the gunner, noticing me looking at these "long thirty-twos," as they were styled, and wondering at the light and airy fashion in which the men handled them, tossing them about like shuttlec.o.c.ks, so it seemed to me. "They can do more than bark; though, they can bite too, I tell ye!"

"Oh, yes, I quite believe that, Mr Triggs," said I, taking advantage of the opportunity of giving a "snop" to Larkyns, who was also standing by and, of course, grinning as usual. "Not all smoke and noise, like some fellows' talk."

"No, that they ain't, except, in course, when saluting," replied the gunner, who was a plain matter-of-fact man and did not see the drift of my observation. "But, with a ten-pound charge, now, they'd make a pretty fair hole in a six-inch plank, I tell ye."

"How many of them, Mr Triggs," I asked, "have we got on board?"

"Of these long 'uns?" he said, patting one affectionately on the breech as he spoke. "Well, we've jist fifteen here a-port and fifteen a-starboard, which makes thirty in all on this deck. A power o' metal, I tell ye!"

"Oh, I know that," said I. "But I mean how many of the same sort."

"There ain't any more of the same sort, I tell ye, but what you sees,"

rejoined the gunner a bit crossly. "The guns as is on the main deck and upper deck are all short thirty-two's; and, they're thirty too, o' them on the main, and twenty-two on the upper deck. They all of 'em carries the same weight of shot, though not such heavy guns as these, being only forty-five hundredweight each."

"There, young Vernon, you can put that in your pipe and smoke it!"

chimed in Larkyns, at this juncture, making a face behind the gunner's back, which, had he seen it, might have altered the opinion that worthy presently expressed of the speaker. "That's 'the long and the short of it,' as Mr Triggs has so eloquently explained!"

"Thank you, Mr Larkyns, for the compliment," said the gunner, taking the remark as a tribute to his conversational ability. "I allers tries to explain myself as well as I can. Is there anything more you'd like to know, Master Vernon? I'm allers pleased to instruct any of you young gentlemen when you asks civilly!"

"You spoke just now of a ten-pound charge," I answered. "I suppose you mean of powder without the shot?"

"That's not _charged_," put in Larkyns, grinning. "The shot is given in 'free, gratis, for nothing,' as Paddy said."

"Yes, Master Vernon," replied the gunner, taking no notice this time of Larkyns or his interpolation. "These here guns take a full charge of ten pounds of powder for long range, and redooced charges of six and eight pounds; whilst the charges of them on the main and upper deck are either six or eight pounds, as the case might be, according to the service required."

"It must take an awful lot of powder for all the eighty-four guns, besides the shot and sh.e.l.l!"

"You can bet on that," replied Mr Triggs, moving towards the side and looking through the port in the direction of the harbour. "We carries about a hundred rounds of each charge for every gun; or, something like ninety tons for our whole armament. That's what it takes."

"Ninety tons of gunpowder!" I exclaimed in astonishment. "Do you mean that we've got to take such a quant.i.ty as that on board?"

"Of course I do; I always says what I means and means what I says,"

rejoined Mr Triggs, somewhat snappishly again, as if tired of the long string of puzzling questions with which I was now bothering him, like I used to do my dear old Dad. "By Jingo! I'm blessed if there it ain't a-coming off now, I tell ye!"

"Coming off," I repeated. "Where?"

"There, b.o.o.by," said Larkyns, slewing me round and shoving my head right out of the port.

"Can't you see the powder hoy, there to your right, pa.s.sing Blockhouse Fort, at the mouth of the harbour?"

"That one flying the red flag, eh?"

"Yes, my dear Squaretoes; but we don't call a burgee a flag aboard ships."

"I wish you would not call me Squaretoes, Larkyns," said I, peevishly, for he hurt me, squeezing my neck in his tight grip, holding me out of the port as if I were a kitten, so that I could not turn my head round.

"I hate nicknames. Do leave me alone, please!"