In an instant, an old yarn of father's came back to my mind, one wherein he used to tell of having once been run down by a steamer when out trawling and having had to pa.s.s the night within the Spit Buoy.

Why, I must be close on it now!

Yes, that was the sound of the bell hung from within the cage-like framework surrounding the buoy, which is moored on the edge of the shoal skirting the fairway leading into Portsmouth Harbour.

The broken water was rocking it to and fro; and, with every lurch the buoy made, this bell gave out a doleful knell as if ringing away the pa.s.sing soul of some dead sailor gone to his last account.

Perchance it was tolling for 'Gyp' and me!

This thought flashed through me for a second; but the next second I dismissed it as a craven fear, my courage returning to me.

I set my teeth, determined to fight it out to the end, when, if need be, I should die bravely.

"Hurrah, 'Gyp,' whilst there's life there's hope!" I shouted, as much to encourage the poor dog as myself, turning on my side and cuddling him well up on my chest with my right arm to keep his head out of the water, while I struck out with all my strength with my left towards the buoy, now within a stone's throw, the tide gradually sweeping us near it in spite of the wind and sea. "There's no reason why the Spit Buoy shouldn't rescue us, the same as it did father!"

I believe 'Gyp' understood what I said, for I declare I felt his little stump tail wag against my arm, and he licked my cheek that was nearest, being otherwise too exhausted to give expression to his emotion by bark or whine.

We did it too.

After a stiff swim, though but such a short distance, I clutched hold of a becket attached to the side of the buoy; and then, drawing myself up out of the water, I landed 'Gyp' inside our refuge, climbing in after him myself.

The lifeboat from the _Martin_, which was manned by four stout seamen, the commander himself coming in her as c.o.xswain, meanwhile was making for us, the course of the cutter being directed by signals from the brig, where the signalman on duty had probably kept his gla.s.s on me from the moment I jumped overboard and rose to the surface; and, presently, after a long pull and a hard one too, the boat came up to the buoy and took us off.

'By the Lord Harry!' as father used to exclaim sometimes when he was excited, you should have only heard the cheer that greeted us when the cutter got back to the brig, which had now dropped her anchor; the boys and older hands also, who were just on their way down from aloft after furling the sails, manning the rigging, and giving out a wild and hearty 'Hooray' that might have been heard in the dockyard.

The commander complimented me on the quarter-deck, saying that my action was a plucky one to jump overboard as I did, whether to save man or dog; and then ordering the steward to fetch me a stiff gla.s.s of hot brandy- and-water, he told me to go below and turn in to my hammock.

'Gyp,' however, would not leave me; and, as he insisted on joining company with me in my hammock, I made him go shares with the brandy-and- water as well, though I can't say that he took his portion with as much satisfaction.

His master, on coming to hear of the occurrence when he returned from leave, was, I need hardly say, delighted that 'Gyp' had been saved from a watery grave.

He extolled, indeed, my really unpremeditated action in much higher terms than it actually deserved; for, really, I did it, as I have said before, without thinking.

However, be that as it may, the captain, commending me on my good conduct generally since I had been attached to the training-ship under his command, pa.s.sed over in the most honourable way that unfortunate smoking episode of mine, and promised to 'keep his eye on me.'

This, I may add, he did in a much more satisfactory manner than that smart chap, ship's corporal Smithers; but, of this, you will learn anon.

My days in the _Saint Vincent_, you must know, were now drawing to a close.

Nine months of second-cla.s.s boy instruction and four months as a first- cla.s.s boy had pretty well taken me through the ordinary routine of the training-ship; the last two months of my stay on board being mainly devoted to a _resume_ of the various studies const.i.tuting seamanship which I had already gone through, as well as a grand rehearsal of gun practice and rifle drill and of the sword exercise.

In this latter all the boys took the keenest delight, cutting and slashing at one another with a go and gusto worthy of all admiration.

We pointed, guarded, and parried, with a nimbleness and correctness that excited the praise of our instructor; but when we got to what was called 'general practice,' and learnt cuts 'One' and 'Two,' with an extra 'Point,' before our teacher sang out 'Guard!' our enthusiasm knew no bounds, and all of us would fancy ourselves to be bluejackets in action, boarding a pirate or leading a storming-party and killing hecatombs of enemies on the war-path, our weapons mowing them down with every sweep!

Sometimes our sword-play got us into sc.r.a.pes, when two boys matched against each other by the instructor allowed their zeal to overcome their discretion; for, occasionally, they would lose their tempers when over the single-sticks and give one another such spiteful blows that the instructor would have to interfere and separate them by force of arms.

In the majority of cases, however, the scratches we received were more the result of accident than of malice intent; and the little embroilments that happened when sword-play degenerated into horseplay were not, as a rule, worth mentioning.

On one occasion, though, my chum Mick nearly had his nose carved off in an encounter with a comrade, though luckily his opponent did not succeed in spoiling Mick's beauty.

This would have been a pity; for, really, he was a very good-looking chap, and I am sure my sister Jenny, though she wouldn't confess it, would have been sorry if anything had occurred to mar his comely face.

It happened thus. When skylarking together on the upper deck one evening, Mick and another fellow caught up a couple of cutla.s.ses that had been left inadvertently lying about the deck, and they commenced pointing and cutting and slashing at one another with the keen-edged weapons, just as if they had been mere basket-hilted single-sticks, a rap from which would have done no damage beyond a bruise.

They were going it in fine style, when all at once Mick's foot slipped; and, missing his guard as his opponent made a vicious cut 'one' at him, he received this on his chest, the cutla.s.s cutting through his jumper and flannel and making a slight wound across his breastbone.

Had his head not been thrown backwards as he slipped, poor Mick would have had the most striking feature of his merry countenance sliced off as dexterously as if it had been a carrot!

The last seven weeks of my experiences of the old ship, which I had begun to look upon as much my home as the little cottage at Bonfire Corner, were devoted to practice with the big guns that are used in modern ships of war; and these, I may add, are so unlike the old twenty- four and thirty-two and sixty-four pounders that had been used in our early training, that any drill with them would have failed to have been of much a.s.sistance to us in getting the cross-cannon badge on our sleeve.

So, for these seven weeks, all of us first-cla.s.s boys who were near the end of our term had to go to the _Excellent_ every day to go through a course of gunnery; and were sent out to sea in sections in the _Blazer_ or _Handy_, or some other gunboat attached to the gunnery school, so as to gain some sort of preliminary insight into the ways of the big breech-loading guns used in the armour-clads of to-day, as well as being made acquainted with their lesser satellites quick-firing and machine- guns.

We did not leave our old ship altogether yet, though; for we used to take our dinners with us when we went away from her of a morning, returning back to the _Saint Vincent_ of a night to sleep, when we would retail all of our experiences to our comrades who had remained behind.

At last the day came, a day I shall remember all my life, when Mick and I, for we both went away together even as we had joined on the same day, left the _Saint Vincent_ for good and all.

One forenoon, just before 'cooks to their messes' sounded, and prior to our dispersing after the usual a.s.sembly for 'divisions' on the upper deck, the captain ordered Mick and myself, with some half a dozen other first-cla.s.s boys belonging to the starboard watch and a like number from the port, to step out of the ranks; when, telling us we were drafted to the guardship for service with the fleet, he addressed a few kindly words of advice to us as to our future conduct and then dismissed us to our dinner, telling us we were to pack up our gear and leave the ship early in the afternoon.

He sent for me soon after I had disposed of the 'two spuds and a Jonah,'

which composed the meal of the day, and on my going to his cabin he spoke to me very nicely, saying that I might write to him should I ever need help in getting on in the service, and that he would always, as he had previously promised, 'keep an eye on me'!

"Faith," said Mick, on my telling him this, "it'll be moighty onplisint fur ye, Tom, me bhoy; thet gimblet oye ov his sames to go roight thro'

an' thro' me, begorrah, if he ivver onst looks at me sure!"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

I GO TO SEA.

I did not mind Mick's chaff, though. The captain had been a good friend to me while I had been on board, and I parted with him with as much regret as I felt when I said 'good-bye' to 'Gyp.'

Our meal that day was what we called aboard ship a 'stamp and go,' all of us who were drafted being too excited to think much of eating--all of us, that is, excepting Mick!

He, as I have mentioned more than once previously, was a chap who was particularly partial to his grub, this being probably owing to the circ.u.mstance that he had experienced hard fare in his earlier days before he joined the _Saint Vincent_; but I can answer for this, that he endeavoured to the best of his ability, after that period, to make up for any shortcomings he had suffered from before!

"Begorrah, Tom," he answered me very philosophically, when I told him to hurry up, "ther's no knowin' whin, sure, ayther on us'll git another good square male; an', faith, the bo'sun towld me onst no will-app'inted shep ivver goes to say widout havin' her proper regulation stores an'

purvisions aboord!"

This was after I had my interview with the captain, of course; and I only tell it to show what sort of a fellow my chum was.

When we had packed our bags and come up on the middle deck to leave the ship in one of the cutters, which was to land us at the King's Stairs in the dockyard, the master-at-arms, who stood by the entry-port with Mr Brown the ship's corporal, wished us both a cordial farewell.

"Now, keep your hair on straight, Tom Bowling," said the former to me, giving me a good grip of his fist, for he was a very hearty sort of man.

"I have had my eye on you while you have been aboard here; and I quite believe you'll turn out the right sort and work your way up to your warrant, if you only keep straight, long before I am laid on the shelf, my boy!"

"Faith, Tom," whispered Mick to me in an aside that was quite loud enough for the 'Jaunty' to catch his remark, "ivverybody, sure, 's kapin' ther' oye on ye; an' ef all the jokers go on loike thet, ye'll be havin' what ye're moother called t'other day, bedad, a' 'tack ov 'oye- strikes,' if ye don't look out sharp!"