“Botheration!” grumbled one.
“Oh dear!” yawned another.
“How merrily we live that sailors be!” sang a third, in a most doleful strain, and in all the bitterness of heart consequent on being roused out of a warm nest so unceremoniously. But no help for it; so up we all got, and, opening the door of my berth, I got out, and sat me down on the bench that ran along the starboard side of the table.
For the benefit of the uninitiated, let me describe a gunroom on board of a sloop of war. Everybody knows that the captain’s cabin occupies the after part of the ship; next to it, on the same deck, is the gunroom. In a corvette, such as the Firebrand, it is a room, as near as may be, twenty feet long by twelve wide, and lighted by a long scuttle, or skylight, in the deck above. On each side of this room runs a row of small chambers, seven feet long by six feet wide, boarded off from the main saloon, or, in nautical phrase, separated from it by bulkheads, each with a door and small window opening into the same, and, generally speaking, with a small scuttle in the side of the ship towards the sea. These are the officers’ sleeping apartments, in which they have each a chest of drawers and basin-stand; while overhead is suspended a cot, or hammock, kept asunder by a wooden frame, six feet long by about two broad, slung from cleats nailed to the beams above, by two lanyards fastened to rings, one at the head and the other at the foot; from which radiate a number of smaller cords, which are fastened to the canvass of the cot; while a small strip of canvass runs from head to foot on each side, so as to prevent the sleeper from rolling out. The dimensions of the gunroom are, as will be seen, very much circumscribed by the side berths; and when you take into account that the centre is occupied by a long table, running the whole length of the room, flanked by a wooden bench, with a high back to it, on each side, and a large clumsy chair at the head and another at the foot, not forgetting the sideboard at the head of the table (full of knives, forks, spoons, tumblers, glasses, &c. &c. &c. stuck into mahogany sockets), all of which are made fast to the deck by strong cleats and staples, and bands of spunyarn, so as to prevent them fetching away, or moving, when the vessel pitches or rolls, you will understand that there is no great scope to expatiate upon, free of the table, benches, and bulkheads of the cabins. While I sat monopolising the dull light of the lantern, and accoutring myself as decently as the hurry would admit of, I noticed the officers, in their nightgowns and nightcaps, as they extricated themselves from their coops; and picturesque-looking subjects enough there were amongst them, in all conscience. At length—that is, in about ten minutes from the time we were called—we were all at stations, a gun was fired, and we weighed, and then stood out to sea, running along about four knots, with the land-wind right aft. Having made an offing of three miles or so, we outran the terral, and got becalmed in the belt of smooth water between it and the sea-breeze. It was striking to see the three merchant-ships gradually draw out from the land, until we were all clustered together in a bunch, with half a gale of wind curling the blue waves within musket-shot, while all was long swell and smooth water with us. At length the breeze reached us, and we made sail with our convoy to the southward and eastward, the lumbering merchantmen crowding every inch of canvass, while we could hardly keep astern, under close-reefed topsails, foresail, jib, and spanker.
“Pipe to breakfast,” said the captain to Mr Yerk.
“A sail abeam of us to windward!”
“What is she?” sang out the skipper to the man at the masthead who had hailed.
“A small schooner, sir; she has fired a gun, and hoisted an ensign and pennant.”
“How is she steering?”
“She has edged away for us, sir.”
“Very well.—Mr Yerk, make the signal for the convoy to stand on. Have the men gone to breakfast?”
“No, sir, but they are just going.”
“Then pipe belay with breakfast for a minute. All hands make sail, if you please. Crack on, Mr Yerk, and let us overhaul this small swaggerer.”
In a trice we had all sail set, and were staggering along on the larboard tack, close upon a wind. We hauled out from the merchant-ships like smoke, and presently the schooner was seen from the deck. About this time it fell nearly calm. “Go to breakfast now.” The crew disappeared, all to the officers, man at the helm, quartermaster at the conn, and signalman.
The first-lieutenant had the book open on the drum of the capstan before him. “Make our number,” said the captain. It was done. “What does she answer?”
The signalmen answered from the fore-rigging, where he had perched himself with his glass—”She makes the signal to telegraph, sir—3, 9, 2, at the fore, sir”—and so on; which translated was simply this—”The Wave, with despatches from the admiral.”
“Oh, ho,” said Transom; “what is she sent for? Whenever the people have got their breakfast, tack, and stand towards her, Mr Yerk.”
The little vessel approached. “Shorten sail, Mr Yerk, and heave the ship to,” said the captain to the first-lieutenant.
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“All hands, Mr Catwell.”
Presently the boatswain’s whistle rang sharp and clear, while his gruff voice, to which his mates bore anything but mellow burdens, echoed through the ship—”All hands shorten sail—fore and mainsails haul up—haul down the jib—in topgallant sails—now back the main-topsail.”
By heaving-to, we brought the Wave on our weather bow. She was now within a cable’s length of the corvette; the captain was standing on the second foremost gun, on the larboard side.
“Mafame,”—to his steward,—”hand me up my trumpet.” He hailed the little vessel—”Ho, the Wave, ahoy!”
Presently the responding “hillo!” came down the wind to us from the officer in command of her, like an echo.
“Run under our stern and heave-to, to leeward.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
As the Wave came to the wind, she lowered down her boat, and Mr Jigmaree, the boatswain of the dockyard in Jamaica, came on board, and, touching his hat, presented his despatches to the captain. Presently he and the skipper retired into the cabin, and all hands were inspecting the Wave in her new character of one of his Britannic Majesty’s cruisers. When I had last seen her, she was a most beautiful little craft, both in hull and rigging, as ever delighted the eye of a sailor; but the dockyard riggers and carpenters had fairly bedevilled her, at least so far as appearances went. First, they had replaced the light rail on her gunwale by heavy solid bulwarks four feet high, surmounted by hammock-nettings, at least another foot, so that the symmetrical little vessel, that formerly floated on the foam light as a sea-gull, now looked like a clumsy, dish-shaped, Dutch dogger. Her long, slender wands of masts, which used to swing about as if there were neither shrouds nor stays to support them, were now as taut and stiff as church-steeples, with four heavy shrouds of a side, and stays and back-stays, and the devil knows, what all.
“Now,” quoth Tailtackle, “if them heav’emtauts at the yard have not taken the speed out of the little beauty, I am a Dutchman.” Timotheus, I may state in the bygoing, was not a Dutchman; but his opinion was sound, and soon verified to my cost. Jigmaree now approached.
“The captain wants you in the cabin, sir,” said he.
I descended, and found the skipper seated at a table, with his clerk beside him, and several open letters lying before him. “Sit down, Mr Cringle.” I took a chair. “There—read that,” and he threw an open letter across the table to me, which ran as follows:—
“SIR,—The Vice-Admiral, commanding on the Jamaica station, desires me to say, that the bearer, the boatswain of the dockyard, Mr Luke Jigmaree, has instructions to cruise for, and if possible to fall in with you, before you weather Cape Maize, and falling in with you, to deliver up charge of the vessel to you, as well as of the five negroes, and the pilot, Peter Mangrove, who are on board of her. The Wave having been armed and fitted with everything considered necessary, you are to man her with thirty-five of your crew, including officers
, and to place her under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Cringle, who is to be furnished with a copy of this letter authenticated by your signature, and to whom you are to give instructions, that he is, first of all, to cruise in the great Cuba channel, until the 14th proximo, for the prevention of piracy, and the suppression of the slave trade carried on between the island of Cuba and the coast of Africa, and to detain and carry into Havanna, or Nassau, New Providence, all vessels having slaves on board, which he may have reason to believe have been shipped beyond the prescribed limits on the African coast, as specified on the margin; and after the 14th he is to proceed direct to New Providence, if unsuccessful, there to land Mr Jigmaree and the dockyard negroes, and await your return from the northward, after having seen the merchantmen clear of the Caicos passage. When you have rejoined the Wave at Nassau, you are to proceed with her as your tender to Crooked Island, and there to await instructions from the Vice-Admiral, which shall be transmitted by the packet to sail on the 9th proximo, to the care of the postmaster. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
“_____ ____, Sec.
“To the Hon. Captain Transom,
“&c. &c. &c.”
To say sooth, I was by no means amorous of this independent command, as an idea had, at the time I speak of, gone abroad in the navy, that lieutenants commanding small vessels seldom rose higher, unless through extraordinary interest, and I took the liberty of stating my repugnance to my captain.
He smiled, and threw over another letter to me; it was a private one from the Admiral’s Secretary, and was as follows:
(Confidential.)
“MY DEAR TRANSOM,—The Vice-Admiral has got a hint from Sir-, to kick that wild splice, young Cringle, about a bit. It seems he is a nephew of old Blueblazes, and as he has taken a fancy to the lad, he has promised his mother that he will do his utmost to give him opportunities of being knocked on the head, for all of which the old lady has professed herself wonderfully indebted. As the puppy has peculiar notions, hint, directly or indirectly, that he is not to be permanently bolted down to the little Wave, and that if half-a-dozen skippers (you, my darling, among the rest) were to evaporate during the approaching hot months, he may have some small chance of t’other swab. Write me, and mind the claret and curaçoa. Put no address on either; and on coming to anchor, send notice to old Peterkin in the lodge at the Master Attendant’s, and he will relieve you and the pies de gallo,* some calm evening, of all further trouble regarding them. Don’t forget the turtle from Crooked Island, and the cigars.—Always, my dear Transom, yours sincerely,
“——— ———.
“Oh, I forgot. The Admiral begs you will spare him some steady old hands to act as gunner, boatswain, &c.—elderly men, if you please, who will shorten sail before the squall strikes him. If you float him away with a crew of boys, the little scamp will get bothered, or capsized in a jiffy. All this for your worship’s government. How do you live with your passenger—prime fellow, an’t he? My love to him. Lady ——— is dying to see him again.”
“Well, Mr Cringle, what say you?”
“Of course, I must obey, sir;—highly flattered by Mr Secretary’s good opinion, anyhow.” The captain laughed heartily.
“It is nearly calm, I see. We must set about manning this seventy-four for you, without delay. So, come along, Captain Cringle.”
When we got on deck,—”Hail the Wave to close, Mr Yerk—I shall go in the yawl,” said Transom.
“Lower away the boat, and pipe away the yawlers, boatswain’s mate,” quoth Yerk.
Presently the captain and I were on the Wave’s deck, where I was much surprised to find no less personages than Pepperpot Wagtail and Paul Gelid, Esquires. Mr Gelid, a Conch, or native of the Bahamas, was the same yawning, drawling, long-legged Creole as ever. He had been ill with fever, and had asked a passage to Nassau, where his brother was established. At bottom, however, he was an excellent fellow, warm-hearted, honourable, and upright. As for little Wagtail—oh, he was a delight!—a small round man, with all the Jamaica Creole irritability of temper, but also all the Jamaica warmth of heart about him—straightforward, and scrupulously conscientious in his dealings, but devoted to good cheer in every shape. He had also been ailing, and had adventured on the cruise in order to recruit. I scarcely know how to describe his figure better than by comparing his corpus to an egg, with his little feet stuck through the bottom of the shell; but he was amazingly active withal.
Both the captain and myself were rejoiced to see our old friends; and it was immediately fixed that they should go on board the corvette, and sling their cots alongside of Mr Bang, so long as the courses of the two vessels lay together. This being carried into execution, we set about our arrangements. Our precious blockheads at the dockyard had fitted a thirty-two pound carronade on the pivot, and stuck two long sixes, one on each side of the little vessel. I hate carronades. I had, before now, seen thirty-two pound shot thrown by them jump off a ship’s side with a rebound like a football, when a shot from an eighteen-pounder long gun went crash, at the same range, through both sides of the ship, whipping off a leg and arm, or aiblins a head or two, in its transit.
“My dear sir,” said I, “don’t shove me adrift with that old pot there—do lend me one of your long brass eighteen-pounders.”
“Why, Master Cringle, what is your antipathy to carronades?”
“I have no absolute antipathy to them, sir—they are all very well in their way. For instance, I wish you would fit me with two twelve-pound carronades instead of those two popgun long sixes. These, with thirty muskets and thirty-five men or so, would make me very complete.”
“A modest request,” said Captain Transom.
“Now, Tom Cringle, you have overshot your mark, my fine fellow,” thought I; but it was all right, and that forenoon the cutter was hoisted out with the guns in her, and the other dismounted, and sent back in exchange; and in fine, after three days’ hard work, I took the command of H.B.M. schooner Wave, with Timothy Tailtackle as gunner, the senior midshipman as master, one of the carpenter’s crew as carpenter, and a boatswain’s mate as boatswain, a surgeon’s mate as surgeon, the captain’s clerk as purser, and thirty foremast-men, besides the blackies, as the crew. But the sailing of the little beauty had been regularly spoiled. We could still in light winds weather on the corvette, it is true, but then she was a slow top unless it blew half a gale of wind; and as for going anything free, why a sand-barge would have beaten us.
We kept company with the Firebrand until we weathered Cape Maize. It was near five o’clock in the afternoon, the corvette was about half a mile on our lee-bow, when, while walking the deck, after an early dinner, Tailtackle came up to me.
“The commodore has hove-to, sir.”
“Very like,” said I; “to allow the merchant-ships to close, I presume.”
“A gun,” said little Reefpoint. “Ah—what signal now? It was the signal to close.”
“Put the helm up and run down to him,” said I. It was done—and presently the comfortable feeling of bowling along before the breeze succeeded the sharp yerking digging motion of a little vessel, tearing and pitching through a head sea close upon a wind. The water was buzzing under our bows, and we were once more close on the stern of the corvette. There was a boat alongside ready manned. The captain hailed, “I send your orders on board, Mr Cringle, to bear up on your separate cruise.” At the same moment, the Firebrand’s ensign and pennant were hoisted. We did the same. A gun from the commodore—ditto from the tidy little Wave—and, lo! Thomas Cringle, Esquire, launched for the first time on his own bottom.
By this time the boat was alongside, with Messieurs Aaron Bang, Pepperpot Wagtail, and Paul Gelid—the former with his cot, and half-a-dozen cases of wine, and some pigs, and some poultry, all under the charge of his black servant.
“Hillo,” said I; “Mr Wagtail is at home here, you know, Mr Bang, and so is Mr Gelid; but to what lucky chance am I indebted for your society, my dear sir?”
/> “Thank your stars, Tom—Captain Cringle, I beg pardon—and be grateful; I am sick of rumbling tumbling in company with these heavy tools of merchantmen, so I entreated Transom to let me go and take a turn with you, promising to join the Firebrand again at Nassau.”
“Why, I am delighted,”—and so I really was. “But, my dear sir, I may lead you a dance, and, peradventure, into trouble—a small vessel may catch a Tartar, you know.”
“D——n the expense,” rejoined my jovial ally; “why, the hot little epicurean
Wagtail, and Gelid, cold and frozen as he is, have both taken a fancy to me— and no wonder, knowing my pleasant qualities as they do—ahem; so, for their sakes, I volunteer on this piece of knight-errantry as much as—”
“Poo—you be starved, Aaron dear,” rapped out little Wagtail; “you came here, because you thought you should have more fun, and escape the formality of the big ship, and eke the captain’s sour claret.”
“Ah!” said Gelid, “my fine fellow,” with his usual Creole drawl, “You did not wait for my opinion. Ah—oh—why, Captain Cringle, a thousand pardons. Friend Bang, there, swears that he can’t do without you; and all he says about me is neither more nor less than humbug—ah.”
“My lovely yellowsnake,” quoth Aaron, “and my amiable dumpling gentlemen both, now do hold your tongues.—Why, Tom, here we are, never you mind how, after half a quarrel with the skipper—will you take us, or will you send us back, like rejected addresses?”
“Send you back, my boys! No, no; too happy to get you.” Another gun from the corvette. “Firebrands, you must shove off. My compliments, Wiggins, to the captain, and there’s a trifle for you to drink my health, when you get into port.” The boat shoved off—the corvette filled her maintopsail. “Put the helm up— ease off the mainsheet—stand by to run up the squaresail. How is her head, Mr Tailtackle?”
Timothy gave a most extraordinary grin at my bestowing the Mister on him for the first time.
“North-west, sir.”