The vessel to which Bobbie went had been in its gallant youth a battleship and possessed an eventful and a creditable record. Moored in the Thames off the flat coast of Essex, and painted black, it was a huge, solid, responsible three-decker, doing excellent work in the autumn of its life, and giving temporary residence to some five or six hundred boys. Mainly, the youngsters were metropolitan, but sometimes the guardians of distant towns in the North would arrange with the Board for one of their lads to be consigned to the training ship, who, being arrived, spoke a language that seemed to the London boys almost foreign. A long, low jetty ran from the shore as far as it dared into the water; where it stopped, a gig rowed by eight of the boys, under the command of an officer, took you off to the big black ship, on the starboard side of which a dozen small boats rocked and nudged each other in the ribs, and a barge dozed stolidly. (In case of alarm the whole of the boys could be cleared out of the ship and carried away by these to safety.) Away down the river a smart brigantine berthed generally in view, and this the boys who intended to join the Royal Navy gazed at hopefully, because it was the brigantine which taught them seamanship, with assistance from a master mariner and two mates; it was the brigantine, too, which now and again skimmed the cream of the Westmouth in the shape of some forty boys whom it conveyed out of the river into the open, and presently down Channel to one of the training vessels which acted as the last refining process before entrance was made into the service. To the Essex shore came, nearly every week, from various poor-law schools, boys who, after inspection, were conveyed out to the Westmouth, where the captain looked at the doctor’s report, giving their heights, chest measurements, and other particulars forming the foundation of their dossier. This over, the new boys went back to shore to be clothed in sailor uniform, and re-appeared in blue serge trousers and jacket and cap, trying to look as though the navy had for them no secrets, and the Westmouth nothing in the way of information to impart. They came in and went out of the training vessel at the rate of about three hundred year, so that the numbered white cases down on the lower deck containing kits were always in use, and every hammock on the three decks contained at night a tired-out lad.
p. 98For Robert Lancaster soon discovered that the note of the Westmouth was to keep moving. If you worked, you worked hard; if you played, you played hard. School had no great demands upon him now, for being out of the Fourth Standard, it was required of him that he should attend but two hours on the Friday of every week; a boy might have assumed that with this dispensation one could look forward to a life of ease and content. Not so on board the Westmouth. Robert Lancaster was never allowed to be lazy. The life formed an exact opposite to those old days at Hoxton (several centuries ago it seemed to him), when the delight of life was to “mouch,” which, translated, is to wander through the years aimlessly. Robert made some vague suggestions of reform to his comrades, with the result that a boy from Poplar made up his mind to state a complaint formally on the first opportunity. The Poplar boy (numbered 290) had already written a brief account, which he had shown to Robert, entitled “The Mutiny on the Westmouth,” a forecast of a somewhat bloodthirsty character, where gore flowed readily, and exclamations of a melodramatic character were used, such as “Die, you dog!” and “At last we meet face to face!” but Robert criticized this with some acidity, because in the course of it Number Two Ninety himself performed all the deeds of surpassing valour, using six Martini-Henry rifles and a field gun, at the same time doing desperate action with two cutlasses: the end of the account gave a gruesome description of the upper deck strewn with the bodies of officers, and of Number Two Ninety-being unanimously elected captain by his fellow mutineers. Robert said he thought the picture overdrawn. Opportunity, however, occurred on some of the guardians from Poplar visiting the ship; one, a sharp clergyman, demanded to know of the Poplar boys whether they had any complaint to make.
“No, sir,” sang most of the Poplar boys. The mutineer’s arm went up.
“Ah!” said the clergyman gratified. “Here’s a lad now who has something to say.”
“Step forward, Two Ninety,” ordered the old captain. “Tell this gentleman what it is you wish to complain of. Is it the food?”
“Grub’s all right, sir,” growled the Poplar boy.
“Is it the uniform?” asked the sharp clergyman.
“No fault to find with the clothes, sir.”
“Is it the ship?”
“Ship’s good enough, sir.”
Robert Lancaster, passing with a pail, half stopped to hear what the Poplar boy would say under this process of exhaustion.
“Well, well, what is the complaint you wish to make?”
Two Ninety from Poplar twisted his sailor’s cap nervously, and looked with some interest at his shoes.
“Well, sir,” he burst out, “it’s like this. They always keep on making you keep on.”
Robert Lancaster, finding after a few weeks that his disinclination to continuous work and exercise had vanished, detached himself therefore from the small set on the Westmouth, called “The Born-Tireds.” After the fifth week privileges came to him; he was allowed to go ashore with p. 99the other boys on Sunday afternoon; he joined in the drill, and this he liked so much that he concealed from the officers the fact that the cornet and he were close acquaintances, fearing that membership of the band, which practised far away down in the hold, would interfere. He found books in the library with a sea flavour, and read Stevenson and Henty, and Clark Russell. He liked Clark Russell’s books, because they had always one admirable young lady in a distressful predicament, and this young lady he always thought of as being Trixie Bell—Trixie who had sent him her photograph, taken by an eminent artist of Hackney Road, and presenting her as in a snowstorm, with no hat, a basket of choice roses on her arm. At prayers one night, Robert found himself, somewhat to his surprise, introducing a special silent reference to Trixie, and, pleased with his daring originality, he continued it, feeling in a shy, half-ashamed way, that he had now assumed a responsible position in regard to the young lady. For the rest, there was not much time on the Westmouth to think of outside affairs.
He found his average day made up in this manner. At six o’clock in the morning, the lower deck, where he and some three hundred other boys slept, became suddenly filled with the blaring of a bugle; on the instant Robert slipped out of his hammock. The chief petty officers (important lads of about fifteen or sixteen) issued orders, the boys dressed swiftly, hammocks were rolled up and stowed away at the sides, and then the busy working day began. Robert Lancaster, despatched with other gallant sailors of his division, scrubbed the upper deck (protected by a canvas awning in summer, and an awning and curtains in winter), the while two divisions saw to the main deck. Then the upper deck had to be swabbed, under the superintendence of the ship’s officers, and, this done, breakfast-time had arrived. Robert Lancaster always felt the better for his breakfast, being, indeed, of the growing age when appetite is nearly ever acute and demanding to be satisfied. The watch on the mess deck cleared away, and at half-past eight one bell sounded. At nine o’clock two bells sounded, with the singers’ call for prayers and also for punishments, at which hour a few boys with correction looming close to them, wished that they had chosen the life of a landsman. The excellent old captain’s theory was that you should either pat a boy on the back or cane him on the back, and this system worked out very well in practice; the most severe punishment consisted of a few hours’ solitude in the dark cell at the foc’sle end of the ship—an extreme remedy resorted to but once or twice a year. Prayers and punishment being over, there occurred work again. Sail-making, painting the sides of the Westmouth, seamanship instruction; in the tailors’ shop, manufacture of flags, repairing of oilskins and sou’westers, lengthening of trousers for their growing owners, making of seamanship stripes, re-covering of life-belts; the biggest boys in the Rigger’s class called upon to strip and serve afresh the lower rigging of the ship. Relaxation came to Robert when sent out with others in one of the small boats which clustered at the side of the Westmouth, on which occasions he learnt the arts of boat-pulling and boat-sailing, under the guidance of a giant-voiced officer, who roared advice and frank criticism. Signalling had to be learnt, and this demanded of Robert that his intelligence should be livened; the lad being on his mettle, and having made up p. 100his mind to extort the secrets from this cryptic procedure, earned commendation. There were classes in gunnery, too, where knowledge was gained in using the rifle and cutlass, as well as the management of field guns; the rifles full-sized, and, indeed, a little out of proportion to the height of the smaller boys, so that it sometimes seemed that it would have been easier for the Martini-Henry to manage the boy than for the boy to manage the Martini-Henry. And about mid-day, after half an hour’s rest, when Robert bowled boys out on the upper deck, or being at the wickets set in a wooden socket, sent the ball flying away to the Essex shore, came dinner. Now dinner on the Westmouth, mind you, was dinner.
A bugle call brought the boys scurrying down the broad hatchway on to the mess deck, where a harmonium had been placed in position, and, as they hurried down, adjusting their red handkerchiefs bib-fashion, the cook’s assistants dragged young lorries around by the long wooden tables, one waggon loaded with roast beef, another waggon carrying potatoes, another bearing vegetables and another bread. The boys on sharp days when appetite had become keen found it difficult to sing the grace to which the harmonium played a prelude, because their mouths watered. The scent from the roast beef was to them the most entrancing perfume, and ranged in companies they could not prevent their eyes from wandering to their table where portions were being served out in the deep tin plates. A bugle call—everything on board the Westmouth was done by bugle calls; and none was so effective as the call for silence—and grace.
“Be present at our table, Lord,
Be ’ere and everywhere adored;
These creatures bless, and grant that we
May feast in Paradise with Thee.”
On ordinary days, work re-commenced in the afternoon with occasional brief rests for play, and after tea if there still remained work to do it had to be done. Strict orders had to be observed in the way of behaviour, and Robert slipped into these with greater ease because of his experience in the Cottage Homes. He learnt that an order being given, obedience had to follow instantly and without question; the saluting of the officers was, he knew, but a respectful sign of his willingness to comply with this rule. In this way Robert Lancaster learnt discipline.
“It’s easy enough,” argued Robert to the Poplar boy when he had been on the ship for nearly a year and was looking forward to the position of Chief Petty Officer with three stripes on his arm and a salary of penny a week, “once you get into the swing of it. If you do have to put up with a bit of rough, you’ve always got your Wednesdays to look forward to.”
Wednesday, indeed, represented the golden day of the week for the Westmouth. Friends came then on permission of the Captain, and when one evening a letter from Trixie Bell was brought over to the ship by the post boy, a letter which asked her dear Robert to obtain a permit for two, p. 101the lad procured this and sent it off with bashful anticipation of seeing the young lady and her large mother. The afternoon came, and he watched each arrival of the gig from the shore for the first sight of Trixie; wondering amusedly how Mrs. Bell would endure the brief passage and how she would be hauled out of the boat. But Trixie did not arrive nor did her mother come to endanger the safety of the gig; instead Number Three Thirty-Three (who was Robert) found himself called to receive a mite of a woman in a sailor hat bearing the inscription H.M.S. Magnificent in large gold letters, who having come up the ladder at the side of the ship one step at a time, now stood with a net full of oranges and cakes beside her; her hands at her waist as though doubtful whether she ought not to dance a hornpipe, and looking up at Robert with her bead-like eyes full of astonishment.
“Why,” cried little Miss Threepenny, “if he hasn’t grown up to be a reg’lar what’s a name.”
“I was expecting two others,” remarked Robert, bending shyly to shake hands.
“They couldn’t come and they sent me instead,” said the little woman, mopping her forehead with her handkerchief. “Poor Mrs. Bell is as bad as bad, and Trixie—bless her ’eart—wouldn’t think of leaving her. So I says, ‘Sposin’ I go?’ And Trixie says, ‘You, Miss Threepenny?’ and I says, ‘Yes, me. It’s my annual ’oliday from Tabernacle Street Wednesday next, and—’”
“And here you are.”
“‘Why,’ says Trixie,” went on the small woman, declining to anticipate the end of her story, “‘you’ll go and get lost.’ And I says, ‘Stuff and nonsense; if a grown-up woman of forty can’t take care of herself, who can? Besides,’ I says, ‘I want to see the dear boy.’ And Trixie says, ‘So did I.’”
“Oh, she said that, did she?” remarked Robert gratified. Other boys crowded round, preparing to invent humorous badinage.
“Ah!” said Miss Threepenny acutely, “and what’s more, she meant it.”
It required some courage for a boy of Robert’s age to escort the amazing little woman over the ship; urgent whispers from the other lads to be introduced to the new missis did not assist him. The Chief Officer nodded approvingly, and this gave encouragement.
“Booking clerk at Fenchurch Street,” chattered on the little woman, “gave me ’alf a ticket, and I gave him a bit of my mind. People think because I ain’t so tall as I might be that I ’aren’t got a tongue in me ’ead. They find out their mistake.”
“Is Mrs. Bell very ill?”
“She ain’t much longer for this world,” answered Miss Threepenny. “She may linger on for a year or two, but that good young gel of hers will be left all alone in the world before she’s very much older. Fortunately she’s got a wise ’ead on young shoulders and—What low ceilings they are ’ere.” The little woman bent her small body from an entirely unfounded fear of touching the roof with her sailor hat. “What’s this part of the ship called, Bobbie?”
“This,” explained the lad, “is called the foc’sle.”
“Why?”
p. 102“Ah!” said Robert, “‘why’ is the one word you mustn’t use on board ship.”
Little Miss Threepenny trotted round, breathless with the endeavour to keep up with the lad’s stride, presently thanking her stars in earnest terms when, the hour being two, she was allowed to sit on the foc’sle steps of the upper deck in company with a few mothers and sisters to watch the afternoon’s entertainment.
“I shall ’ave to take notice of everything,” she chirruped, “and go through it all when I get back to Pimlico Walk. Trixie will want to ’ear about it.”
“Don’t you go and get frightened,” urged Robert.
“Me frightened?”
“There’ll be some desperate deeds performed during the next hour,&rdquo............