Crown and Anchor Part 31

He was very kind, too, in noticing me; and, before he was rowed ash.o.r.e in the captain's gig, he presented me with a real gold medallion with the image and superscription stamped thereon of Saint Nicholas, the protector of all sailors. The Spanish captain told me that this had originally belonged to the great navigator, Christopher Columbus, of whom he was a distant descendant, and that it had been in his family for generations. He had always worn it, he said, next his heart as a preservative against s.h.i.+pwreck, and he fervently believed it was owing to his having it on him that he had been so miraculously saved when everyone else who had been on board _La Bella Catarina_ with him had perished.

His now giving it to me was the most practical proof of his friends.h.i.+p he could offer, as he valued it beyond anything he possessed, and I only took it for fear of hurting his feelings, for I did not like to deprive him of it. He was, in truth, a n.o.ble fellow, and showed that his grat.i.tude did not merely lie in mere empty words and idle compliments.

No, "out of sight out of mind" was not his guiding maxim, like it is of some people whom we all have met in the course of our lives; for, even after he had uttered his farewell as he rowed away from the s.h.i.+p in the captain's gig, wis.h.i.+ng us with a graceful wave of the hand "A Dios!" he did not forget us, sending back by the c.o.xswain a splendid present of flowers and fruit and vegetables, almost loading the gig, indeed, for the acceptance of the wardroom and gunroom messes. He forwarded, as well, a case of valuable wine of some special vintage for Captain Farmer's own table.

No one in fact who had done him a kindness when on board pa.s.sed out of his remembrance, apparently, on his leaving; for, to the doctor he sent a diamond ring, to Lieutenant Jellaby a lady's fan, which, judging by what he had heard of his partiality for the fair s.e.x, I suppose he thought would please him most; and to Corporal Macan and Bill Bates, who had been especially prominent at his rescue, a box of cigars each, while he also sent to the captain a handsome sum of money for him to distribute amongst the crew as he thought best.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

"CAPE SMOKE!"

We only stopped at Madeira long enough to get a few purser's stores to add to the supply with which the generosity of Don Ferdinando had already provided us. We also took in some water, for two of our tanks below had been "started" during our bucketting about in the bay, and Captain Farmer feared we might run short when we reached the warm lat.i.tudes; as, in the event of our falling across the usual calms prevalent in the neighbourhood of the Equator, we might be rolling about a week or two, roasting, in the Doldrums!

But, luckily, we were blessed with favouring winds and made a good pa.s.sage, picking up the North-East Trades shortly after we said "good-bye" to Funchal, with its pretty white villas nestling on the hillside amid a background of greenery; and then, meeting with strong westerly breezes instead of calms, on getting further south into the Tropics, we crossed the Line on Christmas Day, when all the good people at home, I thought at the time, would be s.h.i.+vering with cold and saying, as they snuggled up to the fire, gazing perhaps on a snow-covered landscape without, "What seasonable weather we are having!" while we were sweltering in the heat under a copper sky, with the thermometer up to 98 degrees in the shade of the awnings!

From the Equator, we had a splendid run to the Cape, taking altogether exactly sixty-five days clear for our pa.s.sage from England.

During this interval I and my brother cadets had to attend "school"

every morning from half-past 9 o'clock to 11:30 in the captain's outer cabin under the p.o.o.p, where the chaplain, who also filled the post of naval instructor, officiated as schoolmaster-in-chief, teaching us mathematics and the theory of navigation, as well as seeing that we kept up our logs, which Captain Farmer himself inspected once a week, to make certain that the chaplain, on his part, attended to his duty.

We got on very well with the Reverend Mr Smythe, who had all his longsh.o.r.e starchiness knocked out of him by his long bout of sea-sickness, the poor man having been confined to his bunk and completely prostrate with the fell malady from the hour that we weighed anchor at Plymouth until we "brought up" at Madeira. I should not, perhaps, have made use of this term, as it savours of tautology, the unfortunate chaplain having been industriously occupied in doing little else save "bringing up" all the time; especially when we were pitching and rolling in the Bay of Biscay!

Every day, too, at a quarter of an hour before noon, we had to muster on the p.o.o.p, where, under the tutelage of the master, Mr Quadrant, we watched for the dip of the sun; and, as soon as the master reported that it was twelve o'clock to the captain, who told him "to make it so," and Eight Bells was struck on the s.h.i.+p's bell forwards, we would adjourn to the gunroom below.

There we all worked out the reckoning, showing our respective calculations or "fudgings" as the case might be, to Mr Quadrant; when if these "pa.s.sed muster," we entered the result in our log-books, along with other observations and facts connected with the daily routine of the s.h.i.+p and her progress towards her destination.

To ascertain this, in addition to taking the sun at noon and noting the att.i.tude of certain stars at night, the log was hove every hour; and each of us learnt in turn to fix the pin in the "dead man," as the log-s.h.i.+p is styled--the triangular piece of wood, with a long line attached, by which the speed of the s.h.i.+p is ascertained.

The first piece of this cord is termed the "stray line," and is generally of the same length as the s.h.i.+p, so as to allow for the eddy and wash of the wake astern; and, at the end of this stray line, a piece of bunting is inserted in the coil, from which a length of forty-seven feet three inches is measured off and a disc of leather put on the line to mark the termination of the first knot, or nautical mile. Two knots are put at the end of another length of forty-seven feet three inches; three knots at a third, and so on, until as much of the line has been thus measured and marked off at equal distances as will test the utmost sailing capacity of the s.h.i.+p--a single knot being placed midway, also, between each of these divisions, to denote the half knots.

Two sand-gla.s.ses are used in connection with the log-line, as the old quartermaster, who was our instructor in this branch of our nautical education, explained, the one called "the long gla.s.s," which runs out in twenty-eight seconds, while the other is a fourteen-second gla.s.s, which is generally adopted at sea when the s.h.i.+p is going over five knots with a fair wind.

The first mentioned is only used in light breezes; and, as Bob Ricketts showed us by careful manipulation, reeling off bights of the line and keeping the slack loosely in his hands, the thing to be particular about is to heave the log-s.h.i.+p over the side clear of the s.h.i.+p, and see the gla.s.s turned as soon as the bunting mark is reached, denoting that all the "waste" has run out.

Then, whatever mark you can distinguish on the line nearest to your hand at the expiration of the allotted twenty-eight or fourteen seconds, when the man holding the gla.s.s sings out "Stop!" as the last grain of sand empties itself out of the bulb, that will be the speed of the s.h.i.+p.

The division of knots on the log-line bear the same proportion to a mile, as the twenty-eight or fourteen seconds of the gla.s.s does to an hour of time; so, if the four-knot mark be to hand, and the "long" gla.s.s be used, she is going four knots, or nautical miles, per hour. It will be eight knots if the "short gla.s.s" be the standard of measurement; the time the line has taken being only half the former, and the number of the knots having to be doubled to keep the proportion between the length of line and the s.p.a.ce of time equal.

It did not take me long to master what the old quartermaster had to teach me on this point; but some of the other cadets were awfully stupid at first, I must say, particularly that brute Andrews, in spite of his b.u.mptiousness and conceit.

He gave old Ricketts a lot of trouble before he remembered to put in the pin prior to pitching the log-s.h.i.+p overboard; though without this it could not float upright, and was as good as useless to gauge our speed.

The a.s.s could not be made to understand this, and omitted putting in the pin time after time so persistently, that Ricketts had to tell the commander that he "could make nothing out of him."

In addition to these details of 'boards.h.i.+p life, we were also instructed in practical seamans.h.i.+p by one of the boatswain's mates.

He was an old hand who had been at sea so long that he seemed to smell of salt water and tar; while his face was like a piece of pickled beef covered with a quant.i.ty of hair that resembled spunyarn more than anything else, being as stiff and wiry as an untwisted rope.

Old Oak.u.m, however, was a thorough sailor, every inch of him, and he taught me much more than I had learned on board the _Ill.u.s.trious_, not only in "knotting and splicing" and other things.

Under this worthy's guidance I practised the "goose step" of going aloft, as it might be described by a drill sergeant, the mizzenmast being placed at our disposal every fine afternoon, and it was pretty nearly good weather all the time of our pa.s.sage southwards, to learn the art of reefing and furling sails and to send down or cross upper yards; so that we became in the end almost as expert as our tutor, the old salt one day telling Tommy Mills and myself that we took in a royal "as good and better as any two able seamen could a done it, blow me!"

It was not "all work and no play," either, for we had plenty of fun and skylarking down in the gunroom; making the oldsters there, like Mr Stormc.o.c.k and the a.s.sistant-paymaster, Mr Fortescue Jones, frequently wish they, or rather that we, had never been born to come to sea to torment them.

The very duty of the s.h.i.+p itself was an endless source of occupation and amus.e.m.e.nt to us, the commander keeping the men "at it" continually from sunrise to sunset, until he had so licked us all into shape that we were the smartest s.h.i.+p's company afloat, I think; for the discipline was such that the old _Candahar_ might have been four years in commission instead of the brief three months that had elapsed from our hoisting the pen'ant to our casting anchor in Simon's Bay, a port to the eastward of the "Stormy Cape," where our men-of-war usually moor.

Here, we remained for ten days to refit, setting up our lower rigging, which had got very slack through the heat of the Tropics, and taking in fresh provisions and water, besides all of us having a run ash.o.r.e to shake the reefs out of our legs.

All the men, too, were allowed leave by watches each day of our stay, and few took advantage of the licence to misbehave themselves although temptation enough was thrown in their way by the hospitable inhabitants.

Amongst these few, I am sorry to say, Corporal Macan distinguished himself, falling a victim to his "ould complaint," by coming aboard on the second day after our arrival in a state of glorious intoxication, despite his solemn promise to Dr Nettleby, through whom the commander had given him permission to land, that he "wouldn't touch a dhrop ov the craythur, not if Ould Nick axed him."

Larkyns, who was in charge of the launch, in which the culprit was brought back helpless to the s.h.i.+p in the afternoon, noticing his condition when he tried to go up the side, ordered him to report himself to the sergeant of marines; but, Mr Macan, who was valiant in his cups, waxed indignant at this and flatly refused to obey the command, saying that he would not mind going before the commander, or the first lieutenant, or even meeting the doctor himself, though he was loth to see him for the moment with his broken promise staring him in the face; but as for going and reporting himself to the sergeant he should not, no, not he.

"An' is it to rayport mesilf to that omahdaun ye're afther axin me, sor?" he said scornfully, tossing his head and leering out of his little pig eyes in the most comical way. "Faix, I'd rayther not, wid your favour, sor. I wouldn't demane mesilf by spakin' to the loikes ov Sarjent Linstock, sor!"

The upshot was that poor Macan was put under arrest and confined in the cells that night; and when brought before the captain the next day for insubordination and drunkenness, as he had no excuse to offer he was disrated, losing his rank of corporal, with all its perquisites and privileges!

On the doctor taxing him with breaking his pledged word, however, in an after interview that worthy had with the delinquent, he vehemently protested his innocence of that charge at all events.

"I tould yez, sor, I wouldn't touch a dhrop ov the craythur, maynin'

whisky, sure," he said, with a miserable attempt at a grin; for he felt very much humiliated at losing his stripes, Macan sober being quite a different man to Macan drunk. "An' faix I niver bruk me wurrud at all, at all, I'll swear, sor."

"How can you have the face to deny it, man?" cried the doctor, angrily.

"Why, I saw the state you were in myself when you came aboard the other night!"

"That mebbe, sor," replied the undaunted Irishman, with a little of his old bravado; "but it warn't the ould complaint, I till ye, sor."

"What was it, then, that made you drunk, you rascal?" rejoined the doctor, with a twinkle in his eye, knowing his man, "for, drunk you were--ay, as drunk as Chloe?"

"Faix, sor," said Macan, noting instantly the doctor's change of mood, and grinning all over his face in consequence, "it wor the Cape shmoke that did it. Sure, it obfusticated me, sor, entirely!"

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

WE JOIN THE ADMIRAL AT SINGAPORE.

"Cape smoke?" said I, inquiringly, to Mr Stormc.o.c.k, who happened to come up the hatchway on to the main deck as the doctor was thus cross-examining the ex-corporal of marines outside the sick bay, where poor Macan was now doing "sentry-go" after his reduction to the ranks, to make his humiliation the more complete. "What is that? It can't be real smoke, I suppose!"

The master's mate laughed.

"Smoke, eh, youngster?" he repeated in his ironical way, being the driest old stick we had in the gunroom and certainly, according to Larkyns, a judge of considerable experience of the article under discussion. "Bless you, it's the most rotgut stuff any fellow ever put in his inside, and only a Dutchman could have invented it! I can tell you it's a liquor that's best left alone. Take my advice, Vernon, and don't you have anything to do with it!"

"I won't," I replied. "Have you ever tasted it, Mr Stormc.o.c.k?"

He looked at me hard, thinking at first that I meant to chaff him; but seeing that I asked the question in perfect good faith, without any intention of alluding to his reported "little weakness," he proceeded to answer me, truthfully enough.