Part 5 (1/2)

”This is unbearable,” he spluttered out, ”I'll have you youngsters put under arrest. Marines, can't you keep your legs? Help me up. Get off me, all you, I say.”

But as the marines could not help themselves, it could scarcely be expected that they could a.s.sist their officer, still less could the medico and the mids.h.i.+pmen. The serjeant, however, hearing the uproar, followed by a couple of his men, with a faint idea that a mutiny of some sort had broken out, hurried aft, and with the a.s.sistance of Higson amid the other oldsters who came out of the berth to see what was the matter, quickly got the ma.s.s of struggling humanity disentangled and placed in as upright position as circ.u.mstances would allow. The lieutenant ought really to have been much obliged to Tom, for his anger completely overcame the nausea from which he had been suffering; but ungrateful, like too many others, as Higson observed, he went back into the gunroom demanding condign punishment on the head of his benefactor and his messmates. He was saved thereby from witnessing the effect of that leveller of mankind, sea-sickness, on nearly half his men, who lay about the deck unable to move, and only wis.h.i.+ng that the s.h.i.+p would go down and bring their misery to an end. Jack soon soothed the temper of his brother officer, who was a brave and really a good-natured man, and then went to look after Tom and Gerald. He advised them to lie down with their eyes shut in the berth which was now vacated, the occupants being called off to their respective duties, and the a.s.sistant-surgeon having retired into the dispensary to concoct a specific against sea-sickness of his own invention, which made him and those he persuaded to take it ten times worse.

Soon afterwards all hands were piped on deck, and the sea-sick had to appear as well as the rest. The report had been made to the captain that a man had been knocked overboard, but who was the sufferer was uncertain. The frigate was bravely breasting the foaming billows under close-reefed topsails, ever and anon a hissing sea striking her bows and its crest sweeping across the deck, the spray in dense showers coming right aft, and rendering flus.h.i.+ng coats and tarpaulins necessary to those who desired dry skins. Overhead the dark clouds flew rapidly by, showing no abatement of the gale. Far astern was the _Tudor_ with no fore-topsail set, showing that either the mast or yard had been sprung while it was impossible to say what other damage she might have received, if caught unprepared as the frigate had been. The muster-roll was now called over. A third of the crew had answered to their names.

”Richard Jenkins” was called. It was the name of a fine young topman.

No Richard Jenkins replied; but he must have been aloft at the time the fore-tack parted, and then two other topmen acknowledged that they had been afraid some one had been knocked from the fore-topsail-yard; but the thick darkness, and the wild flapping of the sail, had made them uncertain. The other names were called over. No one answered to that of Daniel Bacon. He was rated as a landsman, and would have been forward at the time. Two, then, in the darkness of night had been cast unnoticed into their ocean grave. ”Poor fellows! poor fellows!” uttered by their messmates, was the only requiem they received--the contents of their bags were sold; the purser wrote D against their names, which before the gale was over had ceased to be mentioned.

The slight excitement and the fresh air on deck had kept the mids.h.i.+pmen up, but on going below they felt more miserable than ever. Utterly unable to stand they threw themselves on their chests, half wis.h.i.+ng that they had gone overboard instead of poor Jenkins and Bacon. More than once they were hove off, but they managed to crawl on again, and cling to the lids in a way sick mids.h.i.+pmen alone could have done. Adair, on going round the lower deck, found them in this condition.

”Uncle Terence, dear, when is it all going to be over?” groaned out Gerald. ”There's mighty little fun in this same.”

”Only the ordinary seasoning youngsters have to go through,” answered Adair; ”however, we'll see what can be done for you.”

Tom, whose head hung over the end of his chest, with a kid which had been brought him under his nose, was past speaking. Adair ordered their hammocks to be slung, and being a.s.sisted in, they lay helpless till the gale was over. Let no one despise the two mids.h.i.+pmen, although their messmates might have laughed at them. Their experiences were those of many other brave officers, Nelson included; and they had not a few companions in their misery among those unaccustomed to the tumblifications of the ocean. At length, the wind going down, the sea became tolerably smooth, and turning out, they went on deck by Adair's advice to enjoy a few mouthfuls of fresh air. The effect on their appet.i.tes was such as to astonish even old Higson by the way in which they devoured the pea-soup and boiled beef and potatoes, a junk of fat pork even not coming amiss, washed down by stiff gla.s.ses of grog, which, in consideration of their recent sufferings, he allowed them to take.

”Well, youngsters, you are filling up your lockers with a vengeance,” he remarked.

”Faith, it's no wonder when they were cleaned out three days ago, and not a sc.r.a.p the size of a sixpenny-piece stowed away in them since,”

answered Gerald, who with Tom was eyeing lovingly a huge suet dumpling just placed smoking hot on the table.

”Any duff, Rogers?” asked Higson; ”I doubt if you've room for much.”

”I think I could just manage a slice to begin with, and then I'll try what more I can do,” answered Tom.

A huge slice was handed to him, and another to Gerald. ”You shall have your next helping from the left side, youngsters,” said the caterer, with a wink at the rest, who all thereon begged for plenty. Tom and Gerald applied themselves to the duff, which they found rather appetising than otherwise; but when they looked up expecting to get their second slices, an empty dish with Higson's face grinning beyond it, alone met their view. However, they agreed that they had dined very well considering, and from that moment, though others occasionally knocked up, they were never off duty from sea-sickness.

CHAPTER THREE.

MADEIRA SIGHTED--MISFORTUNES OF COMMANDER BABBICOME--A RIDE ON Sh.o.r.e-- NAVAL CAVALRY CHARGE DOWN A HILL AND OVERTURN SOME DIGNITARIES OF CHURCH AND STATE--A PLEASANT VISIT OF APOLOGY--SUDDENLY ORDERED TO SEA--AN EXPEDITION TO BRING OFF ”WASH CLOTHES.”

A few days after the storm was over Madeira was made; to the eastward of it, as the frigate sailed on, there came in sight a small island called the Desertas. Tom, wis.h.i.+ng to show that he was wide awake, reported a large s.h.i.+p coming round the Desertas. He was, however, only laughed at, for his supposed s.h.i.+p turned out to be a rock of a needle form, rising several hundred feet out of the sea, and would have been as Higson told him, if it had been a s.h.i.+p, bigger than the famed _Mary Dunn_, of Diver, whose flying jibboom swept the weatherc.o.c.k off Calais church steeple, while her spanker-boom end only just shaved clear of the white cliffs of old England. The scenery of Madeira, as they sailed along its sh.o.r.e, was p.r.o.nounced very grand and beautiful; its lofty cliffs rising perpendicularly out of the blue ocean with a fringe of surf at their base, and vine-clad mountains towering up into the clear sky beyond them; here and there a small bay appearing, forming the mouth of a ravine, its sides covered with orange groves and dotted with whitewashed cottages, and a little church in their midst. Rounding the southern end of the island, the frigate came to an anchor in the bay of Funchal, the town in a thin line of houses stretching along the sh.o.r.e before them, and a wild mountainous region beyond, with country houses or quintas scattered over the lower ground, and high above it the white church of Nossa Senhora do Monte, glistening in the sun.

An important object had attracted Captain Hemming to Madeira. It was to s.h.i.+p a couple of casks of its famed wine for the admiral on the Jamaica station, as well as one for himself, and he took the opportunity of fitting a new topgallant-mast. A few hours afterwards the _Tudor_ came in and dropped her anchor close to the frigate. She had evidently suffered severely in the gale. Her fore-topsail-yard was so badly sprung that sail could not be carried on it. Her mizen-topmast was gone, her starboard bulwarks forward stove in, one of her boats carried away; besides which she had received other damages. The sea which had injured her bulwarks had swept along her deck, but everything had been secured, without doing further harm, and fortunately no one had been lost.

Commander Babbicome at once came on board the _Plantagenet_ to pay his respects to Captain Hemming. He was a short, stout man, with a red face and thick neck, betokening a plethoric habit. After having been on sh.o.r.e for some years he had been appointed to the _Tudor_ through the influence of a relative, who had actively supported the ministry in electioneering matters. Probably never much of a sailor, though he might have been as brave as a lion, such experience as he possessed being that of days gone by, he had an especial horror of all new-fangled notions. He laid all the blame of the disasters his s.h.i.+p had met with to the Dockyard riggers. ”They don't do things as they used to do, that's very clear, or I shouldn't have lost my mizen-topmast!” he exclaimed, while pacing the frigate's deck with angry steps; ”I doubt whether in this hole of a place we can get our damages repaired.”

”I'll send my carpenters on board, so that you may be independent of the natives. How long will it take to set you to rights?”

”Three or four days I should suppose,” was the answer.

”Well, I will remain for that time, and we will sail together,” said Captain Hemming.

It was quickly known on board both s.h.i.+ps that they were not to leave for some days, and parties were made up to go on sh.o.r.e the next morning, and take a ride to the Corral and other places of interest.

A merry set of gun-room officers and mids.h.i.+pmen left the s.h.i.+ps soon after breakfast, Jack and Adair, with Lieutenant Jennings leading.

Murray could not go, but Archy Gordon got leave; his services, as he told his friends, not being absolutely required. They wisely landed in sh.o.r.e-boats, thus escaping a drenching from the surf, and were hauled up the s.h.i.+ngly beach by a number of shouting, bawling, dark-skinned natives, who handed them over to an equally vociferous crowd of muleteers and donkey boys, a.s.sembled in readiness with their beasts of high and low degree, to carry travellers up the mountain. Amid the wildest hubbub produced by the shouting, wraggling, jabbering of the owners of the beasts, each man praising the qualities of his own animal as he dragged it to the front, the naval party managed to mount; those who could secure them, on horses, the rest on mules; donkeys being despised, though attempts were made to thrust the mids.h.i.+pmen on them.

The tall lieutenant of marines had not secured his horse, which he chose for its height, without a desperate struggle. A band of natives rus.h.i.+ng on him, one had hoisted his right leg across a mule, another shoving a donkey's rein into his hands, while a third adroitly brought a pony under his left leg, while kicking in the air; but the owner of the high horse saw that his eye had been fixed on it, and being a big fellow came to the rescue, and offering his shoulder as a rest, enabled the lieutenant to spring clear of the mule and other beasts on to the one he had chosen.

”Forward, my lads,” he shouted in triumph, as he galloped to the front.