Chapter IX Through the Hawse Hole
To the Temple of Varieties in the city of Sidney went one evening the young and rather girlish-faced marine officer, Surgeon McTavish, and Lieutenant Guilford all from the Breezy, in order to hear a good song. Only in mufti were they of course, but Mac’s mufti was the Highland dress and a grand appearance it gave this bold and scientific Scot.
Indeed Mac’s servant was a Scot, Sandie Reid was his name, and whenever the doctor told him to lay out his mufti it was the kilt and sporran he got ready.
“I meant English mufti,” said the doctor to him one evening.
“You’ll hae that or damn the thing else?” replied Sandie with the determination of a Scottish servant who loved his master. “You’re no’ goin to give Sandie Reid a red face by seein’ his master’s bonnie Hielan legs rammed into leathern drain-pipes. If ye do, ye’ll hae to seek an English servant.”
The first day that the surgeon put on the Highland garb to go on shore in was at St. Helena. The officers going on shore were waiting on the quarterdeck for the boat and talking and laughing, when little Sneyd the A.P. with the door-knocker countenance came up from below.
Now Sneyd was sometimes in a nasty temper and when he was so he was apt to be a little offensive.
He had got out of his bunk that day at the wrong side perhaps, but when he saw McTavish arrayed in the tartan of his clan, he pretended to be startled, stepped back a pace or two and looked at him up and down.
“Is this the twentieth century?” he cried, “and do you mean to say that the captain will allow one of his officers to go on shore dressed in that uncivilized semi-savage costume?”
Then suddenly pretending to be heroic, “Oh, I forgot the romance of Walter Scott,” he said.
“Ne’er in battle-field beats heart more brave,
Than that which beats beneath the Scottish kilt.”
McTavish laughed. But Sneyd sneered. His shot hadn’t hit the bull’s eye.
“I suppose,” he said, “like most Scots that join our Service, you’re the only gentleman in your family, Mr. McTavish.” This was mean, for the doctor’s family were really only honest crofter folk.
“That’s hitting beneath the belt,” cried the engineer.
“Apologise, Sneyd.”
And the others shouted for an apology.
“I refuse,” said Sneyd.
“The reason being,” said McTavish quietly, “that there wasn’t even one gentleman in Sneyd’s family.”
“Bravo, McTavish. Bravo!”
But McTavish wasn’t quite done with little Sneyd.
“What’s your weight, Sneyd?”
“Well, doctor,” replied the A.P., conscious now that he had gone too far, “just nine stone.”
“Pooh! that’s nothing. I can put up 200 lbs.” And before Sneyd knew what was up, the surgeon had seized him by the collar of his upper garments and stood erect holding the little man straight over the sea.
“For God’s sake let me down. Lower me. Lower me. I apologise!”
“Do you see the blue shark that has been following our ship for days?”’ cried McTavish.
“I see the blue devil. Do lower me, for mercy’s sake.”
Next moment the doctor stood him on the deck.
He did apologise now, and all was forgiven.
“Lower me,” he had shouted while suspended over the sea, and everyone admitted that on the whole he had been lowered considerably. Yet Sneyd when not in the pet was really one of the best little men in the ship.
But about this night on shore? Well, in due course Kep came on the stage, most takingly dressed in the uniform of a middy of the Merchant Service.
He seemed to see no one, and probably he didn’t; but he told his story—that tragedy of the sea which now was improved by appropriate scenery—the lantern.
His performance received round after round of applause, and when he returned with his piccolo, and said laughing, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to play you the very Sonata from Wagner, with which I used to charm the snakes,” the cheering was renewed. He was recalled three times.
The last time he played a sweetly melancholy melody from Faust, and when he had finished and during the appreciation lull, he drew his sleeve across his eyes as if to wipe away a tear.
“I’ve got a little gal in England, ladies, and that’s how.”
Then he bowed himself prettily off the stage.
“But I say, McTavish,” cried young Guilford, “you’re positively looking a bit pale.”
“I’m taken aback,” said the doctor. “I’ve met that boy, if boy he be, before. At Nice I think. But it is but a fancied resemblance I can now see to a charming Italian girl I knew for an all too brief period of my existence.”
“Well, I happen to know the lad,” said Guilford. “That is the boy Bowser. He came on board the day before we sailed, and he did make all hands laugh I assure you, and you should have seen our fellows dancing. We’ll stroll round to the green room and see him.” And so they did.
They knocked. “May we come in for one minute?” said Guilford.
“You do us honour. British Naval Officers are welcome everywhere,” answered Mr. Howe.
Then Kep came blushing up, and Guilford shook him squarely by the hand. This is young Charlie Bowser, Dr. McTavish. He is down in the play bills as Gerald Montmorency.
“I say, Charlie, can you come off to-morrow evening? I’ll send a boat.”
“It must be at nine then, sir, after I get done here.”
Charlie alias Kep, or Gerald Montmorency, did come off, and great things happened. He didn’t get home till twelve, but that really didn’t matter.
He made an impression again, for he was not only a freak with the piccolo, but the piano also, and he was a marvel from a linguistic point of view.
Just before he left he had another interview with Lieutenant Guilford.
“I’ve spoken to our Captain,” he said, “and if you are still of the same mind I can get you a berth. Can you play in our little band?
“I can lead, but would rather not join the Service, sir, to be rated as a bandsman. But,” he added quickly, “it is the dream of my life to be in this same beautiful ship. Oh, I shed tears, sir, when you sailed past and left me on the Hoe. Yet I leave myself entirely in your hands.” He was smiling merrily as he added, “I can clean knives and boots, sir.”
“Your name isn’t Bowser.”
“It must remain so.”
“You ran away from home.”
“Yes, sir, but I won’t run back, till I’ve seen the world and done something. My mind is made up.”
“You are fifteen?”
“Nigh on it.”
“You are of good birth. I believe you, your manners are quite a model. Will you tell us your real name?”
“I promise to do so, I will do so sine dubio, sed sine die.1 When you left, sir,” he continued, “I just stuck a pin in a page of Bradshaw’s Guide, and it struck the West Indies. And thither I went. So you see. I came into the merchant service ad aperturam libri.”
“Through the hawse-hole. Eh?”
“That is it, sir. And here I am as willing as ever to make myself useful.”
“But you are leaving a good thing. What do they pay you at the Variety Hall?”
“Oh, three pounds a week. But I get tips from gentlemen and lots of kisses from sweet ladies. Then I share some of my money with Adolph.”
“And who may Adolph be?”
“Oh, he is head waiter at the C—— Hotel. He was steward of the Macbeth, and my comrade through all that terrible time on Great Snake Island.”
“Then the mutiny and all that is really true, Charlie?”
“Yes sir, though the plebs hardly believe it, and I do love Adolph very much. An Austrian he is, sir, but we talk in French.”
“Well, we have a berth open for your comrade, Charlie, and we’d like, but it is a matter of business.—We couldn’t give you £3 a week, and there are no sweet ladies on board to shower kisses on you.”
“Oh, sir,” said Kep laughing, “I can easily go on shore for the kisses.”
“We are going back to Africa again to make the slave-dealers hum, and there we need an interpreter, but he must understand Spanish and Portuguese as well as Arabic.”
“Hurrah! Pardon me, Lieutenant Guilford, but I couldn’t really help saying ‘Hurrah!’ I’m as good as rated—interpreter to H.M.S. Breezy.”
“Good-night, boy. Come in the first dog watch to-morrow evening, and you shall hear our conclusion.”
“Good-night, sir.”
Kep went away in the dinghy.
It was a lovely starry night, with, high above, the southern cross, and the moon’s rays shimmering on the water.
Kep, who was a good diplomatist, took out his piccolo, and quavering over the waters came now the unearthly music of that proud old song which touches the spine of every true British sailor or soldier, namely,
“Good-night. All’s well.”
“By George!” said Guilford to McTavish, “he is a broth of a boy.”
“Yes, and we must have him. He is bound to be the sauciest boy in the Service.”
Kep was rated all right—interpreter. And he so pleased the gun-room officers that he was invited to become an honorary member of their mess.
And Kep was happy now, more especially as Adolph was chosen to supersede the Captain’s steward, who had died in the Mozambique channel.
One day very soon after, brown-faced Gunner Stormalong sought audience of the Commander of the Newt.
“If you’ll excuse me, sir, I want to speak a moment.”
“Certainly.”
“Well, sir, the Newt I hear is ordered home, but the Breezy will be out for some years longer, and I’d like to be in her to serve out my time, and Gunner Myers would take my place, if so be, sir, that you’d let us exchange.”
“Readily, Jack, readily, and if he is only half as good a man as you, he will do for us.”
“Thank you, sir, and God bless you, sir.”
And Jack bowed and retired, and next day he was a gunner on the Breezy.
That’s how things turn out in the Service.
Notes
1 Without a doubt, but without appointing a day.