Ford of H.M.S. Vigilant: A Tale of the Chusan Archipelago

by T. T. Jeans

  *CHAPTER V*

  *Midshipman Ford's First Command*

  The Junk--H.M.S. "Sally"--"Here's Luck to the 'Sally'"--Ready to Start--Under Way--In Command--Night at Sea--The Strange Junk

  _Written by Midshipman Ford_

  If anybody had told me a week ago that by this time I should be captainof my own ship, I should have called him a blithering Ananias, andprobably punched his head if he was anything like my size, and made himjolly sorry for trying to pull my leg.

  But there it is. I am the captain of the _Sally_, converted junk, twoguns, tender to H.M.S. _Ringdove_, and who, do you think, is my firstlieutenant? Why, Dicky Morton, "Dear Little Dicky" of all chaps in theworld, and he's turning out not to be half such a silly fool as helooks--I often tell him so, just to buck him up.

  I must tell you how it all happened.

  The Captain had found out that those war junks never cruised at all,simply hid round a corner out of sight, and as he depended a great dealon them for news of the pirates, he was simply furious when he heard ofit, and sent ashore and bought six of the biggest merchant junks.

  I was with the party of men under Mr. Whitmore sent to bring them off.The steam pinnace was to tow them, one by one, but got a rope round herscrew, and delayed everything whilst it was being cleared. I happenedto be on board one of them with six men, preparing to be taken in tow,and it struck me that it would be a jolly good "wheeze" to sail off.Mr. Whitmore sung out that I might try, and I did, and got her off quitecomfortably, without breaking anything when I came alongside.

  I had had a jolly lot of experience in sailing at Upton Overy, bothbefore and after going to the _Britannia_, and I don't want to be cheekyor anything like that, but it seemed to come quite naturally to me tosail any boat, and I always seemed to be able to feel exactly what waswanted to make it sail its best.

  The Captain was very pleased with me for doing this, and that is how Igot the command of my junk.

  He had all of us Midshipmen and Cadets fallen in on the quarterdeck,glared at us and growled, "Now, you young gentlemen, you've got a job todo at last--no skrim-shanking about it either--jolly hard job--and Iwant those of you who can sail 'em best to take charge of 'em. You'vegot to get hold of some of those pirate fellows for me--don't care howyou get 'em, but get some of 'em alive. Can't get anything out of thedead 'uns, umph!"

  You can't imagine how excited that made all of us, and when the sixjunks had all been lashed alongside, we had to clean them first and fitthem out afterwards.

  The Commander told me that I could have the one which I had sailed off,and told me that I could choose one of the cadets to go with me. Dickycame and offered to do any mortal thing for me if I would take him--hewas nearly blubbing with keenness--so I said I would, and we both had tostart the job of cleaning her out. The Commander gave me twelve hands,and it was a jolly beastly job. She was perfectly filthy, and we had toscrape away half an inch of stuff from her inside with shovels before wecould even commence scrubbing. The smell in the holds was almost enoughto knock anyone down, and we worked till long after it was dark, andthey had hoisted big yardarm group lights to make it easier for us.

  It rained too, but we didn't worry about that in the least, because wewere so jolly happy. I'd never seen Dicky like it before. He waschirping about like a bloated sparrow, and was much too happy even tospeak.

  You can see what the junk was like by the picture. The great stern placewas where we all had to live, and it was something like a huge pigeonloft with three sliding-door places in it. One opened from the deckinto a fairly big place, where the rudder head came up through the sternand the long tiller worked. The ten bluejackets were to live there.Above it and under the poop deck were two little places about eight feetsquare, and only just a little more than four feet high. In one of themDicky and I were going to live, and the two petty officers who werecoming had the other.

  H.M.S. Sally]

  A narrow platform was below the two upper doors, with a ladder runningdown on deck at one end, and one running up to the poop at the other.It looked exactly like a pigeon loft.

  All the time we were busy scraping and shovelling and scrubbing, thecarpenters and blacksmiths were busy fitting two great balks of timberwith some cross-pieces to take a six-pounder Hotchkiss quick-firer andits mounting. They were bolting them down to the deck and the sides ofthe junk, just in front of the mainmast, and on the top of the poop theymounted a Maxim gun. The _Vigilant_ hadn't enough Maxim guns for allsix of the junks, so three had had Nordenfelt machine guns from thegunboats. I had never seen the ship so busy; she was humming frommorning to night, and for most of the night too, for four whole days.Besides the carpenters' and blacksmiths' work, the anchor gear and allthe standing and running rigging had to be refitted or overhauled. Ionly wish, as you will know by and by, that more of it had beenrefitted, because it really was not strong enough.

  You can just imagine how excited Dicky and I were when they did at lastlower a six-pounder down into our junk, and we saw it sitting in itsmounting, and knew we might soon have to use it.

  We got most of the filth out of ours by the middle of the second day,and the holds didn't smell so badly, though we could never get theChinese kind of smell out of the living places under the stern. Whattroubled us most were the fleas and bugs and cockroaches. They wereperfectly awful, and we couldn't get rid of them in the few days we had.We must have drowned thousands of them, but there seemed to be just asmany left, and we were itching all over and covered with bite marks,even whilst we were only working in her.

  The cockroaches would watch us cleaning the bottom boards, and when wewent on to another spot they would swarm down over the clean places, andsquashing the brutes made them dirtier than ever again.

  It was Dicky who first thought of giving our junk a name. I wanted tocall her _Nan_, because Nan was my chum, but then I thought perhaps theCaptain wouldn't like it, and Dicky suggested _Sally_ instead. Itturned out that all the others wanted the same name, but Dicky was theonly one of them that got it. You see, the letters had to be cut out inwood first, and as all the carpenter people were so frightfully busy, itwas almost impossible to get anything extra done at all. But Dicky hadmade great friends with the old Boatswain and Carpenter. He used to goand yarn with them in their cabins on the other side of the gunroomflat, and used to take refuge there sometimes when we had driven him outof the gunroom with our chaff, and sometimes hide there when he wasafraid of being bullied, and Jim was not there to protect him. It wasreally owing to this that we were the only ones who did manage to get itdone, and then Dicky actually had the pluck to ask the Commander forsome gold leaf to gild the letters. He volunteered to do that too, andI went with him to the Commander's cabin--outside the door--to give himcourage. When he knocked timidly, and we heard the Commander sing out,"Yes, what is it?" in his gruff voice, Dicky looked as if he would havebolted away--I expect he would have done so if I hadn't been there andthe sentry as well--but he just squeezed his lips together, wriggled inat the side of the curtain, and squeaked out, "Please, sir, gold leaf,"and couldn't say another word, he was so frightened. I went in then,"Please, sir, we've got Mr. Williams, the Carpenter, to cut out _Sally_for our junk--in big wooden letters--and we want gold leaf, please."

  The Commander grinned at us--he was a perfect ripper--took a book ofgold leaf out of a drawer, and gave it to Dicky. "D'you boys think I'mmade of gold leaf?" We didn't even thank him, we were so excited, butrushed for'ard to the "paint shop" under the fo'c'stle to see oldModley, the painter, and ask him to put the gold leaf on for us. Wecouldn't get anything out of him, though. He was a bit of a sea lawyer,and he "wasn't going to do nothink but what he'd orders to do from theCommander or the First Lootenant".

  We didn't know what to do then, and went on deck and climbed down to thejunk, feeling miserable. Scroggs was there screwing the letters on to aboard--Scroggs was the petty officer who was coming
with us--and we toldhim all that had happened, and how we'd got the gold leaf, but couldn'tget Modley to gild the letters.

  "You just give it to me, sir," he said; "that 'ere Modley be a bit of a'ard nut, but we both comes from the same village down Dorset way, an''is missus goes to the same chapel as my old missus, and 'e may do itfor me."

  He managed to get round him somehow, and when, next morning, Dicky and Iran up on deck in our pyjamas, as soon as it got light, to have anotherlook at the junk, the first thing we saw was the board on her stern, andthe letters all beautifully gilded. We had to climb down, just as wewere, and lean over and look at them. They looked simply gorgeous, andthere were Scroggs, and Sharpe, the other petty officer, and one of thecarpenter's crew, and old Modley grinning at us. They had just finishedfixing the board to the stern. "Thank you very much," was all we couldthink of saying; and when we all climbed up aboard the _Vigilant_ again,the ship's cocoa was just being served out, and Scroggs brought us abowl of it and said, "Here's luck to the _Sally_," and we all sipped it,and Modley said, "May the Lord have mercy on the little lass!" but thecarpenter's crew didn't say anything religious, because he burnt hismouth.

  Then we jumped down below before the Commander could see us on deck inpyjamas, and rolled ourselves in our hammocks again--we were jolly cold.

  We had a good bit of gold leaf left, and I nudged Jim, whose hammock wasnext mine, to tell him that he could have it. I knew he wanted it verybadly to make his junk look smart, and when we woke him and he knewabout it he gave a whoop! and tumbled out and woke the others; and Dickyand I watched them having a grand pillow fight, till we couldn't standit any longer, and joined in, and got splendidly hot--even Dicky joinedin!

  All that day we were busy getting ammunition on board, and it was simplygrand to see the boxes being lowered into the hold and jammed there, sothat they would not fall about. There were 200 cartridges for thesix-pounder--the long brass cartridge and the little shell all inone--and three thousand rounds for the Maxim gun. Then there were thecasks for the water, and a boat's stove to be secured, and one of the_Vigilant's_ dinghies to be lashed down amidships.[#] We took thenative boat, which you can see in the picture hanging over the stern, sothat we should look more like an ordinary junk. Then there was all ourown gear and boxes of biscuit and corned meat, and any amount of stuff.Dicky and I got heaps of things from old Ah Man--jam, sardines,ginger-bread biscuits, and things like that--and when we'd got them allinto our little square pigeonhole, and our sea boots, mackintoshes,greatcoats, and a uniform tin case between us, there was hardly any roomleft for our hammocks, and, of course, it wasn't possible to stand upinside--it was much too low. When everything was ready we took her awayto practise sailing, and the Captain came with us, and was jollypleasant, and Mr. Whitmore, the Gunnery Lieutenant, came too, and wetried the guns and, I must say, made very wretched shooting.

  [#] See page 77.

  After that we had to wait for the gunboats to come back from cruising,fill up with coal, and take us away in pairs.

  The only thing that did make Dicky and me feel rather sad was that Jimhadn't a junk all to himself. But he was going with Mr. Trevelyan, andas he was a splendid chap, we knew that they would have a grand timetogether.

  They called their junk the _Ferret_. The Captain had said, "Ferret 'emout for me, Trevelyan," so we all thought the name was jollyappropriate. They only had it painted on the stern, not done with bigwooden letters as ours was. They had tried to use the rest of our goldleaf, but had made a mess of the job and wasted it all, which was rathera pity.

  The Commander sent Mr. Langham a list of all the fellows who were to goin the six junks, and he stuck it on the notice board in the gunroom.

  This is a copy of it, and will explain how they were "told off", and whowere to go in them.

  _H.M.S. Vigilant_, _Tinghai Harbour._

  The six junks will be told off as tenders as follows:--

  Tenders to H.M.S. _Ringdove_--

  Junk No. 1, { Lieutenant Mervyn L. Trevelyan. { Midshipman James Rawlings.

  Junk No. 2, { Midshipman Richard Ford { Naval Cadet Richard F. Morton.

  Tenders to H.M.S. _Goldfinch_--

  Junk No. 3, { Lieutenant Ronald G. Forbes. { Midshipman the Hon. Talbot Withers.

  Junk No. 4, { Midshipman Harry G. Webster. { Naval Cadet W. D. St. G. Ponsonby

  Tenders to H.M.S. _Sparrow_--

  Junk No. 5, { Lieutenant Benjamin Langham. { Midshipman Percy Jones.

  Junk No. 6, { Midshipman Steven J. Johnston. { Naval Cadet John E. Smith.

  Two petty officers and nine seaman ratings and one signal rating will bedetailed to each tender, also one native pilot.

  The tenders will act under the orders of the Commanding Officer of thegunboat to which they are attached, and will be prepared to leaveTinghai after the gunboats have completed with coal and provisions.

  CHAS. E. LESTER, _Captain._

  We had nothing to do now but wait for the _Ringdove_, so Mr. Trevelyantook his junk and our junk the _Sally_ away sailing every day, till wereally got quite good at managing the clumsy gear and the huge mattingsails. We did some more gun practice as well.

  The _Goldfinch_ and _Sparrow_ took their junks away before our gunboatarrived, and we gave them a jolly good send-off. At last our turn came,and the _Ringdove_ finished coaling, and we were given orders to beready to start at daybreak.

  The evening before we had to start there hadn't been a breath of wind,and Dicky and I sat up whistling for it till very late. This was thefirst time we had spent the night aboard, and we really couldn't sleepbecause of the excitement and the fleas. The wind did come by themorning, but from the wrong direction, and the _Ringdove_, to save time,simply towed us away behind her.

  It wasn't a very glorious start, but they gave us a grand cheer, and theCaptain had shouted, "Good luck, Dick! pull your pound for the good oldWest Country," and that made me gloriously happy, because he had nevercalled me "Dick" since the first day I joined.

  When we had got round the corner, out of sight of the _Vigilant_, andknew that we were in for any amount of adventures, we felt simplyripping, and the sun came out too, and we sat on deck and dried ourthings.

  We were so close to the _Ferret_ that we could talk to Jim, andpresently he came out of his "kennel"--he called his a "kennel", and wecalled ours a "rabbit hutch"--and yelled across to us to look. He had ahuge cake in both hands. "You've got one too, I expect," he shouted,and we crawled into our hutch; and in a corner, under the sea boots, wasjust such another, all covered with icing, and "Chin Chin Joss from AhMan" scrawled on it in sugar. Wasn't that jolly decent of the oldmessman? Of course we'd spent no end of money getting sardines and jamand biscuit from him--those sovereigns the Captain had given Jim andmyself had come in jolly useful--but we never expected anything likethis, and it just made us completely happy, and we had a piece each onthe spot, and waved across to Jim whilst he and Mr. Trevelyan had slicestoo.

  The pilot who came to us was named Ah Chee, a funny-looking old chap,and I'm sure you wouldn't have guessed his age within twenty years. Hecould talk a little "pidgin" English, and volunteered to do thecooking--in a tiny little galley place over a brazier belonging to thejunk, and that boat's stove which we had fitted up--and did it jollywell too, except when he'd been smoking too much opium.

  As I told you before, Scroggs was the name of one petty officer, a finegreat chap, and Sharpe, a fat, good-natured little man, the other. Theywere both jolly good at their job, and the Commander had given us a goodlot of seamen too.

  When it got dark they started a "sing song", and Dicky and I each sang asong. I sang "We'll rant and we'll roar", and Dicky sang "Clementine",and we had an awfully jolly time, and were just as happy as anything,but for those wretched crawling and jumping things.

  The _Ringdove_ towed us along for two whole days, and on the morningafter the second night Mr. Rashleigh had towed us to wind'ard of theChung-li Tao grou
p of islands. He then stopped her engines and hauledus alongside for orders. We took our charts with us, Mr. Trevelyan andI, and he told me I was to cruise to the eastward and search all thechannels, and rejoin him to leeward of a certain island within fourdays--I forget the name of the island; and he told us a lot more of whatwe must do in case the weather or the wind changed, but as he hadwritten it all down, it was not necessary to remember it. Then he saidgoodbye, wished us good luck, and his final orders were: "Keep your gunscovered up with old tarpaulins, don't let your people show themselveswhen you're close to a village or a junk, and don't attempt to look toosmart. Don't hoist your sails as if you were in a blooming hurry, andif you're not sure where you are, anchor for the night. You're intendedto be ordinary merchant junks, and you're just bits of bait--sprats tocatch a whale--and you have to get hold of some of these fellows for theCaptain, and get 'em alive too--he doesn't want dead 'uns. If you meetmore than you can tackle, just run down to me, and," he added solemnly,"if other things happen, keep one cartridge in your revolvers foryourselves."

  That made me feel rather creepy and coldish, but not exactly frightened,because Mr. Rashleigh is so plump and so--well--funny looking that,however solemnly he tried to say anything, you really wanted to laugh.

  Just before we went away Dr. Hibbert, the jolly Surgeon of the_Ringdove_, gave Mr. Trevelyan and myself two big wine bottles each.They were marked "Foretop" and "Maintop". He winked cheerily at us:"You'll find 'em useful, you fellows. If any of your chaps gets a painbelow the belt, shove in a big whack of the 'Maintop' bottle; if he getsa pain above the belt, give him half a dozen whacks of the 'Foretop'."

  I marked mine "Above" and "Below", and stowed them away very carefullyin a corner. He gave me some tobacco too; for though I oughtn't to havesmoked--I wasn't eighteen--it was rather different when I was away fromthe ship. I had brought my pipe with me, but, like an ass, hadforgotten any tobacco.

  Well, we shook hands and then off we went, the "Ringdoves" cheering us,and all of us cheering each other. She steamed off to the north'ard toget to leeward of the islands, we went away towards the sun, and the_Ferret_ the opposite way, Jim waving from the poop and sending a last"Luck to _Sally_!".

  There was quite a good breeze blowing, and when we'd got all our sailshauled up and the leeboard down, we went flying along, heeling over tillthe lee gunwale raced through and under the water. It was simply grand.The sun came up too, and made it all the more cheerful, although therewasn't much warmth in it, and when the _Ringdove_ and the _Ferret_ hadboth got out of sight, Dicky gave a great sigh of contentment.

  I must say that, at first, I felt frightened at being alone, and shouldhave been jolly pleased to see the _Ringdove's_ masts and funny littlefunnel sticking up over the horizon; but presently I forgot to benervous, because the junk sailed so well, and it was simply ripping tobe in command, all by myself, with a six-pounder and a Maxim gun, andall those two hundred shells down below, and to think of the surprise weshould give any junk which tried to take us, because, you see, none ofthem had ever known what a bursting shell was like. There was Scroggsto fall back upon too, if one really got into a tight fix and couldn'tmake up one's mind. He was such a huge chap, that he could have liftedDicky and me up with each hand; but he would always talk about hismissus and his "kids" if we gave him the slightest opening,and--well--neither Dicky nor I were the least enthusiastic about themafter the second day, and I'm quite certain that Sharpe felt just thesame--he had to live with him, too--because I heard him say, "Now chuckit, if you don't want to drive me off'n my blooming rocker."

  To show you how the pirates had scared everything off the sea, we neversaw a single junk all those two days we were being towed by the_Ringdove_, and now we had the sea all to ourselves. Our first islandwas right ahead, and we soon got up to it, and Ah Chee came out of hispigeonhole and sniffed and looked, and sniffed and looked again, andsmiled, so we knew everything was all right, from the "running-on-rocks"point of view. I didn't tell you before, but Mr. Trevelyan had had agreat idea before we left Tinghai, and bought enough loose-fitting blueChinese short coats, and enough native caps to go round his men and minetoo; so now, as we got quite close to the land, we made the men stickthem on, and Dicky and I put ours on, and looked jolly funny, I expect.I couldn't help thinking what my mother would imagine had happened ifshe'd been able to see me rigged up like this, and I was pretty surethat Nan would say something to make me get red and angry. But it wasgrand fun, all the same.

  We had one of the _Vigilant's_ dinghies, besides that native sampan hungover the stern, and it had to be covered up with a tarpaulin, so thatits shape wouldn't show through. Good old Ah Chee seemed to understandour game, and ran in quite close, and when we were nearing a smallvillage, began gesticulating and signing to me to lower the sails alittle. "Too plenty quick--plenty too quick--pilons thinkee you nogot"--and he pointed down to the hold, and I suppose meant "cargo"--"nogood makee catchee." We lowered our mizzen altogether--it wasn't doingmuch good anyhow--and slacked off the sheets, and went past very slowly,Dicky and I looking through our telescopes, and hoping to see somethingcoming after us. There was nothing there, though, and Ah Chee shook hishead--"Too plenty good fellow can do."

  One or two small junks were hauled up above high-water mark, with theirmasts out--to make it all the more difficult for pirates to carry themoff, I suppose--a few children were playing with the dogs and the pigson the shore, and one or two miserable wretches were hauling inhandlines and picking small fish off the hooks--we could see themglitter in the sun as they wriggled.

  Then Ah Chee signed to us to go faster, so we hoisted the mizzen again,and hauled in our sheets and boomed along. We spent all that day doingthis, running down one channel and beating up another, and only once sawany junks. There were two beating to windward very slowly, and when wesighted them Dicky and I were very excited, and brought Ah Chee out tolook at them. He only shook his head and repeated, "Plenty good fellowcan do."

  Dicky suggested that we should see how fast we could sail and try andoverhaul them, and we were getting on finely, gaining every minute,though we could see them doing their best to go faster; but presently AhChee, who had borrowed my telescope, made us slow down, shaking hishead, "Plenty bad joss can do--if too plenty quick go--him Chinaman,"and he pretended to dive overboard. Dicky understood what he meantfirst--that the Chinaman would think us pirates, and would jumpoverboard if we overhauled them, so we lowered our foresail, just tocomfort them, and eased down.

  We had to keep under way that night, because the next lot of littleislands which we had to examine were about nine miles away, and thebreeze had fallen considerably. I slept jolly soundly till midnight--Irolled myself in my blanket and slept on deck, to escape the bugs underthe poop--and then relieved Dicky for the middle watch.

  It was jolly cold, but the stars peeped out every now and again, and itwas just light enough to see rocks or land a hundred yards ahead, sothere was very little danger of our running ashore.

  It was the first night I had spent at sea under sail since the UptonOvery days, and this made me think a lot of the old village, and towonder what they were doing at home. It was so jolly to know, after allthe time--the years, in fact--that I'd been longing to come to sea withthe Captain, that I was now doing quite an important job for him, andthat I might be lucky enough to help him, and even be able to find Mr.Travers and Sally Hobbs and her father. It was grand, and I did soenjoy myself that night, with, everyone, except myself and the men atthe helm and a lookout man for'ard, sound asleep.

  I had only the foresail and mizzen set, because there was no reason forgoing fast, and I was rather nervous about squalls. You couldn't seethem coming at night--at any rate I couldn't, because I'd had so jollylittle experience.

  I stood up alone on the poop, near the Maxim gun, and kept my eye on thesails and the long, narrow deck below me, and I don't know whether youwill understand what I mean, but I felt frightfully proud and conceited.I'd felt like that ever since
we left the _Ringdove_, but I'd done mybest not to let it ooze out, for fear that Dicky and the men shouldthink me an ass, or too cocky, and now it seemed to swell up from myboots, and gave me an awfully funny feeling all over.

  We sighted the island about six bells, and then I tacked away again, asit was no use to go in close till daylight. Scroggs relieved me at fouro'clock, and I felt almost sorry, but crept in alongside Dicky, as itwas raining, and went to sleep directly, without disturbing him.

  It didn't seem many minutes before Scroggs woke me. "The breeze issteady, sir, and the island's on our port bow, and I think, sir, thatsomething is following us and just smelling 'around'."

  I crawled out like a shot. It was raining gently, and the sails wereall damp and dripping, but I couldn't see anything at first except thelong dark line of the island to the east.

  Scroggs pointed down to leeward, and I thought I made out, just for asecond, three great sails.

  "She's there, sure enough, sir; I've seen her, off and on, for the lasthalf-hour, and she's working up to wind'ard, as if she wanted to have alook at us."

  I watched and watched, my heart thumping like mad, and presently Icaught sight of her dark sails again.

  We went off on the other tack, and, sure enough, the next time I saw hershe'd done so too.

  I knew then that she must be following us.

  "She don't quite know what we are, sir," Scroggs chuckled. "She'll knowa bit later."

  Presently, as it grew lighter and she got closer, we could see her allthe time. She looked huge in that light, and had four masts and fourimmense sails, not three, as we had thought at first. She was heelingover tremendously, sailing two knots to our one, and overhauling usfast.

  If you think that I was frightened you are jolly well right.

  H.M.S. "Ringdove" Towing the Junks 'Sally' and 'Ferret']