Читать книгу Tracks of a Rolling Stone - Henry J. Coke - Страница 7

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The passage from the romantic to the realistic, from the chimerical to the actual, from the child’s poetic interpretation of life to life’s practical version of itself, is too gradual to be noticed while the process is going on. It is only in the retrospect we see the change. There is still, for yet another stage, the same and even greater receptivity—delight in new experiences, in gratified curiosity, in sensuous enjoyment, in the exercise of growing faculties. But the belief in the impossible and the bliss of ignorance are seen, when looking back, to have assumed almost abruptly a cruder state of maturer dulness. Between the public schoolboy and the child there is an essential difference; and this in a boy’s case is largely due, I fancy, to the diminished influence of woman, and the increased influence of men.

With me, certainly, the rough usage I was ere long to undergo materially modified my view of things in general. In 1838, when I was eleven years old, my uncle, Henry Keppel, the future Admiral of the Fleet, but then a dashing young commander, took me (as he mentions in his Autobiography) to the Naval Academy at Gosport. The very afternoon of my admittance—as an illustration of the above remarks—I had three fights with three different boys. After that the ‘new boy’ was left to his own devices—qua ‘new boy,’ that is; as an ordinary small boy, I had my share. I have spoken of the starvation at Dr. Pinkney’s; here it was the terrible bullying that left its impress on me—literally its mark, for I still bear the scar upon my hand.

Most boys, I presume, know the toy called a whirligig, made by stringing a button on a loop of thread, the twisting and untwisting of which by approaching and separating the hands causes the button to revolve. Upon this design, and by substituting a jagged disk of slate for the button, the senior ‘Bull-dogs’ (we were all called ‘Burney’s bull-dogs’) constructed a very simple instrument of torture. One big boy spun the whirligig, while another held the small boy’s palm till the sharp slate-edge gashed it. The wound was severe. For many years a long white cicatrice recorded the fact in my right hand. The ordeal was, I fancy, unique—a prerogative of the naval ‘bull-dogs.’ The other torture was, in those days, not unknown to public schools. It was to hold a boy’s back and breech as near to a hot fire as his clothes would bear without burning. I have an indistinct recollection of a boy at one of our largest public schools being thus exposed, and left tied to chairs while his companions were at church. When church was over the boy was found—roasted.

By the advice of a chum I submitted to the scorching without a howl, and thus obtained immunity, and admission to the roasting guild for the future. What, however, served me best, in all matters of this kind, was that as soon as I was twelve years old my name was entered on the books of the ‘Britannia,’ then flag-ship in Portsmouth Harbour, and though I remained at the Academy, I always wore the uniform of a volunteer of the first class, now called a naval cadet. The uniform was respected, and the wearer shared the benefit.

During the winter of 1839–40 I joined H.M.S. ‘Blonde,’ a 46-gun frigate commanded by Captain Bouchier, afterwards Sir Thomas, whose portrait is now in the National Portrait Gallery. He had seen much service, and had been flag-captain to Nelson’s Hardy. In the middle of that winter we sailed for China, where troubles had arisen anent the opium trade.

What would the cadet of the present day think of the treatment we small boys had to put up with sixty or seventy years ago? Promotion depended almost entirely on interest. The service was entered at twelve or thirteen. After two years at sea, if the boy passed his examination, he mounted the white patch, and became a midshipman. At the end of four years more he had to pass a double examination—one for seamanship before a board of captains, and another for navigation at the Naval College. He then became a master’s mate, and had to serve for three years as such before he was eligible for promotion to a lieutenancy. Unless an officer had family interest he often stuck there, and as often had to serve under one more favoured, who was not born when he himself was getting stale.

Naturally enough these old hands were jealous of the fortunate youngsters, and, unless exceptionally amiable, would show them little mercy.

We left Portsmouth in December 1839. It was bitter winter. The day we sailed, such was the severity of the gale and snowstorm, that we had to put back and anchor at St. Helens in the Isle of Wight. The next night we were at sea. It happened to be my middle watch. I had to turn out of my hammock at twelve to walk the deck till four in the morning. Walk! I could not stand. Blinded with snow, drenched by the seas, frozen with cold, home sick and sea sick beyond description, my opinion of the Royal Navy—as a profession—was, in the course of these four hours, seriously subverted. Long before the watch ended. I was reeling about more asleep than awake; every now and then brought to my senses by breaking my shins against the carronade slides; or, if I sat down upon one of them to rest, by a playful whack with a rope’s end from one of the crusty old mates aforesaid, who perhaps anticipated in my poor little personality the arrogance of a possible commanding officer. Oh! those cruel night watches! But the hard training must have been a useful tonic too. One got accustomed to it by degrees; and hence, indifferent to exposure, to bad food, to kicks and cuffs, to calls of duty, to subordination, and to all that constitutes discipline.

Luckily for me, the midshipman of my watch, Jack Johnson, was a trump, and a smart officer to boot. He was six years older than I, and, though thoroughly good-natured, was formidable enough from his strength and determination to have his will respected. He became my patron and protector. Rightly, or wrongly I am afraid, he always took my part, made excuses for me to the officer of our watch if I were caught napping under the half-deck, or otherwise neglecting my duty. Sometimes he would even take the blame for this upon himself, and give me a ‘wigging’ in private, which was my severest punishment. He taught me the ropes, and explained the elements of seamanship. If it was very cold at night he would make me wear his own comforter, and, in short, took care of me in every possible way. Poor Jack! I never had a better friend; and I loved him then, God knows. He was one of those whose advancement depended on himself. I doubt whether he would ever have been promoted but for an accident which I shall speak of presently.

When we got into warm latitudes we were taught not only to knot and splice, but to take in and set the mizzen royal. There were four of us boys, and in all weathers at last we were practised aloft until we were as active and as smart as any of the ship’s lads, even in dirty weather or in sudden squalls.

We had a capital naval instructor for lessons in navigation, and the quartermaster of the watch taught us how to handle the wheel and con.

These quartermasters—there was one to each of the three watches—were picked men who had been captains of tops or boatswains’ mates. They were much older than any of the crew. Our three in the ‘Blonde’ had all seen service in the French and Spanish wars. One, a tall, handsome old fellow, had been a smuggler; and many a fight with, or narrow escape from, the coast-guard he had to tell of. The other two had been badly wounded. Old Jimmy Bartlett of my watch had a hole in his chest half an inch deep from a boarding pike. He had also lost a finger, and a bullet had passed through his cheek. One of his fights was in the ‘Amethyst’ frigate when, under Sir Michael Seymour, she captured the ‘Niemen’ in 1809. Often in the calm tropical nights, when the helm could take care of itself almost, he would spin me a yarn about hot actions, cutting-outs, press-gangings, and perils which he had gone through, or—what was all one to me—had invented.

From England to China round the Cape was a long voyage before there was a steamer in the Navy. It is impossible to describe the charm of one’s first acquaintance with tropical vegetation after the tedious monotony unbroken by any event but an occasional flogging or a man overboard. The islands seemed afloat in an atmosphere of blue; their jungles rooting in the water’s edge. The strange birds in the daytime, the flocks of parrots, the din of every kind of life, the flying foxes at night, the fragrant and spicy odours, captivate the senses. How delicious, too, the fresh fruits brought off by the Malays in their scooped-out logs, one’s first taste of bananas, juicy shaddocks, mangoes, and custard apples—after months of salt junk, disgusting salt pork, and biscuit all dust and weevils. The water is so crystal-clear it seems as though one could lay one’s hands on strange coloured fish and coral beds at any depth. This, indeed, was ‘kissing the lips of unexpected change.’ It was a first kiss moreover. The tropics now have ceased to remind me even of this spell of novelty and wonder.