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Devon Boys: A Tale of the North Shore, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 28. Drilling Our Men |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. DRILLING OUR MEN My father's armoury was a good deal talked about, but when regular drilling was commenced at the Gap it excited no surprise. The grey-beards of Ripplemouth talked it over, and said they were glad that Captain Duncan had woke up and was ready to defend the Gap when the French came to our part of the coast, and they said they expected great things of him. "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bob Chowne one day, as he came over; "heard the news?" "No," I said; "have the French come?" "No, not yet; but the Ripplemouth people are going to ask your father to help them make a fort on the cliff over the harbour, and they're going to get some guns from Bristol." "What nonsense!" I said. "Here, I'm going over to the Gap; will you come?" "No, I don't want to come to the old lead pump and see your father's people make the water muddy. What are you going to do?" "Sword drill." "Oh! I don't care for sword drill." "Bigley's coming too," I said; "and we're going through it all." "It's stupid work standing all in a row swinging your arms about like windmills, chopping nothing, and poking at the air, and pretending that someone's trying to stab you. I wouldn't mind if it was real fighting, but yours is all sham." "Then we're going to do some pistol-shooting at a mark with ball-cartridge." "Pooh! It's all fudge!" said Bob yawning. "I wouldn't mind coming if you were going to do something with real guns." "Why, they're real pistols." "Pistols! Yes--pop-guns. I mean big cannons." "Ah, well," I said, "I'm sorry you will not come, but I must go." "That's always the way when a fellow comes away from our old physic-shop and takes the trouble to walk all these miles. You're always either out or going out." "I can't help it, Bob," I replied, feeling rather ill-used. "My father expects me. I have to help him now. You know I like a game as well as ever I did." "Ah, well, it don't matter. Be off." "I'm very sorry," I said, glancing at the old eight-day clock; "but I must go now." "Well, didn't I say, Be off?" cried Bob. "Good-bye, then!" I offered him my hand, but he did not take it. "If you'll walk round by the cliff I'll come part of the way with you," he said ill-humouredly. "Will you?" I cried. "Come along, then." I did not let him see it, but I had felt all the time that Master Bob meant to come. He had played that game so many times that I knew him by heart. I knew, too, that he was wonderfully fond of the sword practice, in which he had taken part whenever he could, and to get a shot with a pistol or a gun gave him the greatest pleasure. "He won't come away till it's all over," I said to myself; and we walked on round by the high track watching the ships going up to Bristol, till all at once, as we rounded the corner leading into the Gap, Bob exclaimed: "Why, there's old Jonas's boat coming in!" "Where?" I said dubiously. "Why, out there, stupid!" cried Bob, pointing north-west. "What! That lugger?" I said. "No, that's not his. He went out four days ago, and isn't expected back yet. That's more like the French lugger we rode in--Captain Gualtiere's." "Yah! Nonsense!" "Well, but it is," I said. "That has three masts; it's a chasse maree. Jonas's boat has only two masts--a regular lugger." "You've got sand in your left eye and an old limpet-shell over the other," grumbled Bob. "French boat, indeed! Why, no French boat like that would dare to come near England now. I s'pose that's a French boat too!" He pointed to another about a mile behind. "No," I said; "that looks like a big yacht or a cutter. I shouldn't wonder if it's a revenue cutter." "Well, you are a clever chap," said Bob mockingly--"setting up for a sailor, and don't know any more about it than an old cuckoo." "I know what our old Sam and my father and Binnacle Bill have taught me," I said quietly. "No, you don't--you don't know anything only how to be surly and disagreeable to your visitors." "I say, Bob," I said, "is it true what people say?" "I don't care what people say." "Why, that your father gives you so much physic that it makes you sour?" I repented saying it directly, for Bob stopped short. "Want me to chuck you off the cliff?" he said fiercely. "No, that I don't," I said, pretending to be horribly frightened. "Because, just you look here--" "Ahoy--oy!" "Ahoy--oy! Ahoy--oy!" I shouted back in answer to the faint cry that came from below, where we could see Bigley waving his hat. It was easier work for us to go down the precipitous slope than for him to climb up; but he did not seem to study that for he came eagerly towards us, while we slipped and scrambled down, ignoring the path, which was a quarter of a mile away. Bob did not speak as we were scrambling down, and the exertion made him forget his ill-temper, so that he was a little more amiable when we came within speaking distance of Bigley. "Going to the drill?" he shouted; and then without waiting for an answer, "So am I. Has your father come back, Sep?" "Come back!" I said. "What do you mean? He came on here." "Yes," said Bigley; "and then he got our boat and went off in her--so Mother Bonnet said. I was not here." "Why, where has he gone?" I asked. "I don't know. I thought he had rowed round to the Bay." I shook my head and began to wonder what it meant. "Father has been round to Penzance or Plymouth, I think," said Bigley. "He'll be back soon, I expect." "What's he gone after?" said Bob shortly. "I don't know," said Bigley, colouring a little. "Fishing or trading or carrying something, I expect." "I don't!" sneered Bob. "I know." "That you don't," said Bigley quietly; "even I don't." "No!" sneered Bob; "you never know anything. People at Ripplemouth do. He has gone on a jolly good smuggling trip, I know." I saw Bigley's eyes flash, and for a moment I thought that he was going to say something harsh, and that we were going to have a quarrel through Bob Chowne's propensity for saying disagreeable things; but just then I happened to turn my head and saw a boat coming round the western corner of the entrance to the Gap. "Why, there's father!" I cried. "Where can he have been!" That exclamation changed the conversation from what was a terribly touchy point with Bigley, who always felt it acutely if anyone hinted that his father indulged in smuggling. "I know," said Bob Chowne, changing his attack so that it was directed upon me. "Well, if my father was so precious selfish as to get a boat and go out fishing without me, I should kick up a row." "Why, you are always making rows without," I said testily. "My father has not been fishing, I'm sure." "There he goes again," cried Bob in an ill-used tone. "That's Sep Duncan all over. I say, Big, he was trying to pick a quarrel with me up on the cliff when you came, and I wouldn't. Now he's at it again." "Well, I sha'n't stop to quarrel now," I replied. "Come on down and meet father." We were a good three hundred feet above the shore when I spoke, and starting off the others joined me, and we went down over the crumbling slates and then past the pebble ridge to where the little river bubbled up again through the stones before it reached the sea, and then in and out among the rocks, to stand and wait till my father rowed in. "Ah, boys," he cried, as the boat grounded, and we dragged it up over a smooth patch of sand, "you are just in time to help." "Been fishing, father?" I said. "No; only on a little bit of investigation along the coast; but I found I had not time as it was drill day. There, make the boat fast to the buoy line, and let's get up to the mine, and we'll all go this afternoon when the drill's over." "This afternoon?" I said eagerly. "Yes; the weather's lovely and warm, and you fellows can row me." I felt ready to toss up my hat and cheer, and I saw that Bigley was ready to do the same; but we both felt that we were getting too old, so we refrained. "I'm afraid I can't go, Captain Duncan," said Bob in an ill-used way. "My father will be at home expecting me." "No, he will not, Bob," said my father smiling; "he will not be back from Barnstaple till quite late. Come along, my lad, and we'll have some lunch, and then begin drill. Had Sam started with the basket, Sep?" "No, father," I replied; "but I saw Kicksey packing it when I came away." "Sure to be there," said my father; and he led the way up the Gap with Bigley, to whom he always made a great point of being kind, partly because he was my old companion, and partly, as I thought, because he wanted to smooth away any ill feeling, and to make up for the break between us that kept threatening to come. This upset Bob, who hung back and began to growl about not being sure he could stop to drill, and thought that, as we reached the end of the cliff path, he ought to go now, and altogether he required a great deal of coaxing to get him along, or rather he professed to want a great deal, till we reached the mine, where all was going on just as of old, the wheel turning, the water splashing, furnace roaring, and the pump keeping on its regular thump. Old Sam was standing at the counting-house door with a big basket, the one he always brought over, filled with provisions for our use, as so much time was spent at the mine; and as my father pulled out a big key, Sam took in the basket, cleared the table, and threw over it a white cloth, upon which he spread the provisions. For a few minutes after we had sat down--Bob Chowne having to be fetched in, after sliding off so that he might be fetched back--we could not eat much for feasting our eyes on the bright swords and pistols; but young appetites would have their way, and we were soon eating heartily till the meat pasty and custard and cream were completely destroyed. "A very bold attack," said my father smiling. "Now that ought to make muscle. Off with your coats, my lads, and roll up your sleeves." As he spoke he went to the door, and blew an old silver boatswain's whistle, when work was dropped, and the men came running up quickly from furnace, and out of the pit and stone-breaking sheds, till ten stout work-stained fellows stood in a row, showing the effect of the drill and discipline already brought to bear. "Like the old days on the quarter-deck," said my father to Bob Chowne. "Now, Sep, serve out the arms." I had done this several times before, and rapidly handed to each man his cutlass and belt, which was as quickly buckled on. Then one each was given to Bob Chowne and Bigley, and I was left without. "Humph, twelve," said my father counting, as he saw me unarmed. "You can take that new sword, Sep." I could not help feeling pleased, for this was the officer's sword which had come down with the others; and as I buckled on the lion-headed belt I had hard work to keep from glancing at Bob Chowne, who, I knew, would feel disgusted. There was no time wasted, for my father at these drills kept up his old sea-going officer ways; and in a few minutes we were formed into two lines before him, opened out, proved distance with our swords, so as to have plenty of room, and not be likely to cut each other; and there for a good hour the sun flashed on the blades, as the sword exercise was gone through, with its cuts, points, and guards, the men taking to it eagerly as a pleasant change from the drudgery of the mine, and showing no little proficiency already. "There," said my father at last, after the final order to sheathe swords had been given. "Break off. No pistol practice to-day. Your hands will be unsteady." "Always the way!" I heard Bob Chowne grumble. "I stopped on purpose to have a bit of pistol-shooting, and now there's none. See if I'd have stayed if I had known." I had to run to the door of the great stone-built counting-house and receive the swords as the men filed up, and for the next ten minutes I was busy hanging all in their places. When I had finished the men had all gone back to their work, and after a look round, my father said a few words to a big black-looking Cornishman, who had lately been selected as foreman from his experience about mines, locked up the counting-house, and turned to us. "Now, boys," he said, "we'll go back to the boat." Bob Chowne's lips parted to say that he could not stop; but he had not the heart to speak the words, and we went back to the beach, to enter upon an adventure that proved rather startling to us all, and had a sequel that was more startling, and perhaps more unpleasant still. _ |
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