Chapter 3. Lieutenant O'flaherty...

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_ CHAPTER THREE. LIEUTENANT O'FLAHERTY--MY SHIP AND SHIPMATES--THE PILOT'S BOAT--RESULTS OF DRUNKENNESS--MY FIRST COMMAND

One day, on going with Larry, according to custom, to the "Star and Garter" to learn tidings of the cutter, I saw a fine sailorlike-looking man, with an intelligent and good-humoured expression of countenance, talking to the landlady.

"There's the young gentleman himself," she exclaimed, pointing at me.

"What, my lad, are you indeed my nephew?" said the officer, kindly, putting out his hand and pressing mine warmly. "Faith, I needn't ask that, though; you are the very picture of your poor mother. Well, Neil, the sooner you get on board and begin learning your duty, the better."

I answered that I was perfectly ready, for I at once took a great fancy to him, and thought I should be very happy in the cutter.

He now observed Larry for the first time.

"What! old shipmate," he exclaimed, shaking him warmly by the hand, "are you the trustworthy person Dr Driscoll told me he would send to look after the youngster? I'm delighted to see you again, and wish I could give you a berth on board my craft, but I'm afraid the service won't permit that. You must, however, come and take a cruise with us, and talk over old times."

"Faith, your honour, I'm not much fit for duty, I own, with my timber toe, afloat, and I've just found a snug berth on shore, which I intend to keep till Master D'Arcy settles down in the halls of his fathers, and wants my services; but I'll gladly take a cruise with your honour, and just see how he practises all I've taught him. You'll find him in a few days, I'll warrant, as smart a seaman as many who've been two or three years afloat."

To make a long story short, while Larry remained on shore with his new-found wife, I went on board the cutter; and the following day we ran out of harbour, round by Saint Helen's, and stood down Channel in search of a smuggling craft, of whose movements the Commander had received notice.

I found my uncle, on further acquaintance, to be what his looks betokened him, a thoroughly honest, hearty sailor. His first officer was a very old mate who had long given up all hopes of promotion in the service. He was married; and his wife and family lived near Portsmouth. His name was John Hanks. There was a second master and a clerk in charge; so that, for a cutter, we made up an unusually large mess. We had no surgeon, as we could always run into harbour if any of us required doctoring.

My uncle, who was a poor man, had taken the command of the cutter for the sake of his wife and family; and when I came to know my sweet young aunt, I felt, with her smiles to welcome him when he got home, Lieutenant O'Flaherty was a happier man far than many who roll in their easy carriages about the streets of smoky London.

Mrs O'Flaherty, with the two children she then had, lived in a pretty little cottage near Ryde, where he was able every now and then to go and see her. Of course he was never wanting in an excuse, when duty would allow him, to be off Ryde; and on one of these occasions he first introduced me to his wife. I loved her at once, for she was a thoroughly genuine, graceful woman, young and pretty, with a kind, warm heart, and a sweet expression of countenance, which her character did not belie. My little cousins and I also became great friends, and I confess that I felt I would much rather stay with her than have to go to sea and knock about in all weathers in the cutter; but duty sent us both on board again, and it was a long time before I had another opportunity of paying a visit to Daisy Cottage.

But I have been going ahead of my narrative.

We were standing down Channel in the _Serpent_. Our cruising ground was chiefly from Saint Helen's to the Start; but we were liable to be sent elsewhere, or might go wherever our Commander had notice there was a chance of catching a smuggler.

We had been out some days, keeping a sharp look-out off Portland Point for a noted fellow, Myers by name, the owner of a fast lugger, the _Kitty_, who was expected to try and run a cargo of tubs in that neighbourhood.

The smugglers played us all sorts of tricks, and I must own we were more than once taken in by them. On one occasion, while it was blowing very fresh, a cutter hailed us and told us that she had just passed over a number of tubs, pointing out the direction where we should find them. While we were engaged in picking them up, she made sail for the shore; and we afterwards learned, to our mortification, that she had run a very large cargo of contraband goods.

Thanks to Larry's instructions, as I was very handy in a boat, and understood the duties of a midshipman tolerably well, I was, to my great delight, soon placed in charge of one of the gigs.

A few days after the occurrence I have described, when we were about mid Channel, we observed a vessel whose appearance was suspicious. It had just gone two bells, in the forenoon watch. It was blowing pretty fresh from the south-west, and there was a lop of a sea, but not enough to endanger a boat. We made sail towards the stranger, and as we neared her we perceived that she was veering about, apparently under no control.

"Her main-boom has gone," observed Hanks, "and there doesn't seem to be a soul on deck; her crew have been knocked or washed overboard, I suspect."

"I am afraid so," said the Commander. "She looks to me like a pilot-boat. She was probably struck by a squall, with only a couple of hands left in her."

"Lubberly work somehow, at all events," remarked Hanks.

In another ten minutes we were close to the pilot-boat, and the cutter being hove-to, a boat was lowered, and Hanks and I were ordered to go in her and see what was the matter. When we gained the deck, we found that the boom had knocked away part of the bulwarks and companion-hatch, and committed other damage. The first thing we did was to lower down the mainsail and to secure the boom, which task, after some difficulty, we accomplished. We next set about searching the vessel, thinking that no one was on board. The main hatch was on, but there was a little cabin aft, with a small stove in it, and six berths, in which the crew lived. There was a table in the cabin, and on it were a couple of tumblers, a thick-necked, square-sided glass bottle, on its side, a broken pipe, and wet marks, and ashes of tobacco, as if people had very lately been drinking there.

"What's wrong here?" said Hanks. "It could not have been long ago since some one was on board."

Our eyes soon began to get accustomed to the sombre light of the cabin, which was darkened by the mainsail hanging over it. I happened to stoop down, and my eyes glanced under the table, where we had not before looked.

"Hillo," I exclaimed, "why here are a man's legs."

"There seems to be two brace of them," said Hanks, laughing. "Come out, my hearties, and give an account of yourselves."

Saying this, he began to drag towards the companion-ladder one of the men; I following his example with regard to the other.

"Why, Jim, we ain't got in yet; so let us alone, will ye," grunted out one, as he turned on his side, without opening his eyes.

The other was too drunk to speak; indeed, had we not loosened his neckcloth, I believe he would have died of apoplexy, for he was already getting black in the face. We placed them near the companion-ladder, where they could obtain some air; and then, getting off the main hatch, we proceeded to search the vessel. In the hold were several casks of French brandy, immensely strong spirit, intended to be diluted before being sold. From one of these the crew had evidently been helping themselves, and not being accustomed to so potent a liquid, fancying it of the ordinary strength, it had overcome their senses before they were aware of what was happening to them. We found, also, Dutch drops, several bales of tobacco, and sundry other things, amply sufficient to condemn the craft as a smuggler, but which also proved that it was an unusual venture, and that the people were not adepts in the contraband trade. We searched the vessel throughout, but no one else was discovered.

"Who, then, could Jim be?" we asked ourselves.

The drunken men were still too fast locked in a state of stupor to answer. When nothing more could be done, Hanks sent me back to the cutter, to report proceedings, hoping to be ordered to take the prize in himself.

When I had made my report, "Very well," said the Commander, "I wish to try what amount of discretion you possess, Neil; so you shall take the prize up to Portsmouth, and deliver her and the people over to the proper authorities. Take Thole and four hands with you. Look out that the prisoners do not escape, and I dare say you will do well. I shall be up at Portsmouth in a day or so, to take you off. Now get on board, and assume your command as fast as you like. Send Mr Hanks on board again."

A change of things was soon put up in a bundle, and I and it bundled on board the prize.

"And so you are to go, youngster, are you?" remarked Hanks, as I got on board. "It's all my ill luck, for I thought to go myself; but good-bye, youngster, and a pleasant trip to you."

Saying this, he stepped into the boat alongside, and returned to the cutter, leaving me in possession of my new-fledged honours. The pilot-boat belonged to some place on the Dorsetshire coast, and had drifted up off Saint Alban's Head, where we found her. The Needles were just in sight ahead, or rather the end of the Isle of Wight, off which they extend, so it seemed an easy matter to run in; but I suspect, without Thole I should have made some slight mistake or other, which might have laid my charge on the rocks. Thole showed me the proper marks, and by keeping the two lighthouses on Hurst Point in one, we ran in between the Needles and the shoal of the shingles. I felt very grand, as I walked the deck with my spy-glass under my arm, and watched the chalk-white cliffs of Alum Bay rising high above us on the right, and the curiously-coloured strata of sand at the eastern end of it, the wood-covered heights of Freshwater, and the little town of Yarmouth; on the left, the old castle of Hurst, and the long extent of the forest shores of Hampshire, with the picturesque town of Lymington rising among the green trees and green fields. I had, I confess, a feeling--grand as I had to appear--that I knew less than anybody else on board about affairs nautical; but modesty is the frequent companion of merit, and though I was very little, I might have been remarkably good.

By this time one of the prisoners began to come to himself, and his astonishment was only equalled by his alarm when, on sitting up and rubbing his eyes, he found himself surrounded by strange faces, and discovered that the craft was running up the Solent Channel. My uniform at once told him the truth.

"Where's Jim?" he asked, on seeing only his drunken companion near him.

"Jim--I don't know who you mean," answered Thole. "If it was any one you left on deck, master, why, all I can say is, he wasn't there when we boarded you."

On hearing this announcement, he started to his feet, instantly throwing off all appearance of drunkenness, except that his eye was haggard and his cheek discoloured. He was a man of about fifty, of a stout build and a weather-beaten, bronzed face, rather full and good-humoured, certainly not giving one the notion that he was an habitual drunkard. His hair was somewhat long, and dishevelled and grizzled, from exposure to the atmosphere.

"What! Jim not on board?" he exclaimed, rushing on deck. "Where is my boy--what has happened to him?"

He stood for a few seconds leaning against the companion-hatch, while his eye scanned the condition of the vessel, and he seemed instinctively to comprehend what had happened.

"Where is Jim?" he repeated, in a hollow voice.

"I don't know, master," answered one of our men, whom he seemed to address. "We only found you two below. If there was another of you, he must have been washed overboard while you lay drunk in the cabin."

"Drunk!" he ejaculated; "then, my son, I've murdered you." As he uttered these words he sprang to the side, and would have thrown himself overboard, had not Thole, who just then came on deck, caught him by the legs and dragged him forcibly back. The unhappy man struggled violently in his endeavour to perpetrate his intention. "Jim, Jim, my son! you gone--gone for ever; how can I go home and face your mother, my boy?" he cried, his bosom heaving with the passion raging within. Then he turned frantically to us, swearing oaths too frightful to repeat. "You've been murdering him, some of you, you bloody-handed king's officers. I know you of old. It's little you care for the life of a fellow-creature. Where is he, I say? I left him on deck sound and well, as fine a lad as ever stepped. How could he have gone overboard? He hadn't touched a drop; he was as sober as any one of you; but I know how it was, you chased him and he wouldn't give in--he stood at the helm like a man; so you, you cowardly hounds, shot him down as if he were a brute. There's his blood on the deck--the brave lad's blood, and you dabbling your feet in it--you, his murderers,--and laughing at me, his father."

Thus the unhappy man went raving on, conjuring up, in his excited imagination, scenes the most dreadful. Of course we heeded not his raving abuse, for we pitied him most sincerely. There was now no doubt that, while the father and his smuggling companion were drunk below, the son had been knocked overboard. In vain had the voice of the poor lad implored aid from those whose brutal intoxication prevented them even from hearing his death-shriek ere he sunk for ever. It was with the greatest difficulty we could hold the wretched man as we dragged him below and lashed him into one of the standing bed-places. He there still continued raving as before, now calling on his son to come to him, and then accusing us of his murder. His cries and groans at last awoke the other man out of his drunken trance, but it was some time before he could comprehend what had happened. He was not a father, and when at length he came to his senses, he, with brutal indifference abused his companion for disturbing him. As I stood over the skylight which had been got off to give air to the little stifling cabin, I heard him growl out, "Jim's gone, has he? his own fault then, not to keep a better look-out. It's he, then, who's brought us into this scrape; and I don't see why you should make such a jaw for what can't be helped. There now, old man, just belay all that, and let me finish my snooze. We can't hang for it, you know; there, there, now,"--and he actually turned on his side and went off to sleep again. At length the father of the drowned lad wore himself out and fell off, it seemed, into a sort of stupor.

"I never knew no good come of smuggling," observed Thole, rather sententiously. "What they makes they spends as fast as they gets, and no one's the better for it."

Nobody had a better right than had he to know this, for he had been somewhat addicted to the practice in his youth, and had in consequence been sent on board a man-of-war. The flood and fair wind carried us right into Portsmouth Harbour, where I dropped my anchor and pulled on shore to report my arrival to the custom-house authorities. I was in one respect sorry that my cruise was over, because I was obliged to descend from my rank as commander to that of midshipman; but as I hoped some day to regain it, I did not grieve much about it, especially as I expected to be soon able to set off and pay Larry a visit. The two smugglers were sent to prison; one afterwards entered on board of a man-of-war; the unhappy father died raving mad in the hospital, calling himself the murderer of his son.

Thus ended what I may consider my first cruise. _

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