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Updated: April 30, 2025
When we had packed our bags and come up on the middle deck to leave the ship in one of the cutters, which was to land us at the King's Stairs in the dockyard, the master-at-arms, who stood by the entry-port with Mr Brown the ship's corporal, wished us both a cordial farewell.
I waved my hand in reply as he sculled away, all alone now in the wherry, towards the flagship to try and pick up some stray passenger for Gosport or Hardway; and the next instant I had gained the top of the accommodation ladder, and was standing within the entry-port leading on to the middle deck.
But just as he reached the entry-port a door in the courtyard opened, and the bandy-legged man came out with a bag upon his back, leading Cicely by the hand.
So saying, he pointed to a large open sort of cabin, with glass sides to it, immediately adjoining the entry-port, where I found a couple of boys of about my own age, and who had evidently come aboard on a similar errand.
When it came to my turn, though, I had absolutely nothing to show. "Hullo!" exclaimed the master-at-arms. "Where are your papers, young 'un?" I was about to explain; but the ship's corporal who had first spoken to me at the entry-port and taken on to the captain the letter from Captain Mordaunt which father had handed to me, saved all further trouble.
The bugle sounded `cooks to their messes' as Mick was saying this; and so off he hurried to the galley on the fore part of the middle deck when we had got down the hatchway, I following after him. On passing the entry-port, however, my old friend the master-at-arms hailed me. "Hi, Tom Bowling!" he called out, beckoning me into the office; "I hope you haven't been getting into any row?"
The afternoon, through these means, passed away so quickly, that though I was once or twice near the entry-port on the starboard side, close by to which the tailor had measured us, I declare I never once thought of looking out over the waterway to see what had become of father and his wherry; albeit, from the tide having ebbed, my outlook was now much more circumscribed than when I had come afloat in the morning, it seeming but a stone's throw to Point; while on the port side of the ship one could almost have walked ashore, the mud flats of Haslar Creek being out in all their glory, and stretching up almost to the old Saint Vincent's rudder-post!
This created a good deal of noisy merriment as we sat round the mess- table near the entry-port, causing the sharp-eared, lynx-eyed `Jaunty' to spot the offender from his convenient post of observation hard by. "Be quiet there, Paddy!" he sang out, poking his head above the window- sill. "Do you think you're in your own mud cabin in the wilds of Connemara?
"Ha, my lads," cried the `Jaunty, who stood by the entry-port, "you've just saved your bacon!" The other fellows were just coming down from skylarking; and, going below with the lot, we found time before turning in Mick having declared that he was "hungry enuf to ate an illiphant" to sample the stock of grub mother had so thoughtfully provided us with.
"But, look out, my lad! I think we'd better be a-going alongside now. Ain't that a jolly there, signalling to us from the entry-port o' the old Victory?" "Aye, father," said I, for I had seen the marine holding up his hand to summon us before he spoke. "The court-martial must be over sooner than was expected."
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