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Updated: June 27, 2025
I told her a tale of one of our men saving life. "Oh!" said she, "didn't your friend Nevil Beauchamp save a man from drowning, off the guardship, in exactly the same place?" And next day she sent me a cheque for three pounds for the fellow. Steady, men! I keep her letter. The boat went smoothly alongside the schooner. Miss Halkett had come to the side.
We weighed forthwith and stood up channel with a slashing westerly breeze, arriving at Portsmouth on the following day, when all hands were turned over to the guardship, and the frigate was taken into dock.
In this condition, when arriving at Sheerness, we found to our surprise that the red flag was still flying on board the guardship, the Sandwich. Supposing that her crew had not been informed of what had taken place at Spithead, Sir Harry sent our delegates on board her, that they might explain the real state of affairs.
But the guardship was no place for me, weak and shaken as I then was by my long and serious spell of illness; and although the Admiral might well, in the press of daily affairs, have been excused had he forgotten so unimportant a detail as the state of my health, he did not; on the contrary, he invited me to spend a week at the Pen, to recuperate, during which his wife, Lady Agnes, was a second mother to me and a hospital nurse combined.
On returning to the Active after our leave was up, Mick and I were sent to the guardship, or depot, having to leave our old ship through getting our new rating as ordinary seamen, we having been drafted to her as `boys'; for, being no longer held to be such, we, of course, had no `local habitation or name, according to the saying, on board her.
This promptly settled the matter, and a pledge was given by the enterprising captain to relax no effort or dash "Combined with caution," said the agent to fulfil his important mission. At 10 p.m., he was rowed alongside the steamer without having been interrupted or spoken to from the guardship or the sentries at the forts.
Lieutenant Parrington, officer in command of the little gunboat Mindoro, which had been captured from the Spaniards some years ago and since the departure of the cruiser squadron for Mindanao been put in commission as substitute guardship in the harbor of Manila, entered the room and dropped into a chair near Harryman; whereupon the Chinese boy, almost inaudible in his broad felt shoes, suddenly appeared beside him and set down the bottle with the pain expeller of the tropics before him.
I was sent on board of the guardship, where I remained about ten days, and then was sent round to join this frigate and so my story's ended; and there's eight bells striking so the watch is ended too." Before I proceed with my narrative, I wish to explain to the reader that my history was not written in after-life, when I had obtained a greater knowledge of the world.
Whilst he was talking to me, an officer from the port guardship came on board. He was a very handsome man, about thirty, with a deep scar across his forehead, and I noticed that he looked at me very keenly almost rudely and I fancied I saw something like a sneer on his face as he turned away to speak to Sternberg.
Here the Admiral left me, with instructions to go off aboard the guardship at once, and bring my log-books ashore for his inspection. This I did, but it was nearly noon before Sir Peter was ready to attend to me, and even then it was after all but a cursory glance that he bestowed upon my books.
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