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Updated: June 10, 2025
Up we mounted forthwith, the Tinker gave Diogenes his head, and we bumped and jingled on our way. "Pray, Mr. Todd," I gasped, as we clutched and swayed together, "may I enquire if you have been a soldier or a sailor?" "Both, brother," he answered, "I was a powder-boy aboard the old Bully-Sawyer a powder-monkey and sat on my tub?" "But why on a tub?"
Still, I could see a good deal that was going forward through the ports; besides which I heard from the men what was taking place. My old messmate, Tom Noakes, had joined the `Dido. He was now seated on his tub next to me the biggest powder-monkey I ever knew. Poor Tom was not at all happy.
"Yes, sir: he'd ha hoisted his broad pendant afore this, would old Ding-dong, pit-boy and powder-monkey and all, only for that. And as I'd ha gone h'up with him as he went h'up, so I goes down with him when he goes down. I know'd old Ding-dong. He was the man for me. Talk o fightin!
"And was there such a natural son, Sir Robert?" demanded the counsellor. "Oh, certainly, to my own positive knowledge. Ellangowan had him placed as cabin-boy or powder-monkey on board an armed sloop or yacht belonging to the revenue, through the interest of the late Commissioner Bertram, a kinsman of his own."
The most perfect order and discipline prevailed, everything being done systematically, although the accident had occurred so suddenly and unexpectedly; ay, and despite the fact that every soul on board, from Captain Farmer, who had come out of his cabin again immediately on hearing the lifeboat's crew called away, down to the youngest cadet and powder-monkey, was willing and anxious to do his best to save our unfortunate shipmate, without one of us knowing as yet who the poor fellow was whose life was thus imperilled.
Young as I was, I could not help observing all this, and noting, as the commander had pointed out to me, how, thanks to a rigid discipline and the inexorable regularity, almost like that of a machine, with which the routine of duty is conducted on board a man-of-war, every officer and man, from the captain down to the smallest "powder-monkey," was in his proper place and at his station before the rat-tat-tat of the drum had ceased reverberating fore and aft; albeit, most of the hands had only recently joined the ship, while some, indeed, had never before been to sea.
'And was there such a natural son, Sir Robert? demanded the Counsellor. 'O, certainly, to my own positive knowledge. Ellangowan had him placed as cabin-boy or powder-monkey on board an armed sloop or yacht belonging to the revenue, through the interest of the late Commissioner Bertram, a kinsman of his own.
The voice in the darkness ceased and began again. "Quiberon Bay was our first. Fifty-nine that were. I was powder-monkey on the Royal George; he was Hawke's orderly midshipman. St. Vincent our last. And a God's plenty in between. One time Dutchmen; one time Dons; and most all the time the French.
But now about this plan of yours." "Yes, major, yes." "Well, sir, there must be about eighty or ninety of these tawny rascals, and we are all more or less damaged, and, counting our young friend Mark, eleven men and three hospital nurses. Now the nurses can't fight, and Mark must still be powder-monkey, so there we are ten men, and, as I said, all damaged, to fight eighty."
Hoora! This amused the men greatly, and they called me a plucky little chap, though I certainly could not boast of having contributed to gain the victory, as I was considerably too young to act the part even of a powder-monkey. We had lost a good many officers and men, some of whom I saw stretched on the deck, and wondered what had come over them, as they did not move or speak.
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