Read Ebook: Crown and Anchor Under the Pen'ant by Hutcheson John C John Conroy Greene John B Illustrator

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"Ay! but I do mean to say they're a lot of confounded hypocrites, by George!" roared out the old sailor, his face flushing to almost a purple hue, while he snatched at another handful of snuff from his waistcoat pocket, and sniffed and snorted like a grampus. "Why, you'll hardly believe it, Vernon! But, only a couple of years ago, when I was starting for the Baltic, and in high favour with the ministry, those miserable time-servers in there gave a public dinner in my honour in that very club; and now, by George! because things did not go all right, and I wasn't able to smash-up the Russian fleet as everybody expected I would do, and so I would have done, too, by George! if I'd been allowed my own way, the mean-spirited parasites almost cut me to a man--to a man, by George!"

"It's a rascally shame, sir," said my father, getting hot with righteous indignation in sympathy at this scurvy treatment of one whom he had served under, and looked upon as an honoured chief; while I felt so angry myself, that I should have liked to have gone up the steps of the club-house there and then, and dragged down from his proud post the fat, red-liveried porter who was looking down on the veteran from the top of the stairway, regarding that pampered menial as the cause and occasion of the slight of which he complained. "Never mind, though, Admiral! you can well afford to treat their mean conduct with the contempt it deserves; for everybody whose opinion is worth anything knows that Sir Charles Napier won his laurels as a brave and skilful commander long before the Reform Club was founded or the Crimean war thought of. Believe me, sir, history will yet do you justice."

"Ay! when I've gone to my last muster," growled out the old fellow huskily, in a sad tone, which sent a responsive chill to my heart. "But, that won't be your fault, Vernon. Thank you, my lad, I know you're not talking soft solder, so as to get to wind'ard of me, like those fellows in there. Longshore lubbers like those never recollect what a man may have done for his country in times gone by. They live only in the present; and, if a chap chances to make a mistake, as the best of us will sometimes, they fall on him like a pack of curs on a rat, and worry him to death, by George!"

"The idle gossip of the clubs need not affect you, sir," replied my father consolingly. "Not a man in England of any sense is ignorant of the fact that it is none of your fault that the Baltic Fleet was sent out on a wild-goose chase and failed to capture Cronstadt and annihilate the Russian ships inside that stronghold; though, I believe, you would have astonished old Nick if you had been allowed a free hand!"

Dad laughed cheerily, trying to make the old sailor forget his wrongs.

"Even the immortal Nelson would have been unable to do anything under such conditions, Sir Charles," he said, as the Admiral paused to take breath, sniffing up another handful of snuff with an angry snort. "Those jacks in office at home are always interfering with things they know nothing about. How can they possibly have the means at their command like the man on the scene of action, one whom they themselves have selected for his supposed capacity? But, they will interfere, sir. They have always done so; and always will, I suppose!"

"Gad, you put it better than I could, Vernon. I didn't think you such a smart sea lawyer," said the old Admiral, rather grimly, not over-pleased, I think, at Dad's taking up the burthen of his grievances. "Know nothing, you say? Of course they know nothing, the government, hang it! was a cabinet of nincompoops, I tell you--Aberdeen, Graham and the whole lot of 'em! If they could have mustered a single statesman amongst 'em who had pluck enough to tell Russia at the outset that if she laid hands on Turkey we should have considered it an ultimatum, there would never have been any war at all--the Emperor Nicholas confessed as much on his death-bed. It was all want of backbone that did it--not of the English nation, thank God! but of the government or ministry of the time. Some governments we've had, ay, and since then, too, Vernon, have been the curse of our country!"

"Ay, Admiral," responded my father, heartily, "I know that well!"

"Yes, they were all shilly-shally from first to last," continued the old sailor, warming up to his theme. "Why, when the Russians actually fired on our flag--the Union Jack of England, sir, that had never previously been insulted with impunity--they actually blamed me for returning the fire, and recalled me for it! I tell you what it is, Vernon, they were all a pack of pusillanimous time-servers, frightened at their own shadows; and, between you and me and the bedpost, that chap, Jimmy Graham, our precious late First Lord of the Admiralty, knew as much about a ship as a Tom cat does of logarithms, by George!"

Dad smiled at his vehemence, and I chuckled audibly; the Admiral's simile seeming very funny to me.

The old sailor patted me on the head approvingly.

"Ay, you may well laugh, youngster," said he, looking very fierce with his knitted eyebrows, though speaking to me good-naturedly enough. "The whole business would make a cat laugh were it not so humiliating, by George! But, avast there! let us drop it; for we've had enough of it by now and to spare. Things, though, were very different, Vernon, when you and I sailed together. I tell you what it is, my lad, the service is going to the devil, that's what it is!"

"That's true enough, Vernon, by George!" said the Admiral, with equal heat. "Interest with the Board is everything in these times, and personal merit nothing! You may be the smartest sailor that ever trod a quarter-deck and they will look askance at you at Whitehall; but, only get some Lord Tom Noddy to back up your claims on an ungrateful country or show those Admiralty chaps that you know a Member of Parliament or two, and can control a division in the House of Commons, then, by George! it is wonderful, Vernon, how suddenly the great Mister Secretary of the Board will recognise your previously unknown abilities and other good qualities to which he has hitherto been blind, and how anxious the First Lord will be to promote you--eh, Vernon, you rascal? Ho! ho! ho!"

Dad joined in the hearty roar of laughter, with which the Admiral ended his sarcastic comments, the recital of which had apparently eased his mind and banished the last lingering recollections of the ill-treatment he had received at the hands of the government; for the old sailor now dismissed the subject, going on to talk about old shipmates and other matters as they sauntered onwards along Pall Mall, the Admiral hobbling on one side of Dad and I on the other, holding his hand, listening eagerly all the while to their animated conversation and taking in every word of it. I confess, however, I could not understand all their allusions to old times and byegone events afloat and ashore, many of the names and incidents mentioned in their talk being altogether unfamiliar to my ears.

"Where are you off to now, Vernon?" inquired Admiral Napier, stopping to take snuff again when we arrived at the last lamp-post at the corner abutting on Waterloo Place. "If you're not otherwise engaged, come back with me and have lunch at the club, you and the youngster."

"Thank you very much, Admiral," returned Dad, "I would be only to glad, but, to tell the truth, I'm bound for the Admiralty."

"That's it, Admiral," said my father, laughing. "There's no good in a fellow trying to bamboozle you, sir."

"No, by George!" chuckled the old fellow, mightily pleased at this tribute to his "cuteness", "you'd have to get up precious early in the morning to take me in as you know from old experience of me, Vernon! But, what the deuce are you going to Whitehall to kick your heels there for? They'll only keep you waiting an hour in that infernal waiting-room, and then tell you the Secretary's gone for the day, or some other bouncer, just to get rid of you. I know their dirty tricks-- hang 'em! What d'you want, eh?"

"Well, sir, I thought I might get something in one of the dockyards," answered Dad, frankly. "I heard last night of there being an appointment vacant at Devonport, and I was going to apply for it."

"Any interest, eh?"

"Not a scrap, Admiral," replied my father. "All my friends are dead or out of favour with the powers that be, I'm afraid now."

"Then you might as well apply for a piece of the moon," said the Admiral in his curt, dogmatic way; "and if that's all, Vernon, that is taking you to Whitehall, you had far better save your shoe leather and come back with me to the club."

"Thank you very much, Admiral, but I must really say `no' again," rejoined Dad, touched by his kindly pertinacity. "I confess, sir, though, that the object of my journey to the Admiralty is not altogether on my own account personally, for I wished to introduce this youngster of mine here to the Secretary, and thought it a good thing to kill the two birds with one stone."

"Humph!" growled the old Admiral. "D'you think he never saw a boy before, eh, Vernon? I'm sure there's a lump too many of the young rascals knocking about already!"

Dad smiled at the quizzical look and sly wink with which this inquiry was accompanied, the Admiral twisting his head on one side as he spoke and looking just like a crested cockatoo!

"No, Sir Charles, not exactly," he replied, putting his arm round my neck caressingly. "However, for all that, even so great a man as Mr Secretary might not know as good a boy as my son, Jack, here!"

I tell you what, I did feel proud when Dad said that, though I could not help flushing up like a girl, and had to hold down my head to hide it.

"No, sir, possibly not, though I'm told he isn't such a bad-looking fellow," answered Dad, laughing again at the Admiral's determination to get to the bottom of the matter. "The truth, sir, is I want to get this youngster nominated for a naval cadetship before he oversteps the age limit. The boy is dying to follow in my footsteps; but, though I have tried to dissuade him from it as much as I can, and the idea of his going to sea makes his poor mother shudder, still, seeing that he seems bent upon it, neither she nor I wish to thwart his inclination."

"Whee-ugh!" whistled the other through his teeth as he proceeded to take three or four enormous pinches of snuff in rapid succession from his waistcoat pocket and losing half of each pinch ere it reached his nose, the Admiral generously scattering it over the lapels of his coat and shirt front on the way. "Why the deuce didn't you tell me all that before, my dear Vernon, instead of backing and filling like a Dutch galliot beating to win'ard?"

"I--I--" hesitated my father, who had refrained from telling him before because he hated asking a favour of anyone whom he regarded in the light of a friend. "I--I--didn't like to trouble you, sir."

"Bosh, Vernon! You know well enough it's never a trouble to me to do anything for an old shipmate," said the old fellow, heartily, and, putting his hand on my shoulder, he wheeled me round so as to look me in the face as I lifted up my head and gazed at him admiringly on his addressing me directly, "so, my young shaver, you want to be a sailor, eh?"

"Yes, sir," I replied, "I love the sea, and I wouldn't be anything else for the world!"

"Ha, humph!" growled the veteran, who, I believe, was as fond of his profession at heart, in spite of his grumbles, as anyone who ever went afloat. "You'd better be a tinker or a tailor, my boy, than go to sea! It's a bad trade nowadays! What put it into your head, eh?"

"It comes naturally to him," said Dad, seeing me puzzled how to answer the question. "I suppose it must run in the blood, sir."

"Humph, like my gout!" jerked out Sir Charles, sharply, as if he just then felt a twinge of his old complaint, and, turning to me again, he asked as abruptly, "D'ye think you can pass for cadet, youngster--know your three R's--readin', 'ritin' and 'rithmetic, eh?"

"Yes, sir, I think so," said I grinning, having heard this old joke before from Dad many a time, "I shall try my best, sir. I can't say more than that, sir, can I?"

"No, by George, no, youngster, that answer shows me, my boy, that you are your father's son!" cried the Admiral heartily, clapping me on the back as if I were a man, and making me sneeze with the loose snuff which he shook off from his coat as he did so. "I said you were a chip of the old block the moment I first clapped eyes on you, and now I'm certain of it! Vernon, you shall have a nomination for the youngster. I think I've got sufficient interest at the Admiralty left to promise you that, at all events!"

"Oh, thank you, Admiral," replied Dad, while I looked my gratitude, not being able to speak, "thank you for your great kindness to me and the boy."

"Pooh, pooh, stuff and nonsense, my lad! It's little enough to do for an old shipmate and brother officer," muttered the good-hearted old fellow, quite overcome with confusion at our thanks, as Dad wrung one of his hands and I caught hold of the other. "I've got an appointment to meet the First Lord this very afternoon, as luck would have it, so I'll mention the matter to him, and I've no doubt the youngster'll get his nomination in a day or two, at the outside. By-the-bye where are you stopping in London? You haven't told me that yet."

My father, thereupon, gave him our address.

"All right, Vernon," said the veteran, shoving Dad's card along with the snuff in his waistcoat pocket, "I'll see to the matter without fail. Good-bye, now, Vernon, good-bye, young shaver, I hope you'll make as good a sailor and smart an officer as your father before you!"

With these parting words and a kindly nod to me the old Admiral toddled off across Waterloo Place to the Senior United Service Club opposite, to which, I presume, he intended transferring his patronage now that the Reform had given him the cold shoulder, while Dad and I returned to our temporary lodgings in Piccadilly to tell mother of our unexpected meeting and its happy result. I may here add that I was never fortunate enough to see the gallant old veteran again, though I heard of him often afterwards from my father, who told me he always asked how I was getting on. Circumstances prevented my meeting him when I was yet in England, and I was out in China when he died, some four years subsequently to my making his acquaintance in Pall Mall that morning.

Strange to say, however, the other day, when engaged planning out this very yarn of my adventures afloat, I chanced to see an advertisement in one of the Portsmouth papers of an auction about to be held at Merchiston Hall, near Horndean, where I was informed the Admiral had resided for many years, and where he spent most of his time farming when not at sea, before he got mixed up in politics and Parliamentary matters, as he was in his later days after he was "put on the shelf," and hauled down his flag for ay!

Here, the very bed was pointed out to me in which the gallant old sailor died; a plain, old-fashioned piece of furniture, without any gilding or meretricious adornment, and honest and substantial like himself.

The house, too, was similarly unpretentious, being a low, one-storied, verandah--fronted structure, with plenty of room about it, but little "style" or ornament. It was, though, picturesquely situated in the centre of a well-timbered little park and homestead and snugly sheltered by tall fir trees and a thick shrubbery from all north'ard and easterly winds, amid the prettiest scenery of Hampshire--wooded heights and pleasant dales, with coppice and hedgerow, and here and there a red-roofed old farmhouse peeping out from the greenery forming its immediate surroundings.

"Poor old Charley Napier!" as he was affectionately entitled by those who served under his flag--officers and men alike, the latter especially almost idolising him for he was ever a good friend to them.

He now sleeps his last sleep in the churchyard of Catherington, where he lies safe at anchor, hard by the dwelling where he lived when in the flesh.

Here his tomb may be seen by the curious under the shelter of the early Norman church, dedicated to Saint Catherine, from which circumstance the village takes its name.

It is a fine old building, this church, dating back to the time of the Crusades, when heroes as gallant as Admiral Sir Charles Napier besieged Sidon and captured Acre--like as he himself did some eight centuries later, long prior to his unsuccessful mission to the Baltic, the somewhat inglorious termination of which, unfortunately, clouded his naval reputation and ended his career afloat!

I GET NOMINATED FOR A NAVAL CADETSHIP.

"`Sharp's the word and quick the motion,' eh, Jack?" said my father, using his favourite phrase, when the post next morning brought him a letter from the Admiralty in an oblong blue envelope, inscribed "On Her Majesty's Service," in big letters, stating that I had been nominated to a cadetship in the Royal Navy. "I knew old Charley would be as good as his word!"

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