The Gentleman | Page 6

Fine chap to
fight, though, be God--only so thirsty, same as me. He took it in the
tummy, crawlin through the embrasure--hand-grenade, I fancies. I was
next man on the ladder." He was marching up and down, his hands
swinging, seeming to smoulder almost in the gloom.
"Pretty work in the battery, be God, as ever I see!--One time we was
bungin round-shot at each other across the casement, like marbles. Give
the Mossoos their due they fought like eroes; but not like h'us, sir! not
like h'us!"
He strode up and down, breathing flame.
"Ah, you should ha seen us. I were in me glory. A bloody massacree,
that's what it were. Bloody massacree. Enough to make a blessed saint
weep for joy. Pommesoul it were."
He turned in his stride, and the lamp showed the tears dribbling down
his face.

"And when we'd mushed up the blanky caboodlum: spiked the guns;
sent the gunners to glory; and blow'd up the battery, who led the boys
out?"
He stopped dead.
"Old Lush!--Lushy, the Gunner, Gorblessim!" swelling his chest, and
patting it. "And why?--because there wasn't a quarter-deck officer, not
so much as a middy or mate, left to do it."
He resumed his strut with fighting hands.
"That's our sort aboard the _Tremendous_, sir. We're the halleloojah
lads to fight. And what we are, old Ding-dong made us."
"Who's old Ding-dong?" asked the boy, breathlessly.
The Gunner shot a finger at the block-of-granite figure forward.
"That's the man as won the battle o the Nile," he whispered with husky
magnificence. "And ere's the man that elped him."
He bowed with wide hands. Drunk as he was there was yet a
dilapidated splendour about the fellow as about an historic ruin. The
boy felt it through his disgust.
"I thought Nelson did a bit," he said.
"Nelson did much; I did more; e did most," with a wave forward.
"Why!" shouting now. "Who was it led the line inside the
shoal--creepin it, leadsman in the chains, soundin all the way?--We
_Thunderers_, the Goliath treadin mighty jealous on our heels. And
who commanded the _Thunderer_?--Old Ding-dong. And what did he
get for it?"
He smacked a hand down on the boy's shoulder.
"Broke him, sir!--broke him back to a sloop o war!--old Ding-dong, the
damdest, darndest, don't-care-a-cursest old sea-dog as ever set his teeth

in a French line o battle ship, and wouldn't let go, though they fired
double-shotted broadsides down his throat."
"But why did they break him?" gasped the boy. "It doesn't sound like
Nelson."
The other smacked his long nose with a finger mysteriously.
"I don't know what you mean," said the boy, short and sharp.
"Ah, and just as well you don't," replied the other loftily. "Some day,
Sonny, you'll know all there is to know and a leetle bit more--same as
me. Plenty time first though. If you've done suckin it's more'n you
look."
He began to march again.
"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!--Dicky Keats, Ned Berry, the Honourayble Blackwood:
good men all and gluttons at it!--but for the real old style stuff,
ammer-and-tongs, fight to a finish, takin punishment and givin it, there
ain't a seaman afloat as'll touch our old man."
He spat over the side.
"Yes, sir, when he went, I went along, and never regretted it--never.
We've seen more sport aboard this blame little packet than the rest of
the Fleet together. Clear'd the Channel, be God, we ave!--prowlin up
and down, snow and blow, fog and shine, like a rampin champin lion.
Why, sir, we've fought a first-rate from Portland Bill to Dead Man's
Bay--this blame little boat you could sail in a babby's bath! _Took her
too!_ and towed her into Falmouth Roads, all standin, like a kid leadin
its mother by the and. Talk o Cochrane and the _Speedy_!--Gor
blime!--what's he alongside us?"

He steadied suddenly.
"Ush! ere comes the old man."
The boy could hear the stump of a stick on the deck.
"What's he wearin?" whispered the other, peering. "You can most
always tell the lay he's on by that. Pea-jacket means boat-work, cuttins
out, fire-ships, landin parties, and the like. If it's old blue frock and
yaller waistcoat, then it's lay em aboard and say your prayers. And if
it's cocked hat and chewin a quid, then it's elp you God: for your time's
come."
"You're a disgrace to the Service, Mr. Lanyon," came a curt voice.
"And you're a credit to it, sir," was the hearty retort.