The Powder Monkey | Page 9

serious-looking officer in uniform, with only one eye and one arm, stopped short, took off his cocked hat, and after putting it on again, laid the telescope he carried upon Phil's shoulder.
"Why, you're the little fellow they call Phil, arn't you?" he said.
Phil nodded shortly.
"You're the little powder monkey, they tell me."
"Yes," said Phil, looking at the little man wonderingly.
"And you've been bravely nursing the boy who broke his leg, eh?"
"Oh, it isn't brave," said Phil, laughing and showing his white teeth. "His leg hurts him very badly sometimes, and he likes me to read to him then and tell him stories."
"Oh," said the officer; "then you read to him and tell him stories?"
"Yes," said Phil, "but I sha'n't read half so well as I should like; but I am trying very hard."
"To be sure," said the little officer. "You are the sort of boy who would. And you can tell stories?"
"Yes, three--I mean four; and Tom Dodds likes to hear them all over and over again."
"Bravo!" said the little officer, tapping Phil on the shoulder with the telescope. "There, be a good boy, and you'll get on and be something better than a powder monkey one of these days."
"Who's that?" said Phil, as the little man walked forward and ascended the companion ladder. "I like him, Jack, almost as much as I do you."
"And so you ought," said Jack, gruffly, "for that's our admiral, Lord Nelson, the greatest man in the world."
CHAPTER SEVEN.
It was not long after that Phil was between decks, talking to his new friend, the crippled boy, whose face always expanded into a grin of satisfaction when his nurse appeared.
"Here, I wanted you," he cried. "I've got some news. The doctor told me--"
"Did he say that you might soon try to walk?" cried Phil, eagerly.
"No; he said that my leg was going on well, but I was not to try to use it for a long time yet. He told me that we are going to have a big fight with the French. Isn't it a bother? For I sha'n't be able to go to my gun."
"Jack Jeens said he didn't think we should have a fight," replied Phil.
"He doesn't know anything about it," said the lame boy, impatiently. "But I say, I shall be obliged to stop below; you might come and stop with me."
"Jack said I should be sent below if there was a fight, so I will."
"That's right," said the boy, with a sigh of relief. "I didn't want for you to see it and me stop below."
Phil looked at him in rather a puzzled way, for he did not know whether he was disappointed or pleased--whether he would like to see the battle or prefer to go below.
But he was not to choose, and a few days later he was quite forgotten in the excitement of the great incident. For he had been trained to certain duties in connection with one of the guns, and when the orders were given for the different crews to take their places, he ran to his naturally enough, perfectly ignorant of the fact that the British Fleet was in "Trafalgar's Bay," with the Frenchmen before them, while the British sailors, wild with excitement, were eagerly awaiting the orders that should set hundreds of guns bellowing like thunder as they poured their broadsides of shot into the enemy's sides.
All that little Phil knew was that his ears were deafened by the roar, his throat throbbing and suffering from the dense clouds of smoke which darkened the sky, and that he could hardly see Jack Jeens, who, like the rest of the crew, was stripped to the waist, as he helped to load their gun, which grew hotter and hotter, and finally leapt from the deck at every discharge.
He could only see dimly for the sulphurous mist before his eyes, but there was was Jack Jeens close at hand, always watching him anxiously and ready to make a sign to him from time to time--a sign which meant "More powder," and sent him running to the hatch-way and down to the magazine, from which he soon returned, heedless of the fact that if he stopped near a patch of burning tinder or wood the bag of flannel which he carried might explode in his hand.
It was all wild noise and confusion, in the midst of which Phil, blackened and besmirched by the smoke and powder amongst which he moved, had eyes for nothing but his friend, who divided his time between toiling at the gun to which he was attached and watching his little protege, trembling for his safety when he had gone towards the opening in the deck through which he had to descend, and only breathing freely again when he saw the boy come panting back