The Roll-Call of The Reef | Page 4

small drummer-boy,
side-drum and all; and near by part of a ship's gig, with 'H.M.S.
Primrose' cut on the stern-board. From this point on the shore was
littered thick with wreckage and dead bodies--the most of them marines
in uniform--and in Godrevy Cove, in particular, a heap of furniture
from the captain's cabin, and among it a water-tight box, not much
damaged, and full of papers, by which, when it came to be examined,
next day, the wreck was easily made out to be the 'Primrose,' of
eighteen guns, outward bound from Portsmouth, with a fleet of
transports for the Spanish war--thirty sail, I've heard, but I've never
heard what became of them. Being handled by merchant skippers, no
doubt they rode out the gale, and reached the Tagus safe and sound.
Not but what the captain of the 'Primrose'--Mein was his name--did
quite right to try and club-haul his vessel when he found himself under
the land; only he never ought to have got there, if he took proper
soundings. But it's easy talking.
"The 'Primrose,' sir, was a handsome vessel--for her size one of the
handsomest in the King's service'--and newly fitted out at Plymouth
Dock. So the boys had brave pickings from her in the way of
brass-work, ship's instruments, and the like, let alone some barrels of
stores not much spoiled. They loaded themselves with as much as they
could carry, and started for home, meaning to make a second journey
before the preventive men got wind of their doings, and came to spoil
the fun. 'Hullo!' says my father, and dropped his gear, 'I do believe
there's a leg moving?' and running fore, he stooped over the small
drummer-boy that I told you about. The poor little chap was lying there,

with his face a mass of bruises, and his eyes closed; but he had shifted
one leg an inch or two, and was still breathing. So my father pulled out
a knife, and cut him free from his drum--that was lashed on to him with
a double turn of Manila rope--and took him up and carried him along
here to this very room that we're sitting in. He lost a good deal by this;
for when he went back to fetch the bundle he'd dropped, the preventive
men had got hold of it, and were thick as thieves along the foreshore;
so that 'twas only by paying one or two to look the other way that he
picked up anything worth carrying off: which you'll allow to be hard,
seeing that he was the first man to give news of the Wreck.
"Well, the inquiry was held, of course, and my father gave evidence,
and for the rest they had to trust to the sloop's papers, for not a soul was
saved besides the drummer-boy, and he was raving in a fever, brought
on by the cold and the fright. And the seaman and the five troopers
gave evidence about the loss of the 'Despatch,' The tall trumpeter, too,
whose ribs were healing, came forward and kissed the book; but
somehow his head had been hurt in coming ashore, and he talked
foolish-like, and 'twas easy seen he would never be a proper man again.
The others were taken up to Plymouth, and so went their ways; but the
trumpeter stayed on in Coverack; and King George, finding he was fit
for nothing, sent him down a trifle of a pension after a while-enough to
keep him in board and lodging, with a bit of tobacco over.
"Now the first time that this man--William Tallifer he called
himself--met with the drummer-boy, was about a fortnight after the
little chap had bettered enough to be allowed a short walk out of doors,
which he took, if you please, in full regimentals. There never was a
soldier so proud of his dress. His own suit had shrunk a brave bit with
the salt water; but into ordinary frock an' corduroys he declared he
would not get, not if he had to go naked the rest of his life; so my
father--being a good-natured man, and handy with the needle--turned to
and repaired damages with a piece or two of scarlet cloth cut from the
jacket of one of the drowned Marines. Well, the poor little chap
chanced to be standing, in this rig out, down by the gate of Gunner's
Meadow, where they had buried two score and over of his comrades.
The morning was a fine one, early in March month; and along came the

cracked trumpeter, likewise taking a stroll.
"'Hullo!' says he; 'good mornin'! And what might you be doin' here?'
"'I was a-wishin',' says the boy, 'I had a pair o' drumsticks. Our lads
were buried yonder without so much as a drum tapped