Home at Last!—The Big Gun Again—Milly's Wedding
Mr. Midshipman Glover tells of his home-coming
Hurrah! How jolly good it is to be back at home once more! You shore-going loafers don't know what it is like to feel that in an hour or two you will drop the Ushant light and pick up the Eddystone. It's pretty bad sometimes when it is the other way about, and you are going away and don't know how long it will be before you will see Old England again; but it's just worth it all to come back, see the Eddystone sticking up out of the sea, and then make Plymouth and the green hills of Devonshire and of Cornwall.
You people who stay at home all your lives don't know what England is like till you have lost sight of her.
Toddles, Mellins, and I, we were just fizzing over with happiness, and stayed up all the night, and had a bet as to who would spot the Eddystone first, the officer of the watch on board that P. & O. letting us stay in a corner of the bridge so long as we didn't make a row and move about much.
Toddles saw it first, so Mellins and I had to stand a jolly good blow-out at the very first opportunity. I was all right now, as right as rain, and had been quite well for a fortnight at least.
We ran into Plymouth Sound early in the morning; they sent out Admiralty tugs to take all our people ashore. We three midshipmen got leave till night, and the three of us had a splendid time. Mellins swore that he had never eaten so much in his life, and we all hoped that he hadn't—even he was rather sorry for himself afterwards.
They let us go on leave next day. The Admiralty had given us a month as a special reward (whoop! wasn't that luck?), and it was just splendid going home.
My Pater lives in Hampshire, and has a jolly snug house right in the country, miles away from the railway. Effie, my little sister, met me in a dog-cart and drove me home. She looked as smart as a new pin, but you can't imagine how shabby I was, for, somehow or other, I had lost all my plain clothes, and had to borrow odds and ends from Toddles, and they were much too small for me, and my boots were Purser's Crabs[#], done up with string. But it didn't matter a cent.
[#] Boots of Admiralty pattern supplied to the men from the Paymaster's stores.
Effie made her pony go like the wind, I can tell you, and my battered old uniform tin case went jumbling into the road—it couldn't damage it any more, though—and we had to lash it in.
You feel such a man when you get into the train, and, well—when you get out at the sleepy old station and drive along the same old road and meet all the village people you've known ever since you can remember, you feel quite young.
We met Toby, the stable-boy, half a mile from the house, leading the farm horses back from watering, and I couldn't resist this, made Effie stop, jumped on the back of one of them, and raced her home.
She simply flew along, but I overhauled her and won easily, tearing up the drive; and though there were the Pater and my Mother and everybody at the door waiting for me, I couldn't stop the horse, and he turned sharply into the stable-yard and pitched me off into a bush.
Jolly old bush! I'd been pitched into it fifty times.
We sailor men look forward to that day coming home all the time we are away, and it's worth it, I can tell you.
I'd brought everyone of them a present of sorts—a curio from Hong-Kong, or something I had picked up on the island—a rifle from One Gun Hill for the Pater, and a great piece of shell which had burst aboard the Laird for my Mother, and she couldn't get it out of her head that that was what had wounded me.
Then and there I had to show them all my wounds—I had four, you know.
First, that little one on my head, which you could find if you looked carefully; and the one on my chest which had given all the trouble, and had left a pretty big scar; and the stab on my leg, and the bullet wound just below it.
Wasn't the Pater proud, and so was Effie; but my Mother burst into tears, and then, I think, we all cried and hugged each other and had a ripping time; and I told them that Toddles and Mellins were coming to spend a fortnight with me, and that Mellins loved sardines and cake—the richer the better—and told Effie she would have to marry one of them, for they were the best fellows in the world, and she said she would, and so that was all right.
Of course we quieted down afterwards, and then I had to go and show Toby my wounds, and the old housekeeper, and she cried too, and gave me some home-made bread, with honey spread half an inch thick on it, the honey-comb in it too, for she knew I liked that.
And the bed too—same little bed, in the same old attic, with a funny, poky little window looking over the kitchen garden—it had never looked more cosy; and my Mother came up when I turned in, and cried when she saw my pyjamas all in holes, and knelt down by my bed and said her prayers, and I said mine to her, and she cried again, and I blubbered a little, I was so absolutely happy; and Effie came in very early next morning, and we had a jolly good pillow fight.
Good things cannot last for ever. It's just as well too, I expect, or else we should never know they were so good.
Toddles and Mellins came presently, and we had simply a ripping time; but then we were all appointed to different ships, and had to join them at Portsmouth.
I hadn't forgotten Milly and the old Admiral at Fareham, and had taken him the will, as I promised Hopkins. I don't think the lawyers made any difficulty about it, though I believe it took a precious long time to get the money over from America.
Milly wanted to kiss me—I always dreaded that—but I shook her hand hard and edged away; so that didn't come off, and she never tried again. She wanted to know a lot about Hopkins, but she never found out that he had been a pirate and was fighting against us, and I don't think anyone ever told her. I'm sure the Captain never would.
She was properly engaged to him now, and things seemed to be going on very serenely.
I went down to the village and saw him and Dr. Fox, and Jenkins too, in mortal fear of his wife—I guessed that at once—and the Captain asked me to his wedding, which he hoped would take place in August.
Dr. Fox was as grim as ever. He was opening a parcel when I went in, and I heard him say in his snappy voice, "Look what the silly fools have sent me! What a waste of time, and I have nowhere to put the thing."
It was a brass model of the big Krupp gun in its gun-pit, and round the oak stand was a silver plate with the names of all the Laird's men on the lower deck who had fought on One Gun Hill.
I myself should have been jolly proud to get it, but Dr. Fox gave one or two funny coughs, and said again, "What silly fools! I shall have to write and thank them, I suppose. I hate writing letters."
I met Mr. Saunderson that day just outside Portsmouth Dockyard, walking along the Hard. He stretched out his huge hand and lifted me half off the ground.
I was glad to see him.
"Don't want you to keep the bullets off now, Glover," he said, and took me into the Keppel's Head and gave me lunch.
I went to sea for the next four months in my new ship, the Royal Oak, in the Channel Fleet, and when the July promotions came out it was simply fizzing.
Captain Helston and the Commander had both been promoted to post-captains, and Mr. Parker of "No. 3" and Mr. Lang of "No. 2" to commanders. Collins, the sub of "No. 3", and Harrington of "No. 1", who had tried to save the stokers when the shell burst her boiler, were made lieutenants, and best of all, down at the bottom of the list was "Noted for Early Promotion", and then followed my name, and Toddles's and Mellins's, two more of the Laird's midshipmen, and three of the Strong Arm's. Dumpling's name wasn't there. Ogston, the Assistant Engineer of the Laird, had been promoted a few days before. We were all so glad.
You can imagine how excited I was, and I had to stand a sardine supper that night down in the Royal Oak's gun-room.
I knew, too, how frightfully delighted they would be at home, and the very next mail brought a fiver from my Pater.
Pat Jones happened to have been sent to my ship as one of the quarter-masters, and he was just as delighted as I was, and I tried to make him share the fiver with me, but he wouldn't.
However, I know that the Pater is going to look after him and give him a good billet whenever he leaves the service, so that will be all right.
Well, Milly was married in August, up in London, and as the Royal Oak happened to be in Portland I managed to get leave, and went up to see the wedding. It was a jolly grand affair, and there were any number of old friends there.
I met Captain Cummins the day before, looking in at a jeweller's shop in Regent Street, with his hands in his pockets and a toothpick in his mouth. He had such a melancholy, comic-looking expression, and he chuckled, just as he always did when he caught sight of me, and took me into the shop to help him to choose something for Milly.
It was a thing she could stick in her hair if she wanted to, or she could divide it in three and fasten it round her neck by a chain, with the big piece under her chin if she wanted to wear it like that. I know he must have given a tremendous amount for it.
He gave me lunch at a swagger club, but didn't talk much. He had just been given command of a ship on the Cape of Good Hope station, and was going to commission her in a week's time.
"Busy laying in a stock of toothpicks, youngster," he chuckled.
I think he was rather down in his luck.
The wedding was a glorious success, and I did think that Milly or any other girl ought to be jolly proud of such a husband as Captain Helston. He looked splendid, though his left arm was still almost helpless, and made a speech at the lunch afterwards; and dear old Toddles—he had managed to get away too—had to reply for the ladies, and we all enjoyed ourselves, except Toddles, who was red and angry for the rest of the day.
Dr. Fox was there, quite genial, for a wonder, and Captain Williams and Mr. Saunderson, and Mr. Parker and Mr. Lang, now both of them commanders.
Mr. Pattison had gone on the Australian station (I felt very sorry for him), but Captain Cummins was there, and made an awfully funny speech, and then went off without saying good-bye to anybody.
Toddles and I managed to fasten a couple of white shoes on the carriage with wire, so that they couldn't get them off, and we made a splendid noise when Captain Helston and Milly drove away.
In the evening Toddles and I went to a theatre—Captain Helston had given us a box all to ourselves—and we did wish that Mellins could have been with us. We had a ripping time. Toddles forgot all about the speech, and we managed to catch the last trains back—he to Portsmouth and I to Portland. He was much more lucky than I was, for his ship was alongside the jetty, and he only had to walk aboard, whilst I had to take a shore boat and pull two miles off to the ship, getting on board at two in the morning, wet through, and had to be up again by six o'clock, as I happened to be signal-midshipman for the week.
I never heard anything more of Ping Sang, though I believe he sent Captain Helston and Dr. Fox two expensive Chinese jars; but about three months after the wedding both Toddles and I got letters from A Tsi, and he sent us each a very quaint carved ivory junk.
We were both jolly pleased with these, and Toddles says he intends handing his junk down to his children as an heirloom.
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[Transcriber's note: the source book had running headings on its odd-numbered pages. In this etext, those headings have been combined into an introductory paragraph at the start of each chapter.]