Young Tom Bowling Part 37

"Aye, sure, it is him thrue enuff," said Mick, stooping down and raising up the prostrate figure in his arms. "Them murdering thayves hev kilt the poor cap'en entoirely!"

Mick's dead man, however, did a most extraordinary thing for one who was supposed to have departed this life.

He first sneezed, and then opened his eyes.

Next he spoke.

"Where am I? Ah, yes, I recollect," he faltered out slowly, his wits beginning to work, and his memory coming back to him; when, all of a sudden, catching sight of my face as I loosened his collar and sprinkled some water from my bottle over his head to bring him to, he uttered a quick cry. "Ah, it's you, Tom Bowling--I remember you quite well. I thought it was, my lad, before I lost my consciousness. It is you, then, whom I have to thank for saving my life just now?"

"How--why," I stammered, not knowing well what to say--"what, sir?"

"Oh yes, Bowling; you can't get out of it," he said in a firmer voice, and the old pleasant smile I recollect when he gave me that half-crown in his cabin on board the old training-s.h.i.+p that I spoke of at the beginning of my yarn. "I saw you quite plainly, my lad, as you rushed up to my succour when those Arabs nearly settled me. There were two of them attacking me at the same time, one before and one behind, and if you had not come up I think they'd have settled me."

"I hope, sir," said I, as Mick and I raised him up between us into a sitting posture--'Gyp' watching the operation with a most intense interest and pleasure, his little black muzzle working, and his short tail wagging all the time--"I do hope you are not seriously hurt, sir?"

Captain Sackville drew a deep breath and shook himself.

"No," he said--"no bones broken, I think; but, I have got a bullet through one shoulder, I believe, for I can't lift my right hand--that's how I came to drop my sword, which I see you have, Bowling."

"Yes, sir," said I quietly, glancing to where the Somali chief was doubled up. "I paid off your score against that beggar over there with it, sir."

"Indeed!" said Captain Sackville, trying to rise up on his legs, but falling back with a groan. "O-o-oh! I think that fellow gave me a bad thrust in the chest just before I dropped it; but, I declare I forgot all about it!"

Mick and I at once tore open his tunic and s.h.i.+rt, when we found a deep wound on his right side, from which the captain must have lost a good deal of blood, his clothing being quite saturated; but the wound was not bleeding much now and we bound it up with our two silk handkerchiefs, winding them round his body, which relieved him so much that he was able to stand up on his feet.

The battle between our forces and the foe was now pretty nigh over, and the combatants had long since swept past us; pursuers and pursued having alike disappeared in the bush surrounding the native town or lost to sight amid the smoking ruins, where some little desultory skirmis.h.i.+ng was still going on.

Presently, however, a grand hurrah went up on the left, where the Somalis had made their last stand.

It was a cheer such as British bluejackets alone can give; and then we saw the Union Jack run up on the top of a big bungalow in the centre of the town, the only hut or building that had escaped destruction in the general conflagration.

"It's all over, my lads," said Captain Sackville on hearing and seeing this. "I think we had better see about joining the main column, and pick up any stragglers we may see in want of a.s.sistance by the way."

But we came across none in any need of help, save such offices as the dead require, along our route to the front; for, wherever we noticed any groups of bodies together, all alike, whether bluejacket or Arab, were stone dead.

Bullet and knife and sword had each and all had a busy day of it!

After burying the dead with all the honours of war, the corpse of the Arab chief I had killed with Captain Sackville's sword being identified formally as that of the notorious Abdalah, as I had thought, our columns returned to the coast in triumph with the proud consciousness of having cleared the country of all the invading Somalis.

The bluejackets and marines belonging to the admiral's division then rejoined their s.h.i.+ps at Momba.s.sa; while our contingent, led still by 'old Hankey Pankey,' who was none the worse for the fray, retraced their steps through Teita and the 'baboon valley'--where, I may add, I met no second mishap--to Malindi.

We again went on board the _Mermaid_; and, to cut a long story short, the captain, who was very pleased with what he had seen of me during the campaign, besides my having a good word put in by Captain Sackville, promoted me to 'leading seaman' the very next day.

Naturally, I was very sorry to part company with Mick so soon after our long separation; but, as I have said before, a sailor's life is made up of partings.

Here besides, as things turned out, no great period elapsed ere we hove in sight of each other again; aye, under circ.u.mstances, too, that have caused us to become closer companions than ever, as indeed we are now.

I will tell you how this was.

Not many months after our smas.h.i.+ng up the Arabs and driving the Somalis out of the British protectorate back to their own inhospitable country, the _Mermaid's_ commission expired; when, instead of the cruiser going home to be paid off, a new crew was sent out to us from England, she still remaining on the station, in accordance with the routine at present in vogue.

The old _Dromedary_, that brought out our relief, which has cruised more thousands of miles, I believe, on such fetching and carrying work than have ever been covered by the oldest s.h.i.+p in the Navy, took us back home in her; and she called in at Simons Bay, en route, to fill up with supernumeraries and other paid-off crews from s.h.i.+ps belonging to the Cape station.

Amongst those that came on board here were the officers and men of the _Grampus_, including none others than Captain Sackville, who had quite recovered from his wounds, Mick Donovan, and 'Gyp.'

I need hardly say what a jolly pa.s.sage home we all had; Larrikins and Mick and I, with some other old s.h.i.+pmates of the _Saint Vincent_, yarning all the way from morning till night, not much work being wanted of us as we had fine weather throughout; while 'Gyp,' who still retained his affection for me, exhibited his old bias for lower deck company and could not be kept away from the fo'c's'le where we were.

Captain Sackville, of course, noticed this, but he was not a bit angry at it; and, on our leaving the old _Dromedary_ at Portsmouth, where we finally arrived safe and sound after a pretty speedy pa.s.sage for such an old tub, he gladdened my heart when saying farewell by making me a present of 'Gyp.'

"Begorrah," as Mick related to Larrikins subsequently, when we returned to the depot, after our customary payoff leave ash.o.r.e, "ye nivver sayd sich a coomin' home, sure, ez Tom hed, an' me too, bedad, whin we got up to the owld cottage at Bonfoire Corner. Sure, there wor Tom's faither a-sottin' in the garden in his owld armchair under the mulberry-tree, faith, afther Miss Jenny resayved us at the door--"

"Ah," interposed Larrikins at this point, with a knowing wink. "But, what o' Tom's sister? Yer ain't told us about her at all, chummy. Did she give ye a kiss, now?"

"Git away wid ye," cried Mick, giving him a dig in his ribs, and grinning the while all over his face at the recollection of something about which I might have told a tale if I had liked, before proceeding to go on with his story of the warm reception we had met with.

"Well, thin, Tom's fayther wor a-sottin' in the armchair, ez I wor a- sayin' whin you put me off me coorse, Larry, ye baste. Tom wor goin' on ahid, wid 'Gyp' a-kapin' behoind him, an' Oi, sure, behoind him agin wid Miss Jenny, whin the monkey Jocko, who wor alongside of Tom's fayther, catches sight of 'Gyp,' and makes for the to'-gallant crosstrees ov the mulberry-tree, faith. Now, Larry, ye moost rimimber the owld c.o.c.katoo 'Ally Sloper' wor alriddy oop there aloft; an' whin the burrd says Jocko makin' fur him, he oop stick, or rayther oop wid his crist an' flies down roight atop ov Tom's hid, shraykin' out, 'Say-rah, Say-rah!' as loud as the divvle could bawl. 'Gyp' on this starts barkin' loike mad at the blissid c.o.c.katoo; whin down cooms Masther Jocko fur to have his share in the foight. Begorrah, ye nivver sayd sich a rumpus in yer loife, Larry, 'specially whin Tom's fayther got overturned in his armchair an' Misthress Bowlin' came out fur to say wot all the row was about; whoile Miss Jenny an' Tom an' me, sure, wor all a-dyin' wid larfin', bedad!"

I may add, in conclusion, that Mick and I went from the depot to the _Excellent_, to go through a regular course of gunnery, preparatory to our aspiring to the grade of 'petty officer'; and I hope, as my old friend the 'Jaunty' of the _Saint Vincent_ prophesied, to rise bye-and- bye to the rank of 'warrant.'

It is a pity, though, that no chance is yet afforded in our service in the present day, as used to be the case in the past, when many an admiral 'crept through the hawsehole,' as the saying was, for respectable young fellows of good education and bright abilities to look any higher; but, it is to be hoped that the day will come, as father's old friend Captain Mordaunt said only the other day when talking to us both under the old mulberry-tree in our garden, when this state of things will be changed, and a boy who enters the service as I did on board one of our training-s.h.i.+ps, will, as Bonaparte said the conscript carried a field-marshal's baton in his knapsack, keep snugly stowed away an admiral's c.o.c.ked hat in his ditty box!

However, be that as it may, and whether I ever rise to quarter-deck rank or not, I have not a single regret at having ever joined the Navy; for, no one glories more than I in serving our Queen and country under the grand old flag that floats supreme over every sea where s.h.i.+p may sail.

Aye, and my proud boast is that I am still 'Young Tom Bowling,' my dear old father being yet alive; and that I am one of 'the Boys of the British Navy.'

THE END.