With Wellington in Spain: A Story of the Peninsula. Brereton Frederick Sadleir
with me, Clifford," said Mr. Riley, leading the way. "I'm taking you to the commander. Fair-play is a thing a sailor prizes, and, as you complain that there has been some mistake about your impressment, I reported the same to the commander. He will question you himself."
They passed across a snow-white deck and entered a gallery, outside which an armed sentry was stationed. The officer tapped at a door, and passed in, followed by our hero. Tom found himself in a large cabin, at the back of which two guns were situated, roped and secured to deck rings as were those others he had seen in the 'tween decks. An officer, dressed just like Mr. Riley, but evidently older, sat at a table, with charts spread out before him. He looked up as the two entered, and then went on writing.
"One of the new men, sir; impressed two nights ago; reports that he was taken in error. You have the notes of his case before you."
Once more Tom found himself being inspected with that open gaze which is the right of all officers. He returned the glance of his commander respectfully and firmly.
"Age?" asked the officer jerkily.
"Nearly eighteen, sir.
"Tell me all about yourself, lad," came from the commander, and with such kindness that Tom promptly responded. He gave the history of the family in a few words, and stated how he was about to sail for Oporto, there to learn the business of the firm and take charge when proficient.
"Ah! Anyone with a grudge against you?" was asked quickly.
Tom wondered and racked his brains. He could think of no one, unless it could be the grocer's young man, who was wont to pass along the river bank every morning. Exactly two months before he had had an altercation with that young fellow, who stood a trifle higher than he did, and was at least a year older. He had shown rudeness when passing Marguerite, and Tom had resented the rudeness. The fight that followed had been of the fiercest, and the grocer's apprentice had been handsomely beaten.
"No one, sir," he answered, "unless it could be the fellow I had a row with some weeks ago," and then explained the occurrence.
"Pooh! Impossible," declared the commander. "Lads who get fighting don't bear ill will. The letting of a little blood cures a young chap of that entirely. You shook hands?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Then look elsewhere; someone perhaps was jealous of you, thought you were a nuisance. Who were the other members of the firm and the family?"
Tom told him, wondering all the while whether there were one amongst them capable of getting him impressed so as to remove him. "José?" he asked himself. "Impossible! He'd never be guilty of such ingratitude to father, though I suppose, if I were out of the way, he would succeed to the business one of these fine days."
Little by little the commander ferreted such thoughts out of our hero, and ended by placing his finger on the name of José.
"Your cousin, you said," he exclaimed. "You were always good friends?"
Tom had to reply in the negative, and give the reasons.
"And he was next in succession to yourself, I think?"
"Yes, sir. But – but it's impossible! My father rescued him and his sister from poverty."
"Nothing is impossible, my lad. This matter must be looked into. There seems no doubt that you have been impressed in the hope of removing you altogether. Or the matter may have been a mistake, helped by the fact that you were in those parts at a time when you should have been safely at home. For the moment you are in the service of His Majesty, and although I could order that you be given no duty, I've an idea that that would hardly meet with your wishes?"
"I'd rather work, sir," responded Tom eagerly. "I like ship life, and the experience may be useful. If only you will give me the opportunity of writing home, I will willingly act as one of the hands aboard, and work in that way till I am released."
"That's the spirit, my lad," exclaimed the commander. "He's in your watch, Mr. Riley, and I know you'll look after him. As to writing, you can do that; Mr. Riley shall see to it. I also will write to your father and to the authorities. We shall fall in with a boat homeward bound shortly, and in a week perhaps your people will know what has become of you. There, my lad, I like your spirit."
The commander shook hands with our hero, an uncommon honour, and then sent him off with Mr. Riley. And that very night Tom sat down in the latter's cabin to write his letter, telling his father exactly what had happened.
Next morning, early daylight, the first streak of dawn in fact, found him on deck, his feet naked, a deck brush in his hand. He joined the gang of men engaged in washing down, and, if the truth be known, thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Meanwhile the fine frigate was pressing along under easy sail, a fresh wind abeam, ploughing her way through a sunlit sea that might have belonged to the Mediterranean.
"We're jest cruising on and off watching for a Frenchie, me lad," explained one of his messmates, a jovial old salt who had seen many an action at sea. "There's never no saying when a Frenchie may turn up, and then we're bound to be at 'em. But they ain't so frequent nowadays as they was. Yer see, Spain and Portugal being joined to France, the French has simply to slip over the mountains, and that's how they're sendin' men in to fill the ranks of their armies. Queer thing, ain't it, that Boney should want them countries for his own? He's always a-grabbin'. The earth won't find lands enough for him by the way he's going on. But he'll get beaten handsome some day. I ain't so sure as we won't do it for him. Know all about this here campaign in the Peninsula, as Spain and Portugal's called?"
Tom modestly admitted that he knew something about the fighting. "It's a long business," he said. "Boney put his own brother on the throne of Spain, and of course the Spaniards wouldn't have him. At the same time he had taken Portugal for himself. He's been the terror of Europe these many years, and as he aims at subjugating England also, why, we gladly agreed to go in and help the Portuguese and Spaniards. As for the fighting, there's been such a heap of it that it is quite bewildering."
"Aye, and it's easy to see as you're a gent as has been used to better things than the lower deck," said the salt. "What're you here for? Grabbin' something that wasn't yourn?"
He put out a hand to touch Tom's sleeve the instant after, for he saw him flush with indignation. "I'm sorry, lad," he said. "It's plain as it wasn't that."
However, the lower deck in those days was not peopled entirely by kindly disposed individuals. Bluff and hearty and plucky men there were in abundance, if their language was not always refined or their habits too particular. But then, as now perhaps, the coming of a young fellow of Tom's stamp amidst a rather rough crowd was apt to draw attention to him, attention not always of the most pleasing. And it so happened that there was one in the mess to which Tom had been posted who seemed to resent his coming. Higgins was a bull-necked, squint-eyed young fellow of some twenty years, and had been sent from a prison to the navy, as had many another. He was possessed of a thin, mean face, over which dangled one long forelock. For the rest, it may be stated that he was accustomed as a general rule to say very little, having discovered himself unpopular amongst the men; though, to be sure, whenever there did happen to arrive aboard the ship a youngster smaller than himself, Higgins was the first to attempt to bully him. For some reason he had taken a violent dislike to Tom. Possibly he was jealous of the attention he had gained, or of the way in which he came to good terms with the men. Whatever the cause, he was determined to browbeat him, and took this, the first opportunity.
"I dunno as you ain't right, Jim," he sang out coarsely, the instant the other had spoken. "Why shouldn't he be here for grabbin'? There's lots comes to the navy on that account, and why shouldn't he? I'll lay he has, too."
"Then you're mistaken," said Tom firmly. "I was impressed; every fool knows that."
"Oh, every fool knows it, do they?" was the sharp answer. "You ain't calling me a fool?"
"Jest you put a stopper on yer tongue and belay," sang out the salt, seeing all the elements of a quarrel in this discussion, and noticing Tom's flushed cheeks, and the rising anger of Higgins. "'Sides, I ain't Jim to you, me lad, and don't you ferget it. I'll take a rope's end to you afore you're a minute older if you ain't careful."
But