CHAPTER NINETEEN.
BOB GETS "BLOWN UP."
The unexpected explosion, though, caused no confusion, nor indeed anyapparent excitement such as would have at once occurred had the accidenthappened on shore; for, thanks to the admirable discipline alwaysobserved on board a man-of-war that flies the glorious old Union Jack,not a man stirred from his station.
It was only through the unusual stillness that prevailed for a moment ortwo afterwards, that those not on deck became aware that something outof the common had occurred.
"Anybody hurt?" sang out, presently, the officer commanding the shipfrom the bridge, near the conning tower, where he had been directing hersteering--"Anybody hurt there, forrud?"
"No, sir," promptly replied the gunnery lieutenant in charge of thefiring-party, who was standing close by the exploded gun. "Not a soul,sir!"
"Thank God!" said the other in a tone of deep feeling, the anxiousexpression clearing from his face. "It's a wonderful escape!"
It was--and more. It was a merciful interposition of Providence!
There were three flag-officers, four post-captains, and several othersof lesser rank, in addition to a number of blue-jackets in the immediateneighbourhood of the exploded gun when it burst; but, strange to say,although the muzzle of the weapon had been blown off completely from thechase at the trunnions, and some hundred-weight of the fragmentsscattered in all directions, many of them piercing the deck and screenbulkhead, every one fortunately escaped injury.
While exchanging congratulations with the other officers, all at onceCaptain Dresser looked about him for Bob.
But, nowhere was he to be seen in sight.
"By Jove, he must have been blown overboard, and that was the splash inthe water I heard!" he exclaimed in alarm; and, turning to his friendthe young lieutenant, as they now advanced further forward to have anearer view of the still smoking gun, he said, "Where, Neville, did youlast see the boy?"
"There!" replied the young officer, pointing to the ledge outside thebulkhead, just over the iron ladder-way that led down to the fo'c's'le,the scene of the accident. "He cannot well have fallen overboard fromthere!"
"No," assented the Captain, doubtfully; still at a loss to account forBob's mysterious disappearance. "Where can the boy be, though?"
They were just about instituting an organised search through the ship,both in great anxiety; when, who should crawl up from below but themissing young gentleman!
Rover's look of dejection on being left behind at home in the morningwas nothing to that of his young master now; the latter appearing, fromhis blackened face and rumpled collar, not to speak of his soiled suitof flannels, so beautifully white and clean the moment before, to have"been in the wars" with a vengeance!
"Why, what have you been doing with yourself?" exclaimed the Captain, inblank dismay. "Where have you been?"
Albeit dilapidated in his general exterior, Bob had not lost his voice;his powers of speech being happily still unimpaired.
"I'm all right," he answered with an attempt at a grin. "I'm allright!"
"But where have you been?" repeated the Captain, whom this off-handstatement did not quite satisfy. "Where have you been?"
"Oh, I got blown up," explained Bob. "When the gun fired I felt anawful pain in my ears, as if somebody was running a red-hot needlethrough them going right down to my boots!"
"You must have long ears, youngster," remarked the young lieutenantslily here. "Very long to reach so far!"
"I didn't mean that my ears went down to my boots," replied Bob, rathernettled at the insinuation; and he then continued the account of hisexperiences of the explosion. "But, as I was saying, I first felt thispain; and then I seemed to be lifted off my feet, tumbling down thisladder here, and after that through a hole in the deck, amongst a lot ofcoal-dust and oil-cans, that messed my clothes a bit."
"A bit?" queried the Captain, chuckling now with much satisfaction atseeing him unhurt--"I should say a good deal, judging by appearances,Master Bob!"
"Really?" said he surveying himself ruefully, turning and twisting so asto get a view of his back. "Well, I certainly am dirty, but I didn'tlook half so bad before I came up."
"Ah, it's the light that does it," observed the lieutenant, chaffinghim. "However, if you will go rolling in the coal-bunkers and makinglove to the engineer's oil-cans, you must take the consequences!"
"I didn't," replied Bob indignantly. "You don't think I tumbled downthere on purpose, do you?"
"Perhaps not," said the other, smiling. "But, pray remember, you weretold to keep away from the gun; and, if you had obeyed orders, youwouldn't have got into any mischief."
"Well, let us be thankful it is no worse," observed the Captaincheerily. "I hope you are not hurt, Bob, by your roll dawn thehatchway?"
"No, Captain," he answered, brightening up again after the snub of thelieutenant anent his disobedience, "I fell on the coal-sacks quitesoftly and haven't got a scratch."
"That's all right then," echoed Captain Dresser in his joking way;adding to the young officer on his other side, "I wonder if all the`cocked hats' have done examining the gun, and whether there's a chancenow for an old retired fogey like myself having a look at the damage?"
"I should think so, sir," replied the young officer. "The Admiral, Isee, has gone away, and the fellows also from the Ordnance department;so, you'd better come and have a glance round while the coast is clear."
"I will," was the response of the old sailor, as, in company with thelieutenant and Bob, he made his way through one of the watertight doorsin the forward bulkhead on to the fo'c's'le; the trio then groupingthemselves round the broken breech of the exploded weapon, all that wasleft now of the whilom big forty-three ton gun!
"Ah! I can see how it happened," said the old sailor, after a cursoryinspection of the fractured portion. "The gun was strong enough at thebreech, but went at the muzzle. It has given way, of course, at itsweakest point."
"Yes," agreed the young lieutenant. "It has parted just here, where thelast protecting coil of steel has been shrunk on; the tube of the gunhas burst at this unprotected portion of it, right in front of thechase."
"What's the reason, sir," asked Bob, "of its bursting there like that?"
"I suppose because the metal was unable to withstand the strain of thepowder charge," said the Captain. "So, Bob, it went!"
"Pardon me, but I don't think you've got it quite right, sir," observedthe lieutenant apologetically. "The gun was strong enough for the old`pebble powder' it was originally intended to be fired with, the forceof whose explosion would have been expended in the breech, which youcan't say is weak?"
"No," asserted the other, "the gun seems strong enough there."
"Well, that being the case," continued the young officer, "the gun mighthave been fired as many times as you please with the heaviest charges ofthat powder without its sustaining the slightest injury. Our wiseOrdnance people, however, having taken a fancy to a `slow combustionpowder,' whose force, instead of being expended in the breech, issustained throughout the whole length of the gun, as the particles ofpowder ignite and expand, bethought themselves they would, forcheapness' sake, use this `cocoa powder,' as it is called, without goingto the expense of building additional coils round their heavy guns toenable them to resist the extra strain!"
"So this is the result," said the old Captain. "It's just like puttingnew wine into old bottles!"
"Precisely," replied the lieutenant, joining in his laugh. "But, don'tyou feel hungry, Captain Dresser?"
"I do," he promptly rejoined. "This sea air give; one the very deuce ofan appetite; and I confess to feeling slightly peckish."
"So am I," said the other, leading the way to the nearest hatchway."Let us go down below and see what they've got for luncheon. Mind howyou step, it's all dark here, as they haven't fitted her up yet."
"That's plain enough as I can feel!" muttered the Captain in reply as hestumbled against the projecting ledge of one of t
he watertightbulkheads, knocking his shin. "These new-fashioned ships are all atodds and ends, it seems to me, in their accommodation below. Give meone of the old sort, where everything was really plain sailing and onehadn't to dive down here and climb up there to get for'ard or aft!"
"Ah," rejoined the lieutenant, holding out a hand to guide him, "you'dget used to it in time."
"Just as the eels do to skinning!" growled the Captain, rubbing his soreshins. "I'd rather be excused the practice, though, on my part."
Bob sniggered at this; and, passing along a narrow dark passage, itsobscurity rather increased than diminished by the solitary illuminatingpower of a single "dip" in a ship's lantern hung up against the side,the lieutenant stopped the Captain from any further grumbling byintroducing him into the ward-room, which, being well lit up with littleelectric lamps, offered a marked contrast to the other parts of thevessel they had traversed.
To the Captain, indeed, it was like passing from purgatory to fairyland,as he said; the more so from the fact of his seeing a well-spread tablebefore him, and there being a savoury smell permeating the atmosphere.
So, he took his seat with alacrity, prepared to do ample justice towhatever viands were brought forward.
Bob, who came in a little later, his curiosity being attracted by thesight of the open torpedo-room adjacent, with its stores of Whiteheadtubes, gave the witty young surgeon, who was facing the door, anopportunity of cracking a joke at the expense of his smutty face, whichhe had been unable to wash since his tumble amongst the coals.
"Hullo, Pompey!" cried out this worthy, who by the way had beenpreviously chaffed by his brother officers, such is the levity ofsailors in imminent peril, about the gun accident not having providedhim with any patients. "Hullo, Pompey, you've forgotten your banjo andbones!"
Bob did not see the point of the joke at first, although there was ageneral titter round the lower part of the table where the young surgeonwas seated; when Master Bob did, however, he blushed pretty red, lookinguncommonly sheepish.
But the lieutenant came to his rescue.
"He has left his bones behind advisedly, Phillips," said he to the youngsurgeon, who was smiling still at his own witticism, "because he knew,if he brought them, you would only carve and saw them about as youserved those fossils at the hospital."
This turned the laugh against the other, enabling Bob to sit down inpeace and enjoy his luncheon, during which he was much amused at the fungoing on amongst the junior officers at their end of the festive boardabout the splendid chances offered for promotion and "unfortunatelymissed" by the bursting cannon.
"Just fancy!" observed one of those, speaking in an undertone, so thatthose of superior rank at the upper end of the table could not hear him."Three `flags,' four `posts,' half-a-dozen commanders, and two `firstluffs,' all within range of that blessed muzzle that carried away; andnot one vacancy on the list!"
"It's positively awful," chimed in another, in cordial agreement withhis brother sub, "we may never have such a chance again!"
The Captain subsequently explained to Bob that they meant that had theseveral admirals and other officers of rank who stood behind the forty-three ton gun been killed or materially injured when it burst, thesethoughtless juniors believed they would have "received a step" on thelist, or in other words, would have been probably promoted--which Bobthought extremely wicked and reprehensible on their part.
After the explosion, of course, there was no more gun-practice, the_Archimedes_ slowly making her way back to Spithead, and then intoharbour; the broken breech of the unfortunate weapon that had come togrief being carefully covered over with a piece of tarpaulin, so thatthose on board an Austrian frigate lying in the roadstead, which theironclad had to go by, should know nothing of the burst, at least frompassing observation. We do not like to show our failures to ourfriends--only our successes!
The Captain and Bob, naturally, got back all the sooner from the trialtrip of the _Archimedes_ being thus cut short, reaching "the Moorings,"indeed, just as Mrs Gilmour and her guests were going out for a strollbefore dinner; when, Rover pranced up to his young master, all affectionand oblivious of any "hard feelings" he might have entertained by beingleft behind in the morning, repeating his magnanimous conduct on aprevious occasion!
"By Jove!" cried the Captain jocularly, addressing Bob's father. "Thatson of yours is bound to turn out something great."
"Really, what's he been doing now?"
"Why," replied the old sailor with his customary chuckle, thumping thepavement with his malacca cane to give greater emphasis to his words,"he was half-drowned almost the first evening he came down here; waswrecked in the poor _Bembridge Belle_ the other afternoon; and now, tocomplete the category, has been blown up to-day."
"Boys are like cats," said the barrister smiling. "They all seemendowed with the same proverbial number of lives."
"How funny, Bob," observed Nellie here. "Papa says you're like a cat;so, you must be like Snuffles!"
Bob, however, did not appear to see the joke of this; though it affordedhis sister much amusement, which was increased anon by the Captainasking her a question.
"I say, Miss Nell," he cried out in his jocular way, chuckling thewhile, "what colour is this celebrated cat of yours, Snuffles?"
"He's black all over, Captain," replied Nellie as distinctly as hergiggles would permit. "Only, he has four white paws, just as if he hadlamb's-wool socks on, like those mamma makes Bob wear in winter."
"Humph!" snorted out the old sailor, his beady eyes twinkling with fireand his bushy eyebrows moving rapidly up and down. "If you had seenMaster Bob when he first emerged from the fore-peak of the _Archimedes_after his tumble through the fo'c's'le and roll amongst the coal-sacks,you would have thought him, missy, more like Snuffles than ever. Theonly drawback to the likeness was that Bob had but two paws instead offour, and that they were as black as his face!"
"Oh, my!" exclaimed Nellie, shrieking with laughter. "Do you hear that,mamma?"
"Aye, my dear, I'm not joking," went on the Captain, his face now asgrave as a judge. "Do you know he was so black, that they mistook himfor one of the Christy minstrels when he came into the ward-roomafterwards!"
This finished poor Nell; even Bob, too, joining in the laugh againsthimself.
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