Young Tom Bowling

Young Tom Bowling The Boys of the British Navy
By J.C. Hutcheson
CHAPTER ONE.
FATHER AND I "ARGUE THE POINT."
"Hullo, father!" I sang out, when we had got a little way out from the
pontoon and opened the mouth of the harbour, noticing, as I looked
over my shoulder to see how we were steering, a string of flags being
run up aboard the old Saint Vincent. "They're signalling away like mad
this morning all over the shop! First, atop of the dockyard semaphore;
and then the flagship and the old Victory, both of 'em, blaze out in
bunting; while now the Saint Vincent joins in at the game of `follow-
my-leader.' I wonder what's up?"
"Lor' bless you, Tom!" rejoined father, still steadily tugging on at his
stroke oar as we pursued our course towards the middle of the stream,
so that we might take advantage of the last of the flood, and allow the
gradually slackening tide, which was nearly at the turn, to drift us down
alongside the old Victory, whither we were bound to pick up a fare for
the shore--"nothing in pertickler's up anyways uncommon that I sees,
sonny; and as for the buntin' that you're making sich a fuss about, why,
they've hauled all that down, and pretty near unbent all the signal flags,
too, and stowed 'em away in their lockers by this time!"
"But, father," I persisted, "they don't always go on like this for nothing,
I know!"
"In coorse they don't, stoopid!" said he, giving the water an angry
splash as he reached forwards, the blade of his oar sending up a tidy
sprinkle across my face. "Why, where's your wits, Tom, this mornin'?"
"Where you put them, father," I replied with a laugh; "you know I'm

your son, and mother says I'm `a chip of the old block' whenever she's a
bit put out with me."
"None o' your imporence, Tom," said he, laughing too; for he and I
were the best of friends, and I don't think we ever had a serious
difference about anything since first I was able to toddle down to the
Hard, a little mite of four or five, to see him put off in his wherry, and
sometimes go out for a sail with him on the sly when mother wasn't
watching us, up to the time, as now, when I could help him with an oar.
"None o' your imporence, you young jackanapes. But touching that
there signallin', I'm surprised, sonny, you don't know by this time that
when the commander-in-chief up at Admiralty House, in the dockyard,
wishes for to communicate to some ship out at Spithead, he telegraphs
from his office to the semaphore, which h'ists his orders, and then every
ship in port's bound to repeat the signal till the craft he means it for
runs up her answering pennant, for to show us how she's took the signal
in and underconstubled it."
"Oh yes, father, I know that," said I, leading him on purposely. "But
what is the signal they've been so busy about this morning? I can't
make it out at all."
Father snorted indignantly.
"Tom Bowling, junior, I'm right down ashamed on you for a son o'
mine!" he said, digging away at his oar savagely, as if trying to dredge
up some of the silt from the bottom of the harbour. "You, turned fifteen
year old, and been back'ard and forrud 'twixt Hardway and the Gosport
shore for a matter of five years or more, and not for to know and read a
common signal like that, which you must 'a seed run up at the
semaphore or on board the Dook a hundred times at least. Lor'! I'm jest
'shamed of you, that's what I be!"
"But that ain't telling me, father," I retorted, "what is the signal. You
needn't make such a blooming mystery of it, like that chap we saw
t'other night at the theayeter!"
In return for my `cheek' he splashed the water over me again.

"Well, if you don't know it, sonny, which I can hardly believe on, and
wants for to know to improve your mind, which needs a lot of
improvement, as I knows, that theer signal, Tom, was that cruiser we
saw out at Spithead yesterday a-trying her speed at the measured mile,
the Mercury, I thinks she is, axin' the port-admiral if she might have her
sailin' orders; and look there, sonny, the `affirmative' 's now run up at
the mizzen aboard the Dook, over yonder!"
"Yes, father," said I, playing him artfully, like the wily old fish he was,
with an object which you will soon learn--"and what does that mean?"
"What does that mean? You blessed young h'ignoramus! Why, Tommy,
your brains be all wool-gathered this