Great Britain. Royal Navy -- Juvenile fiction; Midshipmen -- Juvenile fiction
And then he lapsed into a sort of dreamy state in which he dragged out
of his sleeping adventures that he had been acting as a sort of
carpenter's boy, carrying the bag, which weighed him down, while all the
time he had to keep handing gigantic augers to Chips, and wiping his
forehead every now and then with handfuls of shavings, while his master
kept on turning away, trying to bore holes through the steel plates of
the gunboat, and never making so much as a scratch. Then came a rest,
and he and Chips were lying down together in a beautiful summer-house
built upon a shelf of the cliff, with lovely vines running all over it
covered with brilliant flowers, and growing higher and higher, with the
upper parts laden with fruit which somehow seemed to be like beans. He
did not know why it was, but his rest in this beautiful vine-shaded
place, whose coverings seemed to grow right up into the skies, was
disturbed by the carpenter's banter, for Chips kept calling him Jack,
and laughing at him for selling his mother's cow for a handful of beans,
and asking why he didn't begin to climb right up to the top of the great
stalk into the giant land. Before he could answer they were back again
by the side of the gunboat, seated in the dinghy, and Chips was turning
away at his cross-handled auger, which now seemed to go through the
steel as easily as if it were cheese-rind, while when the dreamer took
hold of a handful of the shavings that were turned out, they were of
bright steel, and so hard and sharp that they made the carpenter angry
because they did not remove the perspiration and only scratched his
face. But he kept on turning all the time, till the auger had gone in
about six inches, when he left off and asked for another, driving this
in at a tremendous rate and again asking for another and another, until
he had driven in a whole series of them which extended from the level of
the dinghy's gunwale right up the gunboat's side.
Then it seemed to the sleeper that the dinghy was passed along to the
war-vessel's stern, where Chips made her fast to the rudder-chains, and
then held out his hand for the powder-bag, which was so big that it
filled up all the bottom of the little boat and swelled right over the
side. It was very heavy, but Fitz felt that it must be done, though it
was not proper work for a young officer in Her Majesty's Navy.
But Chips was sitting astride the rudder, holding out his hands, and the
bag was obliged to be passed up. Directly afterwards it was made fast,
and Chips came back holding a black string moistened with gunpowder, and
holding out the end to him to light with a match. This he did, after
striking many which would not go off because his hands were wet; and
then he sat back watching the powder sparkle as it gradually burned
along the string towards the neck of the bag full of black powder, which
somehow seemed to be the soot from one of the chimneys at home, while
Chips the carpenter was only the sweep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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