deck."

"Then, take th's lot of new boys with you and show them the way down.
They're almost enough to man the pumps all by themselves!"

"Aye, aye, sir," responded the corporal, turning to retrace his steps
down the hatchway which he had just ascended. "Come along, my lads,
follow me!"

Down we all trooped accordingly, on to the lower deck, where we saw a
number of the boys, who had been dismissed from quarters, busy at their
various instruction drills; which we, unhappy `unclothed' ones, could
not participate in till we had been clad in uniform and become part and
parcel of the ship's company.

Giving these the go-by, and also passing the schoolroom, leaving that
astern on our starboard hand, we descended yet lower to the orlop deck,
the lowest in the ship, being just above the hold where lies the
ballast, and the water-tanks are stowed, as well as spare gear.

Here, some twenty other boys, under the superintendence of one of the
petty officers, were working away at the cranks of the Downton pumps
with the energy of so many convicts on the treadmill; clink-clanking at
such a rate, that one could hear the suck of the pumps and the rush of
the water through the pipes, ending with a sort of gurgle at the end of
the stroke!

In the `dim religious light' produced by a couple of ship's lanterns
hung at the head of the hatchways, widely apart, not very much could be
seen of the interior, save the broad substantial deck beams and curved
knees at the sides; but I noticed that the faces of two or three of the
boys nearest one of these lights were streaming with perspiration, which
showed that the work was "taking it out of them."

"Tail on here!" shouted out the petty officer, who seemed a rather
grumpy individual, on our coming down to join the gang. "We don't want
no idlers here!"

With that, Mick Donovan and I gripped the handle of one of the cranks,
two others of the new boys facing us; and we soon all found our places,
clink-clanking away like the rest had done before we joined in. Indeed,
we couldn't stop once we had started, but had to `sling on' whether we
liked it or not, the handles of the pumps keeping up their up and down
motion through the action of the others; so that if we had let go, we
should have got either a tidy crack under the chin, or else been tumbled
over on the deck.

After half-an-hour's experience of this exhilarating labour, the petty
officer sang out, "Spell ho!" and we left off the j