***




Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover art]




[Illustration: HE WILDLY TORE AT EVERYTHING AND HURLED IT DOWN
ON HIS PURSUERS  _Page_ 86 _Frontispiece_]




                      Mr. Midshipman Glover, R.N.

                   A Tale of the Royal Navy of To-day


                                   BY

                          SURGEON REAR-ADMIRAL
                       T. T. JEANS, C.M.G., R.N.

             Author of "John Graham, Sub-Lieutenant, R.N."
                         "A Naval Venture" &c.



                   _Illustrated by Edward S. Hodgson_



                         BLACKIE & SON LIMITED
                           LONDON AND GLASGOW
                                  1908




                                   By
                          Surgeon Rear-Admiral
                              T. T. Jeans


                            The Gun-runners.
                   John Graham, Sub-Lieutenant, R.N.
                            A Naval Venture.
                        Gunboat and Gun-runner.
                       Ford of H.M.S. "Vigilant".
                          On Foreign Service.
                      Mr. Midshipman Glover, R.N.



       _Printed in Great Britain by Blackie & Son, Ltd., Glasgow_




                               *Preface*


In this story of the modern Royal Navy I have endeavoured, whilst
narrating many adventures both ashore and afloat, to portray the habits
of thought and speech of various types of officers and men of the Senior
Service who live and serve under the White Ensign to-day.

To do this the more graphically I have made some of the leading
characters take up, from each other, the threads of the story and
continue the description of incidents from their own points of view; the
remainder of the tale is written in the third person as by an outside
narrator.

I hope that this method will be found to lend additional interest to the
book.

I have had great assistance from several Gunnery, Torpedo, and Engineer
Lieutenants, who have read the manuscripts as they were written,
corrected many errors of detail, and made many useful suggestions.

The story may therefore claim to be technically correct.

T. T. JEANS,

SURGEON REAR-ADMIRAL, ROYAL NAVY




                               *Contents*

CHAP.

      I. The Luck of Midshipman Glover
     II. Helston receives a Strange Letter
    III. The Fitting Out of a Squadron
     IV. The Pirates are not Idle
      V. The Squadron leaves hurriedly
     VI. The Voyage East
    VII. The Pursuit of the Patagonian
   VIII. Mr. Ping Sang is Outwitted
     IX. Captain Helston Wounded
      X. Destroyer "No. 1" Meets her Fate
     XI. The Action off Sin Ling
    XII. A Council of War
   XIII. The Avenging of Destroyer "No. 1"
    XIV. Night Operations
     XV. Mr. Midshipman Glover Tells how he was Wounded
    XVI. Captain Helston's Indecision
   XVII. Spying Out the Pirates
  XVIII. The Escape from the Island
    XIX. Cummins Captures One Gun Hill
     XX. The Fight for One Gun Hill
    XXI. On One Gun Hill
   XXII. The Final Attack on the Hill
  XXIII. The Attack on the Forts
   XXIV. The Capture of the Island
    XXV. The Fruits of Victory
   XXVI. Home Again




                            *Illustrations*

He wildly tore at everything and hurled it down on his pursuers...
_Frontispiece_

I struck at him with my heavy malacca stick

The sinking of the Pirate Torpedo-Boat

The Commander and Jones overpower the Two Sentries


Map Illustrating the Operations Against the Pirates




[Illustration: MAP ILLUSTRATING THE OPERATIONS AGAINST THE PIRATES]




                              *CHAPTER I*

                    *The Luck of Midshipman Glover*


    Ordered Abroad.  Hurrah!


           _Midshipman Glover explains how Luck came to him_


It all started absolutely unexpectedly whilst we were on leave and
staying with Mellins in the country.

When I say "we", I mean Tommy Toddles and myself. His real name was
Foote, but nobody ever called him anything but "Toddles", and I do
believe that he would almost have forgotten what his real name actually
was if it had not been engraved on the brass plate on the lid of his sea
chest, and if he had not been obliged to have it marked very plainly on
his washing.

We had passed out of the _Britannia_ a fortnight before--passed out as
full-blown midshipmen, too, which was all due to luck--and were both
staying with Christie at his pater's place in Somerset.

It was Christie whom we called Mellins, because he was so tremendously
fat; and though he did not mind us doing so in the least, it was rather
awkward whilst we were staying in his house, for we could hardly help
calling his pater "Colonel Mellins".

You see, he was even fatter than Mellins himself, and the very first
night we were there--we were both just a little nervous--Toddles did
call him Colonel Mellins when we wished him "Good-night", and he glared
at us so fiercely, that we slunk up to our room and really thought we'd
better run away.

We even opened the window and looked out, feeling very miserable, to see
if it was possible to scramble down the ivy or the rusty old water-spout
without waking everybody, when Mellins suddenly burst in with a pillow
he had screwed up jolly hard, and nearly banged us out of the window. By
the time we had driven him back to his room at the other end of the
corridor, and flattened him out, we had forgotten all about it, and we
crept back like mice, and went to sleep.

It was just at this time that the papers came out with those
extraordinary yarns about the increase of piracy on the Chinese coast,
and how some Chinese merchants had clubbed together to buy ships in
England and fit out an expedition to clear the sea again.

You can imagine how interested we three were, especially as fifty years
ago Toddles's father had taken part in a great number of scraps with the
Cantonese pirates, and Toddles rattled off the most exciting yarns which
his father had told him.

We saw in the papers that the Admiralty was about to lend naval officers
to take command, but it never struck us that we might possibly get a
look in, till one morning a letter came for me from Cousin Milly, whose
father is an old admiral and lives at Fareham, and isn't particularly
pleasant when I go to see him.

My aunt! weren't we excited!  Why, she actually wrote that if I wanted
to go she thought she could get me appointed to the squadron, as the
captain who was going in charge was a great friend of hers.

You can imagine what I wrote, and how I buttered her up and called her a
brick, and said she was a "perfect ripper".  I ended up by saying that
"Mr. Arthur Bouchier Christie, midshipman, and Mr. Thomas Algernon
Foote, midshipman, chums of mine, would like to go too".

I was very careful to give their full names to prevent mistakes, and put
"midshipman" after their names just to show that they had also passed
out of the _Britannia_. near the top of the list, and so must be pretty
good at chasing "X and Y", which, of course, is a great "leg up" in the
navy.

Two mornings after this Milly sent me a postcard: "Hope to manage it for
the three of you".

We were so excited after that, that we did nothing but wait about for
the postman, and even went down to the village post-office and hung
about there, almost expecting a telegram.

Well, you would hardly believe it!  The very next morning our
appointments were in the papers.

I have the list somewhere stowed away even now, and it began:

"The under-mentioned officers of the Royal Navy have been placed on
half-pay and lent to the Imperial Chinese Government for special
services".

Down at the bottom of the list was "Midshipmen", and we nearly tore
Colonel Christie's paper in our excitement as we read, in very small
print and among a lot of other names, Arthur B. Christie, Harold S.
Glover (that was myself--hurrah!), and Thomas A. Foote.

Well, I can't tell you much of what happened after that, for we were
simply mad with delight; but I do remember that when I rushed off home
my father and mother rather threw a damper over it all.

And when my gear had been packed and driven down to the station, I felt
rather a brute because everyone cried, and even my father was a little
husky when I wished him good-bye.  I think something must have got into
my eye too, a fly, probably, but it wasn't there when the train ran into
Portsmouth Harbour station, and Mellins and Toddles met me and dragged
me to the end of the pier to get our first view of our new ship, which
was lying at Spithead.

Now you will have to read how all these things came about, or you will
never properly understand them.




                              *CHAPTER II*

                  *Helston receives a Strange Letter*


    Helston's Bad Luck--Ping Sang tells of Pirates--Ping Sang makes
    an Offer--Helston Jubilant


In the year 1896 two naval officers were living a somewhat humdrum,
monotonous existence in the quiet little Hampshire village of Fareham,
which nestles under the fort-crowned Portsdown Hills, and is almost
within earshot of the ceaseless clatter of riveting and hammering in the
mighty dockyards of Portsmouth.

These two men had both served many years before in the small gun-boat
_Porcupine_ out in China, and their many escapades and adventures had
frequently drawn down on their heads the wrath of the Admiral commanding
that station.  Wherever the _Porcupine_ went, trouble of some sort or
another was sure to follow.  At one place an indignant Taotai[#]
complained that all the guns--obsolete old muzzle-loaders--in his fort
had been tumbled into the ditch one night; at another they only just
escaped with their lives from an infuriated mob whilst actually carrying
from the temple a highly grotesque, but still more highly revered, joss,
at which desecration they had cajoled and bribed the local priests to
wink.


[#] Taotai = military magistrate.


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