A Middy in Command Part 5

"Thanks, Mr Carter, very much, for mentioning this," I said. "You gave me a pretty broad hint as to what I might expect, out there on deck, just now, and you may rest a.s.sured that I shall not forget it. And you may also rest a.s.sured that, should he so far forget what is due to humanity as to order me to leave the ship, I will flatly decline to go."

"Of course, sir, of course you will, and quite right too," commented Carter. "But I'm glad to hear ye say so, all the same. It'll be a great comfort to me--and to the pa.s.sengers too--to feel that we've got a naval officer aboard, if things should happen to go at all crooked. And now, Mr Grenvile, havin' said my say, I'll wish ye good-night, and hope you'll be able to get a good sound sleep between this and morning."

And therewith Carter at length took himself off. But before he was fairly out on deck I was stretched at full length on the sofa, fast asleep.

CHAPTER FIVE.

SOME STRANGE HAPPENINGS.

I was awakened by the entrance of the stewards, who, at six bells on the following morning, came into the saloon to brush and dust up generally, and lay the tables for nine-o'clock breakfast. The head steward apologised for waking me, and informed me that there was no need for me to disturb myself, also that Carter had informed him of my presence, and commended me to his care. But I had slept like a log, and felt thoroughly refreshed; I therefore went out on deck, and betook myself forward to the eyes of the ship, where I stripped and indulged in the luxury of a shower-bath under the head-pump.

It was a most glorious morning, the sun was shining brilliantly, with a keen bite in his rays already, although he was but an hour high; and there was a strong breeze blowing from the northward, under the influence of which the ship was reeling off her ten knots, under a main topgallant-sail. But I was greatly surprised to see that, instead of steering south, we were heading in for the coast, on a south-westerly course. I made some remark upon this to Carter, who again had the watch, to which he replied:

"Well, you see, sir, it's a fancy of the skipper's. He's got some sort of a theory that, by hugging the coast close, and takin' advantage of the sea and land breezes, as they blows night and mornin', we shall do rather better than we should by thrashin' to wind'ard against the south- east trade. I don't know whether there's anything in it myself, but it's the first time that I've ever heard of the notion. But there he is--and in a blazin' bad temper, too, by the looks of him! Shall I take you aft and introjuce you to him?"

"Certainly," said I. "If we are to have any unpleasantness, let us have it at once, and get it over."

There was, however, to be no unpleasantness--just then, at all events-- except in so far as poor Carter was concerned; for when he and I went aft to where Captain Williams--a tall, powerful-looking, and rather handsome man in a barbaric sort of way, with a pair of piercing black eyes, and an abundant crop of black, curly hair, with beard and moustache to match--was standing on the quarter-deck, just outside the entrance of the saloon, the captain stepped forward, and, extending his hand, bade me welcome to his ship with every sign of the utmost friendliness. But he gave poor Carter a terrific wigging for not having called him when the boats were first sighted, and for receiving us on board without first consulting him.

"For how could you know, Mr Carter," he said, "that the boats were not full of pirates? Less unlikely things than that have happened, let me tell you; and when you come to know this coast as well as I know it, you will be rather more chary of receiving a couple of boats' crews professing to be distressed seamen."

"Oh," said I, "as to that, Mr Carter took pretty good care to satisfy himself as to our _bona fides_ before permitting us to come alongside!

At all events he made sure that we were British, and I think there are very few Britons who take kindly to piracy."

"Perhaps not, sir, perhaps not; at least I hope that, for the credit of our countrymen, you are right," answered the skipper. "At the same time there are many foreigners who speak English well enough to answer a hail, and I want to impress upon Mr Carter the fact that it was his duty to call me, under the peculiar circ.u.mstances, and to allow me to decide as to the advisability of admitting two boat-loads of strangers aboard my ship. Please don't do it again, sir."

Whereupon poor Carter promised to be more circ.u.mspect in future, and slunk away with very much the aspect and manner of a beaten dog. I felt very sorry for the man, for, even admitting that the skipper was right-- as he certainly was--I thought it would have been in very much better taste if he had taken an opportunity to point out to his subordinate, in private, the imprudence of which he had been guilty, instead of administering a reprimand in the presence of a stranger. Apart from that it appeared to me that there was not very much wrong with the man, and the question arose in my mind whether, despite the protest that Carter had thought it necessary to address to me, he might not be to some extent prejudiced against his skipper. And this feeling was somewhat strengthened when, as, in compliance with Captain Williams's request, I gave him an account of our recent adventures, he informed me that the ship carried a doctor, and at once sent a messenger to that functionary, informing him that some wounded men had been taken on board during the night, and requesting him to give them his best attention forthwith.

As the skipper and I stood talking together, the pa.s.sengers, who had learned from the stewards that we had been picked up during the night, came hurrying up on deck, one after another, full of curiosity to see the individuals who had joined the ship under such interesting circ.u.mstances; and I was duly introduced to them. To take them in what appeared to be the recognised order of their social importance, they were, first, General Sir Thomas Baker, his wife, Lady Hetty Baker, and his rather elderly daughter, Phoebe, returning to India from furlough; Mrs Euphemia Jennings, the young wife of an important official, who had just left her only boy--a lad of five years of age--with friends in England, for his health's sake, and with her a niece of her husband--a Miss Flora Duncan, a most lovely girl of about sixteen. Then came Mr and Mrs Richard Morton, people of some means, who were going to India to try their fortune at indigo planting, under the auspices of a friend and former schoolfellow of the husband, and who had sent home glowing accounts of the great things that might be done in that way by a man of energy with a reasonable amount of capital; and with them went their three children, Frank, Mary, and Susie, aged respectively eleven, eight, and six years. And finally, there were Messrs. Fielder, Acutt, Boyne, Pearson, and Taylor--five young men ranging from seventeen to twenty-one years of age, who were going out to take up appointments in the Company's service. All these people were very kind and nice to me, but I could not help being secretly amused at the fiery energy with which the general denounced what he characterised as "the criminal carelessness" of Captain Bentinck in turning me adrift in an unarmed schooner with a crew of only fourteen hands.

"By Jove, sir, I call it little short of murder," he shouted. "The idea of asking you--ay, and expecting you--to take a fully-loaded slaver into port with only fourteen men to back you up, and no guns! The man ought to be ashamed of himself! But it is just like you navy fellows; you are constantly asking one another to do things which seem impossible!"

"Yes, sir," I said demurely, "and not infrequently we do them."

"Do them!" he exploded. "Yes, I will do you the credit to admit that you never know when you are beaten; and that, I suppose, is why the blue-jackets so often succeed in performing the apparently impossible.

But that in no way weakens my contention that your captain was guilty of a piece of most culpable negligence in sending you away without furnishing you with a battery of guns with which to defend yourself and your ship!"

Fortunately, at this moment the breakfast bell rang, and, the general and his wife leading the way, we all trooped into the saloon and seated ourselves at the elegantly furnished and bountifully provided breakfast tables.

During the progress of the meal I of course had a further opportunity to observe the behaviour of the skipper, and when I rose from the table I was obliged to confess to myself that I was puzzled, for I had been quite unable to arrive at any distinct impression of the character of the man. For while, on the one hand, his manner to me was cordial, with the somewhat rough and unpolished geniality of a man of a coa.r.s.e and violent temperament striving to conquer his natural disposition and render himself agreeable, I could find no fault with the arrangements he proposed to make for my own comfort and that of my men. And his expressions of sympathy with us in our misfortunes were everything that could be wished for; but, somehow, they did not ring true. Thus, when in the course of the conversation--which, as was very natural under the circ.u.mstances, rather persistently dwelt upon my little party and our adventures--Captain Williams chose to express his gratification at having fallen in with us and rescued us from a distinctly perilous situation, while his words were as kind and sympathetic as could have been desired, the expression of his countenance seemed to say, almost as plainly as words could speak: "I devoutly wish that you had all gone to the bottom, rather than come aboard my ship!" And I continually found myself mentally asking the question: "Which am I to believe--this man's words, or the expression of his eyes? Is he sincere in what he says, and is he the unfortunate possessor of an expression that habitually gives the lie to his words; or is he, for some sinister purpose of his own, endeavouring to produce a false impression upon us all?" It was quite impossible to find a satisfactory reply to these questions, yet I found a certain amount of guidance in the manner of the pa.s.sengers toward him; I noticed that every one of them, with the exception of the general, seemed to quail beneath his gaze, and shrink from him. As for the general, despite his somewhat boisterous manner, he was a gentleman, a soldier, and evidently a man who knew not what fear was, and it appeared to me that he was distinctly distrustful of Captain Williams.

At length, by patiently watching, I succeeded in finding an opportunity to divert the conversation from myself and my party; I saw the skipper glance upward toward the tell-tale compa.s.s that hung in the skylight, and as his gaze fell again it encountered my own. Instantly a most malignant and ferocious expression swept into his eyes. Undeterred by that, however, I composedly remarked:

"I see, Captain, you are heading in toward the coast; and Mr Carter informs me that you propose to test practically a rather interesting theory that you have formed as to the advantages of the alternate land and sea breezes over those of the regular trades."

"Yes," he growled, "I do. But Mr Carter has no business to discuss my plans or intentions with anybody. I have warned him more than once to keep a silent tongue in his head; but the man is a fool, and will get himself into very serious trouble some day if he doesn't keep his weather eye lifting!"

"Well," I said, "you must not blame him in this case, for the fault--if fault there has been--was mine. I observed the alteration in the ship's course as soon as I stepped out on deck this morning, and remarked upon it, and it was merely in reply to my remark that Mr Carter explained your intentions."

"Well," he answered, "it is a rather fortunate thing for you that I happen to have such intentions, for it affords you a chance to get transhipped into one of your own craft, instead of having to go on with us to Capetown, as you would almost certainly have been obliged to do if I had followed the usual plan and stretched away over toward the South American coast."

"Quite so," I agreed; "it certainly has that advantage, as occurred to me the moment that Mr Carter explained your theory. And it has the further advantage that, should you find you do not make quite such good progress as you hope, you will be well to windward when you eventually decide to stretch offsh.o.r.e into the trade wind."

"Then you think my idea has something in it?" he demanded.

"Something--yes," I agreed; "but I doubt very much whether, taking everything into consideration, you will find that the advantages are worth consideration."

The skipper did not agree with me, and forthwith plunged into a fiery defence of his theory which lasted until some time after we had all risen from the table and adjourned to the p.o.o.p. In fact, he so completely monopolised my attention up to tiffin time that I was scarcely able to find time to go forward and enquire into the condition of the wounded, and had no opportunity at all to improve my acquaintance with the pa.s.sengers.

After tiffin, however, the captain retired to his cabin, instead of going on deck again, and as I stepped out of the saloon on to the quarter-deck I felt a hand slide into my arm, and, turning round, found the general alongside me.

"Am I right," said he, as he linked his arm in mine, "in the impression that you do not think very highly of Captain Williams's rather peculiar theory concerning the advantage of 'keeping the coast aboard'--as I believe you sailors term it--rather than following the usual rule of making the most of the south-east trade wind? You are pretty well acquainted with this coast, I suppose, and your ideas on the subject should be of value."

"Well," said I, "the fact is, Sir Thomas, that I do not think very highly of the captain's theory. In theory, no doubt, the idea appears somewhat attractive, but in actual practice I should be inclined to say that the uncertainty of the weather close insh.o.r.e will probably be found to tell against it. If the sea breeze could be absolutely depended upon to blow every day and all day long, and the land breeze to blow every night and all night long, there would undoubtedly be something in it.

But my experience is that these phenomena are not to be depended upon.

It often happens that when, according to all the rules, either the sea or the land breeze should be piping up strongly, there is an absolute, persistent calm. Nevertheless, from a purely personal point of view, I am glad that the skipper intends to test his theory, because it will afford me the opportunity to shift myself and my party into one of the ships of the slave-squadron, some one of which we are pretty certain to fall in with before long."

"Ah!" remarked the general, with a curious indrawing of his breath. "I was rather afraid that such might be the case." He paused for a few seconds, and then, taking a fresh grip of my arm, continued: "Do you know, my young friend, I am rather hoping that we shall not fall in with any of the ships of the slave-squadron, and that consequently you and your men will be obliged to go on with us at least as far as Capetown.

It is, perhaps, a bit selfish of me to entertain such a wish, but I do, nevertheless."

"Indeed!" said I. "May I ask why, general?"

"Of course you may, my dear boy," he answered. "It is a very natural question. Well, the fact is that certain very curious happenings have taken place on board this ship since she sailed out of the Thames." And he proceeded to repeat to me the story that Carter had already told me as to the disappearance of the original captain and his successor.

"Now," he continued, "Captain Matthews's death may have been a perfectly natural one. I don't say that it was not, but up to the hour of his death he looked strong and healthy enough to have lived out the full term of his life. Moreover, he was a most temperate man in every respect. I have, therefore, found it very difficult indeed to discover a satisfactory explanation of his very sudden demise. And, between you and me, although Burgess, the ship's surgeon, has never said as much in words, I firmly believe that the occurrence puzzled him as much as it did me; indeed, his very reticence over the affair only strengthens my suspicion that such is the case. But, puzzling as were the circ.u.mstances connected with Captain Matthews's death, I consider that those a.s.sociated with the death of Mr Mowbray, who took command of the ship in place of Captain Matthews, were at least equally so. Mr Mowbray was a man of some thirty-five years of age, very quiet, una.s.suming, and gentlemanly of manner; a married man with, as I have understood, a small family to provide for, and consequently very anxious to rise in his profession; ambitious, in his quiet, una.s.suming way, and evidently a thoroughly steady and reliable man, for I understand that he had served under Captain Matthews for several years. No one of us ever saw him touch wine, spirits, or drink of any description; yet only four days after he had attained to what we may consider the summit of his ambition, by securing the command of this fine ship, he was missing.

Williams, our present skipper, offers us the exceedingly improbable explanation that the poor fellow jumped out of his cabin window, and was drowned, while intoxicated. I do not believe it for a moment, nor do any of the rest of us. For my own part I very strongly suspect foul play somewhere, and the very extraordinary explanation which Williams offers of the occurrence only strengthens my suspicion that--well, not to put too fine a point upon it, that he knows more of the matter than a perfectly honest man ought to know. And, in addition to all this, Williams is a secret drunkard, and a man of most violent and ungovernable temper, as you will see for yourself ere long. You will therefore not be very greatly surprised to learn that since he took the command there has been a great deal of uneasiness as well as unpleasantness in the cuddy; and I, for one, am rejoiced to find a naval officer and a party of man-o'-war seamen on board. For I know that after what I have said you will keep your eyes and ears open, and will not hesitate to interfere if you see good and sufficient reason for so doing. You navy fellows have a trick of cutting in where you consider it necessary without pausing to weigh too nicely the strict legality of your proceedings. And if perchance you occasionally step an inch or two beyond the strict limits of the law, you are generally able to justify yourselves."

"What you have just told me, general," said I, "was also told me briefly by Carter last night, and he, too, seemed to consider it necessary to warn me that the skipper is a somewhat peculiar man. Naturally, after such a warning, I have been keeping my eyes and ears open, and I confess that I find the man something of a puzzle. Carter quite led me to antic.i.p.ate the possibility that Williams might order us down the side into our boats again, instead of which, so far as words, and even deeds, are concerned, I have not the least fault to find. But all the time that he was saying kind things to me this morning, his eyes and the expression of his face belied him."

"Aha! so you noticed that, did you?" observed the general. "Yes, it is quite true; you have very precisely expressed what we have all noticed at one time or another. His eyes belie the words of his lips very often, that is to say when he chooses to be civil, which is not always.

When I saw him this morning I quite believed we were in for a particularly unpleasant day, for he had all the appearance of a man in a very bad temper, but for some reason he has seen fit to behave himself to-day. But never fear, you will soon have an opportunity to see what he is like when he chooses to let himself go. His behaviour is then that of a madman, and I am sometimes inclined to believe that he really is mad. But suppose that he should do as Carter suggests he may, and order you and your men to quit the ship, will you go?"

"Most certainly not," said I. "I will only leave this ship when I can transfer myself and my men to some other by means of which I can speedily rejoin my own ship."

"That's right, that's quite right, my boy," approved the general.

"Well, I am glad that I have had this little talk with you, for it has eased my mind and put you on the alert. And now, come up on the p.o.o.p, and make yourself agreeable to the ladies; they will not thank me for monopolising so much of your time and attention."

I took the hint, and followed him up to the p.o.o.p, where the whole of the cuddy pa.s.sengers were a.s.sembled, the ladies occupied with books, or needlework, or playing with the children, while the men lounged in basket chairs, smoking, reading, or chatting, or danced attendance upon the ladies. I first paid my respects to Lady Baker and her daughter, as in duty bound, and then drifted gradually round from one to another until I finally came to an anchor between Mrs Jennings and her niece, Miss Duncan. But I observed that in every case, whatever the topic might be upon which I started a conversation, the talk gradually drifted round to the subject of the skipper and his peculiarities, from which I arrived at the conclusion that, after all, Carter and the general must have had some grounds for the apprehensions that they had expressed to me.

Now, of our party of ten who had been received on board the _Indian Queen_, six of us were wounded, and of those six three were so severely hurt as to be quite unfit for duty, and the other three, of whom I was one, were able to do such deck duty as keeping a look-out, taking a trick at the wheel, and so on, but, excepting myself, were scarcely fit to go aloft just yet. But I did not think it right or desirable that those of us who were in a fit state to work should eat the bread of idleness. I had therefore seized the opportunity afforded by my talk with the skipper that morning to suggest that my four unwounded and two slightly-wounded men should a.s.sist in the working of the ship; as for myself, I said that I should be very pleased to take charge of one of the watches, if such an arrangement would be of any a.s.sistance to him.

This, of course, was quite the right and proper thing for me to do, and although the ship carried a complement of thirty hands, all told, I was not in the least surprised that Williams should accept, quite as a matter of course, my offer of the men, three of whom he placed in the port watch, and three in the starboard, the latter being under the boatswain, a big, bullying, brow-beating fellow named Tonkin. But he declined the offer of my personal services, saying that he could do quite well without them. This arrangement having been come to, I made it my business to speak to the boatswain, into whose watch the two slightly-wounded men had been put, informing him of what had pa.s.sed between the skipper and myself, and requesting him not to send the wounded men aloft, as I did not consider that they could safely venture into the rigging in their partially disabled condition. And I also cautioned the men not to attempt to go aloft, should the boatswain happen to forget what I had told him, and order them to do so, taking care to give them this caution in Tonkin's presence and hearing in order that there might be no mistake or misunderstanding.

I was therefore very much surprised, and considerably annoyed, when, as we were all gathered together on the p.o.o.p that same evening, during the first dogwatch, I heard the sounds of a violent altercation proceeding on the fore-deck, and, on looking round, discovered that the disputants were one of my own men and the boatswain, the latter of whom was threatening the other with a rope's-end. Without waiting to hear or see more I instantly dashed down the p.o.o.p-ladder and ran forward, pushing my way through a little crowd who had gathered round the chief actors of the scene; and as I did so I became suddenly conscious of the fact that the men among whom I was forcing my way were a distinctly ruffianly, ill-conditioned lot, who seemed more than half disposed to resent actively my sudden appearance among them.

"Now then, Martin," I said sharply, "what is all this disturbance about, and why is the boatswain threatening you with that rope's-end?"

"Why, sir," answered Martin, who was suffering from a grape-shot wound in the leg, "I understood you to say this morning as none of us as is wounded is to go aloft; yet here's this here bo's'un swears as he'll make me go up and take the turn out o' that fore-to'gallan' clew, instead of sendin' one of his own people up to do it. I couldn't climb the riggin' without bustin' this here wound of mine open again--"