Blue Jackets Part 60

"Look here," cried the lieutenant angrily, "I want the names of the men who played this blackguardly trick upon the poor fellow."

"Yes, afterwards," said the doctor. "He's insensible, poor fellow.

Here, one of you, a knife?"

Half-a-dozen jack-knives were opened and presented to the doctor, but I sprang forward.

"Don't do that, sir, please!" I cried excitedly.

"Eh? Not cut off this absurd thing?"

"No, sir. The poor fellow went overboard to escape having the pigtail cut, and it would break his heart."

Mr Reardon turned upon me sharply, and I antic.i.p.ated a severe reproof, but he only gave me a nod.

"Carry him below," he said. And I walked beside the men to save the poor fellow from any fresh indignity, while half-an-hour later he had had a good rubbing and was lying in hot blankets fast asleep, partly from exhaustion, partly consequent upon having had a tumbler of mixture, steaming and odorous, which the doctor had administered with his own hands.

"Not to be taken every three hours, Herrick," he said, with a curious dry smile. "Fine mixture that, in its proper place. Know what it was?"

"It smelt like grog, sir," I replied.

"Oh, did it? Now, do you for a moment suppose that when a carefully-trained medical man of great experience is called in to a patient suffering from shock and a long immersion he would prescribe and exhibit such a commonplace remedy as grog?"

"Don't know, sir," I said. "But I should."

"Then, my good lad, as soon as you get back from this unpleasant voyage, the best thing you can do will be to go straight to your father and tell him that you have made a mistake in your vocation, and that he had better enter you for a series of terms at one of the universities, and then as a student at one of the hospitals."

"But I'm going to be a sailor, sir."

"Yes, a bad one, I daresay, my lad, when you might become a good doctor or surgeon."

"But I don't want to be one," I replied, laughing.

"Of course not, when it is the grandest profession in the world."

"But do you think he will come round all right, sir?" I said anxiously.

"Oh yes, of course. But you are not going to let that absurd thing stop on the end of his tail?"

"No, sir," I replied. "I'm going to try and get it off directly."

"How?"

"Lay it on a stool and stamp upon it."

"Good! that will flatten it and make the opening gape."

It did, after the exercise of a fair amount of pressure; and then, by the help of Tom Jecks, who was wonderfully penitent now, and eager to help with a tool he brought--to wit, a marlinespike--the star-like points of tin were one by one forced out, and the tail withdrawn uninjured, except that the silk ribbon at the end was a good deal frayed.

"Ha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tom. "We've made an end of it at last. My word, Mr Herrick, sir, it's truly-thankful-Amen I am that the poor chap's all right again."

"And so am I, Tom Jecks," I replied.

"O' course you is, sir; I never meant to cut his tail, only to frighten him a bit; but, poor heathen, he took it all as serious as seas. Shall I go and chuck the tin-can overboard?"

"No; leave it here for him to find when he wakes up."

"Right it is, sir. But what a fuss for a man to make about a bit o'

hair. He never howls about having his head shaved."

"No," I said; "but you see he would have given anything sooner than have his tail touched."

"And most got drownded, sir. Well, that all come o' the lads skylarking. If ever I'm skipper of a ship, no skylarking then. I s'pose there'll be a reglar hooroar in the morning, and Mr Reardon wanting to know who started the game."

"And you'll tell him, Tom?" I said.

"O' course, sir," he replied, with a solemn wink. "I'm just the man to go and split upon my messmates."

"But you'll be punished if you don't tell. You can't get out of it, because it's known that you were teasing him; and it wouldn't be fair for you to be punished and for them to escape."

"No, sir, it wouldn't; but sech is life. Wrong chap generally gets the kick as some one else ought to have ketched, but 'tarn't your fault, and it's no use to grumble."

"But it is your fault, if you know who were the offenders and will not tell."

"Is it? Humph! S'pose it is, sir. You're right. That's where you gents as is scholards gets over the like of me. I see it now; you are right, sir. What a wonderful head you've got for arguing, sewerly!"

"Then you'll tell Mr Reardon in the morning?"

"I didn't say as I would, sir."

"No; but you will?"

"No, sir, but I won't!" he said emphatically. "But I say, sir, do you think if I was to go overboard, and then hitch myself on to the rudder-chains till I was took aboard, the doctor'd give me a dose of that same physic as he give him?"

"Very likely, Tom," I said. "But you'd rather be without, wouldn't you?"

He smiled.

"But it was physic?"

"Oh yes, sir, it was physic. But then you see there's physic as he takes out of one of his little bottles with stoppers, and there's physic as he makes out of the ship's rum, hot with sugar. I could take a dose now easy, and it would do me good."

"Nonsense!" I said, after a glance at the sleeping Chinaman. "But I say, Jecks, how did he manage?"

"Oh, easy enough, sir. Tide would suck him right along the side, and he'd catch the chains."

"But how did he get in such a tangle?"

"Tied hisself on, sir, with a handkerchy round his left arm, to the chain; and then d.i.c.k Spurling says he twissened his tow-chang, as he called it, round and round, and tucked the canister in at the neck of his frock and b.u.t.toned it. d.i.c.k had no end of a job, as you know, to get him undone."