Kenneth McAlpine Part 22

"I never did think the ocean was so vast and empty-like till then, mates. All the weary days we did nothing but gaze and gaze around us, and hope and hope, and pray and pray. Well, blessed be His name, mates, G.o.d heard our prayers at last. A ship--'twas the second we'd seen, for the first took no notice of us--bore down and took us off, and that was no easy task in the condition our misery had reduced us to."

"Listen," cried one of the men.

There were three distinct knocks on the deck with a heavy boot; [A plan adopted in some merchant ships for calling the attention of those below to an order about to be given] then a stentorian voice sang down the hatchway,--

"All hands, shorten sail! Look alive there, lads. Tumble up. Tumble up."

A fiercer squall than any the vessel had yet encountered struck her before the men had time to reach the yards, and the sails they would have furled were rent into ribbons, and the noise they made as they fluttered out in the breeze was like the volley-firing of a company of soldiers. It was two hours before those whose watch was not on deck got back to the galley fire. It had just gone eight bells in the last dog watch, so the evening was still young.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE DOLDRUMS.

"See the pudding, hear the fun; The laugh and joke and glee; The ship may in the Doldrums lie, But--'tis Christmas Day at sea."

Anon.

Scene: A ship in the Doldrums. It is the saucy _Brilliant_. She has been to Calcutta, and is now on her way back to the Cape. And it is Christmas Day, and she ship is in the Doldrums. Longitude 90 degrees East; lat.i.tude nothing at all, for she is as nearly "on top o' the 'quator," as Jack calls it, as possible. She encountered a tornado farther north, which gives the reason for her being now somewhat out of her course. But she stood it well, and to see her now, with her long black lines, her tapering spars, and snow-white decks, you could not believe that but a fortnight before she had hardly a morsel of bulwark left, that, in fact, the bulwarks were more like sheep hurdles than anything shipshape.

The Doldrums! There isn't a breath of wind; the surface of the great rolling waves is as smooth as polished steel, and much about the same colour. The sun is beating straight down from a blue but cruelly hot sky. The pitch is soft in the deck seams; the men in the stoke-hole are to be pitied.

Yes, steam is up, there is a frothy wake behind her, and her bows cut through the water like a knife.

But the awning is spread all over the quarter-deck, and her tables are laid, for the captain is a right good fellow, and the men are all coming to dine with him.

They are dropping aft even now, one by one or twos and twos, somewhat shy-looking, but with beaming faces, and dressed in their best, bare-footed, in blue serge pants and clean spruce white jerseys.

"How different Christmas in the Doldrums is," said Captain Smith, "from what we are used to have it at home in old England. Sit in, men; no ceremony to-day. Mr McAlpine, you'll carve the beef. Mr McCrane, I'm sure you will show the men a good example at your end of the table.

Now, doctor, will you ask a blessing?"

Fiddles were placed across the table--long sticks shipped together by pieces of line--and the cloth was laid over that, so that, in spite of the incessant and most uneasy motion of the vessel, the dishes themselves were kept fairly steady.

As soon as eating was well commenced, tongues were loosed, and the conversation flowed freely enough, and why should it not? The captain was jolly, frank, and open, and his officers gentlemen in manners, so the men were not afraid to speak before them.

Yarn followed yarn, and tale tale, but all short and crisp; the captain joked himself, and encouraged his men to joke, so that, despite the heat, it really was a very pleasant Christmas dinner-party.

But the coming of the pudding was the great event. For, you see, it was an immensely large one, and as the ship rolled so much, the danger of its being sent flying into the scuppers before reaching the table, and being all smashed, was very great indeed.

Even the night before, the captain had commissioned the doctor to superintend its safe delivery. And that worthy had positively got Chips to make a kind of ambulance stretcher, partly canvas and partly bamboo cane, to put the trencher on, and this was borne by two men.

"Now," said the captain, when the roast beef had been taken away, "are you all ready, doctor?"

"Yes," said the man of physic, wiping the sweat off his brow. "I'm all ready if the pudding is."

"The cook's waiting, sir," said the steward, who was trying to steady himself by keeping firm hold of the mizen rigging.

"Well, here's for off," said the surgeon, getting up.

"Do your duty like a man," cried the captain, laughing, as the doctor went staggering forward. "And keep to your legs, doctor, keep to your legs."

There was silence now around the table for many long anxious minutes.

It was a solemn time. There was nothing to be heard but the throb-throb of the engines--the beating of the ship's great heart.

Would the doctor and his party succeed in landing the pudding aft? That was the great question for the time being, which every one was asking himself. Would the pudding arrive in safety?

Every eye was turned forward.

Behold, they come. Their heads are already above the fore hatch.

Slowly they emerge, and stand for a moment swaying hither and thither.

The doctor heads the procession. The cook himself brings up the rear.

Now the doctor's voice is heard.

"Are you all ready again, men?"

"All ready, sir."

"Steady, then; steady as you go. March!"

How steady they move! How quietly! A soldier's funeral is nothing to it! How they rock, and how they sway, taking advantage of every seeming break in the ship's motion, cautioning each other with uplifted fingers, the doctor with his left hand over the prize, the cook with his right, ready to clutch it if it moves, ready to fall with it if it falls.

Nearer and nearer they come. Nearer and nearer the great IT--the pudding--comes. And now it is almost alongside the captain and the expectant crew, when--oh moment of grief and horror!--the ship gives a fearful lurch, and the whole procession, pudding and all, is sent flying across the deck and brought up all of a heap close under the port bulwarks.

A groan of disappointment rises up from the table. The pudding is smashed to pieces, of course. No, for see--bravo! the doctor--he has clutched the trencher at a critical moment. Phoenix-like, he uprises with it from that chaos of arms and legs. He watches the chance. He gives one quick glance around him, at sea, at sky, at moving ship. He stakes his honour, his fame, and the very existence of that glorious globe of fragrant dough on one bold manoeuvre. Bearing it high over his head, he glides, he slides, he skates, one might say, towards the table; and in shorter time by far than it takes me to describe the gallant deed, he plumps the "great champion of the pudding race" down in front of the captain's pile of plates.

"Hurrah! hurrah!"

Why, the very sharks deep down in the ocean's blackest depths heard the shout; they took it for a battle-cry, and came surface-wards in all haste, making sure of a glorious feast. And an answering shout came up from the engine-room, where the stokers were at work. For they knew that the pudding was safely landed, and that their share would shortly come.

And the captain must needs shake the doctor by the hand, while tears of joy and admiration stood in his eyes.

"Doctor," he said, "you're a brick, sir, a brick and a half, sir. I never saw a bolder move. I never saw anything so pluckily done in my life before. I'm proud of my surgeon, proud of you."

Then he sat down.

The doctor made some reply, which was hardly heard amid the exclamations of accord in the captain's speech, which uprose from all round the table.

A rough old sea-dog of a doctor he was, too, a thorough sailor. Any one could have seen that at a glance. Rough he was, yet kindly-hearted, and there was not a man on board, from the captain to the Kroo boy who helped the cook, who wouldn't have risked his life for their surgeon.

I leave you to guess whether or not justice was done to that Christmas plum-pudding. Indeed, I only wish you could have seen the happy smiling faces that now surrounded the table, and really--though it was not polite of them--several of the crew had no less than _three_ helps, for "Cut and come again" was the captain's motto on this Christmas Day in the Doldrums.

Well, of course songs and yarns followed dinner. The captain told a story, Archie told a story, Kenneth sang and played, the old bo'sun called Pipes had something queer to say, and so had the carpenter called Chips.

"Now then, doctor," cried the captain. "It's your turn. Tell us something good."

The doctor cleared his throat.

"I'll do my best, sir," said the doctor with a modest smile.