Rattlin the Reefer Part 32

Mr Rattlin makes one step to the left hand,--"_port_, the wise it call."

"Where's the midshipman o' th' watch--where's the midshipman o' th'

watch?" roars out the captain. "By heavens, there's no light to show over the bows! Mr Rattlin, be smart, sir,--jump forward, and see to it."

The chilled, the torpid, and half-stupified Mr Rattlin finally went forward to the forecastle, where he ought to have been from the first, and more especially as the boatswain was also on the sick-list.

The consequence of all these mult.i.tudinous and almost simultaneous orders--to jump and see, when, by-the-by, it was too dark to see anything a yard off properly--was, that one of the signal lanterns was blown out, and the signal consequently imperfect--that the fore-topmast staysail halliards were so badly manned, that those upon them could scarcely start that then necessary sail from its netting--that the people were not ready with the deep sea-lead--that little Mr Pond was obliged to put down his trumpet, and ease off the foresheet himself till relieved by the quarter-master; but, still, there actually _was_ a lantern over the bows, and that in good time.

Well, the n.o.ble ship was no longer buffeted on her bows by the furious wind: as the haughty Ess.e.x turned on his heel from the blow of his termagant mistress queen, so did the _Eos_ turn her back to the insulting blast, and flew rapidly before it. Owing to the darkness of the night, a.s.sisted by the weak voice of Mr Pond, whose orders could not be very distinctly heard, perhaps a little to his lubberly manner of working the ship, the bounding frigate was much longer before the wind than necessary. I was straining my sight near the cathead on one side, and the captain of the forecastle on the other, but we could discover nothing in the nearly palpable obscure.

On she dashed, and our anxious eyes saw nothing, whilst our minds feared greatly;--she is at her utmost speed. In her reckless course she seems sufficiently powerful to break up the steadfast rock, or tear the shoal from its roots at the bottom of the ocean. On she rushes! I think I hear faintly the merchant cry of "Yeo-yo--yeo!" but the roar of the vexed waters beneath our bows, and the eternal singing of the winds through the frost-stiffened shrouds, prevent my being certain of the fact. But I tremble excessively--when, behold, a huge, long black ma.s.s is lying lazily before us, and so close that we can almost touch it!

"Hard a-port," I roared out at the top of my voice.

"Hard a-starboard," sang out the captain of the forecastle, equally loudly.

Vain, vain were the contradictory orders. The frigate seemed to leap at the object before her as at a prey; and dire was the crash that ensued.

As we may suppose the wrathful lioness springs upon the buffalo, and, meeting more resistance from its h.o.r.n.y bulk than she had suspected, recoils and makes another spring, so did the _Eos_ strike, rebound, then strike again. I felt two distinct percussions.

The second stroke divided the obstacle. The _Eos_ pa.s.sed through it or over it, and the eye looked in vain for the vast West Indiaman, the bearer of wealth, and gay hopes, and youth, and infancy, manly strength, and female beauty. There was a smothered feminine shriek, hushed by the whirlpool of down-absorbing waves, almost as soon as made. It was not loud, but it was fearfully distinct, and painfully human. One poor wretch only was saved, to tell her name and speak of the perished.

As usual, they had kept but a bad look-out. Her officers and her pa.s.sengers were making merry in the cabin--the wine-cup was at their lips, and the song was floating joyously from the mouths of the fair ones returning to the land of their nativity. The blooming daughters, the newly-married wife, and two matrons with their innocent ones beside them, were all in the happiness of their hopes when the Destroyer was upon them suddenly, truly like a strong man in the darkness of night; and they were all hurled, in the midst of their uncensurable revelry, to a deep grave over which no tombstone shall ever tell "of their whereabout."

Our own jib-boom was snapped off short, and as quickly as is a twig in frosty weather. Supposing the ship had struck, every soul rushed on deck. They thanked G.o.d it was _only_ the drowning of some forty fellow-creatures, and the destruction of a fine merchant-ship. We hauled the single poor fellow that was saved on board. The consternation among the officers was very great. It blew too hard to lower the boats: no effort was or could be made to rescue any chance struggler not carried down in the vortex of the parted and sunken ship-- all was blank horror.

Besides the consternation and dismay natural to the appalling accident, there was the fear of the underwriters, and of the owners, and of damages, before the eyes of the captain. I was sent for aft.

"I had not the charge of the deck," said Captain Reud, looking fiercely at the first-lieutenant. "_I_ am not responsible for this lubberly calamity."

"I had not the charge of the watch or the deck either," said Mr Farmer, in his turn, looking at small Mr Pond, who was looking aghast; "surely, I cannot be held responsible."

"But you gave orders, sir--I heard you myself give the word to raise the fore-tack--that looks very like taking charge of the deck--no, no, _I_ am not responsible."

"Not so fast, not so fast, Mr Pond. I only a.s.sisted you for the good of the service, and to save the foresail."

Mr Pond looked very blank indeed until he thought of the master, and then he recovered a great portion of his usual vivacity. Small men are always vivacious.

"No, no, I am not responsible--I was only working the ship under the directions of the master. Read the night orders, Mr Farmer."

"The night orders be d.a.m.ned!" said the gruff old master.

"I will not have my night order d.a.m.ned," said Reud. "You and the officer of the watch must share the responsibility between you."

"No offence at all, sir, to you or the night orders either. I am heartily sorry I d.a.m.ned them--heartily; but, in the matter of wearing this here ship precisely at that there time, I only acted under the pilot, who has charge until we are securely anch.o.r.ed. Sure_lye_, I can't be 'sponsible."

"Well," said the pilot, "here's a knot of tangled rope-yarn--but that yarn won't do for old Weatherbrace, for, d'ye see, I'm a Sea William (civilian), and not in no ways under martial law--and I'm only aboard this here craft as respects shoals and that like--I'm clearly not 'sponsible!--nothing to do in the 'varsal world with working her--'sponsible pooh!--why did ye not keep a better look-out for'ard?"

"Why, Mr Rattlin, why?" said the captain, the first-lieutenant, the lieutenant of the watch, and the master.

"I kept as good a one as I could--the lanterns were over the bows."

"You may depend upon it," said the captain, "that the matter will not be permitted to rest as it is. The owners and underwriters will demand a court of inquiry. Mr Rattlin had charge of the forecastle at the time.

Mr Rattlin, come here, sir. You sang out, just before this calamity happened, to port the helm."

"I did, sir."

"Quarter-master," continued Reud, "did you port the helm? Now, mind what you say; did you, sir? because if you _did not_; six dozen."

"We did, sir--hard a-port."

"And the ship immediately after struck?"

"Yes, sir."

"Pooh! the case is clear--we need not talk about it any longer. A clear case, Mr Farmer. Mr Rattlin has charge of the forecastle--he descries a vessel ahead--he takes upon himself to order the helm hard a-port, and we run over and sink her accordingly. He is responsible, clearly."

"Clearly," was the answering echo from all the rejectors of responsibility.

"Mr Rattlin, I am sorry for you. I once thought you a promising young man; but, since your desertion at Aniana--we must not mince matters now--you have become quite an altered character. You seem to have lost all zeal for the service. Zeal for the service is a thing that ought not to be lost; for a young gentleman without zeal for the service is a young gentleman, surely--you understand me--who is not zealous in the performance of his duty. I think I have made myself tolerably clear.

Do you think, sir, I should hold now the responsible commission I do hold under his Majesty, if I had been without zeal for the service? I am sorry that I have a painful duty to perform. I must place you under an arrest, till I know what may be the port admiral's pleasure concerning this unpleasant business; for--for the loss of the _Mary Anne_ of London you are clearly responsible."

"Clearly" (_omnes rursus_).

"Had you sung out hard a-starboard, instead of hard a-port, the case might have been different."

"Clearly."

"Go down below to your berth, and consider yourself a prisoner. The young gentlemen in his Majesty's service are not permitted to run down West Indiamen with impunity."

"Clearly."

In these kind of capstan-head court-martials, at which captains will sometimes administer reefers' law, "Woe to the weakest!" A defence was quite a work of superfluity; so, consoling myself with the vast responsibility with which, all at once, I found myself invested, I went and turned in, anathematising every created thing above an inch high and a foot below the same dimensions. However, in a very sound sleep I soon forgot everything--even the horrible scene I had just witnessed.

CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT.

DISTRESSING DISCLOSURES, AND SOME VERY PRETTY SYMPTOMS OF BROTHERLY LOVE--WITH MUCH EXCELLENT INDIGNATION UTTERLY THROWN AWAY--JOSHUA DAUNTON EITHER A VERY GREAT MAN OR A VERY GREAT ROGUE--PERHAPS BOTH, AS THE TERMS ARE OFTEN SYNONYMOUS.

I hope the reader has not forgotten Joshua Daunton, for I did not.

Having a very especial regard to the health of his body, he took care to keep himself ill. The seventy-one lashes due to him he would most generously have remitted altogether. His eagerness to cancel the debt was only equal to Captain Reud's eagerness to pay, and to that of his six midshipmen masters to see it paid. Old Pigtop was positively devout in this wish; for, after the gash had healed, it left a very singular scar, that traversed his lip obliquely, and gave a most ludicrous expression to a face that was before remarkably ill-favoured. One side of his visage seemed to have a continual ghastly smirk, like what you might suppose to decorate the countenance of a half-drunken Succubus; the other, a continual whimper, that reminded you of a lately-whipped baboon.

I concluded that Daunton was really ill, for he kept to his hammock in the sick-bay; and Dr Thompson was much too clever, and too old a man-of-war's man, to be deceived by a simulated sickness.

The day _after_, when I was enjoying my arrest in the dignified idleness of a snooze in a pea-jacket, on one of the lockers, the loblolly-boy came to me, saying that Daunton was much worse, and that he humbly and earnestly requested to see me. I went, though with much reluctance. He appeared to be dreadfully ill, yet an ambiguous smile lighted up his countenance when he saw me moodily standing near him.

He was seated on one corner of the bench in the bay, apparently under the influence of ague, for he trembled excessively, and he was well wrapped up in blankets. Altogether, notwithstanding the regularity of his features, he was a revolting spectacle. The following curious dialogue ensued: