Kitobni o'qish: «Charlie to the Rescue», sahifa 4
Chapter Five.
All Things to All Men
Under the influence of favouring breezes and bright skies the Walrus swept gaily over the ocean at the beginning of her voyage, with “stuns’ls slow and aloft, royals and sky-scrapers,” according to Captain Stride. At least, if these were not the exact words he used, they express pretty well what he meant, namely, a “cloud of canvas.”
But this felicitous state of things did not last. The tropics were reached, where calms prevailed with roasting heat. The Southern Atlantic was gained, and gales were met with. The celebrated Cape was doubled, and the gales, if we may say so, were trebled. The Indian Ocean was crossed, and the China Seas were entered, where typhoons blew some of the sails to ribbons, and snapped off the topmasts like pipe-stems. Then she sailed into the great Pacific, and for a time the Walrus sported pleasantly among the coral islands.
During all this time, and amid all these changes, Charlie Brooke, true to his character, was the busiest and most active man on board. Not that his own special duties gave him much to do, for, until the vessel should reach port, these were rather light; but our hero—as Stride expressed it—“must always be doing.” If he had not work to do he made it—chiefly in the way of assisting other people. Indeed there was scarcely a man or boy on board who did not have the burden of his toil, whatever it was, lightened in consequence of young Brooke’s tendency to put his powerful shoulder voluntarily to the wheel. He took the daily observations with the captain, and worked out the ship’s course during the previous twenty-four hours. He handled the adze and saw with the carpenter, learned to knot and splice, and to sew canvas with the bo’s’n’s mate, commented learnedly and interestingly on the preparation of food with the cook, and spun yarns with the men on the forecastle, or listened to the long-winded stories of the captain and officers in the cabin. He was a splendid listener, being much more anxious to ascertain exactly the opinions of his friends and mates than to advance his own. Of course it followed that Charlie was a favourite.
With his insatiable desire to acquire information of every kind, he had naturally, when at home, learned a little rough-and-tumble surgery, with a slight smattering of medicine. It was not much, but it proved to be useful as far as it went, and his “little knowledge” was not “dangerous,” because he modestly refused to go a single step beyond it in the way of practice, unless, indeed, he was urgently pressed to do so by his patients. In virtue of his attainments, real and supposed, he came to be recognised as the doctor of the ship, for the Walrus carried no medical man.
“Look here, Brooke,” said the only passenger on board—a youth of somewhat delicate constitution, who was making the voyage for the sake of his health,—“I’ve got horrible toothache. D’you think you can do anything for me?”
“Let’s have a look at it,” said Charlie, with kindly interest, though he felt half inclined to smile at the intensely lugubrious expression of the youth’s face.
“Why, Raywood, that is indeed a bad tooth; nothing that I know of will improve it. There’s a cavern in it big and black enough to call to remembrance the Black Hole of Calcutta! A red-hot wire might destroy the nerve, but I never saw one used, and should not like to try it.”
“Horrible!” exclaimed Raywood. “I’ve been mad with pain all the morning, and can’t afford to be driven madder. Perhaps, somewhere or other in the ship there may be a—a—thingumy.”
“A whatumy?” inquired the other.
“A key, or—or—pincers,” groaned Raywood, “for extracting—oh! man, couldn’t you pull it out?”
“Easily,” said Charlie, with a smile. “I’ve got a pair of forceps—always carry them in case of need, but never use them unless the patient is very bad, and must have it out.”
Poor Raywood protested, with another groan, that his was a case in point, and it must come out; so Charlie sought for and found his forceps.
“It won’t take long, I suppose?” said the patient rather nervously, as he opened his mouth.
“Oh no. Only a moment or—”
A fearful yell, followed by a gasp, announced to the whole ship’s company that a crisis of some sort had been passed by some one, and the expert though amateur dentist congratulated his patient on his deliverance from the enemy.
Only three of the ship’s company, however, had witnessed the operation. One was Dick Darvall, the seaman who chanced to be steering at the time, and who could see through the open skylight what was being enacted in the cabin. Another was the captain, who stood beside him. The third was the cabin-boy, Will Ward, who chanced to be cleaning some brasses about the skylight at the time, and was transfixed by what we may style delightfully horrible sensations. These three watched the proceedings with profound interest, some sympathy, and not a little amusement.
“Mind your helm, Darvall,” said the Captain, stifling a laugh as the yell referred to burst on his ears.
“Ay, ay, sir,” responded the seaman, bringing his mind back to his duty, as he bestowed a wink on the brass-polishing cabin-boy.
“He’s up to everything,” said Darvall in a low voice, referring to our hero.
“From pitch-and-toss to manslaughter,” responded the boy, with a broad grin.
“I do believe, Mr Brooke, that you can turn your hand to anything,” said Captain Stride, as Charlie came on deck a few minutes later. “Did you ever study doctoring or surgery?”
“Not regularly,” answered Charlie; “but occasionally I’ve had the chance of visiting hospitals and dissecting-rooms, besides hearing lectures on anatomy, and I have taken advantage of my opportunities. Besides, I’m fond of mechanics; and tooth-drawing is somewhat mechanical. Of course I make no pretension to a knowledge of regular dentistry, which involves, I believe, a scientific and prolonged education.”
“May be so, Mr Brooke,” returned the captain, “but your knowledge seems deep and extensive enough to me, for, except in the matter o’ navigation, I haven’t myself had much schoolin’, but I do like to see a fellow that can use his hands. As I said to my missus, not two days before I left ’er: ‘Maggie,’ says I, ‘a man that can’t turn his hands to anything ain’t worth his salt. For why? He’s useless at sea, an’, by consequence, can’t be of much value on land.’”
“Your reasoning is unanswerable,” returned Charlie, with a laugh.
“Not so sure o’ that,” rejoined the captain, with a modestly dubious shake of his head; “leastwise, however unanswerable it may be, my missus always manages to answer it—somehow.”
At that moment one of the sailors came aft to relieve the man-at-the-wheel.
Dick Darvall was a grave, tall, dark, and handsome man of about five-and-twenty, with a huge black beard, as fine a seaman as one could wish to see standing at a ship’s helm, but he limped when he left his post and went forward.
“How’s the leg to-day, Darvall!” asked young Brooke, as the man passed.
“Better, sir, thankee.”
“That’s well. I’ll change the dressing in half-an-hour. Don’t disturb it till I come.”
“Thankee, sir, I won’t.”
“Now then, Raywood,” said Charlie, descending to the cabin, where his patient was already busy reading Maury’s Physical Geography of the Sea, “let’s have a look at the gum.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” said Raywood. “D’you know, I think one of the uses of severe pain is to make one inexpressibly thankful for the mere absence of it. Of course there is a little sensation of pain left, which might make me growl at other times, but that positively feels comfortable now by contrast!”
“There is profound sagacity in your observations,” returned Charlie, as he gave the gum a squeeze that for a moment or two removed the comfort; “there, now, don’t suck it, else you’ll renew the bleeding. Keep your mouth shut.”
With this caution the amateur dentist left the cabin, and proceeded to the fore-part of the vessel. In passing the steward’s pantry a youthful voice arrested him.
“Oh, please, sir,” said Will Ward, the cabin-boy, advancing with a slate in his hand, “I can’t make out the sum you set me yesterday, an’ I’m quite sure I’ve tried and tried as hard as ever I could to understand it.”
“Let me see,” said his friend, taking the slate and sitting down on a locker. “Have you read over the rule carefully?”
“Yes, sir, I have, a dozen times at least, but it won’t come right,” answered the boy, with wrinkles enough on his young brow to indicate the very depths of puzzlement.
“Fetch the book, Will, and let’s examine it.”
The book was brought, and at his teacher’s request the boy read:—
“Add the interest to the principal, and then multiply by—”
“Multiply?” said Charlie, interrupting. “Look!”
He pointed to the sum on the slate, and repeated “multiply.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the cabin-boy, with a gasp of relief and wide-open eyes, “I’ve divided!”
“That’s so, Will, and there’s a considerable difference between division and multiplication, as you’ll find all through life,” remarked the teacher, with a peculiar lift of his eyebrows, as he handed back the slate and went on his way.
More than once in his progress “for’ard” he was arrested by men who wished hint to give advice, or clear up difficulties in reference to subjects which his encouragement or example had induced them to take up, and to these claims on his attention or assistance he accorded such a ready and cheerful response that his pupils felt it to be a positive pleasure to appeal to him, though they each professed to regret giving him “trouble.” The boatswain, who was an amiable though gruff man in his way, expressed pretty well the feelings of the ship’s company towards our hero when he said: “I tell you, mates, I’d sooner be rubbed up the wrong way, an’ kicked down the fore hatch by Mr Brooke, than I’d be smoothed or buttered by anybody else.”
At last the fo’c’sl was reached, and there our surgeon found his patient, Dick Darvall, awaiting him. The stout seaman’s leg had been severely bruised by a block which had fallen from aloft and struck it during one of the recent gales.
“A good deal better to-day,” said Charlie. “Does it pain you much?”
“Not nearly as much as it did yesterday, sir. It’s my opinion that I’ll be all right in a day or two. Seems to me outrageous to make so much ado about it.”
“If we didn’t take care of it, my man, it might cost you your limb, and we can’t afford to bury such a well-made member before its time! You must give it perfect rest for a day or two. I’ll speak to the captain about it.”
“I’d rather you didn’t, sir,” objected the seaman. “I feel able enough to go about, and my mates’ll think I’m shirkin’ dooty.”
“There’s not a man a-board as’ll think that o’ Dick Darvall,” growled the boatswain, who had just entered and heard the last remark.
“Right, bo’s’n,” said Brooke, “you have well expressed the thought that came into my own head.”
“Have ye seen Samson yet, sir?” asked the boatswain, with an unusually grave look.
“No; I was just going to inquire about him. No worse, I hope?”
“I think he is, sir. Seems to me that he ain’t long for this world. The life’s bin too much for him: he never was cut out for a sailor, an’ he takes things so much to heart that I do believe worry is doin’ more than work to drive him on the rocks.”
“I’ll go and see him at once,” said our hero.
Fred Samson, the sick man referred to, had been put into a swing-cot in a berth amidships to give him as much rest as possible. To all appearance he was slowly dying of consumption. When Brooke entered he was leaning on one elbow, gazing wistfully through the port-hole close to his head. His countenance, on which the stamp of death was evidently imprinted, was unusually refined for one in his station in life.
“I’m glad you have come, Mr Brooke,” he said slowly, as his visitor advanced and took his thin hand.
“My poor fellow,” said Charlie, in a tone of low but tender sympathy, “I wish with all my heart I could do you any good.”
“The sight of your kind face does me good,” returned the sailor, with a pause for breath between almost every other word. “I don’t want you to doctor me any more. I feel that I’m past that, but I want to give you a message and a packet for my mother. Of course you will be in London when you return to England. Will you find her out and deliver the packet? It contains only the Testament she gave me at parting and a letter.”
“My dear fellow—you may depend on me,” replied Brooke earnestly. “Where does she live?”
“In Whitechapel. The full address is on the packet. The letter enclosed tells all that I have to say.”
“But you spoke of a message,” said Brooke, seeing that he paused and shut his eyes.
“Yes, yes,” returned the dying man eagerly, “I forgot. Give her my dear love, and say that my last thoughts were of herself and God. She always feared that I was trusting too much in myself—in my own good resolutions and reformation; so I have been—but that’s past. Tell her that God in His mercy has snapped that broken reed altogether, and enabled me to rest my soul on Jesus.”
As the dying man was much exhausted by his efforts to speak, his visitor refrained from asking more questions. He merely whispered a comforting text of Scripture and left him apparently sinking into a state of repose.
Then, having bandaged the finger of a man who had carelessly cut himself while using his knife aloft, Charlie returned to the cabin to continue an interrupted discussion with the first mate on the subject of astronomy.
From all which it will be seen that our hero’s tendencies inclined him to be as much as possible “all things to all men.”
Chapter Six.
Disaster, Starvation, and Death
The least observant of mortals must have frequently been impressed with the fact that events and incidents of an apparently trifling description often lead to momentous—sometimes tremendous—results.
Soon after the occurrence of the incidents referred to in the last chapter, a colony of busy workers in the Pacific Ocean were drawing towards the completion of a building on which they had been engaged for a long time. Like some lighthouses this building had its foundations on a rock at the bottom of the sea. Steadily, perseveringly, and with little cessation, the workers had toiled for years. They were small insignificant creatures, each being bent on simply performing the little bit of work which he, she, or it had been created to do probably without knowing or caring what the result might be, and then ending his, her, or its modest labours with life. It was when this marine building had risen to within eight or ten feet of the surface of the sea that the Walrus chanced to draw near to it, but no one on board was aware of the existence of that coral-reef, for up to the period we write of it had failed to attract the attention of chart-makers.
The vessel was bowling along at a moderate rate over a calm sea, for the light breeze overhead that failed to ruffle the water filled her topsails. Had the wind been stormy a line of breakers would have indicated the dangerous reef. As it was there was nothing to tell that the good ship was rushing on her doom till she struck with a violent shock and remained fast.
Of course Captain Stride was equal to the emergency. By the quiet decision with which he went about and gave his orders he calmed the fears of such of his crew as were apt to “lose their heads” in the midst of sudden catastrophe.
“Lower away the boats, lads. We’ll get her off right a way,” he said, in a quick but quiet tone.
Charlie Brooke, being a strong believer in strict discipline, at once ran to obey the order, accompanied by the most active among the men, while others ran to slack off the sheets and lower the topsails.
In a few minutes nearly all the men were in the boats, with hawsers fixed to the stern of the vessel, doing their uttermost to pull her off.
Charlie had been ordered to remain on deck when the crew took to the boats.
“Come here, Mr Brooke, I want you,” said the Captain, leading his young friend to the taffrail. “It’s pretty clear to me that the poor old Walrus is done for—”
“I sincerely hope not sir,” said Charlie, with anxious looks.
“A short time will settle the question,” returned the Captain, with unwonted gravity. “If she don’t move in a few minutes, I’ll try what heaving out some o’ the cargo will do. As supercargo, you know where it’s all stowed, so, if you’ll pint out to me which is the least valooable, an’ at the same time heaviest part of it, I’ll send the mate and four men to git it on deck. But to tell you the truth even if we do git her off I don’t think she’ll float. She’s an oldish craft, not fit to have her bottom rasped on coral rocks. But we’ll soon see.”
Charlie could not help observing that there was something peculiarly sad in the tone of the old man’s voice. Whether it was that the poor captain knew the case to be utterly hopeless, or that he was overwhelmed by this calamity coming upon him so soon after the wreck of his last ship, Charlie could not tell, but he had no time to think, for after he had pointed out to the mate the bales that could be most easily spared he was again summoned aft.
“She don’t move,” said the captain, gloomily. “We must git the boats ready, for if it comes on to blow only a little harder we’ll have to take to ’em. So do you and the stooard putt your heads together an’ git up as much provisions as you think the boats will safely carry. Only necessaries, of course, an’ take plenty o’ water. I’ll see to it that charts, compasses, canvas, and other odds and ends are ready.”
Again young Brooke went off, without saying a word, to carry out his instructions. Meanwhile one of the boats was recalled, and her crew set to lighten the ship by heaving part of the cargo overboard. Still the Walrus remained immovable on the reef, for the force with which she struck had sent her high upon it.
“If we have to take to the boats, sir,” said Charlie, when he was disengaged, “it may be well to put some medicines on board, for poor Samson will—”
“Ay, ay, do so, lad,” said the captain, interrupting; “I’ve been thinkin’ o’ that, an’ you may as well rig up some sort o’ couch for the poor fellow in the long-boat, for I mean to take him along wi’ myself.”
“Are you so sure, then, that there is no chance of our getting her off?”
“Quite sure. Look there.” He pointed, as he spoke, to the horizon to windward, where a line of cloud rested on the sea. “That’ll not be long o’ comin’ here. It won’t blow very hard, but it’ll be hard enough to smash the old Walrus to bits. If you’ve got any valooables aboard that you’d rather not lose, you’d better stuff ’em in your pockets now. When things come to the wust mind your helm, an’ look out as I used to say to my missus—”
He stopped abruptly and turned away. Evidently the thought of the “missus” was too much for him just then.
Charlie Brooke hurried off to visit the sick man, and prepare him for the sad change in his position that had now become unavoidable. But another visitor had been to see the invalid before him. Entering the berth softly, and with a quiet look, so as not to agitate the patient needlessly, he found to his regret, though not surprise, that poor Fred Samson was dead. There was a smile on the pale face, which was turned towards the port window, as if the dying man had been taking a last look of the sea and sky when Death laid a hand gently on his brow and smoothed away the wrinkles of suffering and care. A letter from his mother, held tightly in one hand and pressed upon his breast told eloquently what was the subject of his last thoughts.
Charlie cut a lock of hair from the sailor’s brow with his clasp-knife, and, taking the letter gently from the dead hand, wrapped it therein.
“There’s no time to bury him now. His berth must be the poor fellow’s coffin,” said Captain Stride, when the death was reported to him. “The swell o’ the coming squall has reached us already. Look alive wi’ the boats, men!”
By that time the rising swell was in truth lifting the vessel every few seconds and letting her down with a soft thud on the coral reef. It soon became evident to every one on board that the Walrus had not many hours to live—perhaps not many minutes—for the squall to which the Captain had referred was rapidly bearing down, and each successive thud became more violent than the previous one. Knowing their danger full well, the men worked with a will and in a few minutes three boats, well provisioned, were floating on the sea.
The need for haste soon became apparent, for the depth of water alongside was so insufficient that the long-boat—drawing as she did considerably more water than the others—touched twice when the swells let her drop into their hollows.
It was arranged that Charlie should go in the long-boat with the captain, Raywood the passenger, and ten men of the crew. The remainder were to be divided between the other two boats which were to be in charge of the first and second officers respectively.
“Jump in, Brooke,” cried the Captain, as he sat in the stern-sheets looking up at our hero, who was busily engaged assisting the first mate to complete the arrangements of his boat, “we’ve struck twice already. I must shove off. Is Raywood ready?”
“He’s in the cabin looking for something, sir; I’ll run and fetch him.”
“Stay! We’ve touched again!” shouted the Captain. “You an’ Raywood can come off with one o’ the other boats. I’ll take you on board when in deep water—shove off, lads.”
“Jump in with me, sir,” said the first mate, as he hastily descended the side.
“Come along, Raywood,” shouted Charlie, as he followed. “No time to lose!”
The passenger rushed on deck, scrambled down the side, and took his seat beside Charlie, just as the long threatened squall burst upon them.
The painter was cut, and they drifted into deep water with the second mate’s boat, which had already cast off.
Fortunate was it for the whole crew that Captain Stride had provided for every emergency, and that, among other safeguards, he had put several tarpaulins into each boat, for with these they were enabled to form a covering which turned off the waves and prevented their being swamped. The squall turned out to be a very severe one, and in the midst of it the three boats were so far separated that the prospect of their being able to draw together again until evening was very remote. Indeed the waves soon ran so high that it required the utmost attention of each steersman to keep his craft afloat, and when at last the light began to fade the boats were almost out of sight of each other.
“No chance, I fear, of our ever meeting again,” remarked the mate, as he cast a wistful look at the southern horizon where the sail of the long-boat could be barely seen like the wing of a sea-gull. “Your lot has been cast with us, Mr Brooke, so you’ll have to make the best of it.”
“I always try to make the best of things,” replied Charlie. “My chief regret at present is that Raywood and I, being two extra hands, will help to consume your provisions too fast.”
“Luckily my appetite is a poor one,” said Raywood, with a faint smile; “and it’s not likely to improve in the circumstances.”
“I’m not so sure o’ that sir,” returned the mate, with an air that was meant to be reassuring; “fresh air and exposure have effected wonders before now in the matter of health—so they say. Another pull on the halyards, Dick; that looks like a fresh squall. Mind your sheets, Will Ward.”
A prompt “Ay, ay, sir” from Dick Darvall and the cabin-boy showed that each was alive to the importance of the duty required of him, while the other men—of whom there were six—busied themselves in making the tarpaulin coverings more secure, or in baling out the water which, in spite of them, had found its way into the boat.
Charlie rose and seated himself on the thwart beside the fine-looking seaman Dick Darvall, so as to have a clearer view ahead under the sail.
“Long-boat nowhere to be seen now,” he murmured half to himself after a long look.
“No, sir—nor the other boat either,” said Darvall in a quiet voice. “We shall never see ’em no more.”
“I hope you are wrong,” returned Charlie; “indeed I feel sure that the weather will clear during the night, and that we shall find both boats becalmed not far off.”
“Maybe so, sir,” rejoined the sailor, in the tone of one willing to be, but not yet, convinced.
Our hero was right as to the first, but not as to the second, point. The weather did clear during the night, but when the sun arose next morning on a comparatively calm sea neither of the other boats was to be seen. In fact every object that could arrest the eye had vanished from the scene, leaving only a great circular shield of blue, of which their tiny craft formed the centre.
