CHAPTER XI.
JIM BEDDOES’ YARN.
I was just about took flat aback when it was borne in upon me what had happened; but I must set about spinning my yarn in a ship-shape fashion, I s’pose, or shore-going folks won’t get a grip of my meanin’, so to speak. Well, gentlemen all, and ladies too, I hope—for, bless you! I know well enough, through having chicks of my own, that sisters reads their brothers’ books when they can get a hold of ’em—you all of you know, through having read Mr. Darcy’s yarn, that he, the gunner, and my messmate, Ned Burton—as fine a chap as ever ran aloft or took his trick at the helm, though that’s neither here nor there—went off together to reconnoitre the enemy’s position. I may say they went off in fine sperrits, and with the intention of returning in half an hour or so, barring accidents. Why the whole lot of us couldn’t have marched straight ahead, attacked the thieving swabs that were in the valley and given ’em hokey-pokey, beats me, I can tell you! Show me my enemy, and let me go for him without any palavering or beating about the bush, that’s what I say. No amount of warrant-officers—boatswains, gunners, or carpenters—would make me change my mind about that, not if I lived to the age of Methusalem! There’s no knowing what prize-money may do for a fellow, and if ever I retires into private life, I reckon I’ll have a British man-o’-war going into action for a crest and “Wire in” for the motto. Two words is enough for me so long as they mean a lot.
I ain’t much of a hand with a pen, it strikes me; for I’m drifting off with the tide goodness knows where, and it’s likely enough I shall broach-to altogether in a jiffy.
Come, pull yourself together, man, and show the young laddies and lasses that your brain-box ain’t exactly a wacuum, so to speak—a figurehead like them senseless things a-stuck about in Portsmouth dockyard.
When the gunner went off with his two pals, he pertickly says to me, “Stand easy a bit, Beddoes, if you please”—he was always a very perlite cove was old Triggs; beg pardon, Mr. Triggs, I should say—“stand easy, Beddoes,” he says, “or sit about, but don’t for the life o’ you forget to have four men a-doing sentry-go all the time.” He was a cautious man, you see, the gunner. He took stock of everything, and that was just the ruination of him in this case. I take it the Admiralty would give him the sack if they could find him, but there ain’t much chance of that now, worse luck!
I’m main sorry for Mr. Darcy, who was a smart young midshipman, and always had a good word for us blue-jackets; and as for Ned, well, we was like brothers, and there’s no need to say more.
I posted the sentries right enough, and made them load their rifles with ball-cartridge. “The first thieving swab of an ugly nigger you sees within twenty yards of this bivouac, put a bullet through him,” says I; and I meant it too, mind you, for I’ve been mixed up in this sort of warfare before, and don’t stand upon ceremony. I’d stake my grog for the rest of the commission that the old gunner was too blooming wary, and not quick enough with his shooting-irons; and you may take my word for it, that’s how he got nobbled so easily. Ceremony may be all very well for ambassadors or consuls, and fellows of that kidney; but for fighting men it’s sheer rot, and a reg’lar waste of time. I’ve seen it proved over and over again, though I don’t want to be boastful.
We lit up our pipes, and smoked away like chimneys for a time, for we was a bit tired after all the marching we had had over broken ground and the scrimmage with the cavalry fellows. Likewise we took a good pull at our water-bottles, for the heat was tremenjous, and our duds were that wet with the perspiration you’d a thought we’d been wading through a river. We yarned away, too, about the ups and downs of campaigning life and so forth, but didn’t talk much above a whisper, for we didn’t know what artful eavesdroppers there might be about; and as I says to my mates, “If pitchers have ears, why shouldn’t the trees, to say nothing of the jack-toads what’s crawling on ’em, as you may see for yourselves with half an eye?”
When half an hour or so had passed, as I thought, I hauls out my ticker to see how many bells had struck, and found it was pretty nearly an hour since the gunner and the others had started. “Here’s a rum go,” I says to my mates; “’tain’t ship-shape that they’re not back within the hour, and it strikes me we ought to go and look for ’em, for they may be in a quandary of some sort.” With that we knocks the ashes out of our pipes, and listens with all our ears; but not a blessed sound could we hear of any kind, barring the screams of monkeys and the screeching of parrots. The sentries had heard nothing suspicious, but had seen the smoke rising up from the valley till within the last half-hour, when it had suddenly stopped. They had not heard any human voices for a good long spell. Some o’ my mates was for getting under way, and starting at once to search for the party, and some was for obeying orders and remaining hove-to where we were.
Well, it was a bit of a fix for me, for I’d never been in command of a shore-going party afore; though you’ll understand that through being captain of the fore-top, and likewise of a gun at the after main-deck quarters, I wasn’t all at sea as to giving orders and the like. After turning the matter over in my mind for a spell, says I to my mates, “Look here, my bully boys, it isn’t quite plain sailing for us; but I tell you what we’ll do”—and I drew my ticker out agin—“we’ll give ’em another quarter of an hour, and if they haven’t hove in sight by that time, by thunder we’ll go in search of ’em! You see, mates, they may have broached-to, or run on a reef, and through no fault o’ theirn be prevented from hoisting signals of distress or firing minute-guns. Some of you will say that a seaman’s dooty is to obey orders, and that’s right enough, mates; but I reckon there are other dooties too that can’t be chucked away into the scuppers, as it were. One must larn where to draw the line. Do you suppose we’d have hammered them Danes—as plucky chaps as ever stepped in shoe-leather, I’ve been told—if Nelson hadn’t clapped his glass to his blind eye at Copenhagen, and swore till he was black in the face that he couldn’t see the admiral’s signal to haul out of the battle? In course we wouldn’t. That’s a case in point, as them blooming lawyers say.”
I began to run short of breath here, for I’m no more good at speechifying than I am at writing; and as I was mighty dry, and there was no grog to the fore, I took a good long swill at my water-bottle. But, mind you, my way of putting things brought every mother’s son to my side in the argyment, and that’s what I’d been working up to. As I said a spell ago, my motto is “Wire in,” and I sticks to it through thick and thin; but then I likes my mates to be all of the same mind, and game to back me up and carry it through.
Well, it was agreed unanimous. “Carry on, Jim,” said one of my topmates; “give ’em fifteen minutes more by that old turnip o’ yourn, and then if they haven’t turned up, it’s up anchor and shape a departure course in the wake of Ned and his ‘cheap and chippy chopper.’”
I didn’t like my ticker, which had been my grandfather’s and my father’s before me, spoken of in this disreverent sort of way, I can tell you; but I was so pleased at the men all agreeing to see me through that I took no notice at the time.
I didn’t show it, of course, but I was really alarmed when the fifteen minutes had gone by and there was no sign of Mr. Triggs and his companions. If the gunner had been a reg’lar fire-eater, or fond of rash adventures, I could have understood his absence; but that an out-and-out cautious and extra-politeful bloke like him should have got too far from his supports, and perhaps into a serious quandary—well, you’ll agree that it wasn’t altogether ship-shape.
It didn’t take us long to get under way, I can assure you; and you may bet your bottom dollar we kept our loaded rifles to the fore and our cutlasses handy. It was as easy as A B C to follow the marks of Ned’s “chippy chopper,” for the trees were blazed in reg’lar Red Indian fashion—a spell between each. By-and-by, however, we came slick upon a path leading down into the valley, and this took us aback a bit, and we halted for a few moments to hold a confab. The blazing of the trees had ceased—that was borne in upon me at once, and of course I twigged the reason for it. It was decided to keep straight on down the hill; but I directed my mates to advance with caution and make as little noise as possible. I felt a sort of uncanny feeling creeping over me, as if ghosts were about in the jungle; but I’m not an atom creepy about them gentry as a rule, mind you. We saw nothing and heard nothing, and every moment I got more and more alarmed. If only a musket-shot had rung out, or I could have heard the old gunner singing out for help, my mind would have been a good deal easier, for my dooty would have been as plain as a boarding-pike, so to speak. It was the strange silence that worrited me and kept my pulses going like the throb of the pinnace’s steam-engines.
However, ’tis a long lane that has no turning, and at length we came to a place where four paths met. This was more puzzling than ever, especially as Ned hadn’t blazed any trees. We kept straight on, as we judged by the overgrown state of the side-paths that they hadn’t been used for some time. In about five minutes, as near as I can judge, we came on a place where there was piles of rocks lying about all over the shop, just for all the world as if there’d been a score or two of earthquakes the day before. You might have knocked me down with a feather—and I’m fourteen stone if I’m an ounce, mind you—when we got about a cable’s length further on; for to my horror I saw the marks of a scuffle upon the ground, and worse than all, I picked up a gilt button that I felt sure had been wrenched off Mr. Darcy’s jacket. As you may suppose, we all came to a dead halt and began examining the ground closely. There had been a tremenjous struggle, that was evident at the first glance, and there was no need for any prophet to tell me what had happened. Our poor shipmates had been trapped in some way; and it gave me quite a turn to think that their dead bodies might be lying stiff and stark behind those very rocks that we were alongside of.
We thought we might venture to kick up a bobbery now, particularly as we were a fairly strong body of armed men, and could give a pretty good account of any enemy that ventured to interfere with us. You see we just had a faint hope that Mr. Triggs and his companions might be somewhere within earshot, and that our giving ’em a hail might back ’em up a bit if they was prisoners. However, we heard not a sound of any kind, friendly or otherwise. “Sarch the rocks, mates,” says I, trying to speak stern, though, Lord love yer, I felt for all the world as if I was agoin’ to choke.
We left two men to do sentry-go, and set to work to overhaul them rocks and all the ground and underwood which was near ’em; but not a blessed sign of anything could we find except the marks of feet, and in places these were plentiful enough, but ’tis a most tremenjous difficult thing to track any one in a forest where there’s always a lot of dead leaves and such like muck about.
Well, I’d be afraid, and that’s the truth, to say how many hours we spent over that there hopeless job of searching for our lost shipmates. We scoured the forest in all directions, made our way into the valley to look for the enemy’s camp, but found nothing but a burned-out fire; and overhauled the surrounding cliffs—and there was a pretty few of ’em, mind you—in hopes of lighting upon some of the blooming caves we’d heard so much talk about. It just was talk, and nothing else—that I’ll take my affidavy to. Where were those swabs o’ mutineers and the confounded Creole niggers that we’d been sent after? and where was their hidden cargo? Shiver my timbers, if I wouldn’t have slugged the lot of ’em if I could have got the chance. I don’t like fallin’ out with people as a rule, specially strangers; but when it comes to their kidnappin’ your own shipmates, and p’raps cutting their throats, or giving ’em foul play of some sort or another, why then my monkey gits up, I can tell you, and I’d think it child’s play to corpse the lot of ’em if they came within reach of my cutlass.
When the sun began to go down, I knew well enough that we must knock off and make tracks for the camping-ground that Mr. Thompson had spoken of. The alarm must be given as quickly as possible, so that the whole force might turn-to and join in the search; but then a fresh difficulty came to the fore, for we’d lost our guide, and hadn’t the remotest idea of the bearings of this here bivouac. However, I don’t want to make a long yarn out of this part of the business, so I’ll only tell you that we made a sternboard, so to speak, and found our way back with uncommon difficulty to the rough cart-track we had quitted early in the afternoon. Here, of course, we got on the spoor of the brigade, and had no difficulty in tracking ’em to their camping-ground. ’Twas a weary march, and we were footsore and a bit done up when we got there, which was after dark; and we ran a narrow shave of being shot down by our own sentries.
Well, naterally there was a tremenjous sensation amongst all hands when they heard our terrible story. The gunnery lootenant was almost beside himself, and vowed vengeance on them dastardly rebels when he caught them. He wanted to set off at once, but on coming to think it over calmly, he saw that ’twas wellnigh impossible till the morning. In the first place, every mother’s son was tired out by the long stretch they’d had in full marching order; and, secondly, it was that dark—there being no moon—that it would have been wellnigh impossible to find our way through the forest, to say nothing of the chances it would give them thundering swabs of mutineers and niggers to go for us under cover of the darkness. They couldn’t have drubbed us, of course, but through their sarpentine cunning they might have harassed us like old winky.
The orders was passed round therefore to start in the morning, at the first break of dawn.
Through the adventures what follered it seemed to me as I ought to make some alterations in this here gimcrack of a log; but when I consults the gunnery orficer—“You just leave it as it is, Jim Beddoes,” says he; “’tis more interestin’,” he says. Well, ’tis a new thing to me that anything I should have written, being no scholard, should be interestin’; but, there, I’ve had my say. The yarn is spun, such as it is, and I can only say in conclusion, and with many apologies for takin’ of the liberty, “My dooty to you, and wishing you all good-luck.”