Chapter Eleven.
The Wreck.
“I say,” began Val presently when the train was in motion.
“Well?” said Teddy rather grumpily.
He could not stomach the fact that here they were journeying along by the aid of an ordinary railway, just as they would have done in England.
When Val had suggested their going to the diggings he had imagined they would tramp thither through the bush, with their blankets and swag on their shoulders, as he had often read of men doing; and that they would end by picking up a big nugget of gold that would make all their fortunes!
The train disposed of all these dreams in a moment; for, how could they pick up nuggets along a line of “permanent way,” as Jupp would have called it—a beaten track that thousands traversed every day by the aid of the potent iron-horse and a bucket of hot water?
It was scandalous that Val hadn’t told him of the railroad!
It dispelled all the romance of the expedition at once, he thought grumblingly. Despite all Mr Capstan’s bullying, he had not run away from the ship for that; so he was not at all in a mood to have any conversation with such an unprincipled fellow as Val, who ought to have enlightened him before.
“Well?” he said again, seeing that young Maitland hesitated about proceeding, his grumpy tone acting as a sort of damper to his contemplated eloquence.
“I say, old fellow,” then began Val again, making a fresh start and blurting out his question, “have you got any money?”
Teddy was all sympathy now.
A comrade in distress should never appeal to him in vain!
So he commenced searching his pockets.
“I ought to have some,” he said. “Father gave me a five-pound note before I left home, and Uncle Jack when I was in London with him tipped me a sovereign, and I haven’t spent or changed either for that matter; but, now I come to think of it, they’re both in my chest in the cabin. I never thought of taking them out before we left the Greenock.”
“That’s precious unlucky,” observed Val, searching his pockets too, and trying each vainly in turn. “I’ve only a couple of shillings left now after paying for the railway tickets. Whatever shall we do?”
“Oh, bother that!” replied Teddy sanguinely; “we sha’n’t want any. The fellows I’ve read about who went to the diggings never had a halfpenny, but they always met with a friendly squatter or tumbled into luck in some way or other.”
“That was in the old days,” said Val in a forlorn way. “The squatters have all been cleared out, and there are only hotels and boarding-houses left, where they expect people to pay for what they have to eat.”
“They’re a stingy lot then, and quite unlike what I’ve read in books about the customs in Australia; but what can you expect when they have a railway!”
Teddy spoke in such a scornful manner of this sign of civilisation that he made Val laugh, raising his spirits again.
“All right, old chap!” said the little fellow. “I daresay we’ll get along very well although we haven’t any money to speak of with us. Two shillings, you know, is something; and no doubt it will keep us from starving till we come across luck.”
Teddy cheerfully acquiesced in this hopeful view of things; and then the two, being alone in the carriage, chatted away merrily on all sorts of subjects until they arrived at their station, which a porter sang out the name of exactly in the same fashion as if they were at home.
This quite exasperated Teddy, who, when he got down and looked about him, opened his eyes with even greater wonder.
Surely this large town couldn’t be Ballarat!
Why, that place ought to be only a collection of hastily-run-up wooden shanties, he thought, with perhaps one big store where they sold everything, provisions, and picks and shovels, with cradles for rocking the gold-dust out of the quartz and mud.
Where were the canvas tents of the diggers, and the claims, and all?
But, yes, Ballarat it was; although the only diggings were quarries worked by public mining companies with an immense mass of machinery that crushed the rock and sent streams of water through the refuse, using quicksilver to make an amalgam with—companies that were satisfied to get a grain of gold for every ton of quartz they excavated and pounded into powder, and realised a handsome dividend at that, where ordinary diggers wouldn’t have had a chance of keeping themselves from starving.
He and little Maitland wandered about; and then, feeling hungry, exhausted all their capital in one meal, “burning their boats,” like the old Athenians.
They would now have either to find something to do to get lodging or food, or else tramp it back to the ship.
They slept that night in the open air, under some scaffolding round a new building that was being run up on the outskirts of the town; and the next morning were wandering about again, feeling very miserable and wishing they were safely back on board the Greenock, it being just breakfast-time, when they were accosted by a stout, hairy sort of man, dressed in a species of undress uniform.
“Hullo, my young friends!” the man said, his voice being much pleasanter than his looks, “where do you hail from? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in Ballarat before.”
“You wouldn’t again if we could help it,” replied Teddy so heartily that the hairy man laughed as jollily as might have been expected from his musical voice.
“Ah! I think I know who you are,” he observed, eyeing them both critically.
“Well, you must be a conjuror if you do,” answered little Maitland, who had a good deal of native impudence about him, “considering we haven’t been twenty-four hours in Australia!”
“What say you to Maitland being your name and Vernon that of your companion, eh, my young cocksparrow?” said the man with a quizzical look. “Am I conjuror or not?”
The boys stared at each other in amazement.
“Well,” exclaimed Teddy at length, “this is certainly the funniest country I have ever been in. The diggings that I’ve read about in print over and over again have all vanished into nothing, and here there are railways running through the bush, with people knowing who you
are twenty thousand miles away from home. It is wonderful!”
“Not so very wonderful after all, Master Teddy Vernon,” suggested the hairy man at this juncture. “I’m an inspector of police here, and we received a telegram last night which had been circulated in all directions from the chief office at Melbourne, saying that you two young gentlemen were missing from the ship Greenock, just arrived from England, and that any information about you would be gladly received and rewarded by Captain Lennard, the commander of the vessel.”
“I’m very glad,” said Teddy, interrupting any further remark the inspector might have made. “We came away suddenly because of something that occurred on board; and now I sha’n’t be at all sorry to go back again, for we have no money or anything to eat. Besides, the place isn’t a bit like what I expected—there!”
“Ah! you’re hungry, my young friends, and that soon takes the pluck out of a body,” observed the inspector kindly. “Come along with me and have some breakfast, after which I’ll see you into the train for Melbourne.”
“But we haven’t got any money,” said Teddy, looking at him frankly in the face.
“Never mind that,” he replied jokingly. “I daresay I can put my hand on an odd sixpence or so, and this I’ve no doubt your captain will pay me back.”
“That he will,” cried Teddy and Val together in one breath; “besides, we’ve got money of our own on board the ship, only we forgot to bring it with us.”
“And a very good job too,” said the inspector laughing, “otherwise, you might not perhaps have been so glad to meet me this morning; but come on now, lads. Let us go into the town to some restaurant, and then I will see you to the depôt, if I can depend on your going back.”
“That you can, sir,” replied Val drily, “if you buy the tickets for us.”
“Oh, I’ll see about that,” said the inspector; and so, under his escort, they went into the nearest restaurant and had a good meal, after which the inspector took tickets for them, seeing them into the railway-carriage. The worthy policeman must also have said something to the guard, for after he had given Teddy his name, at the lad’s especial request, and wished them good-bye, some official or other came up and locked the door of the compartment, so that they could not have got out again if they had wished save by climbing through the window.
“He needn’t have been alarmed at our giving him the slip,” observed little Maitland. “I am only too glad to be sent back in any fashion, ignominious though it may be to be under charge of the police.”
“So am I,” said Teddy; “but the inspector is a nice fellow after all, and has behaved very well to us.”
He had been even more thoughtful, however, than the boys imagined; for, on the train arriving once more at the Melbourne terminus, who should be there to meet them but Uncle Jack!
“Well, you’re a nice pair of young scamps,” was his exclamation when the door of the carriage was opened by another policeman, and they got out right in front of where he was standing. “What have you got to say for yourselves, eh, for taking leave in French fashion like that? Why, you ought to be keel-hauled both of you!”
But he saved them a long explanation by telling them that Jones, the other midshipman, having been knocked down with a marlinespike by the second-mate, Captain Lennard had both him and Mr Capstan brought before him, when, sifting the matter to the bottom, Jones had made a clean breast of the way in which he and the other youngsters had been bullied.
“And the upshot of the whole affair is,” continued Uncle Jack, “Captain Lennard has dismissed Capstan from his ship, giving him such a discharge certificate that I don’t think he’ll get another second-mate’s place in a hurry! As for you, my young scamps, I don’t think the skipper will be very hard on you; but, Teddy, you ought to have told me of the treatment you three poor beggars were receiving at that ruffian’s hands all the voyage. Old Bill Summers, the boatswain, confirmed every word that Jones said, and was quite indignant about it.”
“I didn’t like to tell, you being my uncle and over Mr Capstan,” said Teddy; “I thought it would be mean.”
“It is never mean to complain of injustice,” replied Uncle Jack gravely; “still, the matter now rests with the skipper.”
Captain Lennard gave the boys a good talking to for running away, saying that it wasn’t manly for young sailors to shirk their work in that way for any reason. However, considering all the circumstances of the case and the lesson they had learnt, that boys couldn’t be absolutely independent of those in authority over them, he said that he had made up his mind to forgive them, telling them they might return to their duty.
The passengers having all landed and the ship cleared of her home cargo, she began immediately taking in wool for her return voyage, and in a few weeks’ time set sail from the Heads for England—though via Cape Horn this time, as is generally the routine with vessels sailing to Australia when coming back to the Channel.
There were only two passengers on board, the captain and mate of a vessel that had been sold at Melbourne, she having only been navigated out by these officers for the purpose, and the vessel being unencumbered by emigrants the sailors had more room to move about. Teddy found it much pleasanter than on the passage out, as Captain Lennard was able to spare more time in teaching him his duty, a task which he was ably backed up in by Uncle Jack and Robins, the new second-mate, a smart young seaman whom the captain had promoted from the fo’c’s’le to take Capstan’s vacant place, and a wonderful improvement in every way to that bully.
After leaving Port Philip, they had a fair enough passage till they got about midway between New Zealand and the American continent, Captain Lennard taking a more northerly route than usual on account of its being the summer season in those latitudes, and the drift-ice coming up from the south in such quantities as to be dangerous if they had run down below the forties.
When the Greenock was in longitude somewhere about 150 West and latitude 39 South a fierce gale sprung up from the north-east, right in their teeth, causing the lighter sails of the ship to be handed and the topgallants to be taken in.
At midnight on the same day, the wind having increased in force, the upper topsails were handed and the foresail reefed, the ship running under this reduced canvas, and steering east-south-east, the direction of the wind having shifted round more to the northward. The next evening, the wind veered to the westward, and was accompanied with such terrific squalls and high confused sea that Captain Lennard, who had thought at first he could weather out the storm under sail, determined to get up steam, and lowered the propeller so that the ship might lay-to more easily.
Later on in the afternoon, however, another shift of wind took place, the gale veering to sou’-sou’-west in a squall heavier than any of its predecessors; while a heavy sea, flooding the decks, broke through the hatchway and put out the engine fires.
Being a smart seaman, the captain had sail set again as soon as possible, hoisting reefed topsails and foresail to lift the vessel out of the trough of the following seas, in which she rolled from side to side like a whale in its death flurry.
All seemed going on well for a short time after this; and he and Uncle Jack thought they had weathered the worst of it, when the foresheet parted and the clew of the foresail, going through the lower foretopsail, split it in ribbons.
The barque was then brought to the wind on the port tack under the lower maintopsail, and she lay-to pretty well; but the wind kept on veering and beating with frequent squalls from sou’-sou’-west to west, so that at noon a strong gale prevailed again fiercer than before.
Teddy had not seen anything like this; but he wasn’t a bit frightened, and he was as active as the oldest sailor in lending help to carry out the captain’s orders, jumping here, there, and everywhere like a monkey.
The skipper was so pleased with his behaviour that he complimented him by telling Uncle Jack he was as good as his right hand!
Later on, the weather seemed calming down and all were very busy repairing damages; but, in the evening, a tremendous sea broke on board carrying away the bulwarks and chain-plates fore and aft on the port side, the accompanying violent gust of wind jerking the maintopsail as if it had been tissue paper out of the ship.
Immediately after this, with the first lee roll, the foremast broke off almost flush with the deck and fell with a crash over the side, taking with it everything that stood but the lower main and mizzen masts, leaving the Greenock rolling a hopeless wreck on the waste of raging waters.