Chapter One.
And how he Dined with the Admiral.
We were cruising off Callao on the Pacific station when it all happened, and I daresay there are a good many others who will recollect all about it as well as myself. But to explain the matter properly I must go back a little in my dates; for, instead of Callao at the commencement of my yarn, you must read Calabar.
You see, I was in the Porpoise at the time, a small old-fashioned, paddle-wheel steamer that had been ordered across from the West Coast of Africa by “my lords” of the Admiralty to reinforce our squadron in South American waters on account of a war breaking out between Chili and Peru. Being a “sub” on board of her, and consequently subject to the authorities that be, when the Porpoise was obliged to abandon the fragrant mangrove swamps at the mouth of the Congo river, where we had been enjoying ourselves for over a twelvemonth amidst the delights of a deadly miasma that brought on perpetual low fever, and as constant a consumption of quinine and bottled beer to counteract its effects, I was of course forced to accompany her across the Atlantic and round the Horn to her allotted destination.
Thence “this plain unvarnished tale,” which is as clear as mud in a ditch, although you needn’t believe it if you don’t like—there is no compulsion required to make hungry people eat roast mutton!
Tom Finch, the lieutenant in command of the Porpoise, who had got his promotion through the death vacancy of his senior at Cape Coast Castle—he was just ahead of me on the roster, luckily for him—was one of the jolliest fellows I ever sailed with or under, since I entered the service; and I’m sure I’ve known a few “swabs” in my time!
Unlike some junior officers I could name, when suddenly intrusted with the reins of power, there was nothing of the martinet about Tom, even on the first day he assumed his new rank, when a little extra pomposity might have been excusable. But no, he gave himself no airs or graces whatever.
He was the same Tom Finch who had chaffed and larked and talked confidence with me in the gunroom, now that he trod the quarter-deck “in all his war paint,” as I told him somewhat impudently, the “skipper” of HMS Porpoise, “paddle sloop, 6 guns,” as she was described in the Navy List—the same unaffected, jovial, good-natured sailor whom everybody liked, men and messmates alike. His only weakness was a love for practical joking, which he would carry out sometimes, perhaps, to a rather ticklish extent—for his own good, that is, as he never knowingly did anyone else an injury by it.
“What will you do with your monkey?” I said, when the mail brought in our orders from the commodore on the West Coast for us to sail for Monte Video at once, and there await our further instructions—which would be sent on from England; “what will you do with him when we go?”
“Take him with me of course,” answered Tom; “why shouldn’t I?”
“Well, I don’t see any reason against it certainly,” I replied; “now that you are captain of the ship, and can do as you please without asking anybody’s leave.”
“Poor Griffin,” said Tom, “he did object to Jocko’s society; that was the reason I always used to keep the dear fellow ashore; however, as you say, Gerald, I am my own master and can do as I like now. You don’t think the crew dislike my monkey, do you?” he added eagerly.
He was such a kind-hearted obliging chap, that if he thought that even the loblolly boy objected to the presence of Jocko on board, he would have banished him from the ship for ever, especially from the very fact of his being the commander and having no one to dispute his authority.
“Oh dear, no, certainly not,” I replied at once, with “effusion,” as the French say in their idiom. “The men like him better than you do, if that is possible; and I don’t know what they would do without him, I only thought the change of climate might be deleterious to his health, that’s all!”
“Deleterious indeed, Gerald! wherever did you pick up such a fine word? I suppose you have been interviewing old Jalap about your liver, eh, you hypochondriacal young donkey! Why, Monte Video is a regular paradise for the monkey tribe, and Jocko will be in his element there!”
“But I don’t suppose we’ll stop there, Tom; didn’t you say that you thought it probable that we would have to go round Cape Horn and join the squadron at Callao?”
I may here explain that while on the quarter-deck, I invariably addressed Tom Finch as “Sir,” for was he not my commanding officer? But, while below, or when off duty, he insisted on my retaining my old custom of calling him by his Christian name, the same as when we were together in the gunroom, and he only a “sub.”
“And if we do go round the Horn, what then, Mr Sub-lieutenant Follett?” said he.
“Won’t Jocko find it cold: you know it’s winter time there now?”
“And can’t I have him clothed like a Christian, stupid, and keep him by the fire, or in the cook’s cabin, where he will be so warm, that he’ll fancy himself in his native clime?”
“Oh, yes,” said I, “I quite forgot that his dearest friend next to you was Pompey!” alluding to the ship’s cook, a sable African, who came very probably from the same locality as the monkey; the two being very much alike, not only in the colour of their complexions, but in their features and facial development.
“Yes,” said Tom reflectively, “Pompey will take care he doesn’t freeze. He could not be fonder of him than his own brother would be; he might, indeed, be his relative, if Darwin’s theory should prove to be true! However, I must see about getting Jocko rigged out properly in a decent sailor’s suit so that he may get accustomed to the clothing before we come to the cold latitudes. I daresay my marine, who is a smart fellow, can manage to cut down a guernsey frock and a pair of canvas or serge trousers to fit the brute: I will give an order on the paymaster for them at once and Smith can set to work on them without delay;” and he bustled out of his cabin to carry his intentions into effect.
Not being intimately acquainted with even the rudimentary elements of natural history, I cannot say to what order or genus of the monkey family Jocko belonged; but, roughly speaking, I think he was a specimen of chimpanzee or small gorilla, as he had no tail, and when he walked erect, which was his favourite position, he looked uncommonly like the “superior animal.”
Tom Finch had shot the monkey’s mother in the bush when on a hunting excursion up the interior of the country, which he indulged in on first coming to the coast; and having captured and nursed the youngster with the utmost solicitude, Jocko repaid his master’s attention by learning so many tricks and imitating the deportment of those with whom he was brought in contact so carefully, that he was now, at the time of which I speak, such a thoroughly educated and well-bred monkey as to be “um purfit genelman,” as Pompey, the cook, said—one “fit to shine in any circle,” especially on ship-board, where he was an endless source of amusement to us all, from the lieutenant-commander down to the loblolly boy aforesaid.
Pursuant to Tom Finch’s directions and the exertions of his marine servant Smith, before we left the mouth of the Congo our friend Jocko was decorously habited in a smart seafaring costume; and, long ere we had crossed the Atlantic and arrived at Monte Video, the intelligent animal had got so habituated to his new rig that the difficulty would have been to persuade him to go about once more in his former unclothed state—and yet some sceptics say that monkeys aren’t human! You should only have seen him walking up and down the quarter-deck, or on the bridge by Tom’s side, he looked for all the world like a juvenile “reefer!”
It was in the cabin, however, that Jocko’s acquirements came out in the strongest relief. Tom had taught him to sit at table and use a spoon or fork in helping himself from his plate as naturally as possible; and, as for drinking, you should only have seen him pour out a tumbler of bottled stout, for which he had an inordinate relish, and tossing it down his throat, give a sigh of the deepest satisfaction when he had finished it, when, replacing his glass on the table, he would lean back in his chair as if overcome by the exertion.
Before he had been clothed in sailor fashion, Jocko used to be very fond of skylarking with the men forward, stealing their mess utensils and scampering up and down the rigging to evade pursuit when his mischievousness had been found out; but, after that period, he seemed to become possessed of a wonderful amount of dignity which made him give up his wild frolicsomeness, and leave off his previous habits, for he never went to the forecastle again, but restricted himself to the officers’ quarters aft. This he did, too, in spite of the coaxings of the crew, who were very fond of him, and the fact of Tom often kicking him out of his cabin, where he would take possession of his sofa whenever he had the chance, wrapping himself in Tom’s boat-cloak and reclining gracefully on the cushions. One of Jocko’s chief amusements also was in watching the machinery when in motion; and he would spend hours in looking down at it through the engine-room hatch.
Once, when the skylight was up, he had a narrow squeak for his life; for, carried away by his excitement, in trying to put his hands—paws I should say—on the revolving shaft, he tumbled through; and, but for the chief engineer seeing him in time and stopping the engines, which were just then going slow, poor Jocko would have come to grief.
This accident, however, never broke him of the habit of inspecting the machinery. It had a sort of weird attraction for him which he could not resist. Possibly, he might have been a sort of incubating Watt or Brunel, who knows? But, alas, he never became sufficiently developed or “evolved” from his quadrumanous condition to answer the question in person, as the engines which were his hobby in the end compassed his untimely death!
Those paddle-wheel steamers that were built for the navy some forty years ago, although designed for capturing Cuban slavers, were certainly not remarkable for their speed, and the Porpoise was no exception to her class; so, what with her naturally slow rate of progression through the water, and the strict Admiralty circular limiting the consumption of coal even on special service like ours, we did not make a very rapid passage across the south Atlantic to Monte Video. This place is charmingly situated on the estuary of the Rio de la Plata, and very appropriately named; for it can be seen far away off, for miles at sea, and itself commands magnificent views of its own beautiful harbour and the surrounding inland scenery.
Here despatches awaited us, as Tom Finch had previously been informed at Cape Coast Castle would be the case, ordering the Porpoise to proceed immediately to the Pacific and join the admiral on that station at Callao; and, accordingly, after one of the briefest of stays at a port which I have always longed since to have a more extended acquaintanceship with, we up anchor and paddled away to our assigned rendezvous—not by way of the “Horn,” which we did not go round, as I had imagined we would, for it was far too stormy; but, through the Straits of Magellan, which are easy enough of passage to a steamer, independent almost of winds and currents, although somewhat perilous to sailing vessels, especially during the winter months.
Jocko seemed to feel the cold as soon as we began to run down towards Terra del Fuego, and had some additional garments placed round him; but true to what he evidently thought was his new and proper position, he would not take up his quarters with his “old friend and brother,” Pompey, in the cook’s caboose, preferring to shiver in Tom’s cabin till he almost turned blue.
“Bress dat Massa Jocko!” Pompey would say after a vain attempt to coax him to share his hospitality. “I can’t make he out nohow! Guess he tinks himself buckra ossifer and bery fine genelman, now de captin take um into cabin, sure; but, he no rale genelman to turn up nose at um ole frens! No, sah, I no spik to him no more!” and the negro cook would retire with ill-suppressed anger, which was all the more amusing to us from its having been occasioned by a monkey!
On our getting round into the Pacific, and sighting the coast towards Valparaiso, where we had to stop and coal once more, the Porpoise not having much storage room in her old bunkers, Jocko got more on friendly terms with the thermometer, making faces and jabbering away in his lingo, which unfortunately no one but himself could understand, just as if he were still in his native clime on the African continent.
Occasionally, too, as if his spirits carried him away on his restoration to warmer latitudes, he would indulge in one of his old skylarking bouts with the crew, and even made advances to Pompey in his caboose, which that worthy, in spite of his indignation at the manner in which he had been treated by Jocko when he assumed the dignity of the toga virilis, was only too glad to welcome and reciprocate; but, after one of these unusual unbendings, the monkey grew even more dignified and inapproachable than before, except to Tom and myself, who could do anything with him, and he then confined himself exclusively to the cabin and quarter-deck.
At Valparaiso we got further despatches hurrying us up to the Peruvian coast, where the admiral much wanted to use us as a despatch vessel; so, taking in as much coal as our old tub, the Porpoise, could cram into her, we started for Callao, steaming hard day and night all this time—but it took us no less than ten days to reach our port at last.
The admiral’s ship was in the offing as we entered the harbour; and, without the slightest warning or time for preparation after we had made our muster, the old gentleman signalled, much to Tom’s discomposure, that he was coming on board of us for inspection at once.
“A pretty kettle of fish!” exclaimed Tom; “just as if he couldn’t give a fellow time to paint up a bit and look tidy after sweltering all the pitch off her for eighteen months on the coast, and scuttling across the Atlantic as if the deuce were after us, and not a day allowed us to overhaul and make the old ship look presentable—why, it’s too bad!”
“You needn’t grumble, sir,” said I—we were both on the quarter-deck now, and the friend had, of course, to yield to the office—“I’m sure the admiral won’t be able to find much fault with the Porpoise, even if he were predetermined to do so, as she’s in apple-pie order!”
And so she was; while her crew, who almost worshipped Tom and would have followed him to a man anywhere, were in the highest state of discipline and health, the African fever having disappeared almost as soon as we lost sight of the pestilential West Coast and got into blue water.
“Do you think so, Follett?” he said more calmly.
“Certainly,” I answered, “I would back her against any other vessel on the station for being in the highest state of efficiency.”
“I’m glad you think so, Gerald,” he said to me aside, so that the middies who went to man the side ropes for the admiral at the gangway could not hear him. “You know these big guns are always sharp on a fellow who holds a first command; and, as I have no interest to back me up at the Admiralty board, I don’t want a bad report to go in against me, and a black mark be set before my name for ever!”
“Don’t you fear, Tom,” said I cheerfully, “you’ll pass muster with flying colours!”
Well, the admiral came on board and the inspection turned out just as I expected.
Not only was the gallant chief satisfied with the condition of the Porpoise; but, after having mustered the men at quarters, and having them exercised at gun-drill and cutlasses, he was so pleased that he publicly complimented Tom Finch on the state of his ship and crew, saying that they were not only creditable to him, but to the service generally.
So far, so good.
When the admiral, however, descended presently to Tom’s cabin to sign papers, and perhaps to give a look around him, too, to see how such an efficient officer comported himself when “at home” so to speak, Tom’s evil genius placed Master Jocko in the way.
There he was, seated on the sofa, dressed up in some nondescript sort of uniform with which the youngsters had invested him during Tom’s absence on deck—the young imps were always up to some of their larks—and being of a kindred disposition himself, Tom was never hard on them for their tricks.
The monkey had on a blue coat and trousers with a red sash across his chest and a Turkish fez on his head, which gave him the appearance of one of the many Chilian field marshals, and generals, and colonels whom we had seen at Valparaiso, his wizened, dried-up face adding to the delusion.
As luck would have it, too, what should Jocko do, as the admiral and Tom entered the cabin, but rise from the sofa; and taking off the cap from his head with one of his paws, while the other was laid deferentially on his chest, he made a most polite bow, in the manner he had always been used to do, when either of us greeted him on coming in.
“Who’s this gentleman?” said the admiral pleasantly, taking off his cocked hat likewise, and returning the salute—“I suppose someone you’ve given a passage to on the way, eh?”
Tom was at his wit’s end, as he told me afterwards, for the moment; but his native “nous” came to the rescue, and, combined with his love of a practical joke, suggested a loophole of escape.
“Oh, sir,” said he, “this is one of the aides-de-camp of the Chilian generalissimo, a Señor Carrambo, who begged me to land him at Callao on some urgent private business. Of course, I know, sir, of the hostilities between his native state and Peru, and that as a neutral I ought not to offer any means of communication between the two powers; but, sir, as you see for yourself, he’s a very harmless sort of fellow, and—”
“Hush!” said the admiral, apparently shocked at Tom’s speaking out in such an off-hand way his opinion of the foreign gentleman, as he took Jocko to be.
“Oh, bless you,” went on Tom, forgetting for the moment to whom he was speaking—“he cannot understand a word of English, and I can’t make out a single word of his Chilian Spanish—but he’s very polite.”
“So I see,” replied the admiral affably, as master Jocko made another obeisance at this juncture; “pray ask him to accompany you on board the flagship with me to dinner. Tell him I shall feel honoured by his company, as indeed I shall be by yours.”
To say he was thunderstruck at the admiral’s request would not convey the slightest idea of Tom’s mental condition when he found himself in such a dilemma. He could have bitten off his tongue for its having got him into such a scrape, by telling the fib about the monkey in the first instance; but it was too late now, for the admiral had turned to leave the cabin, and the marine was at the door, besides others, who would hear any explanation he might make.
Tom determined, therefore, with a courage that was almost heroic, to carry the thing through to the bitter end—giving me a pathetic wink to instruct everybody to “keep the thing dark” on board—for none knew about Jocko excepting our ship’s company.
Furtively shoving the fez down over the monkey’s head, so that it almost concealed its features, he threw the boat-cloak that rested on the sofa around him; and, taking hold of his paw, marched in the admiral’s wake to the gangway, and thence down into the chief’s barge alongside, where the admiral and he and Jocko took their seats in state in the stern-sheets and were rowed off to the flagship—our crew manning the rigging as they left and giving three hearty cheers!
“I like to see that proof of affection in your men,” said the admiral, as he witnessed this unofficial performance. “They are proud of their commander, and, I am sure, you have a crew to be proud of!”
Tom bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment. He knew well enough what had occasioned the enthusiasm of the blue-jackets, and bit his lips to restrain his laughter, which so suffocated him that he felt he would burst if he had to keep it in much longer!
All he could do now was to brazen out the imposture, and he huddled the boat-cloak round Jocko so as to conceal his form.
“Poor Señor Carrambo is suffering fearfully from the ague,” he said in explanation to the admiral of this little attention on his part—“I’m afraid he should not have ventured out of the cabin.”
“A good glass of sherry will soon warm him,” said the admiral smiling, “and I think I shall be able to offer him one.”
“He’s rather partial to bottled ale or stout,” suggested Tom, “and he may possibly prefer that.”
“Rather a queer taste for a Spaniard,” said the admiral, as the barge reached the side of the flagship; “but I think I can also gratify on board my ship this predilection of Señor—”
“Carrambo,” prompted Tom.
“Yes, Carrambo,” added the admiral as he mounted the accommodation ladder of the flagship—Tom Finch with Jocko on his arm following in his wake, as before, amidst the mutual salutes of the admiral and the officers, to the state cabin of the chief.
Seated at the dinner-table, to which all were summoned with all proper ceremony to the exhilarating tune of the “Roast beef of old England,” Jocko, who had a chair alongside of Tom, behaved with the utmost decorum.
He indeed appeared to eat little but bread, biscuit, tart, and fruit; but, beyond a grimace, which must have caused the admiral to reflect that of all the ugly persons he ever beheld in his life, this Chilian officer was certainly the ugliest, nothing particularly happened, and the dinner passed off without an exposure.
Tom, the admiral observed, frequently helped “the generalissimo’s aide-de-camp,” especially in pouring out his wine, which he limited in a marked degree; but the jocular lieutenant-commander passed this off by saying that his distinguished friend—whom he exchanged a word with occasionally, of some outlandish language, a mixture of Spanish and High Dutch, with a sprinkling of the Chinese tongue—was in the most feeble health and acting under the doctor’s directions regarding his diet:— that was the reason also, he explained, of his remaining cloaked and with his head-covering on at the admiral’s table, for which he craved a thousand pardons!
After dinner, Tom would have given worlds to have beaten a retreat to his own ship, as several officers came into the saloon while coffee was handed round, and he dreaded each moment that Jocko would disgrace himself and the bubble would burst; but no, there the admiral, would keep him, talking all the time, and directing most of his attention towards the pseudo “Señor Carrambo,” for whose benefit Tom had to translate, or pretend to translate, what was said.
Tom said he never got so punished for a joke in his life before, and he took very good care not to let his sense of the ridiculous put him in such a plight again, as for more than two mortal hours he suffered all the tortures of a condemned criminal; as he said, he would rather have been shot at once!
But when the admiral shook hands with him on his departure, Tom felt worst of all.
“Good-bye, lieutenant,” said the admiral, “and thanks for your introduction to ‘Señor Carrambo.’ I admired the condition and discipline of your ship to-day, Mr Finch, and, in forming my opinion of your character I must say that you carry out a joke better than anyone I ever met. But you should remember, lieutenant, that those who have the end of the laugh, enjoy the joke best. Good-night, I shall communicate with you to-morrow!”
Poor Tom! after believing that the admiral had suspected nothing up to the last moment, to be thus undeceived.
It was heartrending!
Gone was his commission, he thought, at one fell blow, with all the pleasant dreams of promotion that had flashed across his brain after the admiral’s encomiums on him that afternoon; and he would have to think himself very lucky if he were not tried by court-martial and dismissed the service with disgrace.
It was paying dearly for a practical joke, played off on the spur of the moment, truly!
When he reached the Porpoise he felt so disgusted that he kicked poor Jocko, boat-cloak, fez and all, down the main hatch, gruffly ordered his gig to be triced up to the davits, and went below to brood over his anticipated disgrace in the solitude of his own cabin, where I presently found him.
After a great deal of persuasion, I got him to indite a letter of apology to the admiral, detailing all Jocko’s perfections, and how he had been constantly an inmate of his cabin; while assuring him that the passing off the monkey as a “foreigner” had not been a planned thing, but was only the result of an accident and his own unaccountable love of fun, although the falsehood he had been guilty of was most reprehensible.
Indeed, as I made him observe, if it had not been for the admiral himself suggesting the imposture, he, Tom, would never have dreamt of it; but, he concluded, he would regret it all his life, for he had not only told a lie, but the whole matter appeared like a deliberately contemplated insult to his superior officer.
This letter Tom, still acting under my advice, sent off immediately to the flagship, as it was yet not late, and within half an hour he received an answer which made him dance an Indian war-dance of delight around the cabin table, where he and I were awaiting the news that was to make or mar poor Tom’s future life.
The admiral’s ran thus:—
“Flag, at sea, July, 18—.
“Dear Commander,
“I accept your apology, and forgive the joke which I enjoyed, I believe, more than you did, having discovered Master Jocko’s identity from the first moment when he took his Turkish fez off to salute me in the cabin, on my entering—you young rascal! I would not have missed for a hundred pounds the agony you were in all the time you were sitting at my table, and, I really think, I had the best of the joke!
“Come and breakfast with me and I will tell you the reason why I address you as above—I suppose he never told you, but your father was one of my dearest friends.
“Yours, with best compliments to ‘Señor Carrambo,’
“Anson.”
“By George, Tom,” said I when we had both perused this letter, “you are in luck! He doesn’t call you Commander for nothing!”
“No, I suppose not,” said he, “at all events, Gerald, he’s a trump! I recollect my old father saying something once about asking him to put in a good word for me; but, I daresay he forgot all about it: but I am none the worse for it now, eh?”
“No,” said I, “thanks to Jocko!”
The next day Tom Finch had his commission made out by the admiral’s secretary as commander of the Blanche, while I was promoted to his place in the Porpoise, owing to the good word he put in for me when he breakfasted with the jolly old chief; and we both of us were busy enough the next few months on the station, protecting British interests and stopping would-be privateers from having such a festive time as they expected during the period that hostilities lasted between the two rival South American republics at the time of which I speak; then wars between Chili and Peru, and the rest of these very independent states, being of as periodic occurrence of the yellow fever in the Gulf of Mexico!
Poor Jocko, as I hinted at before, came finally to grief in a very sad way.
We were chasing a suspicious looking blockade-runner, a short time after he had his remarkable invitation to dine with the admiral; our engines were moving a little more rapidly than usual; and, Jocko, who was perched on the skylight above, was looking at them with the most intense interest.
All at once, the platform on which he was resting slipped, and the talented monkey fell into the engine-room, in the midst of the machinery—there was one sharp agonised squeak, and the last page of poor Jocko’s history was marked with the word Finis.