Leaves from a middy's log

by Arthur Lee Knight

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.