The Blue Pavilions

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

For the moment Tristram imagined that he must be in the midst of a sea-fight at the very leat. But his apprehensions were presently distracted by the motions of the ship under him—motions which at length became erratic and even alarming. For the Good Intent was not only heaving up and down, but seemed to be tearing forward in a series of vehement rushes, with intervals of languid indecision. Tristram's stomach soon began to abhor these intervals, and in a little while he found himself wondering to what end he had set aside half a loaf from his breakfast. For, as it seemed to him, he was going to die, and the sooner the better.

"Decidedly," he thought, "my breakfast was poisoned, else I could never feel like this."

The Good Intent took another lurch forward, and a clammy sweat broke out on both sides of his forehead.

"If I have enemies so wicked," sighed he, "may God forgive them!" And, uttering this Christian wish, he fell forward with his forehead against the boards.

A little past noon the sentry brought him a fresh loaf, with a plate of fat bacon and another pannikin. The sea being choppy, by this time the vessel echoed from end to end with groans and lamentations.

"Is it a massacre?" Tristram asked, sitting up and regarding the man with wild eyes. But the sight of the bacon, which was plentifully doused with vinegar, conquered him afresh. The sentry chuckled and went away.

To be short, our hero passed two-and-twenty hours in this extremity of wretchedness, and was only aroused, early next morning, by a corporal who thrust his head in at the hatchway and bade him arise and come on deck with all speed, as the regiment was about to disembark. And, as a matter of fact, when Tristram tottered up the ladder into the fresh air which swept the deck, he found that, though he had been beyond remarking any difference in the ship's motion, she was now lying at anchor, and within a cable's length from a desolate shore, which began in sandhills and ended in mist.

The rain was pouring perpendicularly from a leaden sky and drenching the decks. The soldiers, in their great-coats, huddled together as they waited for the boats, and shrugged their shoulders to keep the drops from trickling down the napes of their necks. Somebody gave Tristram a great-coat and knapsack, and pointed out the group to which he was to attach himself. He obeyed, though scarcely aware of what he did: for his head was light, his hunger was ravenous, and his legs were trembling beneath him. A soldier cursed close by, and he cursed too, echoing the man's words without knowing why. Another man slapped him on the back, mistaking him for a crony, and begged his pardon. "It really makes no difference," said Tristram politely, and at once fell to wondering if this remark were absurd or no. Beyond the grey veils of rain he spied, now and then, a cluster of red roofs and a steeple close beside the shore.

"What place is that yonder?" he asked the man who stood at his elbow.

"Vlaardingen," said the fellow gruffly. It was Sergeant Klomp, and Tristram turned it over in his mind whether to offer an apology or no. While he was still debating, a brisk young officer came along and called out: