“What sort of ghost, Crawley?” sung out a dozen voices from the men, who immediately became alive to the fun.
“Oh, a Portuguese ghost, as sure as the Lord,” replied Crawley. “Give me a little water with some salt in it.”
This salt, I must explain to the uninitiated, according to a vulgar superstition in Ireland, is absolutely necessary to be drunk by those who have seen a phantom before seeing a light, as a neglect of the precaution was sure to be followed by an evil influence. As soon, therefore, as a tin measure was brought to the agitated Tom, (not filled, indeed, with salt and water, but, I am sorry to say, a much more objectionable liquid) Crawley drank it off with as much avidity as if his future salvation depended on it: the men, meanwhile, nearly convulsed with laughter at Tom’s credulity.
At length, something like silence being restored, Crawley took a seat, at the same time making many wry faces (that were sufficiently accounted for by the potion he had swallowed.) He then told us, in a very solemn manner, that he had distinctly seen the semblance of a Caçadore in Colonel Eldar’s regiment, the 3rd Caçadores, who used to sell our men rum on the retreat from Almeida, and who was afterwards killed at the battle of Busaco.
“But did you not speak to it?” inquired Jack Murphy.
“You know I can’t talk Portuguese,” replied Crawley.
“A ghost can talk any language; he would have spoken English to you if you had talked to him,” observed another.
“But I was in too great a fright to talk at all to him till he vanished away among the trees.”
Poor Tom Crawley! His ghost story afforded us ample amusement for many weeks afterwards, although I remember it caused his grog to be stopped, for having woke the Captain of our company in an adjoining room by the noise he had occasioned by his spiritual narration.
There is nothing, not even flogging, damps the spirit of a service-soldier more than stopping his grog, particularly a man of Crawley’s temperament, for like his renowned prototype (Nautical Jack), if he were allowed three wishes, the first would be all the rum in the world, the second all the tobacco, and the third would be for more rum. During our stay here, the commissary had ovens made, and a number of our men employed baking bread, something after the fashion of our quartern loaf, one of which was allowed each man every four days. One day while the company was being served out with rations of salt beef and a hot four-pound loaf, and the commissary was busy in serving out rum from a barrel turned on the end, with the head knocked in, while the quarter-master was calling over the name of each man, when Crawley’s name was called—stopped by order of Captain O’Hare, was the answer. Had sentence of death been pronounced, it could not have sounded more harsh; but Tom had a little philosophy. This trial put it to the test, for while he kept peeping over the men’s shoulders, anxiously watching each man receive his portion of rum, I also observed him poking his thumb into different parts of the hot loaf, while he gradually kept edging himself through the men, until he got close to the rum barrel, and quietly putting his loaf under his arm, remained stationary, until the commissary turned round to speak to one of the men, when raising his arm in flopped the loaf into the rum-barrel, while he lustily began damning the awkward fellows who pushed, and caused the accident, no doubt wishing the loaf to remain soaking in the barrel as long as possible; but seeing the commissary about taking the bread out, he instantly dived his arm into the barrel, shoving the loaf to the bottom, then drawing it out dripping, as well as his coat-sleeve, and looking the commissary seriously in the face, begun cursing his misfortune, saying: “Faith, Sir, I’ll have a hot meal for the next four days, anyhow; if salt junk and hot rum don’t blister a poor devil’s guts, I don’t know what will.” The good-natured commissary, who looked on the whole as a pure accident, handed Tom an extra half loaf, which he instantly squeezed against the wet one, lest a drop of the precious liquor should fall to the ground, and walked away, humming as he went: