With Clive in India; Or, The Beginnings of an Empire

by G. A. Henty

"Now," he said, "don't struggle, else I'll let you go. Keep quiet, and I can hold you up till we're picked up."

In spite of the injunction, the man strove to grasp him; but Charlie at once let go his hold, and swam a pace back as the man sunk. When he came up he seized him again, and again shouted:

"Keep quite quiet, else I'll leave go."

This time the soldier obeyed him and, turning him on his back, and keeping his face above water, Charlie looked around at the vessel he had left.

The Indiaman was still in confusion. The squall had been sudden and strong. The sheets had been let go, the canvas was flapping in the wind, and the hands were aloft reducing sail. She was already some distance away from him. The sky was bright and clear, and Charlie, who was surprised at seeing no attempt to lower a boat, saw a signal run up to the masthead.

Looking the other way, he saw at once why no boat had been lowered. The Dover Castle was but a quarter of a mile astern. Carrying less sail than her consort, she had been better prepared for the squall, and was running down upon him at a great rate.

A moment later a boat was swung out on davits, and several men climbed into it. The vessel kept on her course, until scarcely more than her own length away. Then she suddenly rounded up into the wind, and the boat was let fall, and rowed rapidly towards him.

All this time, Charlie had made no effort beyond what was necessary to keep his own head, and his companion's face, above the water. He now lifted the soldier's head up, and shouted to him that aid was at hand. In another minute they were dragged into the boat. This was soon alongside the ship, and three minutes later the Dover Castle was pursuing her course, in the track of the Lizzie Anderson, having signalled that the pair had been rescued.

Charlie found that the soldier was an Irish lad, of some nineteen years old. His name, he said, was Tim Kelly, and as soon as he had recovered himself sufficiently to speak, he was profuse in his professions of gratitude to his preserver. Tim, like the majority of the recruits in the Company's service, had been enlisted while in a state of drunkenness; had been hurried on board a guard ship, where, when he recovered, he found a number of other unfortunates like himself. He had not been permitted to communicate with his friends on shore, but had been kept in close confinement, until he had been put in uniform and conveyed on board the Lizzie Anderson, half an hour before she sailed.

The Company's service was not a popular one. There was no fighting in India, and neither honor, glory, nor promotion to be won. The climate was unsuited to Europeans, and few, indeed, of those who sailed from England as soldiers in the Company's service ever returned. The Company, then, were driven to all sorts of straits to keep up even the small force which they then maintained in India, and their recruiting agents were, by no means, particular as to the means they employed to make up the tale of recruits.