With Cochrane the Dauntless

by G. A. Henty

“I never heard,” he said, “that anyone who was lucky enough to recover treasure in an old wreck had his right to retain it questioned, and here not even the wreck remained. So we will keep it and spend it, Hewson; but if you ever discover the owners of that ship let me know, and I shall be prepared to discuss the question with them.”

“We shall never discover them, my good sir,” Hewson said. “How can any man in the world say that that money belongs to a ship that has disappeared in the Malay Archipelago? The only possible clue is that afforded by the chronometers, and here again it is unlikely in the extreme that the owners of the ship, that has, perhaps, been sailing the seas for thirty or forty years, would be able to swear to her chronometers. Lastly, there is no shadow of proof that the chest in which the money was found came from the same ship as the chronometers; they may be the proceeds of two different acts of piracy. You will never hear anything about it.”

CHAPTER VII.

COCHRANE’S CAREER.

“You promised, father,” Stephen said one evening, “that you would, some time or other, tell me more about the days when you served with Lord Cochrane.”

[pg 129]“Well, lad, I will tell you now. The first time I ever saw him was on the day when he joined the Hind at Sheerness, in June, 1793. I was a young midshipman on board her, and I can tell you we were all astonished at his appearance, for he was between seventeen and eighteen—a tall, gawky fellow. I believe he had had a commission in the army, but that his taste lay altogether in the direction of the sea, and that he obtained his appointment to us by the influence of his uncle, who was a post-captain at the time. Well, you know we generally entered at the age of fourteen, and you may imagine our surprise and amusement at a fellow arriving to begin, who was as old as the senior mid on board. Lord though he was, there was no nonsense about Cochrane. He was a very pleasant fellow, and I never saw anyone work so hard to learn his profession as he did. He actually satisfied even our first lieutenant, who was a rough, hard-working fellow, who had made his way up after having got his promotion from the main-deck, or having, as we used to call it, come in at the hawse-holes.

“He was an admirable seaman, heart and soul in his work, and ready to take off his coat and put on a suit of slops and work himself. He took rather a dislike at first to Cochrane, first because he was a lord, in the second place because he considered that he had taken to the profession too old to learn, and lastly because he brought a chest on board altogether beyond regulation size. Jack Larmour soon made short work of that. He called up the carpenters, and bade them saw a portion off the chest, cutting it through just on one side of the keyhole, so that the lock was now in the corner. Cochrane only laughed and said nothing, but I have no doubt the lieutenant expected him to say something hasty and so get himself into trouble. However, Jack soon changed his opinion of the new mid. The earnest desire of Cochrane to learn, and his willingness to put on a rough suit and work, showed that he [pg 130]was of the right stuff, and made him at last a prime favourite of the first lieutenant’s.

“I was only with him then a couple of months, for I was transferred to another ship, and did not come across him again until he was appointed by Lord Keith to the command of the Speedy, lying at Port Mahon. He had done a good deal of knocking about by that time, for the Hind was sent out to the coast of Norway, where it was suspected that French privateers used the fiords as hiding-places. On the return of the Hind from Norway, Cochrane’s uncle was appointed to the Thetis, and the Hind’s crew were transferred to her. The Thetis went out with a squadron for the protection of the islands of Nova Scotia, and so well was Cochrane thought of that in January, 1795, he was appointed by the admiral of the station acting third lieutenant of the Thetis, and was soon after transferred, with the same rank, to the Africa; and in July was confirmed in his rank, though he had been but two years at sea. In the Africa he coasted up and down, between Canada and Florida, looking out for ships of the enemy, but in the following January he rejoined the Thetis, whose first lieutenant had just been promoted. He then passed as lieutenant, and was afterwards appointed to the Speedy.

“The difficulty of his not having served the regulation time had been got over by his uncle in a way which was not uncommon then, and may be still practised for aught I know. His uncle thought that he might one day wish to join the navy, and had therefore entered his name in the books of the various ships he commanded, so that nominally he had formed part of the ship’s complement in the Vesuvius, Carolina, La Sophie, and Hind, and had therefore belonged to the service for the regulation period. It is a bad practice, lad, but in the case of Cochrane was the means of providing the king’s navy with as gallant an officer as ever trod quarter-deck. I went [pg 131]down with him from Gibraltar to Port Mahon with another midshipman who, like myself, had just passed, and was to join the Speedy. We were hoping to gain an opportunity for distinguishing ourselves, and getting a step.