Chapter Thirteen.
An important talk with Gurney.
Immediately upon the completion of the election, Wilde, in the plenitude of his zeal and eagerness to taste the sweets of power and authority, insisted on calling a meeting of the council, to meet there and then in the poop cabin, for the purpose of arranging the proceedings of the morrow. When the sitting was over, Polson told me that the very first proposal submitted by the president was that the ship’s sails should all be unbent and taken ashore to form tents for the people to live in; and that, next, the ship should be stripped to a gantline, and her spars and rigging—together with as much of her bulwarks as might be required—worked up into a raft for the conveyance of cargo to the shore. Of course Polson, with the memory of the conversation that had passed between him and myself on that very morning still fresh in his mind, stoutly opposed the proposal, adducing the arguments that I had used against such a proceeding, and adding to them his own, with such success that not only was the proposal negatived, but he actually succeeded in carrying another to the effect that half a dozen hands under me were to be told off for the express purpose of giving the hull, spars, standing and running rigging, and sails a thorough overhaul, and executing such repairs, etcetera, as might be found necessary to bring the ship to, and maintain her in, a condition of perfect fitness for service at a moment’s notice!
This result achieved, the boatswain was quite content to let Wilde have his own way in all other respects, with the result that it was quickly arranged that the hatches should be lifted the first thing after breakfast on the following morning, the cargo overhauled as far as possible, and room made by transferring to the shore such portions of it as were not likely to be injured by exposure to the weather; also that the live stock, consisting of some three dozen fowls, together with a boar and two sows, were to be landed and allowed to run wild for a week or two, until proper quarters could be prepared for their reception, in order that they might improve their condition. The mention of live stock produced another weighty argument in favour of the proposal just carried by Polson, for it elicited an expression of opinion that horses and horned cattle, as well as sheep, were urgently required by the colonists, and ought to be procured at the earliest possible moment.
“What d’ye think of the arrangement, Mr Troubridge?” asked the boatswain, when he had brought his account of the proceedings to a close.
“I see nothing to find fault with in it,” I replied, “except that I think you are acting unwisely in meddling with the cargo before providing a receptacle for it ashore. I believe it highly probable that when you begin to break out the cargo you will find many things that must necessarily be kept under cover, if they are not to be ruined by exposure to the weather; and what will you do with them? Strike them back into the hold? If so, you will be giving yourselves double trouble, and delaying instead of expediting matters.”
“Well, but what else can we do? What would you have advised if you’d been in my place?” demanded Polson.
“I should have proposed building a storehouse big enough to receive the whole of the cargo before removing the hatches,” replied I. “The job could easily be done. A few poles cut up there among the hills and brought down to the shore, a sufficient quantity of wattles to form the roof and sides, and a covering of coconut-palm leaves, and there you are. We saw plenty of such structures among the islands that we visited before arriving here, and I remember that everybody remarked how easily they might be built.”
“Now, why the mischief didn’t I think of that?” exclaimed the boatswain, smiting his knee with vexation. “Of course that’s the proper thing to do. Oh, Mr Troubridge, why didn’t you let yourself be elected a member of council, sir? You’ve an old head, although it is on young shoulders; and you’d have been worth more to us than Fell, Burgess, Monroe, and Hilary all lumped together.”