Dick Lester of Kurrajong

by Mary Grant Bruce

CHAPTER V.
HOW DICK PRACTISED HIGH DIVING.

Many people find the run across the Great Australian Bight a dull matter; and, indeed, if you should ever find yourself returning from the other side of the world, it is apt to be the longest part of all the long six weeks at sea. But to little Dick Lester, afloat for the first time, it was a voyage full of marvel and delight.

Dick did not give his masters at school an especially easy time; there was, I fear, nothing of the saintly little boy about him; nor did any of them ever have reason to suspect him of any especial cleverness. He was a very ordinary, healthy youngster, unencumbered by much brain power. But he did respectably at school and more than respectably at sports, because he was quite unable to take things easily. There was in his nature a streak of keenness that made the pursuit of the moment the most interesting thing possible. He flung himself heart and soul and generally with all his alert young body, too, into all he did. Naturally, his very keenness often made him make mistakes; but at least it saved him from dullness. "He's a provoking little animal," a tired form-master once said of him; "but, thank goodness, he's no slug!"

Being so designed, partly by Nature and partly by parents who had themselves that strong quality of keenness, it may readily be imagined that a ship opened up to Dick a storehouse of novelty and opportunity. He made his way into every permitted corner, and since he did not do it bumptiously, he found a welcome where a cheeky youngster would have been promptly ejected. The chief engineer succumbed to the longing face at the entrance to his mysterious domain, and let him spend hours in the engine room, where the roar and beat of the mighty machinery was the purest music in Dick's ears. He penetrated even to the stokehold, where, stripped of his outer garments, he toiled eagerly with a stoker's shovel, flinging great lumps of coal into the yawning mouths of the furnaces, where the flames leaped redly. There was something in feeling that, even for a moment, he was helping the onward rush of the ship that brought him nearer to Fremantle and his father. He stopped only when he could no longer hold the heavy shovel, and the fourth engineer, laughing, hustled him from the stifling stokehold into the not particularly fresh air of the engine room, which seemed to Dick an ozone bath by comparison.

The men made him free of their quarters, and spun him long yarns of the sea, more or less true, while they taught him intricacies of splicing and knotting that are generally hidden from the landsman. They made him highly technical in speech, so that he would have shuddered at calling the companion a staircase, or in misusing such ordinary expressions as "abaft the binnacle." He saw their dim and smellful sleeping accommodation, and came away with his small soul full of wrath that men so admirable should be herded in dens so uninviting. They took care of him in more ways than one; he saw a sturdy apprentice roundly cuffed on the head for having made some remark in his presence of which the older men did not approve. Dick had not caught the remark—which was as well. It made him rather uncomfortable to see the boy cuffed, but having great respect for the cuffer, a boatswain of wonderful ability where knots were concerned, he took it for granted that everything was all right. He told them stories of station life in return for their sea yarns, and altogether spent some of his happiest hours in the fo'c'sle.

The baggage officer took him into the upper hold and held forth learnedly on the art of handling cargo; the cook showed him the galley, with its rows of shining copper pots and pans, its contrivances for washing and peeling potatoes by the hundred, and other strange devices—which so enthralled Dick that he obtained permission to come again, and to bring his mother, who was no less interested than he. He even penetrated into the mysterious regions where the stewards lurk when off duty, and had no small hand in the fun behind the scenes, when the stewards gave a concert in aid of the funds for seamen—a Christy minstrel entertainment, at which the performers appeared with faces so well and truly blacked that for the remainder of the voyage they had a murky look sadly out of keeping with their otherwise spic and span appearance. But the crowning point of Dick's voyage was when the Captain found him on deck very early one morning—so early that no other passengers were astir, and, first swearing him to secrecy, took him to his state-room under the bridge where they hob-nobbed over an early cup of tea, and afterwards showed him chronometers and sextants, chart-room and navigating room, and the forbidden glory of the bridge itself; a condescension that left Dick gasping with delight and amazement. He did not know that the Captain had a little son in Perth; another boy with an eager face, for whose sake the great man had a soft corner in his heart for all small boys.

With so many distractions, it was natural that the days should fly quickly. But in addition there was the sea itself, which Dick loved; an Australian sea at its best, with bright sunshine, dancing blue water, and a long, easy swell that barely rocked the Moondarra as she steamed westward. They passed but few ships. A great English liner overtook them one morning, passing so close that greetings could be shouted from deck to deck; a P. and O. boat, her black and tan painting and her winking brasswork making her a heartsome sight. Beside her, the Moondarra, which had seemed to Dick enormous, became quite a small affair. The liner was outward bound, most of the people on her decks were Australians, off on the long trip to the old countries that every son and daughter of the Southern Cross longs to see some day. Once there passed another inter-state boat, like themselves; now and then a little tramp steamer, red with rust and generally grimy. And one day came the most beautiful sight of the sea, a great four-master, with every sail set, swinging by to Sydney for wheat. She came down towards them, until she was quite close—then, tacking suddenly, she swung away, the sunlight, as she went about, turning every sail to glittering silver. Dick had no breakfast that morning—he remained glued to the rail until the beautiful ship was only a tall shadow on the horizon.

At all odd moments during the day there were games; deck-tennis, bull-board, quoits, cricket. Dick was handicapped in being the only boy of his age on board, so that he found it hard to get a suitable partner, but some of the elder girls took him into their games, and on the whole he had a good time, though, to Dick, girls were curious beings, with mysterious and incomprehensible ways. He told his mother one day that he could not imagine why any fellow ever wanted to get married—"unless it was to you, of course," he added, gallantly. To which Mrs. Lester listened gravely, and did not even make the annoying rejoinder that some day he would think differently—to which species of remark grown-ups are so prone. Merle Warner remained the most incomprehensible female of all. Circumstances conspired to throw the two children together, for the elders quickly made friends; the Warners were pleasant, kindly people, and, as table companions, they were a good deal brought into association with Mrs. Lester. Mr. Warner and Dick had struck up a great friendship; the big man liked his small and unobtrusive cabin-mate and felt for him something of the protective feeling he would have experienced had it been his own little lad who lay asleep in the opposite bunk each night when he came to bed. They used to tramp the deck together in the early mornings and after dinner, and "yarn" of station matters, of the ways of bullocks—and most inexhaustible theme of all—of horses. Dick had been his father's constant companion until Mr. Lester sailed for England; he had learned a good deal of station affairs, and where his knowledge failed his love of the subject was enough to make him a good mate. He used to beg for stories of the Western life, that held so many differences from his own, and Mr. Warner was ready enough to tell of his early days, with their struggle and adventure. Dick thought him a very wonderful man. He told his stories very simply; they were, indeed, very commonplace happenings to him, and on the rare occasions that he became enthusiastic it was in speaking of the part his wife had played. "You take it from me, son, women are pretty wonderful," he said. "She's plump and placid and comfortable enough now—but I've seen her holding off a crew of yelling blacks with only an old shot gun. She never was afraid—or if she was, she never showed it; and that's the most wonderful of all." Dick agreed, and thereafter looked at Mrs. Warner with eyes of awe, which considerably puzzled the cheery, motherly woman.

Possibly it was her father's friendship for Dick that made Merle so definitely unfriendly. She was devoted to him; her mother and Bobby counted for something to her, but her father ranked before the whole world. It hit her hard to see him make a companion of this new boy. She was a child of a queer, silent nature—her own worst enemy, for she struggled against her better impulses. Something in her made her rude, unfriendly, unforgiving. So much was evident, and led to punishments and unpopularity. What was not so apparent was that the queer streak made her very unhappy as well. "I know jolly well I'm a pig," she had said once to her father, "only I don't seem to be able to be anything but a pig. Why do people get born like that?" To which Mr. Warner, not understanding in the least, had replied, laughing, that the sooner she left off being a pig the better for everyone. Merle knew that very well. But the bad fairy who had dealt her the wrong kind of temper at her christening was as yet too strong for her.

She could not make friends freely; not like Bobby, whom she sometimes almost hated for the ease with which he fell in love with everyone. Everyone liked Bobby, too. He was so merry, so full of quaint chatter, so ready to make the best of the world. Their trip to Sydney had been as complete joy to Bobby as it had meant misery to Merle. They had stayed with a big family of boy cousins; town boys, knowing nothing of the country that Merle loved, and wildly keen on swimming, yachting and school sports—all of them sealed books to Merle. Her shyness and sullenness had meant rare fun to them, and they had teased her with all the thoroughness of public school boys. She hated them all, with an intensity that almost frightened her; for their sake she was ready to hate all boys, and Dick was merely another member of the abhorred species. That her father should take to him instantly was almost more than she could bear.