Charlie to the Rescue

by R. M. Ballantyne

But this felicitous state of things did not last. The tropics were reached, where calms prevailed with roasting heat. The Southern Atlantic was gained, and gales were met with. The celebrated Cape was doubled, and the gales, if we may say so, were trebled. The Indian Ocean was crossed, and the China Seas were entered, where typhoons blew some of the sails to ribbons, and snapped off the topmasts like pipe-stems. Then she sailed into the great Pacific, and for a time the Walrus sported pleasantly among the coral islands.

During all this time, and amid all these changes, Charlie Brooke, true to his character, was the busiest and most active man on board. Not that his own special duties gave him much to do, for, until the vessel should reach port, these were rather light; but our hero—as Stride expressed it—“must always be doing.” If he had not work to do he made it—chiefly in the way of assisting other people. Indeed there was scarcely a man or boy on board who did not have the burden of his toil, whatever it was, lightened in consequence of young Brooke’s tendency to put his powerful shoulder voluntarily to the wheel. He took the daily observations with the captain, and worked out the ship’s course during the previous twenty-four hours. He handled the adze and saw with the carpenter, learned to knot and splice, and to sew canvas with the bo’s’n’s mate, commented learnedly and interestingly on the preparation of food with the cook, and spun yarns with the men on the forecastle, or listened to the long-winded stories of the captain and officers in the cabin. He was a splendid listener, being much more anxious to ascertain exactly the opinions of his friends and mates than to advance his own. Of course it followed that Charlie was a favourite.

With his insatiable desire to acquire information of every kind, he had naturally, when at home, learned a little rough-and-tumble surgery, with a slight smattering of medicine. It was not much, but it proved to be useful as far as it went, and his “little knowledge” was not “dangerous,” because he modestly refused to go a single step beyond it in the way of practice, unless, indeed, he was urgently pressed to do so by his patients. In virtue of his attainments, real and supposed, he came to be recognised as the doctor of the ship, for the Walrus carried no medical man.

“Look here, Brooke,” said the only passenger on board—a youth of somewhat delicate constitution, who was making the voyage for the sake of his health,—“I’ve got horrible toothache. D’you think you can do anything for me?”

“Let’s have a look at it,” said Charlie, with kindly interest, though he felt half inclined to smile at the intensely lugubrious expression of the youth’s face.

“Why, Raywood, that is indeed a bad tooth; nothing that I know of will improve it. There’s a cavern in it big and black enough to call to remembrance the Black Hole of Calcutta! A red-hot wire might destroy the nerve, but I never saw one used, and should not like to try it.”

“Horrible!” exclaimed Raywood. “I’ve been mad with pain all the morning, and can’t afford to be driven madder. Perhaps, somewhere or other in the ship there may be a—a—thingumy.”

“A whatumy?” inquired the other.

“A key, or—or—pincers,” groaned Raywood, “for extracting—oh! man, couldn’t you pull it out?”

“Easily,” said Charlie, with a smile. “I’ve got a pair of forceps—always carry them in case of need, but never use them unless the patient is very bad, and must have it out.”