Ford of H.M.S. Vigilant: A Tale of the Chusan Archipelago

by T. T. Jeans

I marked mine "Above" and "Below", and stowed them away very carefully in a corner. He gave me some tobacco too; for though I oughtn't to have smoked—I wasn't eighteen—it was rather different when I was away from the ship. I had brought my pipe with me, but, like an ass, had forgotten any tobacco.

Well, we shook hands and then off we went, the "Ringdoves" cheering us, and all of us cheering each other. She steamed off to the north'ard to get to leeward of the islands, we went away towards the sun, and the Ferret the opposite way, Jim waving from the poop and sending a last "Luck to Sally!".

There was quite a good breeze blowing, and when we'd got all our sails hauled up and the leeboard down, we went flying along, heeling over till the lee gunwale raced through and under the water. It was simply grand. The sun came up too, and made it all the more cheerful, although there wasn't much warmth in it, and when the Ringdove and the Ferret had both got out of sight, Dicky gave a great sigh of contentment.

I must say that, at first, I felt frightened at being alone, and should have been jolly pleased to see the Ringdove's masts and funny little funnel sticking up over the horizon; but presently I forgot to be nervous, because the junk sailed so well, and it was simply ripping to be in command, all by myself, with a six-pounder and a Maxim gun, and all those two hundred shells down below, and to think of the surprise we should give any junk which tried to take us, because, you see, none of them had ever known what a bursting shell was like. There was Scroggs to fall back upon too, if one really got into a tight fix and couldn't make up one's mind. He was such a huge chap, that he could have lifted Dicky and me up with each hand; but he would always talk about his missus and his "kids" if we gave him the slightest opening, and—well—neither Dicky nor I were the least enthusiastic about them after the second day, and I'm quite certain that Sharpe felt just the same—he had to live with him, too—because I heard him say, "Now chuck it, if you don't want to drive me off'n my blooming rocker."

To show you how the pirates had scared everything off the sea, we never saw a single junk all those two days we were being towed by the Ringdove, and now we had the sea all to ourselves. Our first island was right ahead, and we soon got up to it, and Ah Chee came out of his pigeonhole and sniffed and looked, and sniffed and looked again, and smiled, so we knew everything was all right, from the "running-on-rocks" point of view. I didn't tell you before, but Mr. Trevelyan had had a great idea before we left Tinghai, and bought enough loose-fitting blue Chinese short coats, and enough native caps to go round his men and mine too; so now, as we got quite close to the land, we made the men stick them on, and Dicky and I put ours on, and looked jolly funny, I expect. I couldn't help thinking what my mother would imagine had happened if she'd been able to see me rigged up like this, and I was pretty sure that Nan would say something to make me get red and angry. But it was grand fun, all the same.

We had one of the Vigilant's dinghies, besides that native sampan hung over the stern, and it had to be covered up with a tarpaulin, so that its shape wouldn't show through. Good old Ah Chee seemed to understand our game, and ran in quite close, and when we were nearing a small village, began gesticulating and signing to me to lower the sails a little. "Too plenty quick—plenty too quick—pilons thinkee you no got"—and he pointed down to the hold, and I suppose meant "cargo"—"no good makee catchee." We lowered our mizzen altogether—it wasn't doing much good anyhow—and slacked off the sheets, and went past very slowly, Dicky and I looking through our telescopes, and hoping to see something coming after us. There was nothing there, though, and Ah Chee shook his head—"Too plenty good fellow can do."

One or two small junks were hauled up above high-water mark, with their masts out—to make it all the more difficult for pirates to carry them off, I suppose—a few children were playing with the dogs and the pigs on the shore, and one or two miserable wretches were hauling in handlines and picking small fish off the hooks—we could see them glitter in the sun as they wriggled.

Then Ah Chee signed to us to go faster, so we hoisted the mizzen again, and hauled in our sheets and boomed along. We spent all that day doing this, running down one channel and beating up another, and only once saw any junks. There were two beating to windward very slowly, and when we sighted them Dicky and I were very excited, and brought Ah Chee out to look at them. He only shook his head and repeated, "Plenty good fellow can do."

Dicky suggested that we should see how fast we could sail and try and overhaul them, and we were getting on finely, gaining every minute, though we could see them doing their best to go faster; but presently Ah Chee, who had borrowed my telescope, made us slow down, shaking his head, "Plenty bad joss can do—if too plenty quick go—him Chinaman," and he pretended to dive overboard. Dicky understood what he meant first—that the Chinaman would think us pirates, and would jump overboard if we overhauled them, so we lowered our foresail, just to comfort them, and eased down.

We had to keep under way that night, because the next lot of little islands which we had to examine were about nine miles away, and the breeze had fallen considerably. I slept jolly soundly till midnight—I rolled myself in my blanket and slept on deck, to escape the bugs under the poop—and then relieved Dicky for the middle watch.