“Just wait a bit till we have had yellow Jack aboard!” growled out old Grim. “Very fine to look at, maybe, but you will find it very different when you know it as well as I do. Once I belonged to a ship out in these parts, when we lost the better half of our ship’s company before we got home again.”
“I hope we shall be more fortunate,” said Bill. “But what do you mean by yellow Jack?”
“The yellow fever, to be sure, boy. You will see a fellow one hour rolling along with a quid in his mouth, as happy as a prince, and the next down with the fever, and wriggling about with pain; and in the morning when you ask after him, if he’s on shore, you will hear he is buried already; if he’s at sea, the sailmaker will be busy sewing him up in his hammock.”
When Bill went to the cabin to attend to his duties, the officers were all talking away of what they were going to do on shore. While dinner was going forward, Bill could not help hearing their conversation. Some of them were talking of friends they expected to find; others were proposing rides up the country to Rock Fort, and other places; some talked of going over to Spanish Town, the capital of the island.
“Well, Collinson, and do you expect to find your friends the Lydalls here?” asked Mr Barker.
“He wouldn’t be looking so happy if he did not,” said the master.
“I am not surprised at it,” observed the surgeon. “I once saw Miss Ellen Lydall, and if I had not happened to have a wife and small family of my own, I should have been entering the lists with him myself.”
“Colonel Lydall told me that he expected his regiment would be sent here. The colonel’s family accompanied him out, and I hope to find that he is stationed either at Uphill Barracks or Rock Fort,” answered Lieutenant Collinson.
“But I say, Collinson, do you think the young lady will have remained faithful all this time? Remember what numbers of soldier-officers and rich planters there are out here ready to supplant you. Ha! Ha! Ha!” and the purser laughed and rubbed his hands at his own joke.
Lieutenant Collinson took this bantering very coolly. “A man may take from messmates what he certainly would not from other persons,” he answered.