Читать книгу Tracks of a Rolling Stone - Henry J. Coke - Страница 10

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The next winter we lay for a couple of months off Chinhai, which we had stormed, blockading the mouth of the Ningpo river. Here, I regret to think, I committed an act which has often haunted my conscience as a crime; although I had frequently promised the captain of a gun a glass of grog to let me have a shot, and was mightily pleased if death and destruction rewarded my aim.

Off Chinhai, lorchers and fast sailing junks laden with merchandise would try to run the blockade before daylight. And it sometimes happened that we youngsters had a long chase in a cutter to overhaul them. This meant getting back to a nine or ten o’clock breakfast at the end of the morning’s watch; equivalent to five or six hours’ duty on an empty stomach.

One cold morning I had a hard job to stop a small junk. The men were sweating at their oars like galley slaves, and muttering curses at the apparent futility of their labour. I had fired a couple of shots from a ‘brown Bess’—the musket of the day—through the fugitive’s sails; and fearing punishment if I let her escape, I next aimed at the boat herself. Down came the mainsail in a crack. When I boarded our capture, I found I had put a bullet through the thigh of the man at the tiller. Boys are not much troubled with scruples about bloodguiltiness, and not unfrequently are very cruel, for cruelty as a rule (with exceptions) mostly proceeds from thoughtlessness. But when I realised what I had done, and heard the wretched man groan, I was seized with remorse for what, at a more hardened stage, I should have excused on the score of duty.

It was during this blockade that the accident, which I have already alluded to, befell my dear protector, Jack Johnson.

One night, during his and my middle watch, the forecastle sentries hailed a large sampan, like a Thames barge, drifting down stream and threatening to foul us. Sir Frederick Nicholson, the officer of the watch, ordered Johnson to take the cutter and tow her clear.

I begged leave to go with him. Sir Frederick refused, for he at once suspected mischief. The sampan was reached and diverted just before she swung athwart our bows. But scarcely was this achieved, when an explosion took place. My friend was knocked over, and one or two of the men fell back into the cutter. This is what had happened: Johnson finding no one in the sampan, cautiously raised one of the deck hatches with a boat-hook before he left the cutter. The mine (for such it proved) was so arranged that examination of this kind drew a lighted match on to the magazine, which instantly exploded.

Poor Jack! what was my horror when we got him on board! Every trace of his handsome features was gone. He was alive, and that seemed to be all. In a few minutes his head and face swelled so that all was a round black charred ball. One could hardly see where the eyes were, buried beneath the powder-ingrained and incrusted flesh.

For weeks, at night, I used to sit on a chest near his hammock, listening for his slightest movement, too happy if he called me for something I could get him. In time he recovered, and was invalided home, and I lost my dear companion and protector. A couple of years afterwards I had the happiness to dine with him on board another ship in Portsmouth, no longer in the midshipman’s berth, but in the wardroom.

Twice during this war, the ‘Blonde’ was caught in a typhoon. The first time was in waters now famous, but then unknown, the Gulf of Liau-tung, in full sight of China’s great wall. We were twenty-four hours battened down, and under storm staysails. The ‘Blenheim,’ with Captain Elliott our plenipotentiary on board, was with us, and the one circumstance left in my memory is the sight of a line-of-battle ship rolling and pitching so that one caught sight of the whole of her keel from stem to stern as if she had been a fishing smack. We had been wintering in the Yellow Sea, and at the time I speak of were on a foraging expedition round the Liau-tung peninsula. Those who have followed the events of the Japanese war will have noticed on the map, not far north of Ta-lien-wan in the Korean Bay, three groups of islands. So little was the geography of these parts then known, that they had no place on our charts. On this very occasion, one group was named after Captain Elliott, one was called the Bouchier Islands, and the other the Blonde Islands. The first surveying of the two latter groups, and the placing of them upon the map, was done by our naval instructor, and he always took me with him as his assistant.

Our second typhoon was while we were at anchor in Hong Kong harbour. Those who have knowledge only of the gales, however violent, of our latitudes, have no conception of what wind-force can mount to. To be the toy of it is enough to fill the stoutest heart with awe. The harbour was full of transports, merchant ships, opium clippers, besides four or five men-of-war, and a steamer belonging to the East India Company—the first steamship I had ever seen.

The coming of a typhoon is well known to the natives at least twenty-four hours beforehand, and every preparation is made for it. Boats are dragged far up the beach; buildings even are fortified for resistance. Every ship had laid out its anchors, lowered its yards, and housed its topmasts. We had both bowers down, with cables paid out to extreme length. The danger was either in drifting on shore or, what was more imminent, collision. When once the tornado struck us there was nothing more to be done; no men could have worked on deck. The seas broke by tons over all; boats beached as described were lifted from the ground, and hurled, in some instances, over the houses. The air was darkened by the spray.

But terrible as was the raging of wind and water, far more awful was the vain struggle for life of the human beings who succumbed to it. In a short time almost all the ships except the men-of-war, which were better provided with anchors, began to drift from their moorings. Then wreck followed wreck. I do not think the ‘Blonde’ moved; but from first to last we were threatened with the additional weight and strain of a drifting vessel. Had we been so hampered our anchorage must have given way. As a single example of the force of a typhoon, the ‘Phlegethon’ with three anchors down, and engines working at full speed, was blown past us out of the harbour.

One tragic incident I witnessed, which happened within a few fathoms of the ‘Blonde.’ An opium clipper had drifted athwart the bow of a large merchantman, which in turn was almost foul of us. In less than five minutes the clipper sank. One man alone reappeared on the surface. He was so close, that from where I was holding on and crouching under the lee of the mainmast I could see the expression of his face. He was a splendidly built man, and his strength and activity must have been prodigious. He clung to the cable of the merchantman, which he had managed to clasp. As the vessel reared between the seas he gained a few feet before he was again submerged. At last he reached the hawse-hole. Had he hoped, in spite of his knowledge, to find it large enough to admit his body? He must have known the truth; and yet he struggled on. Did he hope that, when thus within arms’ length of men in safety, some pitying hand would be stretched out to rescue him—a rope’s end perhaps flung out to haul him inboard? Vain desperate hope! He looked upwards: an imploring look. Would Heaven be more compassionate than man? A mountain of sea towered above his head; and when again the bow was visible, the man was gone for ever.

Before taking leave of my seafaring days, I must say one word about corporal punishment. Sir Thomas Bouchier was a good sailor, a gallant officer, and a kind-hearted man; but he was one of the old school. Discipline was his watchword, and he endeavoured to maintain it by severity. I dare say that, on an average, there was a man flogged as often as once a month during the first two years the ‘Blonde’ was in commission. A flogging on board a man-of-war with a ‘cat,’ the nine tails of which were knotted, and the lashes of which were slowly delivered, up to the four dozen, at the full swing of the arm, and at the extremity of lash and handle, was very severe punishment. Each knot brought blood, and the shock of the blow knocked the breath out of a man with an involuntary ‘Ugh!’ however stoically he bore the pain.

I have seen many a bad man flogged for unpardonable conduct, and many a good man for a glass of grog too much. My firm conviction is that the bad man was very little the better; the good man very much the worse. The good man felt the disgrace, and was branded for life. His self-esteem was permanently maimed, and he rarely held up his head or did his best again. Besides which—and this is true of all punishment—any sense of injustice destroys respect for the punisher. Still I am no sentimentalist; I have a contempt for, and even a dread of, sentimentalism. For boy housebreakers, and for ruffians who commit criminal assaults, the rod or the lash is the only treatment.

A comic piece of insubordination on my part recurs to me in connection with flogging. About the year 1840 or 1841, a midshipman on the Pacific station was flogged. I think the ship was the ‘Peak.’ The event created some sensation, and was brought before Parliament. Two frigates were sent out to furnish a quorum of post-captains to try the responsible commander. The verdict of the court-martial was a severe reprimand. This was, of course, nuts to every midshipman in the service.

Shortly after it became known I got into a scrape for laughing at, and disobeying the orders of, our first-lieutenant—the head of the executive on board a frigate. As a matter of fact, the orders were ridiculous, for the said officer was tipsy. Nevertheless, I was reported, and had up before the captain. ‘Old Tommy’ was, or affected to be, very angry. I am afraid I was very ‘cheeky.’ Whereupon Sir Thomas did lose his temper, and threatened to send for the boatswain to tie me up and give me a dozen—not on the back, but where the back leaves off. Undismayed by the threat, and mindful of the episode of the ‘Peak’ (?) I looked the old gentleman in the face, and shrilly piped out, ‘It’s as much as your commission is worth, sir.’ In spite of his previous wrath, he was so taken aback by my impudence that he burst out laughing, and, to hide it, kicked me out of the cabin.

After another severe attack of fever, and during a long convalescence, I was laid up at Macao, where I enjoyed the hospitality of Messrs. Dent and of Messrs. Jardine and Matheson. Thence I was invalided home, and took my passage to Bombay in one of the big East India tea-ships. As I was being carried up the side in the arms of one of the boatmen, I overheard another exclaim: ‘Poor little beggar. He’ll never see land again!’

The only other passenger was Colonel Frederick Cotton, of the Madras Engineers, one of a distinguished family. He, too, had been through the China campaign, and had also broken down. We touched at Manila, Batavia, Singapore, and several other ports in the Malay Archipelago, to take in cargo. While that was going on, Cotton, the captain, and I made excursions inland. Altogether I had a most pleasant time of it till we reached Bombay.

My health was now re-established; and after a couple of weeks at Bombay, where I lived in a merchant’s house, Cotton took me to Poonah and Ahmadnagar; in both of which places I stayed with his friends, and messed with the regiments. Here a copy of the ‘Times’ was put into my hands; and I saw a notice of the death of my father.

After a fortnight’s quarantine at La Valetta, where two young Englishmen—one an Oxford man—shared the same rooms in the fort with me, we three returned to England; and (I suppose few living people can say the same) travelled from Naples to Calais before there was a single railway on the Continent.

At the end of two months’ leave in England I was appointed to the ‘Caledonia,’ flagship at Plymouth. Sir Thomas Bouchier had written to the Admiral, Sir Edward Codrington, of Navarino fame (whose daughter Sir Thomas afterwards married), giving me ‘a character.’ Sir Edward sent for me, and was most kind. He told me I was to go to the Pacific in the first ship that left for South America, which would probably be in a week or two; and he gave me a letter to his friend, Admiral Thomas, who commanded on that station.

About this time, and for a year or two later, the relations between England and America were severely strained by what was called ‘the Oregon question.’ The dispute was concerning the right of ownership of the mouth of the Columbia river, and of Vancouver’s Island. The President as well as the American people took the matter up very warmly; and much discretion was needed to avert the outbreak of hostilities.

In Sir Edward’s letter, which he read out and gave to me open, he requested Admiral Thomas to put me into any ship ‘that was likely to see service’; and quoted a word or two from my dear old captain Sir Thomas, which would probably have given me a lift.

The prospect before me was brilliant. What could be more delectable than the chance of a war? My fancy pictured all sorts of opportunities, turned to the best account—my seniors disposed of, and myself, with a pair of epaulets, commanding the smartest brig in the service.

Alack-a-day! what a climb down from such high flights my life has been. The ship in which I was to have sailed to the west was suddenly countermanded to the east. She was to leave for China the following week, and I was already appointed to her, not even as a ‘super.’

My courage and my ambition were wrecked at a blow. The notion of returning for another three years to China, where all was now peaceful and stale to me, the excitement of the war at an end, every port reminding me of my old comrades, visions of renewed fevers and horrible food—were more than I could stand.

I instantly made up my mind to leave the Navy. It was a wilful, and perhaps a too hasty, impulse. But I am impulsive by nature; and now that my father was dead, I fancied myself to a certain extent my own master. I knew moreover, by my father’s will, that I should not be dependent upon a profession. Knowledge of such a fact has been the ruin of many a better man than I. I have no virtuous superstitions in favour of poverty—quite the reverse—but I am convinced that the rich man, who has never had to earn his position or his living, is more to be pitied and less respected than the poor man whose comforts certainly, if not his bread, have depended on his own exertions.

My mother had a strong will of her own, and I could not guess what line she might take. I also apprehended the opposition of my guardians. On the whole, I opined a woman’s heart would be the most suitable for an appeal ad misericordiam. So I pulled out the agony stop, and worked the pedals of despair with all the anguish at my command.

‘It was easy enough for her to revel in luxury and consign me to a life worse than a convict’s. But how would she like to live on salt junk, to keep night watches, to have to cut up her blankets for ponchos (I knew she had never heard the word, and that it would tell accordingly), to save her from being frozen to death? How would she like to be mast-headed when a ship was rolling gunwale under? As to the wishes of my guardians, were their feelings to be considered before mine? I should like to see Lord Rosebery or Lord Spencer in my place! They’d very soon wish they had a mother who &c. &c.’

When my letter was finished I got leave to go ashore to post it. Feeling utterly miserable, I had my hair cut; and, rendered perfectly reckless by my appearance, I consented to have what was left of it tightly curled with a pair of tongs. I cannot say that I shared in any sensible degree the pleasure which this operation seemed to give to the artist. But when I got back to the ship the sight of my adornment kept my messmates in an uproar for the rest of the afternoon.

Whether the touching appeal to my mother produced tears, or of what kind, matters little; it effectually determined my career. Before my new ship sailed for China, I was home again, and in full possession of my coveted freedom as a civilian.