Читать книгу Men Against the Sea – Book Set - James Norman Hall - Страница 48

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On the first of October we cast anchor in Batavia Road, near a Dutch man-of-war. More than a score of East Indiamen were riding there, as well as a great fleet of native prows. The captain went ashore at once, to call on Mr. Englehard, the Sabandar—an officer with whom all strangers are obliged to transact their business; and on the same evening we were informed that we might lodge at an hotel, the only place in the city where foreigners are permitted to reside.

The climate of Batavia is one of the most unwholesome in the world. The miasmatic effluvia which rise from the river during the night bring on an intermittent fever, or paludism, often of great severity, accompanied by unendurable headaches. Weakened by our privations, some of us fell immediate victims to this disorder, which was to cost Lenkletter and Elphinstone their lives. The hotel, where I resided with the other officers, though situated in what is considered a healthy quarter of the city, and near the river bank, was intolerably hot, and so ill arranged for a free circulation of air that a man in robust health must soon have succumbed to its stifling rooms.

After one night in this place, Mr. Bligh was taken with a fever so violent that I feared for his life. I was unable to attend him, since I was suffering from a fever as well as from the ulcer on my leg, and Mr. Aansorp, head surgeon of the town hospital, was sent for. By administering bark of Peru and wine, this skillful physician so improved Captain Bligh that within a day he was able once more to transact the pressing business on his hands.

We had been four days at the hotel when Mr. Sparling, Surgeon-General of Java, had the kindness to invite Captain Bligh and me to be his guests at the seamen’s hospital, on an island in the river, three or four miles from the town. This hospital is a model of its kind, large enough to accommodate fifteen hundred men. The sick receive excellent care and attention, and the wards are scrupulously clean. Mr. Sparling, who had been educated in England, listened with great interest to the account of our voyage, and insisted that Captain Bligh send for those of his people who were ill. Late one afternoon I was sitting on my colleague’s shady verandah. He was smoking a long black cigarro; I lay on a settee with my bandaged leg stretched out on a stool. We were discussing the medical phases of our sufferings, Mr. Sparling expressing surprise that any man in the launch should have survived.

“You say that three of the people were forty-one days without evacuation?” he asked. “It is all but incredible!”

“So much so,” I replied, “that I hope to write a paper to be read before the College of Surgeons. What little we ate appeared to be entirely used up by our bodies.”

“It is a miracle that you are alive. But your constitutions have been too much impaired to withstand such a climate as this. I am concerned about Mr. Bligh. Should he stay long ...” He shrugged his shoulders, paused for a moment, and went on: “I have never known a man of greater determination! With such a fever, most men would be on their backs. Yet he goes daily into the town to transact his business. I have spoken to the governor. Mr. Bligh will be permitted to take passage, with two others, on the packet sailing on the sixteenth of this month.”

“You are kind indeed, sir! Mr. Bligh shared all of our sufferings, and, in addition, the entire responsibility was his. The strain had impaired his health gravely; I have feared more than once that he might leave his bones here.”

“That possibility is by no means remote,” said Sparling. “There is a high mortality here amongst Europeans. Mr. Bligh, I can see, is a man who will attend to his duty even to the serious prejudice of his health. Do what you can, Mr. Ledward, to urge upon him the necessity for caution.”

“I have, sir,” I replied; “you may be sure of that; but he cannot, or will not, take advice.”

My colleague nodded. “He’s a strong-headed man, that’s plain. I should imagine that he was a bit of a tartar on the quarter-deck?”

At that moment a Malay servant appeared in the doorway, bowed, and spoke to his master. Mr. Sparling rose.

“Captain Bligh is disembarking now,” he said, as he left me.

Presently he ushered Bligh to a chair and made a sign to the servant, who brought in a tray with glasses, and a decanter of excellent Cape Town wine.

“Let me prescribe a glass of wine,” remarked Sparling. “There is no finer tonic for men in your condition.”

“Your health, sir,” said Bligh, “and that of our kind hostess, if I may propose it. I have had a hard day in the town; your house is a haven of refuge for a weary man.”

His face was gaunt and flushed, and his eyes unnaturally bright, as he sat in one of Sparling’s long rattan chairs, wearing an ill-fitting suit of cloathes, made by a Chinese tailor in the town.

“One of your men is very low,” remarked the Surgeon-General presently; “the one we visited this morning. I fear there is little hope for him.”

“Aye—Hall,” said Bligh. “Poor fellow.”

“The flux seems deadly in these parts,” I observed.

“Yes,” said Sparling. “Few recover from the violent form of the disease. He must have eaten of some infected fruits in Coupang.”

We were silent for a time, while Bligh seemed to be brooding over some unpleasant thought.

“Ledward, I’ve had to part with the launch!” he exclaimed at last.

“You’ve sold her, sir?” I asked.

“Yes. And the schooner, too—but she meant little to me. As for the launch, though I am a poor man, I would gladly give five hundred pounds to take her home!”

“You could get no space for her on the Vlydte?”

“Not a foot! Damme! Not an inch! Not even for my six pots of plants from Timor.”

Sparling nodded. “There are never enough ships in the October fleet,” he remarked. “Every foot of space and every passage has been bespoken for months. It was only through the governor’s influence that I got passage for you and your two men. Should my wife desire to send a few gifts of native manufacture to her uncle at the Cape of Good Hope, I declare to you it would be impossible at this time!”

“I had hoped to take the launch,” said Bligh. “She should be placed in the museum of the Admiralty. A finer boat was never built! I love her, every frame and plank!”

“How did you fare at the auction?” asked Sparling.

Bligh laughed ruefully. “Damned badly!” he replied. “If I may remark upon it, sir, your method of conducting an auction strikes me as inferior to ours.”

“Yes, from the seller’s standpoint. I have attended your English auctions. Where the bids mount higher and higher, the bidders are apt to lose their heads.”

“You should have been there, Ledward,” said Bligh. “They set a high figure at first, which the auctioneer brings down gradually until someone bids. Small danger of losing one’s head when there can be only one bid! Several Dutch captains were on hand; half a dozen Malays, a Chinaman or two, and some others—God knows what they may have been! There was one Englishman present besides ourselves,—Captain John Eddie, commanding a ship from Bengal. He’d come merely to look on, not to bid. The auctioneer put up the schooner first, at two thousand rix-dollars. The figure came down to three hundred, without an offer! By God, Mr. Sparling, a Scot or a Jew would starve to death in competition with your seafaring countrymen! At three hundred, an old Chinaman showed signs of interest, casting shrewd glances at a Dutch captain standing close by. At two hundred and ninety-five, Captain Eddie raised his hand. By God! I was grateful to him for that! The price was not a third of her value, but Eddie kept those bloody sharks from getting her. It warmed my heart to see their disappointment.”

“What did the launch fetch?” I asked.

“Let us not speak of her. Cole and Peckover were with me; they felt as badly as I. If I could have left her here, in safe hands, until there was a chance to send her home ...” He sighed. “It couldn’t be arranged. It cost me dear to see her go!”

On the following day died Thomas Hall, our third loss since leaving the Bounty. He had endured manfully our hardships in the launch, only to succumb to the most dreaded of East Indian diseases. Lenkletter and Elphinstone, destined also to leave their bones in Batavia, were suffering with the same paludism that had attacked Captain Bligh.

At this time the Sabandar informed us that every officer and man must make deposition before a notary concerning the mutiny on board the Bounty, in order to authorize the government to detain her, should she venture into Dutch waters. Bligh considered this unlikely; but his determination to see the mutineers brought to justice was such that he left no contingency unprovided for.

On the morning of October sixteenth I was awakened long before daylight by sounds in Mr. Bligh’s room, next to mine. He was to be rowed down the river to go on board the Vlydte, and I could hear him, through the thin wall, directing his servant, Smith, how to pack the large camphorwood box he had purchased some days before.

In the gray light of dawn, Mr. Bligh knocked at my door and entered the room.

“Awake, Ledward?” he asked. I struggled to sit up, but he motioned me not to move.

“I’ve come to bid you good-bye,” he said.

“I wish I were sailing with you, sir!”

He laughed his short, harsh laugh. “Damme! I’m by no means sure you’re not the luckier of the two! You may have the good fortune to go home on an English ship. Yesterday I called on Captain Couvret, aboard the Vlydte; we had some talk concerning the manner of navigation. They carry no log, and scarcely steer within a quarter of a point. No wonder they frequently find themselves above ten degrees out in their reckoning! The state of discipline on board is appalling to an English seaman. It will be a miracle if we reach Table Bay; once there, I hope to transfer to an English ship.”

“Permit me to wish you a good voyage, in any case.”

At that moment Mr. Sparling called from the piazza: “Your boat is waiting, Captain Bligh!”

Bligh took my hand in a brief, warm clasp.

“Good-bye, Ledward,” he said. “Don’t fail to call on Mrs. Bligh when you reach London.”

“I shall hope to see you, too, sir.”

He shook his head. “It’s not likely. If I have my way, I shall sail for Otaheite before you reach England.”

He was gone—the finest seaman under whom I have ever had the good fortune to sail. From the bottom of my heart I wished him God Speed.