Читать книгу South Sea Shipmates - John Arthur Barry - Страница 5

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The Taporina, we found, on joining her, to be a smart-looking brig of some four hundred tons or so. She was painted white, and with her clipper bow, elliptic stern, and lofty spars, bade fair to be a "goer." All about the decks were the returning "boys," each sitting close to his precious "bokkus," full of treasures that he was taking home, and all of them agog with talk and excitement at the prospect of seeing their friends once more. The brig's 'tweendecks had been fitted up for them with tiers of rough bunks, and here they swapped the contents of the "bokkusses" with one another, and squabbled and fought and danced in a style that suggested a very speedy relapse into savagery once their feet touched their native beaches again.

Phil and I were comfortable enough in the tradehouse—a very strong room built just before the break of the low poop, and empty now, as the Taporina had a cargo of copra waiting for her at Ambrym in the New Hebrides, directly she had done with her present freight. The white crew lived for'ard in a house on deck, and when we saw more of them we held ourselves lucky indeed to be by ourselves. Besides the two Loyalty Islands men who had so coolly left their skipper to sink or swim, there were four more natives belonging to Guadalcanar. These all lived together in a den under the topgallant fo'c'sle, and were employed mainly for boat work. The eight whites in the deck-house were every one of them foreigners—three Germans, two Italians, a Greek, and a couple of Spaniards. The mate was an Irishman; the second hailed from London; and the Government agent—who, before we had been forty-eight hours at sea let it be known that he was heir to a Scotch dukedom, and apparently drank up to his expectations—with the two officers and the skipper, all lived in berths opening out of the rather spacious cuddy right aft.

We had forty "returns" on board, some of whom had served two or even more terms of three years each on the Queensland plantations. And these were mostly "flash" fellows who put on a lot of side, and were apt to be unpleasantly familiar if not quickly checked. And the checking had to be done gently, or there would be trouble with the agent. Under the new regulations the most stringent rules were laid down for the treatment of recruits—indeed they were as much pampered and petted now as aforetime they had been ill-used. Nothing was easier than on a comparatively trivial complaint being made for a vessel to lose her recruiting licence, and for her agent and her captain to be heavily fined into the bargain. Completely vanished were the days and doings of the Colleen Bawn, Queen of the Isles, Carl, Nakulau, and other historical ships of iniquity; and, of course, a very good thing too, Only the happy medium had been passed, and the present Government, frightened into the opposite extreme, had gone in for too much cossetting and spoon-feeding.

And the natives knew it, and abused the knowledge.

The Taporina was, as she had seemed, a fast as well as a comfortable vessel; and, carrying light but fair winds, we were making a good passage across the Coral Sea. Phil and I were in the mate's watch—thanks to the skipper's kindness. Cubitt also took care that many an "extra" found its way to our table in the trade-house; so that, altogether, we were having a very pleasant time of it. The mates, too, were both decent fellows, and one or other of them often used to look in for a yarn during our watch below.

Mr Gordon, the agent, was also a visitor now and again; but he was a bore, and a weak one, and his family tree became a nuisance. Poor chap, if he only knew what an infliction we thought him as he prosed away about the "lives" between himself and the castle, estates and rent-roll of McGillicuddy! I can see him now as he used to sit ticking off relations and probabilities on his long white fingers, while his pale face would flush, and those moist, liquorish, weak blue eyes of his attempt to sparkle under their scanty light lashes.

Only a couple of days before we were expecting to sight the blue loom of Mount Lammas, something happened. The Guadalcanar boys, no less than thirty of whom were for neighbouring villages on the island, were already getting their "bokkusses" packed, and arraying themselves in their Sunday-go-to-meeting suits of cheap tweed, flaring red and blue shirts, boxer hats, and outrageous neckerchiefs and brummagem jewellery; scenting their wool with perfumes, and smoking their best silver-mounted pipes. A crowd of them had come on deck strutting about in full fig, and squatting and lounging in our way as we hauled up and ranged the chain cable.

In spite of repeated warnings, a big, powerful fellow called "Caboolture Tommy" would not keep clear. So, presently, tempted by the great bare feet in close proximity to him, one of the Spaniards lifted the chain he was "lighting" along, and dropped the links right across Tommy's toes.

With a howl of anguish the islander caught the sailor round the neck and tried to strangle him. I saw the man striving fruitlessly for a minute in the powerful grasp, his face turning black with the pressure. Then, all of a sudden, the Kanaka's eyes rolled horribly, and grunting, and throwing up his hands, he fell backwards, showing the wooden handle of a sheath-knife sticking out over the waistband of his new trousers, while a thin trickle of blood crawled along the white deck. For the time a man might count ten there was an utter silence, during which nobody moved. Then someone, stooping, drew forth the knife, jumping aside as he did so to avoid the red gush that followed it. But "Caboolture" only drummed faintly with his heels. Evidently he was long past praying for.

And the sight of the blood seemed to awake the savage in his comrades, for they came at us with anything they could lay their hands on—belaying pins, capstan bars, bare fists. Had they been fresh recruits we could without a doubt have mastered them; for all islanders are cowards at heart, and hate a fair fight. But these men had passed years, many of them, among Europeans, had become accustomed to their ways, and felt little fear, especially as we were unarmed.

Even against such odds, we, for a few minutes, held our own, slashing at them with the long chainhooks and driving them for'ard, while some of the crew used their knives freely, so freely that already several black forms lay stretched out like "Caboolture" in all their bravery of new attire. But the tide soon turned as the balance of the islanders came swarming up the hatchway like angry bees out of a hive, armed, too, with twelve-inch knives, tomahawks, and revolvers. These last, of course, they had no business with, it being a criminal offence to supply "returns" with such weapons. All the same many possessed them. Rotten things, no doubt, cheap and nasty, and "made in Germany"—effective enough, however, at such short range.

Phil and I were fighting alongside each other amidships, and striving with the mates to force a retreat aft through the new-comers who had cut us off from the rest of the crew and hemmed them in for'ard. A big nigger—one of our own boys—came at me, flourishing a tomahawk in one hand, grinning and yelling with anticipatory delight, and snapping a revolver he had forgotten to re-load right in my face. By this time my chain-hook was bent out of all shape—they are simply slender rods of iron with a cross-piece for a grip at one end and a hook at the other—but just as he was about to bring the long-handled "tommy" down on my head, I darted the hook with all my force at his throat, in which the sharp point catching, I dragged him to the deck, falling at the same time myself, and underneath.

He was a powerful nigger; but I had kept a good hold of my hook, and as he cursed and choked, and leant his weight on me, and felt about for his dropped axe, I joggled the point in and upwards with both hands till I felt it hit against his jawbone. Suddenly, as I stared into his ugly face, his head fell in two halves, and I was dragged to my feet, breathless and smothered in blood, but otherwise unhurt.

Phil had picked up the tomahawk and split the nigger's skull with it.

"A tight corner, Harry, old man!" he gasped. "Both mates are shot. The skipper was here just now, but I've lost the run of him. We must try and break through 'em if we can."

At a glance I saw what he meant. Between us and the poop was a crowd of niggers dancing, yelling, flourishing axes, and digging their knives into a couple of motionless forms. For'ard, right against the windlass, was a confused mass of men chopping and pounding at the deck-house where I guessed the survivors of the crew had taken refuge. There was no more shooting. Having emptied their pistols, many of the savages, confident in numbers, had preferred using the weapons that they were accustomed to.

It takes some time, all this, to write about. Actually it could not have been much more than five minutes since Pedro drove his knife to the handle below "Caboolture's" ribs. I noticed the Spaniard lying at my feet cut almost to pieces.

"We tried to charge through 'em," said Phil as we stuck close to the stern of the longboat, "but they were too thick. I thought the mates got through. They didn't, though. See, they're hacking at 'em now. They'll come for us presently, and I expect it'll be a case. Got a 'tommy'? That's right! We'll give a few of 'em gip before we go under, anyhow. I'd run aloft, like the cook, there, but it would be all the same in the end. Where's Gordon, I wonder?"

As we spoke, the agent came out of the trade-house carrying a roll of paper in his hand, and obviously far from sober. Staggering up to the group of natives, he seemed to be expostulating with them, for we saw him turn over the pages of what was doubtless a copy of the Regulations, at the same time shaking a warning finger at them. All at once the niggers closed around him, we saw the gleam of an uplifted tomahawk, and when the ring opened there lay three bodies in place of two.

"I think we ought to make a dash for it," I said. "We'll have those chaps from for'ard on to us directly." At present we were screened from these by the end of the galley, and partially from those aft by the longboat which lay right athwart the main hatch. Still, I was sure that both parties knew well we were there, and were only taking their own time before finishing us.

Our sole chance was to get aft and barricade ourselves in the cabin. And a poor chance at that!

Perched aloft on the fore-topgallant yard, I could see the cook staring down, his face like a lump of chalk. And even as I looked, revolvers began to spit at him from the fo'c'sle-head, the bullets holing the canvas sometimes of the royal above him, at others of the topgallantsail, while he ducked and bobbed in an ecstasy of fear.

"Ah, well," I thought, "better here than there, anyhow!"

It was a most beautiful day, full of sunshine, blue sky, and bluer water, and so nearly a calm that the vessel had scarce steering-way upon her, topsails and courses hanging limp and empty, and the lighter canvas only filling at intervals to collapse again almost at once. One of the Germans had been at the wheel when the row commenced, but there was no one there now, and the brig came slowly to and fell slowly off at her own sweet will.

"I think we'll rush 'em now we've got our wind, old man," said Phil. And grasping our tomahawks—in reality half-axes—we shook hands and were preparing to start when, looking aft, I saw the captain suddenly rise out of the little companion in front of the wheel and walk swiftly to the break of the poop. He carried a rifle; and I noticed that his shirt was hanging in blood-stained rags around his chest. The niggers were still chattering and shouting over the three dead men, and the skipper stepped along till he could almost touch them. Then, kneeling down and leaning his rifle over the low rail, he commenced to fire, dropping a man, and sometimes two, at each discharge, deliberately aiming into the thick.

For a minute they paused, and one fellow flung a "tommy" and missed, falling dead almost as soon as it left his hand. Then the others broke and galloped for'ard, pursued by bullets. As they passed one of them made a cut at Phil, who parried it and chopped him across the back of the neck in return, dropping him. But the rest never stopped; and leaving the shelter of the boat we ran aft, singing out to the skipper to quit shooting.

"Six I am certain of," said he grimly, rising to his feet, his eyes blazing, and his great nose all white and twitching. "If I could but have found the cartridges sooner! Are you the only ones left?"

"Except the cook, I think," answered Phil, staring aloft. But as we followed his gaze we saw that the poor fellow had been shot from the yard, and now hung doubled-up over the topmast-crosstrees, head and arms hanging on one side, legs on the other, with a helpless, relaxed look about them there was no mistaking the significance of.

"We may do them yet," shouted Phil, "if you've got plenty of ammunition, captain!"

"But I haven't," replied the other calmly, "scarcely another filling—she's a sixteen shot. I knew there must be a lot somewhere, because I ordered 'em this very trip. So, when I left you that time, I nipped down the hatchway and along aft to a door in the bulkhead I knew of, an' through it into the sail-locker an' the cabin. An', by the holy Jingo, when I found the cartridges an' undid 'em, they turned out all a size too large! What I've been using are only a few I raked together about my berth. My good God, what an awful mess we're in! Better clear below or we'll get hit." And indeed it was time to make for shelter, as revolver bullets were ping-pinging all around us.

Descending, we secured the doors looking aft, and the small companion in front of the wheel; and then, while we drank a little whisky and munched a few biscuits, we dressed each other's wounds—none of them very dangerous. The skipper had been slashed across the chest with a knife, Phil's arm was furrowed by a bullet, while I, to my surprise, found that I was bleeding from a cut in the shoulder.

"If we only had some more rifles and ammunition!" exclaimed Phil, cautiously undoing one of the after doors and peeping out.

"It's just a chance this one was here," replied the captain. "More times I've had nothin' but a shotgun, an' some trips not even that. Firearms ain't supposed to be wanted, although a few boats still carry 'em. I only wish one of 'em may come across us. It's glad I'd be to see her this minute! What are they doing now, Scott?"

"Cooking," replied Phil. "And, by Jingo, there doesn't seem to be more than half of them left. And there's lots of those badly cut about. I could pop a few off now quite easily."

"No, no," replied the skipper, "we've just ten solitary cartridges. We must keep them for the bad time comin'. Curse the fools who sent this useless stuff on board!" And he pointed with a despairing gesture to some brown-paper packets of Winchester ammunition that lay torn open on the table. "Are you sure all our poor chaps for'ard are gone?" he continued.

"Certain," replied Phil, closing the door as a bullet plopped into the woodwork. "But I think they died hard. Even Dagoes 'll fight when cornered, and I could hear enough to know that the niggers weren't having altogether a picnic of it in the fo'c'sle yonder. I say, Harry, I wish we were back again at Yarra, sinking duffers and living hard. This sort of fun doesn't seem to agree with my constitution. Fact is I'm in a blue funk."

"So'm I," I answered. "I feel worse than I did out on deck. This waiting's rotten, and I wish something would happen."

Cubitt was tossing over the contents of a big seachest, searching vainly for more cartridges, and he turned round and grinned, saying: "Don't be in such a hurry, young fellers. Somethin's sure to happen presently—bet your boots on that. Years ago I was in a tight shop with the niggers at Santa Cruz—just as bad as this one—an' only got out of it with my cheek hangin' on my shoulder." And he pointed to the big scar.