Читать книгу Gunboat and Gun-runner: A Tale of the Persian Gulf - T. T. Jeans - Страница 5

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At the time this yarn commences I was a lieutenant of four years' seniority, a "watchkeeper" aboard H.M.S. Russell, longing earnestly to see the world, but with no probable prospect of my desires being realized.

I had been serving in the Channel and Atlantic Fleets, continuously, for seven years—appointed from one ship to another, from a battleship to a destroyer, from a destroyer to an armoured cruiser, and from her to the Russell. In fact, I began to wonder whether my whole naval career was to be spent plodding round the British Islands, and the limits of my world were to be bounded by an occasional view of the coast of France, and a still more infrequent sight of the rugged headlands of Spain.

Then, by a lucky stroke of good fortune, my chance did at last come.

I happened to be on forty-eight hours' leave in London, and at my club, the "Junior", met a captain under whom I had served a year or two previously.

We talked about our former ship, and I told him how tired I was of sticking at home, and how anxious I was to see some foreign service. He jerked out, in the abrupt way he had: "Why, man, clear out!—get along to the Admiralty!—full speed!—off you go! I was talking to the Second Sea Lord not half an hour ago, and he'd just heard that a lieutenant was wanted for the Persian Gulf. Give him my card. Why, bless my rags, I haven't one!" and he scribbled his name on the back of a club envelope and hustled me out.

I found myself jumping into a hansom (there were no taxis available then as now) and driving to the Admiralty before I fully realized what I was about to do.

"No, the Second Sea Lord won't see nobody," a porter at the Admiralty told me; adding, mysteriously: "The First Lord 'as just a-been an' sent for him. You 'ad better see Mr. Copeland, 'is sec-re-tary."

I always feel overawed at the Admiralty—merely being in the same building with their "Lordships" is enough to overawe any humble lieutenant—so I meekly followed the porter into a waiting-room, pacing up and down restlessly till he came back again, beckoning me with a confidential air. "'E'll see you, if you step this way. 'E is in a middling good temper this morning—ain't 'ad many to worry 'im."

My interview with Mr. Copeland was short and sharp.

"What do you want?" he said curtly, more or less as if I was a pickpocket or a beggar asking for a penny.

"I hear there's a vacancy for a lieutenant in the Persian Gulf. I'm Martin—Paul Reginald Martin of the Russell, four years' seniority next May—and I want to go there. My late captain gave me this for the Second Sea Lord;" and I handed him the envelope with the pencil note: "Give this chap the job if you can", and his signature.

The secretary glanced at it, threw it on his desk, and looked at me suspiciously. "Yes, yes! I don't know how he came to hear of it. Collingwood, of the Bunder Abbas, has died of sunstroke. Quite right! quite right! I'll put your name down for her—if you wish."

"Please!" I said.

"Do you know what the job is?" he asked, as if, did I know, I should not be so keen to go.

"Not in the least," I answered; "and I don't mind, so long as I can get abroad and out of the Channel Fleet."

He smiled unpleasantly. "It's a patrolling job, and a lonely one."

He said this as though—officially—he ought to warn me, though—individually—he didn't care a button whether I went or not.

That gave me some idea of the job.

"The gunner's gone mad too. We'll have to send another out, I suppose—confound him!"

I could not help smiling at the idea of a mad gunner being left there.

He cut my smile short with a sharp: "I'll put your name down. Good morning!"

I backed clumsily out of the door.

"What's the Bunder Abbas?" I asked the porter outside.

"The Bunder Habbas!" he corrected me, repeating the name to give himself time to think.

"Something in the Persian Gulf?" I said, to aid his memory.

But he didn't know—none of the other porters knew; so he rang up some mysterious individual on the telephone.

"There's a gen'l'man 'ere wants to know what the Bunder Habbas his. Habbas—Bunder Habbas—hout in the Persian Gulf."

He had a slight argument about pronunciation and spelling, and then turned to me triumphantly. "She's a harmed launch, sir, that's what she his, a-looking out to stop them Arabs a-gun-running," and hastened to answer a bell, pocketing the half-crown I gave him.

I hurried away down the corridor, and was so excited that I did not notice my former captain until he tapped me on the shoulder.

"I've just come round," he said; "will see the Second Sea Lord myself—put in a word for you—thought I might fix it up at once—good luck to you if you get it."

"Thank you very much, sir," I said gratefully, and hurried out into Whitehall.

"Armed launch! Skipper of an armed launch—Collingwood dead of sunstroke—gunner gone mad," and I grinned to myself and walked along like a bird.

"Fancy getting away from all this!" I thought, and looked round at the babel of traffic and the throngs of people. Fancy getting away from the Channel Fleet for a time! I thought of my ship, the Russell, lying under Portland Bill, with other huge grey monsters; and thought of the tense readiness for war aboard them, and the strain of it, month after month. In a few weeks, with luck, I might be three thousand miles away, patrolling the Persian Gulf—free as air—with a good launch under me, and probably a 4.7-inch gun in her bows, ready to tackle any gun-running Arab dhow which came along. Prize money, too—there'd be a chance of that as well.

It was grand.

Collingwood, poor old Collingwood—I'd known him in the Britannia—dead of sunstroke, and the gunner gone mad! That didn't sound as if the job was exactly a bed of roses. But Copeland had put my name down—the die was cast; I didn't mind if the whole crew had died of sunstroke and plague combined. I rather hoped that they had, and that any other chap who applied for the Bunder Abbas would—well—feel a little less keen about her when he heard.

I didn't notice the rain or the mud splashed on my trousers from the roadway. I could have whooped with joy.

All these silly clothes my tailor bothered to make tight here or loose there, to show more or show less of the waistcoat, as silly fashion changed—why, with luck, in a month's time, a pair of flannel trousers and a cricket shirt would be all the wardrobe I should want. I'd be my own skipper, with a dozen blue-jackets, and a stout launch under us; that 4.7-inch gun—or perhaps it would be a twelve-pounder—shining in the bows under the awning. Wouldn't it shine, too! There'd be nothing much else to do but burnish it, and burnished it should be till I could shave by it.

All that afternoon I waited patiently at the club for the evening paper, and directly the waiter brought it into the smoking-room I pounced on it.

Sure enough, under "Naval Appointments" was my name—"Paul R. Martin appointed Intrepid" (she was one of the cruisers on the East Indies Station) "for armed launch Bunder Abbas".

I gave a shout of delight, which rather startled some old fogies there; and a man sitting near—a naval doctor whom I knew slightly—laughed at me, wanting to know what was the matter.

I pointed out the appointment.

"Look at that! Isn't that grand?"

"Bunder Abbas," he said, as we lay back in the luxurious chairs—they really did feel comfortable now that I was going out to the waste parts of the world. "That was Collingwood's launch. What's become of him?"

"Died of sunstroke," I told him.

"Really, now?" the doctor went on; "he's only been there three months. I knew him slightly; he relieved a chap who had beri-beri, or one of those funny tropical diseases—sometimes you swell, sometimes you do the other thing. I forget now which he did before he was invalided home. I did hear; it was quite interesting. So you're off there? Well, good luck! Are the 'footer' results in that paper?

"D'you want any tips for the Persian Gulf?" he asked presently, when he had finished reading the football news. "Whatever you like to eat, don't eat it. (You can't get it, so you needn't bother to remember that tip.) And if you want gin or whisky, or any comforts like that, chuck them over the side: they may kill the sharks; they won't kill you. In fact, my dear chap, whatever you like doing and want to do, there's only one tip to remember if you want to keep fit—don't do it!

"If you get beri-beri," he called after me as I fled, "you might let me know whether you swell or do the other thing."

I packed my bag, not in the least disturbed by anyone's gloomy remarks, and went back to my ship at Portland.

My orders came next day.

I was to take passage in a P. & O. mail steamer, sailing in twelve days' time (a luxury I never expected), and join the Intrepid at Aden, where further orders would be given me.

A fortnight later I was tumbling and churning through the "Bay" in the P. & O. Java, as happy as a king, without a care in the world.

A lieutenant named Anderson shared my cabin. He was going out to join the Intrepid as one of her watchkeepers. As, but for him, I should probably never have survived to write the account of what happened to us later on, I will give an idea of what kind of chap he was. First of all, he was known to his chums as "The Baron" or as "Baron Popple Opstein", though why these nicknames ever stuck to him I don't know.

He was a great lumbering, clumsy giant, with a long red face, a big hooked nose, and a large mouth, always smiling, and showing the whitest set of teeth I have ever seen. He had laughing blue eyes, which saw everything except people's faults, and a mop of yellow, silk-coloured hair which grew down his great red forehead in a quaint triangular patch pointing to his nose. His whole face beamed good humour and kindliness; he was the simplest, happiest soul alive—one of those men with whom it is good to live. He never did much talking, and never wanted anyone to talk much to him; but would sit smoking his old, disgracefully charred pipe, and beam by the hour, just happy to have the dancing sea under his feet and the fresh salt air in his lungs. He really was a splendid-looking fellow, but by some odd twist in his mind imagined he was ugly. This made him rather retiring and bashful. He would sooner try to stop a mad dog than be introduced to a lady. "My dear old chap," he would say, if I wanted to introduce him to one of the lady passengers, "what on earth can I talk to her about? She doesn't want to hear about scrubbing hammocks, or the gunnery manual. I can't think of anything else to talk about."

The result was that we both kept pretty much to ourselves, and amused ourselves watching the others.

There was a major on board going out to India—a fussy, conceited individual who imagined that all the ladies must be head over heels in love with him. He tried to patronize us, but we gave him the cold shoulder, and so did a little pale-faced, rather nice-looking girl about twenty-two, with hair the very same shade as the Baron's. She was not English—I could tell that by the way she talked—and she kept almost entirely to herself. I never spoke to her during the voyage, but once I overheard her snub the major in broken English, in the most deliberate, delightful manner, and as he went away, with a silly expression on his face, our eyes met. There was such an irresistibly humorous twinkle in hers that I smiled too—I really could not help it. At that her smile died away, as if ashamed of itself, her pale face flushed, and I followed the major, feeling like a naughty boy who had been caught prying.

At Port Said we picked up Mr. Thomas Scarlett—Gunner, R.N.—serving in the Jason, which was doing guardship there.

I had seen his appointment to the Bunder Abbas in the newspapers, and, as we should have to live together for the next two years, I was anxious to know what manner of man he was.

He certainly looked a queer chap, tall and thin, with stooping shoulders, bushy black eyebrows meeting across his forehead, two piercing black eyes deeply sunk beneath them, a beaked nose over very thin tight lips, and the blackest of hair, moustache, and pointed beard. He looked very much like a vulture, with his long thin neck stretching out from a low collar, much too large for him. When he talked, the words tumbled out, one after the other, so quickly that, until one became used to him, it was difficult to understand what he said.

We soon found out that he had been in the Persian Gulf many times in the course of the last few years, so Baron Popple Opstein and I used to take him along to our special corner on deck, and ask him questions. He gave us the impression that he did not wish to go out there again, and whenever he talked of the Persian Gulf and of his former experiences there he seemed nervous and very ill at ease. But, once we made him talk, his stories of pirates, pearl-fishers, slavers, and gun-runners were as absorbing as one could wish. Old Popple Opstein's face would grow purple with excitement. Mr. Scarlett, too, would often work himself into a great pitch of vehemence as he told some especially thrilling yarn.

"You might be an Arab yourself," I said one night, when he had brought a story to a climax, leaving us breathless and fascinated with his glowing, fiery description.

"I am almost, sir," he said. "My father was the constable of the Residency at Bushire, and my mother was half-Arab."

That explained his dark complexion, and why, in the middle of a yarn, he would often slide off his chair and sit Moorish fashion—cross-legged. He could always talk more easily in that attitude.

Ever since he had joined the Navy he had served, off and on, in the East, his knowledge of all the languages and different dialects of those parts, picked up when he was a boy, being so useful.

One night, four days out from Suez, we were making him tell us all he knew about gun-running. It was very warm, damp, and unpleasant, so he took off his coat. In doing so he happened to pull the shirtsleeve of his left arm above his elbow. By the light of a lantern overhead we saw something glittering round his arm. My chum peered forward to look at it, but the gunner hastily pulled his sleeve down.

"What the dickens is that?" we both asked.

First glancing fore and aft, to see that no one was near, he very reluctantly pulled up his sleeve.

He held his arm so that the lantern light fell upon it, and we saw that the thing round his arm was a small snake, marvellously enamelled—a cobra it was. The joints, even each separate scale, seemed flexible, and as he worked his muscles underneath it the snake seemed to cling more tightly to his skin, in the most horribly realistic fashion. Two greenish-tinged opal eyes blinked at us as the light overhead flickered in them.

The Baron leant forward to touch it, but Mr. Scarlett, with a sudden look of horror, shot out his right hand and clutched the Baron's hand so violently that he cried out.

"Don't touch it, sir! For God's sake, don't touch it. There's poison enough in that thing to kill a dozen men!" he gasped fiercely.

"What is it—what do you mean? Tell us!" we cried.

Some passengers coming along the deck, he instantly covered it with his sleeve.

"I generally wear a bandage over it," he said nervously. "The night was so hot that I took it off."

"Well, tell us about it," we urged him. "Where did you get it?"

"Jassim gave it to me," Mr. Scarlett answered, his black eyes burning strangely as he looked round to see that no one could overhear him. "I'll tell you when and how that snake came here. It's a long story—and a sad one. When you have heard it you will know why I do not want to go back to the Persian Gulf. But, for God's sake, sirs, don't ever mention it to a soul!"

We promised—we would have promised anything to learn its story.