  Produced by Al Haines. [image] Cover art [Frontispiece: "I HAULED IT UP HAND OVER HAND" On Foreign Service Or, The Santa Cruz Revolution BY STAFF SURGEON T. T. JEANS, R.N. Author of "Mr. Midshipman Glover, R.N." ILLUSTRATED BY WILLIAM RAINEY, R.I. BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED Preface This story is based on experiences, of my own, in various parts of the world, and describes a Revolution in a South American Republic, and the part played by two armoured cruisers whilst protecting British interests. It describes life aboard a modern man-of-war, and attempts to show how the command of the sea exercises a controlling influence on the issue of land operations. As the proof sheets have been read by several officers of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and many suggestions and corrections made, the naval portion of the story may be taken to give an accurate description of the incidents narrated.
Contents CHAP.
Illustrations CHAPTER I Ordered to Santa Cruz Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, R.N. Only eight months ago Ginger Hood and I had been midshipmen aboard the old Vengeance, and of course had spent most of our time, in her, trying to get to windward of her sub, pull his leg, and dodge any job of work which came along. Now the boot was on the other leg, for we were sub-lieutenants ourselves—he in the Hercules, I in the Hector, with gun-rooms of our own to boss, and as we'd only been at the job for a month, you can guess that we hadn't quite settled down yet, and felt jolly much like fish out of water. The Hector and Hercules were two big armoured cruisers, as like as two peas, and they had come straight out from England to Gibraltar to work up for their first gunnery practices. For the last ten days they had been lying inside the New Mole waiting for a strong south-easter to blow itself out, and we had taken the opportunity of trying to make our two gun-rooms friendly; for, as a matter of fact, they hated each other like poison, his mids. taking every opportunity of being rude to mine, and mine to his. These rows were always reported to us, and if we hadn't been such chums, I do believe that we, too, should have fallen out. If a Hercules mid. came aboard the Hector on duty, my chaps would let him wear his legs out on the quarterdeck for hours sooner than ask him down below, and you can guess that they were just as kind aboard the Hercules if any of my mids. had to go aboard her. I had sixteen of the beauties in my gun-room to look after, and Ginger had fifteen; if his were more bother to him than mine were to me, I don't wonder he thought that his hair was turning grey. Never did they meet ashore without a free fight or some trouble or another cropping up. The row had started on board the Cornwall, where they had all been together as cadets, over some wretched boat-race. The winning crew had used racing oars, which the second boat's crew either hadn't had the savvy to get, or didn't find out till too late that they might have used. However it was, there had been a glorious row at the time, and as some of my mids. had pulled in the losing boat and some of Ginger's in the winning one, both gun-rooms still kept the feud going. Ginger and I thought that the best way to patch up their quarrel was to make them play matches against each other, and this we had done—'soccer,' hockey, and cricket on the dockyard ground, and a 'rugger' game on the North Front. There wasn't the slightest improvement. I had jawed my chaps till I was tired, and Ginger had jawed his, without the least effect; and now they'd just spoilt what might have been a grand game of hockey by squabbling all the time, claiming fouls, and 'sticks,' and nonsense like that, every other minute. The game had been so unpleasant that Ginger and I were thankful when it was finished, slipped on our coats and watched our two teams quarrelling and taunting each other as they left the ground in two separate groups. 'Look at the young fools, Billums!' Ginger said angrily. 'Did you ever see anything so perfectly idiotic?' 'Come along up to the Club,' I said savagely. 'We'll have some tea. It makes one feel perfectly hopeless. I'd like to cane the whole crowd of them.' Up we went together, and found the Captains and a number of the ward-room fellows from the two ships lying back in the wicker chairs on the verandah, basking in the sun and waiting for afternoon tea. As we came up the steps, they sang out to know which gun-room had won. 'Hercules won, sir,' I told our Skipper, Captain Grattan. 'Won by four to two.' 'Tut, tut, boy! What's that now? Still one game ahead, ain't you?' 'No, sir, we're all square.' 'Well, beat 'em next time, lad.' A jolly chap our Skipper was—short and plump and untidy, with a merry twinkle spreading over his funny old face, all wrinkled up with the strain of keeping his eyeglass in place. Everybody knew him as 'Old Tin Eye,' and he was so jolly unaffected that nobody could help liking him. As we leant our hockey sticks up against the railings and sat down in the corner, we could hear him chaffing Captain Roger Hill, the tall, thin, beautifully dressed Skipper of the Hercules, and could jolly well see by the way he fidgeted in his chair that he didn't like it a little bit. Old Tin Eye would call him 'Spats,' and he didn't like it in public, and squirmed lest we inferior mortals should hear of it. I don't suppose he knew that nobody ever did call him anything but 'Spats.' You see, he never went ashore without white canvas spats over his boots, and they were very conspicuous. Our Fleet Surgeon, Watson—a morose kind of chap—and Molineux, the Fleet Surgeon of the Hercules, stopped talking 'shop' to ask Ginger how many goals he'd scored (Ginger was the terror of his team); and Montague, our Gunnery Lieutenant, and Barton, their gunnery-man, left off talking about the coming gun-layers' 'test' to ask us if the gun-rooms had made up their row. 'No such luck, sir,' we said. 'They're worse, if anything.' Whilst we were having our tea, one of the Club 'boys' brought along the little Gib. paper, and of course our Skipper had first turn. 'Cheer up, Spats, old boy!' he sang out loudly enough for every one to hear—he loved tormenting Captain Roger Hill; 'there's trouble in Santa Cruz again. Old Canilla, the President, has collared half-a-dozen Englishmen belonging to the Yucan Rubber Company, and won't give 'em up. If you've got any shares in it you'd better sell them.' 'Hello,' I sang out to Ginger. 'I've got a brother out there. He's supposed to be rubber-planting, but I'll bet he spends most of his time teaching his natives to bowl leg breaks at him. Hope they haven't collared him—I'm sorry for them if they have.' We saw the telegrams ourselves later on, but there wasn't any more information. Old Gerald, my brother, didn't belong to the Yucan Company, and we forgot all about it because there was a much more exciting telegram above this one. The United Services had beaten Blackheath by fifteen points to five—a jolly sight more exciting that was, especially as I had played for the U.S. this season before we left England, and knew all the chaps playing on our side. Well, that night I had the middle watch, and whilst the Angel and Cousin Bob (you don't know who they are yet, but you precious soon will) were making my cocoa, the light at the Europa Signal Station began flashing our number. I telephoned to the fore-bridge to smarten up the signalman, and ask what the dickens he meant by being asleep; and then, just for practice, and for something to do, leant up against the quarterdeck rails and took in the signal. 'Admiral Superintendent to Captain Grattan. Coal lighters will come alongside at daybreak. (Full stop.) Both Hector and Hercules will fill up with coal and water as soon as possible, and will complete with ten days' fresh provisions. (Full stop.)' A second or two later the signalman came running up with his signal-pad, and, not having the faintest idea what was in the wind, I took it down to the Skipper. I had to shake him before he would wake; and when he sat up in his bunk, found his eyeglass, tucked it into his eye, and read the signal, he chuckled, 'Tut, tut, boy; we're off somewhere—finish gunnery. Won't old Montague be sick of life? Show it to the Commander, and repeat it to old "Spats"—I mean Captain Roger Hill.' As I was tapping at the Commander's door, Cousin Bob and the Angel came along, and I knew they were up to some dodge, for I could see them grinning in the light of the gangway lantern. 'Couldn't you let us off watch, as we've got to coal early to-morrow? Your cocoa's just inside the battery door,' they asked me as I went in. The Commander was out of bed like a redshank, read the signal, and gave me his orders for the morning. 'Can I let Temple and Sparks turn in, sir, as we're coaling early?' 'Confound them! I suppose they'd better, the young rascals. Turn the light off as you go out, and for heaven's sake make that lumbering ox of a sentry outside my cabin take his boots off.' I looked round to find the two mids., but they'd taken the leave for granted and gone below, so I drank my cocoa and finished my watch by myself. I may as well tell you about the two young beauties. Bob Temple was, unfortunately for me, my cousin—a scraggy, freckled, untidy midshipman, who hadn't the brains to get into mischief, or to get out of it again, but for his pal the Angel. What had made them chum together I don't know, for the Angel (Tommy Sparks) was the exact opposite of Bob—as spruce and ladylike a chap as you ever saw, always beautifully neat and clean, with a face like a girl's, light hair, and blue eyes. He looked as though butter couldn't possibly melt in his mouth, and devoted every moment when he wasn't asleep or eating to getting himself and my dear young cousin into a scrape. It was one of his latest efforts which had cost them watch and watch for three days, and that was why they were keeping the 'middle' with me that night; so you can guess why they were so keen on the coaling signal, and had streaked down below. It didn't matter to me a tinker's curse how many watches the Angel kept, but with Cousin Bob it mattered a good deal. His people looked on me as his bear-leader, and every time he got into a row sooner or later I heard about it from them, or from his sister Daisy. I'm hanged if you are going to hear any more about her, except that she used to think me a brute whenever his leave was stopped, or he had 'watch and watch,' and put it all down to me. I hadn't had to cane him yet, but I knew that would have to happen sooner or later, and I guessed that when it did happen, she'd write me a pretty good 'snorter.' Don't think that Bob would peach—not he, intentionally—but I knew exactly what he'd write home—something like this: 'The Angel sends his love—he and I cheeked the Padre at school yesterday—we had awful fun—old Billums (that was I) caned the two of us after evening quarters. This morning we both pretended we couldn't sit down, and groaned when we tried to, till the Padre went for old Billums for laying it on so hard. We've got our leave stopped for trying to catch rats on the booms with a new trap which the Angel has invented. The Commander caught his foot in it. You should have heard him curse.' That was the kind of thing that used to go home, and his father and mother, and my mother too, to say nothing of Daisy, put it all down to me. I had to turn the hands 'out' at seven bells, to rig coaling screens, the whips, and all the other gear for coaling, turned over my watch to the fat marine subaltern who relieved me, and got a couple of hours' sleep before the coal lighters bumped alongside. It was a case of being as nippy as fleas after that, because we had to beat the Hercules. You should have seen the Angel and Cousin Bob in blue overalls, with white cap covers pulled down over their heads, digging out for daylight down in my coal lighter among the foretopmen, all of them as black as niggers, shovelling coal into baskets, passing them up the side, dodging the lumps of coal which fell out of them and the empty baskets thrown back from the ship. There wasn't much of the Angel left about either of them then. At the end of the first hour we'd got in 215 tons, and as the little numeral pendants 2-0-7 ran up to the Hercules foreyard-arm to show how many tons she had taken in, our chaps cheered. We'd beaten her by eight tons. 'I bet she cheated even then,' I heard Bob tell his chum. We were still a ton or two to the good after the second hour, and then the 'still' was sounded in both ships, and every one went to breakfast. You should have been there to have seen us in our coaling rigs—simply a mass of coal dust and looking like a lot of Christy Minstrels—squatting on the deck outside the gun-room, and stuffing down sardines with our dirty hands, every one talking and shouting and as merry as pigs in a sty. Even young Marchant, the new clerk, had got into a coaling rig of sorts and worked like a horse—he was so keen to beat the hated Hercules. I gave them all a quarter of an hour to stuff themselves, and then down we clambered into the lighters again and began filling baskets—nobody, not even the Angel, shirking a job like this, when there was the chance of getting even with the Hercules. The men came struggling down after us, long before the breakfast half-hour was finished, and we could see the Hercules' people swarming down into her lighters as well. In all the lighters we must have had sixty tons or more in baskets before the bugler sounded the commence, the ship's band upon the booms banged out 'I'm afraid to go home in the dark,' the drum doing most of it; the men began cheering and singing the chorus, and the baskets began streaming on board again. By the end of the fourth hour we were as hard at it as ever, but then Commander Robinson—we didn't care for him much, as he was such a bully—began bellowing at us, because the Hercules was fifteen tons ahead. We could hear her chaps cheering. The band banged out again 'Yip-i-addy,' and the Skipper, with his eyeglass tucked in his eye and his long hair straggling over his neck, walked round the upper deck singing down to the lighters, 'Go it, lads, we must beat 'em.' Down in my lighter the men were working like demons. They looked like demons too, got up in all sorts of queer rigs, and only stopping to take a drink from the mess tins of oatmeal water which the 'Scorp'[#] lighterman ladled out for them. [#] Natives of Gibraltar are often called 'Scorps' (Rock Scorpions). 'Look out how you're trimming your lighter, Wilson,' the Commander had bellowed. 'Aye, aye, sir,' I shouted back, but never thought what he really meant—thought he meant we weren't working hard enough. 'We can't do no more 'ardly,' Pat O'Leary, the captain of the foretop, panted. 'The foretop men be pulling their pound—anyway, sir,' and he seized basket after basket and hove them on the platform rigged half-way up the ship's side, doing the work of three men. 'Keep it up, foretop,' I shouted, shovelling for all I was worth, Bob and the Angel keeping me busy with empty baskets. Then there was a warning shout from up above, a lot of chaps cried, 'Look out, sir!' and, before I knew what had happened, I was in the water, all my chaps were in the water, the lighter had turned turtle, and twenty or more tons of good coal was sinking to the bottom of the harbour. The first thing I thought was, 'We can't beat them now,' knew it was my fault, and felt a fool. The Commander was bellowing for me to come aboard, and Bob and the Angel, with their faces rather cleaner and bursting with laughter, were bobbing alongside me. Then O'Leary spluttered out that the 'Scorp' lighterman was missing, and we both up with our feet and dived down to find him. The water was so thick with coal dust that we couldn't see a foot away from us, but O'Leary touched him as he was coming up for breath and brought him to the surface, pretty well full of water and frightened out of his wits, though otherwise none the worse. I did feel a fool if you like. What had happened was that we had dug away all the coal on one side, and I had never noticed—I was so excited—that the lighter was gradually heeling over, till over she went—upside down. The band had stopped, the whole of the coaling had stopped, the men looking over the side to see if any of us had been drowned, till the Commander, hoarse with shouting, shrieked for them to carry on again, whilst we clambered up the ship's side like drowned rats, O'Leary helping the lighterman. Well, there wasn't the faintest chance of our beating the Hercules now. Every one knew it, everyone slacked off, and there was no more cheering and shouting of choruses. It was my stupidity that had spoilt everything. The only thing that I could give as an excuse was that I'd never been in charge of a coal lighter before, but I jolly well knew that the Commander would say, 'And I'll take care you never have charge again,' so I kept quiet whilst he stormed at me, shouting that he'd make me pay for the twenty tons. When he was out of breath, he took me, dripping with coal water, to the Captain, who was very angry and very disappointed about the Hercules part of it, but he hated the Commander bellowing at people, so wasn't as severe as he might have been. He sent me away to right the lighter, and it took us—me and the foretop men—a couple of hours to do it, fixing ropes round her under water. We shouldn't have done it even then hadn't Stevens—one of the Engineer Lieutenants and a chum of mine—switched on the current to the electric fore capstan, and we hauled her round with this. Another loaded lighter had been brought off from the shore to make up for the coal I'd tipped into the harbour, and then we were sent to empty her, whilst the rest of the ship's company sat with their feet dangling over the side, jeering at us. By the time we had finished we were all in a pretty bad temper, all except O'Leary, who kept up his 'pecker' till the last basket had been filled and hauled up the side. 'I ought to have told you—anyway, sir; I've coaled from lighters time enough to have known better,' he said, trying to buck me up. I reported myself to the Commander, had another burst of angry bellowing from him, and then every one had to clean ship. Bob and the Angel were shivering close to me, so I sent them down below to get out of their wet things, but they were up again in a couple of seconds, and could hardly speak for excitement. 'We're off to Santa Cruz. They've collared a steamer as well as those Englishmen, and we're off to give 'em beans. Isn't that ripping?' It jolly well was, but the youngsters had had just about enough of working in their wet clothes, and were shaking with cold, so I sent them down again and went on with my job—it didn't make any difference whether hoses were turned on me or not, I was so wet. Presently, old Bill Perkins, our First Lieutenant, came limping along, his jolly old red face beaming all over. 'Never mind, Wilson, we'll beat 'em another time; lucky none of you were hurt or drowned.' He saw that I too was about blue with cold, and took my job whilst I changed into dry things. Old Ginger came over after dinner from the Hercules. 'They're having a sing-song in the gun-room, but I thought I'd give you a look up,' he told me—'awfully sorry about the lighter business.' Of course he'd come across to cheer me, and he did too, both of us talking twenty to the dozen about Santa Cruz and the chances of our having a 'scrap.' My chaps presently started a bit of a jamberee, old Ginger singing a couple of songs and joining in the choruses. We were just beginning to forget all about the coaling, when a signalman came down and handed Barton, the senior mid., a signal. 'Senior Midshipman, Hercules, to Ditto, Hector.—Hope none of you are any the worse for your nice little swim.' The mids. were too angry to speak for a minute, and then the storm burst, and they called the Hercules gun-room all the names they could lay hold of, old Ginger looking very uncomfortable, and very angry too. 'Never mind, Billums,' he said. 'We've done our best to make 'em friends, and they won't be,' and then sang out, 'Gentlemen, I apologise for that signal—don't answer it—its beastly rude, and I'll cane the senior midshipman to-morrow morning.' There was no more sing-song after that, old Ginger went back to his ship as angry as we were, and I turned in, knowing jolly well that my chaps would hate Ginger's all the more, and that Ginger beating the senior mid. would only make things worse. 'Let's hope we get mixed up in a 'scrap' or two out in Santa Cruz,' Ginger had said as he went away, and I knew that that was about the only thing that would do the trick and make them friends. That was a bad day's work for me. I'd shown myself a fool, the Commander wouldn't forget my carelessness for months, and the Skipper would feel he couldn't trust me. That made me want to kick myself. CHAPTER II A Revolution Imminent Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, R.N. Early next morning, just as the sun was lighting up the signal station at the top of the Rock, we and the Hercules slipped from our buoys and shoved off into the Atlantic, the Hercules two cables astern of us. We rounded Tarifa Lighthouse; the jolly old Rock, sticking up like an old tooth, was hidden by the Spanish mountains; we saw the white walls of Tangier under the snow-capped Atlas mountains, on the African side, and then we began to tumble about merrily in the open Atlantic. The Hector wasn't still for a minute at a time, and my mids. had something else to think about than the latest Hercules gun-room insult. Most of them felt pretty 'chippy,' though of course it had nothing to do with us rolling and pitching. Rather not! None of them were seasick, perfectly absurd! They were only a little out of sorts; didn't want any breakfast, or got rid of what they did eat pretty rapidly; much preferred lying down in a corner inside the battery screen, out of the wind, and took a deal of 'rousting' out of it before they'd do their job. For all that, they'd have been awfully angry if any one had suggested that they were seasick. The gun-room messman had given us the strongest of kippers for breakfast that morning—this was his idea of a joke—and as we couldn't keep a single scuttle open, and there was practically no ventilation in the gun-room, you can imagine that you could almost cut the atmosphere with a knife. [image] The Hector and the Hercules Pearson, the A.P., the engineer sub, Raynor, and I were alone in our glory when we began tackling the messman's kippers; but soon the mids. came along, and it was worth a fortune to watch them put their heads inside the gun-room, take a 'sniff,' and go away again. Presently Bob and the Angel came dashing down, and we three chuckled as they rushed in, got a breath of it, stopped dead in their tracks, pretended they didn't mind, and sat down as near the door as they could get. We watched them 'peck' a bit, Bob's freckles showed up more than ever, the Angel looked perfectly green, and they were both as silent as mummies. The ship gave a big roll to starboard, a green sea slapped over the glass scuttles and darkened the whole gun-room; there was a crash of crockery smashing in the pantry; Bob and the Angel grabbed their plates, back the old Hector tumbled to port; Bob's coffee-cup slid gracefully into his lap—he could stick to it no longer—and rushed away. The Angel lasted another lurch, but that finished him. 'Afraid I—caught—cold—in the water—yesterday—afraid Bob did too—I'm not—very hungry—I'll see what's the matter with Bob,' he gulped, swallowing every word; and, clapping his hand over his mouth, he disappeared after his chum. More than half the mids. never ventured further than the gun-room flat, where they caught the first whiff of kipper, and those who did, didn't stay long. 'We'd get a fine mess surplus if they'd only keep like it,' the A.P. grinned; 'but, confound them, they won't.' 'They'd enjoy an hour down in the engine-room now. Wouldn't they?' Raynor chuckled. Of course they were as right as a trivet in a couple of days, and you may bet that they made up for those lost meals. Every one on board expected that there might be a bit of a scrap when we got across to Santa Cruz, and you can guess how we got hold of Brassey's Naval Annual and Jane's Fighting Ships to see if Santa Cruz had any ships good enough to give us a show. They hadn't; that was the worst of it. Three or four miserable out-of-date cruisers, half-a-dozen gunboats, and a couple of torpedo boats built in the year one. There certainly was a cruiser building for them at Newcastle, a ship named La Buena Presidente, a big monster like our latest cruisers, and even bigger and more powerful than the Hector herself; but Raynor had seen her in the Tyne since she was launched, knew all about her, and was certain that she couldn't be ready inside six months. 'What a pity they didn't wait till they'd got her!' Bob said, with his mouth open. And that was about what we all thought. Still, though there wasn't likely to be any sport with their wretched Navy, we might have to bombard a fort or two, which would be good enough business; and, more exciting even than that, we might have to send a landing-party ashore. We didn't waste much time all these eight days we were at sea, the Commander, Bill Perkins, and Montague, the Gunnery Lieutenant, slapping round, from morning to night for all they were worth. The marines, three companies of seamen, two field-guns' and two maxim-guns' crews, and a stretcher party of stokers were told off to land. Their leather gear, haversacks, water-bottles, and rolled-up blankets were all got ready, hung over their rifles in the racks, and, morning and evening, we made an evolution of 'falling in' on the quarterdeck and fo'c'stle, and getting on our gear in double quick time. Ten of my sixteen mids. were told off to land, and were as happy as fleas in a blanket, fitting their leather gear and sharpening their dirks all day long, and thinking about what they'd do when they got ashore half the night. Marchant, the young clerk—he'd only just joined the Navy, and this was his first ship—was told off to land as 'Old Tin Eye's' secretary. He was being pretty well bullied and knocked into shape by the mids., and made to feel what a hopeless worm he was; but now there were six of them who'd have given their heads to change places with him, and he absolutely swelled with pride and importance. Three days after leaving Gib. the weather became gloriously warm, the sea simply like a sheet of glittering glass, the sun glaring on it all day long. It was grand to be alive, and we all—officers and men alike—went into training, and were doubled round and round, morning and evening, till the sweat rolled off us. Every evening, too, the parallel bars and the horizontal bar were rigged on the quarterdeck, and the ward-room fellows and we gun-room people did gymnastics for an hour or so, finishing up with a follow-my-leader round the battery till we nearly dropped. On board the Hercules they were doing gymnastics and the new Swedish drill, on the fo'c'stle, the whole day long. But the sight of all was the fat blue marine subaltern—the Forlorn Hope, we called him—doubling up and down the quarterdeck, on his own, to work off his fat, so that he could march properly when he landed—his cheeks flopping from side to side, and running with perspiration. I'm sure you would have died of laughing, especially when his opposite number—the Shadow—the awfully thin red marine subaltern, doubled round after him, trying to work up an appetite, and put on more weight. It was the terribly earnest faces they shipped that made one laugh. When you come to think of it, the whole thing was really jolly odd. Here were these two great grey ships, with their long grim 9.2's and 7.5's, and their twelve hundred odd men, pounding steadily along for eight days and nights, to a country hardly any one of us had heard of before, and every one on board both of them was digging out to make himself and them as fit as 'paint,' in case there was a job for us when we did get there. The Commander even stopped bellowing at people, and brimmed over with good temper. We had two great heroes on board—at any rate the mids. thought they were—one of the lieutenants—Bigge—who had been with Sir Edward Seymour in the Relief of Pekin force, and Mr. Bostock, the Gunner, who had been through the siege of Ladysmith during the Boer War. Some one told the story how five Chinamen had attacked Bigge whilst he was trying to blow in a gate or something like that, and how he settled the whole lot of them with his revolver. Whether it was true or not—and I believe it was—the mids. simply hung round him now, and tried to get him to tell them some of his experiences. They looked at the little bit of yellow and red ribbon on his monkey-jacket, and simply longed for a chance to earn something like it, and have a bit of ribbon to stick on their chests. Although they never could get him to talk about his show, Mr. Bostock would talk about the siege of Ladysmith, and how the naval brigade helped the sappers, that awful morning on the crest of Wagon Hill—would talk as long as they'd like to listen. He'd sit smoking ship's tobacco in his cabin—it hadn't any scuttle or ventilation whatever of any account, so you can have an idea what the smell was like—and the mids. would crowd in, those who couldn't do so squeezing into the doorway, and listen by the hour. Nothing else but war was talked about from morning to night. Well, on the ninth day out from Gibraltar, we sighted Prince Rupert's Island, ran in through the northern channel, and anchored two miles off Princes Town in a great wide bay, with the dark mountains of Santa Cruz just showing up on the horizon away to the west. Somewhere up among them old Gerald was teaching his natives to play cricket. The Skipper went ashore immediately in the picketboat, to call on the Governor and get news and fresh orders; so you can guess how excited we all were when she was seen coming tearing off again, and the Skipper ran up the accommodation ladder. I believe every officer in the ship was up on the quarterdeck to hear the news, and you can just imagine what we felt like when we saw that the Skipper had shipped a long face, and when he shook his head at us and went down below. In three minutes we knew the worst—it was all over the ship. The Englishmen and the English steamer had been released; old Canilla, the President, had apologised handsomely, and all was peace. Wasn't it sickening? 'Ain't it a bally shame,' Montague, the Gunnery Lieutenant, said, 'stoppin' our gun-layers' test at Gib., just as we were in the thick of it; bringin' us lolloppin' along here, and nothin' for us to do when we get here—no landin' party, no nothin'.' And he sent word down to Mr. Bostock to re-stow and pack up all the leather gear and water-bottles. 'It do take the 'eart out of one,' Mr. Bostock told the sympathising mids., 'not a blooming chawnce to let off so much as a single ball cartridge,' and he went below to see that none of his landing party gear was missing. The Governor himself came off to return the Skipper's call, and brought off some of the shore chaps with a challenge to play us at football, hockey, tennis, cricket, polo, or anything and everything we jolly well liked. That bucked us all up a bit, and Clegg, our Surgeon—a great, tall chap and a grand cricketer—who ran the sports on board, sent for me to fix up things. Between us we fixed enough matches to last the first ten days. 'Can't play you at polo,' we told them, 'we've only got one chap who's ever played in his life.' 'Well, I'll tell you what we'll do,' one of them said, 'we'll lend you ponies to practise for the match, and if you'll lend us one of your boats, we'll practise in her, and pull a race against you in ten days' time. What d'you say to that? That'll even up matters a bit.' 'Let's get this little lot finished first,' we said, laughing. They were a sporting crowd. This was a Tuesday. On Wednesday we were to play Princes' Town at rugby—it made me sweat only to think of it, although this was what they called their winter—whilst the Hercules was to play the Country Club. On Thursday we were to change rounds, and on Friday the two ships were to play the whole of Prince Rupert's Island. On Saturday they thought we might have a cricket match—if it wasn't too cold! 'Right you are,' we said, 'if there's anything left of us—though we shall probably be melted by that time.' There were dances every night, and picnics and tennis parties for those who weren't playing anything else. 'We're going to have a fizzing time, Wilson, after all,' Dr. Clegg said, as we watched them go ashore, after having had no end of a job to get their boat alongside, because there was such a crowd of native boats swarming round the foot of the ladder, loaded down to the gunwales with bananas, oranges, melons, and things like that, the buck niggers on board them quarrelling, and squealing, and laughing, dodging the lumps of coal the side boys threw to make them keep their boats away from the gangway. Most of the boats had their stern-sheets weighted down with black ladies, dressed in white calico skirts and coloured blouses, trying to look dignified and squealing all the time, holding up bits of paper whenever they caught sight of an officer, and singing out, 'Mister Officah, I vash your clo's—I hab de letter from naval officah—I good vasher-lady, you tell quatamasta, let me aboard—all de rest only black trash.' They were allowed on board presently, and down into the gun-room flat they swarmed—old ones, young ones, fat ones, and thin ones, all trying to get our washing to take ashore. 'Me Betsy Jones, me vash for Prince George, sah! I know Prince George when he so high, sah! Betsy good vasher-lady, you give me your vashing.' They were all round the 'Angel.' 'Ah! bless your pretty heart, my deah, you give your vashing to Matilda Ann; I vash for Prince George and for Admiral Keppel—verrah nice man Admiral Keppel.' He was pulled from one to the other, and when he escaped into the gun-room they followed him. He was jolly glad to hear the picketboat called away and escape. It was all very well to arrange matches; but a wretched collier came creeping into the bay that very afternoon with three thousand tons of Welsh coal for the Hercules and ourselves, and, instead of playing football, we jolly well had to empty her between us. There was no going ashore for any one except the paymasters, and for two whole days we were busy. The heat of it and the dirt of it were positively beastly. It took us twenty-two solid hours to get in 1400 tons, because the men couldn't work well in that heat. It was bad enough on deck, but down in the collier and down below in our own bunkers the heat was simply terrific. We felt like bits of chewed string when we did go ashore on the third day to play the combined match, and chewed string wasn't in it after we'd been playing ten minutes. I don't think that we could have possibly held our own, but that game never ended. We were waiting for the 'Angel' to get back his breath after being 'winded,' and were wiping the sweat out of our eyes, when a marine orderly came running on to the ground with orders from the Skipper for us to return on board at once. We stuck the 'Angel' on his feet, told the other chaps what had happened, bolted for our coats, and were off through the town to the Governor's steps as fast as we could go, the marine orderly puffing behind us and the nigger boys, thinking we were running away from the Prince Rupert's team, shouting rude things after us. Boats were waiting there, the ward-room and gun-room messmen came along, followed by strings of niggers carrying fruit and live fowls and turkeys—everything was bundled down into the stern-sheets—there was no time for ceremony—and we were only waiting for Perkins, the First Lieutenant, who was lame and couldn't run. He'd being doing touch judge. Cousin Bob was the midshipman of the boat—the second barge. 'What's up?' I asked him. 'Somebody's died—over in Santa Cruz—and we're ordered off to Los Angelos at once. We're to attend the funeral or something like that.' 'Funeral!' we groaned; 'fancy spoiling a football match for a funeral,' and the 'Angel,' who'd recovered by now, squeaked out that he'd already engaged most of his partners for the dances—'ripping fine girls, too, you chaps.' Perkins came hobbling along, his red face redder than ever, hustled his way through the laughing, jostling crowd of niggers at the top of the steps, and jumped down among us, mopping his face. 'All in the day's work, lads; shove off, I'm in the boat.' 'Hi, Bill!' some of the ward-room people sang out, 'some one wants you,' and they pointed to where an enormously stout black lady was elbowing her way to the front. 'Hi, Massa Perkins! Hi, Massa Perkins! How d'ye do, Massa Perkins—me Arabella de Montmorency—you sabby Arabella—Arabella see your deah red face—vash for you in de flagship—de Cleopatra—you owe Arabella three shillin' and tuppence—you pay Arabella—vat for you no pay Arabella—Arabella vash for you when you midshipman in de Cleopatra.' 'All right, old girl,' Perkins sang out, waving his stick cheerily at her, 'I sabby you, you come aboard, by an' by, when we come back—give you some ship's baccy—come aboard the Hector.' 'Shove off,' he told Bob, and off we pulled, the crew grinning from ear to ear, and the niggers all cackling with laughter, dancing about and singing out, 'Three cheers for the red, white, and blue,' 'Old England for ebber,' and Mrs. Arabella's voice following us, 'I mak' de prayer to de good Lo'd for Massa Perkins—Him keepa Massa Perkins from harm—Arabella want de three shillin' and tuppence.' 'You've got some nice friends, Bill,' the ward-room officers chaffed him. The cable was already clanking in through the hawse-pipe as we got aboard, and in half an hour the Hercules was following us out through the eastern passage, and we headed across for the mainland and Santa Cruz. It was my morning watch next morning (from four to eight), and it was a grand sight to see the sun rise behind us, flooding the calm sea with red and orange colours, whilst the little wisps of clouds which hung about the sides of the fierce-looking mountains of Santa Cruz, in front of us, kept on changing from gold to pink and from pink to orange. O'Leary was the quarter-master of the watch, and I saw the old chap looking at them. He shook his head at me, 'Better than an "oleo"—that—sir. That's God's own picture.' Even the stokers who'd just come off watch and were cooling themselves, down on the fo'c'stle below us, stood watching the grand sight, and then, down at the foot of the mountains, a long white line showed up. 'That's the breakwater at Los Angelos,' fat little Carlton, our navigator, told me. As we forged along through the oily, glistening sea, and got closer, we could see the masts and funnels and fighting-tops of the little Navy of Santa Cruz sheltering behind it, all tinged with the sunrise; and the hundreds of windows in the lighthouse and the houses clustered at the foot of the mountains were all glowing as if they were on fire. If old Gerald had heard we were coming, it was quite likely that he'd come down from the estate and might be snoring on his back behind one of them, snoring like a good 'un and dreaming about the last football match he'd played in. Then high up the side of the dark mountains a ball of white smoke shot out, hung there in the still air for a second or two, and melted away, changing colour as it disappeared. 'That's the sunrise gun, sir, from one of their forts, sir. Them Dagos be half an hour adrift, I'm blowed if they ain't,' O'Leary said. The bridge was crowding up now, for the Skipper and the Commander and a host of mids. had come along to bring the ships to anchor. 'Pretty sight that,' the Skipper grunted, squinting through his eyeglass. 'Like pink icing on a wedding cake, sir,' the Commander added, thinking he'd said something funny. 'Yes, sir; beautiful, sir,' chipped in the navigator, really wondering what the Skipper was referring to, but very eager to agree with him—he would have licked his boots if he thought the Skipper would like it. 'Bring ship to an anchor,' snapped out the Skipper, and the boat's'n's mates piped, 'Watch, bring ship to an anchor—duty-men to their stations—away second barges.' The anchoring pendants were run up to our masthead—the answering pendant on board the Hercules got to her masthead almost as soon—and we moved slower and slower in towards the breakwater. The navigator reported, 'On our bearings, sir;' the Skipper nodded to the Commander, who bellowed down to the fo'c'stle, 'Let go;' the signalman hauled down the pendants; the starboard anchor splashed into the sea, and the cable began rattling out through the hawse-pipes. Down went the pendant aboard the Hercules, and her anchor splashed behind us. 'Full speed astern both,' snapped the Skipper to the man at the engine-room telegraph and the water churned up under our stern. 'Going astern, sir,' sang out the leadsman, with an eye on the water. 'Stop engines,' the Skipper snapped again, and the old Hector was once more at anchor. At eight o'clock we saluted the Santa Cruz flag; the fort, up in the clouds, which had fired the sunrise gun, returned it after a while, and the swarthy little port doctor came out from behind the breakwater, in a fussy little steam-launch, to see if we had any infectious diseases on board, and as we hadn't, to give us 'pratigue'—take us out of quarantine. After a lot of silly rot, he bowed and scraped himself on board, said 'bueno, bueno,' about a hundred times, bowed and scraped himself down the ladder into his boat, and went fussing back behind the breakwater again. He'd brought some letters from our Minister at Santa Cruz, and it turned out that it was the President's wife who had died. She was to be buried next day, so we were a trifle early. 'We might have finished that "footer" match after all,' I heard the Angel grumble to Cousin Bob. I rather hoped that Gerald would have written, but he hadn't—he was a terrible hand at writing letters. The Skipper—Old Tin Eye—went ashore to call on the Military Governor, who returned his call almost before he could get back. He was a long, lean, hollow-cheeked Spanish kind of a chap, in a white uniform and marvellous hat with green and yellow plumes, his chest covered with medals and orders—a grand-looking old fighting-cock. He brought with him his two A.D.C.'s—one of them as black as your hat, and the other fat and short, with an enormous curved sabre ten sizes too big for him and gilt spurs so long that he could hardly get down the ladders, even by walking sideways. He looked just like a pantomime soldier. He brought his black pal down to the gun-room to leave the Governor's cards, and, as he could speak a little English, we got on all right. I noticed him looking at me rather curiously, and at last he said, 'You know SeÑor Geraldio Wilson?' 'Old Gerald! he's my brother. Why?' I asked. 'You have the same,' and he pointed to his face and hair. Old Gerald has the same yellowish hair and grey eyes that I have. Funny that he'd spotted me, wasn't it, for we never thought each other much alike? 'You know Gerald?' I asked him. 'All peoples know SeÑor Geraldio,' he replied, very courteously, but with an expression on his face as if he wasn't going to say any more. We took them on deck, and whilst their boat was being brought alongside, and they were waiting for the Governor to come up from the Captain's cabin, they were awfully keen on the after 9.2 gun. 'Make shoot many kilometres?' the fat chap asked. 'About thirty,' I told him, doing a rough calculation in my head, and he told his black pal, and they jerked their thumbs towards the mountains. It didn't take much brains to guess that they were wondering whether we could shell the city of Santa Cruz itself. They looked at that gun jolly respectfully after that. Later on that day, we learnt a lot about local politics from two English merchants, who came off to call and feel English 'ground'—as they expressed it—under their feet again. They looked jolly cool in their white clothes and pith sun-helmets. 'It's a mighty change from a week ago,' they said. 'All the Europeans and Americans here at Los Angelos and up in Santa Cruz were practically prisoners, some had actually been thrown into San Sebastian—the old fort of Santa Cruz—and we were all expecting notice to quit the country, when they heard that you were coming along, apologised to the chaps in San Sebastian, and let the rest of us along. We're glad to see you, you bet we are, for there's trouble coming.' 'What? Where?' we asked, frightfully keen to know, all the mids. crowding round and keeping as silent as mice. 'Revolution! that's what's coming. It's as certain as we're sitting here. Old Canilla, the President, is hated everywhere, except in his own province of Santa Cruz and the city itself. The country will revolt directly the Vice-President—de Costa—gives the word. It's been coming for years, but Mrs. President, the old lady who's to be buried to-morrow, was the Vice-President's sister, and, though they hate each other like poison, she kept the peace between her husband and her brother. 'Every one called her La Buena Presidente, and now she's gone'—they shrugged their shoulders—'we don't know what will happen. The very day La Buena Presidente, poor old lady, died, General Angostina was shot in the back—he was the most popular general in the country and backed the de Costas—and no attempt has been made to arrest his assassins, who boast about it at the Military Club. In fact, the paper this morning says that one has been promoted for "services to his country."' 'La Buena Presidente?' the A.P. sang out; 'that's the name of the new cruiser building for them at Newcastle.' 'Named after her,' one of them said. 'She's big enough to sink the whole of the rest of their fleet, and that's where the trouble comes in. The fleet is loyal to the President just now, but he's in a terrible funk lest the crew he is sending to England to bring her here alter their minds. If they do, they can make cat's-meat of the rest, and then old Canilla's up a tree, for he can't scotch a revolution in the provinces to north and south of him, unless he holds command of the sea and prevents them joining forces. 'When's this revolution to start?' we asked rather chaffingly. 'To-morrow at 1.25 sharp. That's the official time for the funeral service to end, and till then Canilla and de Costa will be friends. To-morrow night there won't be a single friend of the Vice-President in Santa Cruz, unless he's shot or in San Sebastian. De Costa himself won't be in Santa Cruz either, unless he's shot or arrested as he leaves the cathedral. He'll be off to his own province of Leon. Now you can guess why we're glad to see you.' 'I'm jolly glad we didn't stay to finish that footer match,' the Angel sang out, as they took their leave. 'We're going to have some jolly fun, ain't we, Bob?' 'D'you know a chap called Gerald Wilson, a brother of mine?' I asked one of them, a very fat chap, whose name was Macdonald. 'A chap with yellow hair something like mine and a jaw like an ox.' 'Know him!' he answered quickly; ''pon my word, I've been looking at you and wondering whom you were like. Why, you're as like as two peas, though he's a bit broader and taller.' 'Do we know Gerald Wilson? Don Geraldio? Why, my dear chap, every one knows your brother,' the other Englishman joined in. 'He's the maddest chap in the country, and if our Minister doesn't get him out of it pretty quickly, he'll get his throat cut.' 'Or be a general in the revolutionary army,' Macdonald added. 'He's right "in" with the de Costas.' Well, that was exciting if you like—to me, but the mater would be awfully upset if she knew—poor old mater. 'Where's he now?' I asked excitedly. 'I've not seen him for five years.' 'Up in Santa Cruz, he lives at the European Club,' Macdonald answered. Then an idea struck him, and he continued, 'Some of your people are going up to the funeral. If you like to go, I'll take you; get ashore to-morrow morning by 6.30. I'm driving up. The funeral will be worth seeing, even if you hadn't your brother up there. I'll find him for you.' 'Thank you very much, I'll try and get leave,' I told him, as he went down into his boat. 'You can bring a couple of your midshipmen if you like,' he shouted up. I was so excited I hardly knew what to think or do, it was so worrying about Gerald, from the mater's point of view, and so splendid from mine. To-morrow was my day 'off,' the Commander gave me leave, the two mids. were, of course, the Angel and Cousin Bob, and they were too excited to do anything else but walk up and down the quarterdeck with their eyes glued on the mountains, where Santa Cruz lay, in the clouds, five thousand feet above them. |
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