Louis Becke - Tom Wallis - A Tale of the South Seas

Once over the wide stretch of smooth rocks, he took heart again; Green Bluff, now black and smoking, seemed quite near. Another little bay, and then another, and panting and half frantic with excitement and thirst, Tom stumbled blindly over the loose stones and gravel, which were heaped up in ridges on the narrow foreshore. Surely, he asked himself, there could not be many more of these dreadful stony winding bays, backed up by steep walls of rock. Once more a high point obstructed him; and now an insensate rage took possession of him. With blazing eyes, and parched and cracking lips, he sprang at the great boulders, slipping and falling again and again, to rise with bleeding hands and face, a dazed determination in his whirling brain to get to the water at the Green Bluff in spite of everything. Trembling in every limb, he succeeded in getting round-and then stopped, his face white with horror: on the opposite side of the bay a long stretch of cliff rose sheer up from the deep blue water at its base. And then a sudden blackness shut out the world, and he sank down upon the shingle in despair.

Thirty miles to the eastward of Breaksea Spit, which lies off Sandy Cape, on the coast of Queensland, a little tubby and exceedingly disreputable-looking brig of about two hundred tons burden was floundering and splashing along before a fresh southerly breeze, and a short and jumpy head swell. By the noise she made when her bluff old bows plunged into a sea and brought her up shaking, and groaning, and rolling as she rose to it and tumbled recklessly down the other side, one would have thought that the Lady Alicia was a two thousand ton ship, close hauled under a press of canvas, and thrashing her way through the water at thirteen or fourteen knots. Sometimes, when she was a bit slow in rising, a thumping smack on her square old-fashioned stern would admonish her to get up and be doing, and with a protesting creak and grind from every timber in her sea-worn old frame, blending into what sounded like a heart-broken sigh, she would make another effort, and drop down into the trough again with a mighty splash of foam shooting out from her on every side, and a rattling of blocks, and flapping and slapping of her ancient, threadbare, and wondrously-patched canvas.

Aft, on the short, stumpy poop, a short stumpy man with a fiery-red face, keen blue eyes, and snow-white hair, was standing beside the helmsman, smoking, and watching the antics of the venerable craft-of which he was master and owner-with unconcealed pride. His age was about the same as the brig, a little over fifty years; and this was not the only point in which they resembled each other, for their appearance and characteristics bore a marked similarity in many respects.

In the first place, the Lady Alicia was a noisy, blustering old wave-puncher, especially when smashing her cumbrous way through a head sea, as she was doing at present. But despite her age and old-fashioned build, her hull was still as sound as a bell; and Captain Samuel Hawkins was a noisy, blustering old shell-back, especially when he met with any opposition; and despite his age and old-fashioned and fussy manner, his heart was not only as sound as a bell, but full to overflowing with every good and humane feeling, for all his forty years of life at sea.

Secondly, the Lady Alicia had antiquated single 'rolling' topsails (which were the skipper's especial pride, although they invariably jammed at critical moments during a heavy squall, and refused to lower, with all hands and the cook straining frantically with distended eyeballs at the down-hauls), and Captain Hawkins wore antiquated nether garments with a seamless bunt, and which fastened with large horn buttons at his port and starboard hips, and this part of his attire was the object of as much secret contempt with his crew as were the hated rolling topsails, though the old man was a firm believer in both.

Thirdly, the Lady Alicia carried stun sails (which was another source of pride to her master, and objects of bitter hatred to the mate, as useless and troublesome fallals); and Captain Hawkins wore a stove-pipe hat when on shore in Sydney, the which was much resented by many of his nautical cronies and acquaintances, who thought that he put on too many airs for the skipper of the Lazy Alice, as they derisively called the old brig. But no one of them would have dared to have said anything either about the brig's stunsails or sailing qualities, or her master's shore-going top-hat in his hearing; for the old man was mighty handy with his fists, and a disrespectful allusion to his own rig, or to that of his ship, would entail a quick challenge, and an almost certain black eye to the offender.

And, fourthly, the brig had been built for the Honourable East India Company, and in the Honourable East India Company's service old Samuel, then 'young Sam,' had served his apprenticeship to the sea; and, in fact, as he stood there on his own poop-deck, the most unnautical observer could not but think that he had been born for the Lady Alicia, and that the Lady Alicia had, so to speak, been built to match the personal appearance of her present commander, despite her previous thirty years of buffeting about, from the Persian Gulf to Macassar, under other skippers.

Presently, turning to the helmsman, a huge, brawny-limbed Maori half-caste, who had to stoop to handle the spokes of the quivering and jumping wheel, the master took his pipe from his mouth, knocked the ashes out upon the rail, and said-

'Well, William Henry, we're doing all right, hey?'

The Maori, deeply intent upon his steering, as his keen dark eye watched the lumping seas ahead, nodded, but said nothing, for he was a man of few words-except upon certain occasions, which shall be alluded to hereafter. Seated on the main hatch, the second mate and some of the crew were employed in sewing sails; for although the brig was jumping about so freely, and every now and then sending sheets of foam and spray flying away from her bows, the decks were as dry as a bone. Further for'ard the black cook was seated on an upturned mess-tub outside his galley door, peeling potatoes into a bucket by his side, and at intervals thrusting his great splay foot into the nose of Julia, the ship's pig, which, not satisfied with the peelings he threw her, kept trying to make a rush past through the narrow gangway, and get at the contents of the bucket.

Just before seven bells, the mate, who did such navigating work as was required, put his head up out of the companion, sextant in hand, and then laying the instrument down on the skylight, turned to the skipper.

'He says he feels bully this morning, and wants to come on deck.'

The little squat skipper nodded, hurried below, and in a few minutes reappeared with a bundle of rugs and rather dirty pillows, which he at once proceeded to arrange between the up-ended flaps of the skylight, then he hailed the black gentleman potato-peeler.

'Steward' (the term cook was never used by the worthy old captain), 'come aft here and lend a hand.'

'Ay, ay, sah,' replied the negro, in his rich, 'fruity' voice, 'I'se comin', sah;' and with a final and staggering kick with the ball of his foot on Julia's fat side, he put the bucket inside the galley, slid the door to, and followed the captain below, whilst the mate, a young, dark-faced, and grave-looking man, swiftly passed his sun-tanned hand over the couch made by the skipper, to see that there were no inequalities or discomforting lumps in the thick layer of rugs.

And then, curly wool and sooty black face first, and white head and red face beneath, up comes Tom Wallis, borne between them into life and sunshine again; but not the same Tom as he was ten days before-only an apology for him-with a shaven head, and an old, wan, and shrunken face, with black circles under the eyes, a bandaged foot, and left hand in a sling.