The good-byes were said, and I was sent off with a ringing cheer by my
old companions. My luggage had gone to the ship days before, and I had
only a couple of tin cases to take with me in the cab when I reached
London and was driven to the docks. Here, after going astray several
times, I at last found the great towering-sided _Jumna_, and went on
board with my belongings.
Everything was in confusion, for provisions were still being taken on
board along with passengers' luggage; and it was some time before I
could find any one in the busy crowd which thronged the deck, to show me
my cabin, which, to my disgust, I found contained a second berth and
several articles of luggage labelled, "Captain Brace, Calcutta," and in
smaller letters, "Cabin; wanted on voyage."
"Not much room for two," I thought, as my own luggage was brought in,
and I found by the number of my berth that I was to sleep on the
shelf-like bed above that on which a portion of the captain's luggage
lay.
Then, wondering what he would be like; whether he would be agreeable, or
disposed to look down upon me as a boy, I went back on deck, and stood
about watching the busy scene, and learning which was the quarter-deck,
steerage, forecastle, and the like. By virtue of being an officer, I
found myself at liberty to go where I pleased, and noted which were
passengers and which were leave-taking friends.
Then I had a good look at the officers and sailors, many of whom were
yellow-faced lascars with dark oily-looking eyes, whose whites seemed to
have an opalescent tinge.
Every one was busy, and a good many of the dock-men were up aloft giving
the finishing touches to the rigging, a great deal of which seemed to be
new. But somehow, as an idler, I seemed to be in everybody's way, and
was constantly being requested to make way, or stand aside, or my leave
was requested in tones rather insulting, as I thought then.
Suddenly I remembered that General Crucie had said that a draft of men
was going out in the vessel, in charge of Captain Brace.
"I wonder where the men are," I said to myself; and at last, as I had
looked in vain for red or blue uniforms, I asked one of the sailors.
"Swaddies?" he said. "Oh yes. Forrard. There they are."
He pointed toward the head of the vessel as he hurried off in answer to
a shout from a red-faced man who was directing a gang of sailors hauling
at something up aloft which he called a yard, and I went forward to have
a look at the smart detachment of soldiers I was to help to command.
The illusion was soon swept away, for the detachment was composed of
about fifty unhappy, thin-looking men in white flannel jackets, sitting
about or leaning over the bulwarks, smoking and watching the dock quay
where stood a group of slatternly-looking women, staring wearily at the
ship; and now and then one of them would wave a hand or a handkerchief
to the men in white flannel, a salute as often as not evoking no
response, though sometimes a man would take off his ugly blue woollen
forage-cap by the red worsted tuft at the top, give it a twist, and put
it on again.
"This cannot be the detachment," I thought, and then, thinking that the
best way to know was to ask, I said to the nearest man--
"Would you mind telling me whether you belong to Captain Brace's
detachment?"
"What?"
A surly, half-insolent question in reply to mine, which I repeated.
"I dunno nothing about no 'tachments," he growled.
"Well, are you in the service, and going out to India?" I said.
"I've took the shilling, and I'm going out to cholera borgus, if that's
what you mean. Don't bother!"
"You'll get yourself in for it directly, mate," growled another of the
men. "Can't you see the gent's a horficer?"
I felt better at this, but I was damped down directly, for my man I had
spoken to growled out--
"Horficer? Well, all I can say is as he don't look it."
As the man turned away to rest his arms on the bulwark and refill his
pipe, the second man saluted me.
"Yes, it's all right, sir. We're just down from Warley barracks, and we
are going out as part of Captain Brace's draft."
I saluted and walked away, feeling in no wise proud of the men who would
be partly under my charge. Physically, they were well-made fellows
enough, but there was neither romance nor sentiment about them, and in
the midst of all the bustle and confusion on board, with the decks
literally swarming, I began to feel horribly lonely and depressed, and a
sensation of home-sickness was coming on fast, till I told myself it was
all nonsense, the home for which I was sickening was only the kind of
school which for many months past I had been longing to leave, and that
I should in all probability soon meet father, mother, and sister, as
well as begin my career as a man.
Just then my attention was taken up by an angry encounter. Three men
were brought on board, almost dragged, and thrown down, and it did not
need a second thought to grasp the fact that they were sailors who had
been spending their advance-money at one of the public-houses which
swarmed about the docks.
All at once one of them, as he lay upon the deck, began to sing, and
this brought out a smart-looking officer in uniform.
"Here, get these pigs below," he cried angrily; and half a dozen of the
sailors crossed to one side, returned with a coil of rope, fastened it
round the waist of one of the last-comers, and then seizing him, trotted
forward, dragging him along the deck to an open hatchway, where he was
unceremoniously lowered down; one sailor followed to unfasten the rope,
which was hauled up, and the other men were hauled to the hatchway and
lowered in turn.
"That's the way to serve them," said the officer to me sharply. "Some
time before they get drunk again."
He nodded shortly and went aft, while, feeling disgusted with the rough
scene, I made my way aft too, and came upon quite a crowd of people,
evidently friends of the passengers, bidding good-bye, many of them with
tears.
"This is cheerful," I thought, and then by an absurd change of feeling,
I was hurt because there was no one to bid good-bye to me.
"Confound it all, sir, do get out of the way, please!" said another
officer sharply.
I gave him a resentful look, and backed out of his way into somebody
else's, sending a man who was carrying part of a passenger's luggage
staggering, so that he caught the corner of a trunk sharply against an
officer's shoulder, with anything but a pleasant result for the burdened
man, who recovered himself, and hurried to the cabin stairs, while,
after apologising to the officer, I followed the man, meaning to go up
on the poop deck.
But the staircase was full of people, and I dived under to go below and
find my cabin, which I now resentfully remembered was not mine.
"Never mind, I'll go and sit down till dinnertime," I thought. "I
suppose there will be some dinner some time."
I went along by the row of cabin doors, and found that I was on the port
instead of the starboard side; and, crossing over, I found the right
cabin at last, seized the handle sharply, for a man was coming along
with more luggage, and, turning the fastening, I was about to dive in,
but the door was fast, and a quick, authoritative voice cried from
within--
"Well, what is it?"
"Open this door," I said as sharply, for I felt irritated at being shut
out of my place of refuge from the noise and misery of the deck.
There was the sound of a bolt shooting back, the door was thrown open,
and I was face to face in the dim light with a tall, dark, youngish man,
whose expression was stern and severe in the extreme.
"Well, sir," he said shortly, "what is it?"
"What is it?" I cried angrily, with a sharp look at my luggage. "What
are you doing here? Why is this door fastened?"
He looked at me quite fiercely for a few moments, and then his face
softened a little, and he smiled, but it was a cold, wintry sort of
facial sunshine.
"Ah, I see," he said, "you are Mr Vincent, I suppose?"
"Yes, I am, sir, and that is my luggage. What then?"
"Only that my name is Brace, and I suppose we are to be
fellow-passengers."
"I--I--beg your pardon," I stammered, with my face turning scarlet.
"There is no need," he said coldly. "Perhaps it was my fault for
fastening the door."
He turned away, stooped down to a trunk in which glistened a bunch of
keys, turned the lock, and then altered his mind and unlocked the trunk,
and took out his keys.
"No," he said rising, "there will be no need for that."
He turned coldly, and went out of the cabin, leaving me with the
sensation that I had behaved rudely and insolently to an officer who was
my superior, and under whose orders I supposed I was to be.
"Nice beginning," I said to myself, and I sat down on one of my own
trunks, feeling anything but comfortable, as I came to the conclusion
that I had made an enemy who would pay me handsomely during the voyage.
"This is a happy sort of place," I muttered, as I sat listening to the
banging of cabin doors and shouting of people for stewards and others,
and angry complaints about being kept waiting; and all the time there
was a stamping, tramping, and rattling going on overhead that was
maddening.
And there I sat, gazing dreamily at the little round pane of glass which
lit the cabin, till I grew so hot and weary of the stuffy little
cupboard of a place, that I got up and went on deck again, to find that
the great vessel had been cast loose, and that hawsers and capstans were
being used to work us out of the dock.
We were already some little distance from the dock wall, which was
crowded with the friends of the soldiers and sailors on board, those of
the passengers for the most part remaining to go down the river, while
the men thronged the bulwarks, and climbed to every point of vantage, to
respond, with shouts and cheers, to waving of hands and, bonnets and the
shrill good-byes.
"Everybody seems to have some one to say good-bye to him but me," I
thought again; and half pitying, half contemptuously, I leaned over the
side watching the little crowd of excited women and old men who hurried
along the dock quay so as to keep abreast of the vessel.
"A sad thing, too--saying good-bye," I thought. "Perhaps they'll never
come back and meet again, and--"
My heart seemed to stand still, and I clutched the edge of the bulwark
spasmodically, for all at once as I watched the women pressing along the
edge of the stone quay, their faces turned toward us as they cried out
to the men on board, I saw one young-looking thing wave her handkerchief
and then press it to her eyes, and in imagination I heard her sobbing as
she hurried on with the rest. But next instant I saw that she had
caught her foot in one of the ropes strained from the great ship to the
edge of the quay, and plunged forward headlong to strike the water
twenty feet below, and disappear.
A wild shriek from the quay was mingled with the excited shouts of the
men on board. Then orders were rapidly given, men ran here and there,
and amidst a great deal of shouting, preparations were made for lowering
down the nearest boat.
But all the time the huge East Indiaman, now steadily in motion, was
gliding slowly toward the dock entrance, and the unfortunate woman had
risen to the surface, and was beating the water slowly with her hand.
"She'll be drowned long before that boat's down," said a gruff voice
behind me, plainly heard in the shouting and excitement. "Why don't
they throw her a life-buoy?"
As whoever it was spoke a yellow ring fell from the vessel, splashed,
and floated on the surface, but nowhere near the drowning woman. Two
men ran along the quay to throw ropes. Other ropes were sent flying in
rings from the _Jumna's_ stern; but I could see that the woman was too
helpless to reach them, even if she saw them, which was doubtful, and
the watching and waiting grew horrible.
The woman was now many yards away from where I stood, and I had seen her
wild eyes gazing up as if into mine as we glided by her, the look
seeming in my excitement to appeal specially to me, and at last I could
bear it no longer.