‘WHERE is the tent of the commanding officer?’ I asked of the first
soldier I came across.
He pointed to one on the hillside. ‘Ags for Major Dooker,’ was the
Dutch-accented answer.
Bidding Samson stay where he was, I made my way as directed. A
middle-aged officer in undress uniform was sitting on an empty
packing-case in front of his tent, whittling a piece of its wood.
‘Pray sir,’ said I in my best Louis Quatorze manner, ‘have I the pleasure
of speaking to Major Dooker?’
‘Tucker, sir. And who the devil are you?’
Let me describe what the Major saw: A man wasted by starvation to skin
and bone, blackened, almost, by months of exposure to scorching suns;
clad in the shreds of what had once been a shirt, torn by every kind of
convict labour, stained by mud and the sweat and sores of mules; the rags
of a shooting coat to match; no head covering; hands festering with
sores, and which for weeks had not touched water—if they could avoid it.
Such an object, in short, as the genius of a Phil May could alone have
depicted as the most repulsive object he could imagine.
‘Who the devil are you?’
‘An English gentleman, sir, travelling for pleasure.’
He smiled. ‘You look more like a wild beast.’
‘I am quite tame, sir, I assure you—could even eat out of your hand if I
had a chance.’
‘Is your name Coke?’
‘Yes,’ was my amazed reply.
‘Then come with me—I will show you something that may surprise you.’
I followed him to a neighbouring tent. He drew aside the flap of it, and
there on his blanket lay Fred Calthorpe, snoring in perfect bliss.
Our greetings were less restrained than our parting had been. We were
truly glad to meet again. He had arrived just two days before me,
although he had been at Salt Lake City. But he had been able there to
refit, had obtained ample supplies and fresh animals. Curiously enough,
his Nelson—the French-Canadian—had also been drowned in crossing the
Snake River. His place, however, had been filled by another man, and
Jacob had turned out a treasure. The good fellow greeted me warmly. And
it was no slight compensation for bygone troubles to be assured by him
that our separation had led to the final triumphal success.
Fred and I now shared the same tent. To show what habit will do, it was
many days before I could accustom myself to sleep under cover of a tent
even, and in preference slept, as I had done for five months, under the
stars. The officers liberally furnished us with clothing. But their
excessive hospitality more nearly proved fatal to me than any peril I had
met with. One’s stomach had quite lost its discretion. And forgetting
that
Famished people must be slowly nursed,
And fed by spoonfuls, else they always burst,
one never knew when to leave off eating. For a few days I was seriously
ill.
An absurd incident occurred to me here which might have had an unpleasant
ending. Every evening, after dinner in the mess tent, we played whist.
One night, quite by accident, Fred and I happened to be partners. The
Major and another officer made up the four. The stakes were rather high.
We two had had an extraordinary run of luck. The Major’s temper had been
smouldering for some time. Presently the deal fell to me; and as bad
luck would have it, I dealt myself a handful of trumps, and—all four
honours. As the last of these was played, the now blazing Major dashed
his cards on the table, and there and then called me out. The cooler
heads of two or three of the others, with whom Fred had had time to make
friends, to say nothing of the usual roar of laughter with which he
himself heard the challenge, brought the matter to a peaceful issue. The
following day one of the officers brought me a graceful apology.
As may readily be supposed, we had no hankering for further travels such
as we had gone through. San Francisco was our destination; but though as
unknown to us as Charles Lamb’s ‘Stranger,’ we ‘damned’ the overland
route ‘at a venture’; and settled, as there was no alternative, to go in
a trading ship to the Sandwich Islands thence, by the same means, to
California.
On October 20 we procured a canoe large enough for seven or eight
persons; and embarking with our light baggage, Fred, Samson, and I, took
leave of the Dalles. For some miles the great river, the Columbia, runs
through the Cascade Mountains, and is confined, as heretofore, in a
channel of basaltic rock. Further down it widens, and is ornamented by
groups of small wooded islands. On one of these we landed to rest our
Indians and feed. Towards evening we again put ashore, at an Indian
village, where we camped for the night. The scenery here is magnificent.
It reminded me a little of the Danube below Linz, or of the finest parts
of the Elbe in Saxon Switzerland. But this is to compare the full-length
portrait with the miniature. It is the grandeur of the scale of the best
of the American scenery that so strikes the European. Variety, however,
has its charms; and before one has travelled fifteen hundred miles on the
same river—as one may easily do in America—one begins to sigh for the
Rhine, or even for a trip from London to Greenwich, with a white-bait
dinner at the end of it.
The day after, we descended the Cascades. They are the beginning of an
immense fall in the level, and form a succession of rapids nearly two
miles long. The excitement of this passage is rather too great for
pleasure. It is like being run away with by a ‘motor’ down a steep hill.
The bow of the canoe is often several feet below the stern, as if about
to take a ‘header.’ The water, in glassy ridges and dark furrows, rushes
headlong, and dashes itself madly against the reefs which crop up
everywhere. There is no time, one thinks, to choose a course, even if
steerage, which seems absurd, were possible. One is hurled along at
railway speed. The upreared rock, that a moment ago seemed a hundred
yards off, is now under the very bow of the canoe. One clenches one’s
teeth, holds one’s breath, one’s hour is surely come. But no—a shout
from the Indians, a magic stroke of the paddle in the bow, another in the
stern, and the dreaded crag is far above out heads, far, far behind; and,
for the moment, we are gliding on—undrowned.
At the lower end of the rapids (our Indians refusing to go further), we
had to debark. A settler here was putting up a zinc house for a store.
Two others, with an officer of the Mounted Rifles—the regiment we had
left at the Dalles—were staying with him. They welcomed our arrival, and
insisted on our drinking half a dozen of poisonous stuff they called
champagne. There were no chairs or table in the ‘house,’ nor as yet any
floor; and only the beginning of a roof. We sat on the ground, so that I
was able surreptitiously to make libations with my share, to the earth.
According to my journal: ‘In a short time the party began to be a noisy
one. Healths were drunk, toasts proposed, compliments to our respective
nationalities paid in the most flattering terms. The Anglo-Saxon race
were destined to conquer the globe. The English were the greatest nation
under the sun—that is to say, they had been. America, of course, would
take the lead in time to come. We disputed this. The Americans were
certain of it, in fact this was already an accomplished fact. The big
officer—a genuine “heavy”—wanted to know where the man was that would
give him the lie! Wasn’t the Mounted Rifles the crack regiment of the
United States army? And wasn’t the United States army the finest army in
the universe? Who that knew anything of history would compare the
Peninsular Campaign to the war in Mexico? Talk of Waterloo—Britishers
were mighty fond of swaggering about Waterloo! Let ’em look at
Chepultapec. As for Wellington, he couldn’t shine nohow with General
Scott, nor old Zack neither!’
Then, _we_ wished for a war, just to let them see what our crack cavalry
regiments could do. Mounted Rifles forsooth! Mounted costermongers!
whose trade it was to sell ‘nutmegs made of wood, and clocks that
wouldn’t figure.’ Then some pretty forcible profanity was vented, fists
were shaken, and the zinc walls were struck, till they resounded like the
threatened thunder of artillery.
But Fred’s merry laughter diverted the tragic end. It was agreed that
there had been too much tall talk. Britishers and Americans were not
such fools as to quarrel. Let everybody drink everybody else’s health.
A gentleman in the corner (he needed the support of both walls) thought
it wasn’t good to ‘liquor up’ too much on an empty stomach; he put it to
the house that we should have supper. The motion was carried _nem.
con._, and a Dutch cheese was produced with much _éclat_. Samson coupled
the ideas of Dutch cheeses and Yankee hospitality. This revived the
flagging spirit of emulation. On one side, it was thought that British
manners were susceptible of amendment. Confusion was then respectively
drunk to Yankee hospitality, English manners, and—this was an addition of
Fred’s—to Dutch cheeses. After which, to change the subject, a song was
called for, and a gentleman who shall be nameless, for there was a little
mischief in the choice, sang ‘Rule Britannia.’ Not being encored, the
singer drank to the flag that had braved the battle and the breeze for
nearly ninety years. ‘Here’s to Uncle Sam, and his stars and stripes.’
The mounted officer rose to his legs (with difficulty) and declared ‘that
he could not, and would not, hear his country insulted any longer. He
begged to challenge the “crowd.” He regretted the necessity, but his
feelings had been wounded, and he could not—no, he positively could not
stand it.’ A slight push from Samson proved the fact—the speaker fell,
to rise no more. The rest of the company soon followed his example, and
shortly afterwards there was no sound but that of the adjacent rapids.
Early next morning the settler’s boat came up, and took us a mile down
the river, where we found a larger one to convey us to Fort Vancouver.
The crew were a Maltese sailor and a man who had been in the United
States army. Each had his private opinions as to her management.
Naturally, the Maltese should have been captain, but the soldier was both
supercargo and part owner, and though it was blowing hard and the sails
were fully large, the foreigner, who was but a poor little creature, had
to obey orders.
As the river widened and grew rougher, we were wetted from stem to stern
at every plunge; and when it became evident that the soldier could not
handle the sails if the Maltese was kept at the helm, the heavy rifleman
who was on board, declaring that he knew the river, took upon himself to
steer us. In a few minutes the boat was nearly swamped. The Maltese
prayed and blasphemed in language which no one understood. The oaths of
the soldier were intelligible enough. The ‘heavy,’ now alarmed,
nervously asked what had better be done. My advice was to grease the
bowsprit, let go the mast, and splice the main brace. ‘In another minute
or two,’ I added, ‘you’ll steer us all to the bottom.’
Fred, who thought it no time for joking, called the rifleman a ‘damned
fool,’ and authoritatively bade him give up the tiller; saying that I had
been in Her Majesty’s Navy, and perhaps knew a little more about boats
than he did. To this the other replied that ‘he didn’t want anyone to
learn him; he reckon’d he’d been raised to boating as well as the next
man, and he’d be derned if he was going to trust his life to anybody!’
Samson, thinking no doubt of his own, took his pipe out of his mouth, and
towering over the steersman, flung him like a child on one side. In an
instant I was in his place.
It was a minute or two before the boat had way enough to answer the helm.
By that time we were within a dozen yards of a reef. Having noticed,
however, that the little craft was quick in her stays, I kept her full
till the last, put the helm down, and round she spun in a moment. Before
I could thank my stars, the pintle, or hook on which the rudder hangs,
broke off. The tiller was knocked out of my hand, and the boat’s head
flew into the wind. ‘Out with the sweeps,’ I shouted. But the sweeps
were under the gear. All was confusion and panic. The two men cursed in
the names of their respective saints. The ‘heavy’ whined, ‘I told you
how it w’d be.’ Samson struggled valiantly to get at an oar, while Fred,
setting the example, begged all hands to be calm, and be ready to fend
the stern off the rocks with a boathook. As we drifted into the surf I
was wondering how many bumps she would stand before she went to pieces.
Happily the water shallowed, and the men, by jumping overboard, managed
to drag the boat through the breakers under the lee of the point. We
afterwards drew her up on to the beach, kindled a fire, got out some
provisions, and stayed till the storm was over.