It is written in the first Book of Wonder how Captain Shard of the bad
ship Desperate Lark, having looted the sea-coast city Bombasharna,
retired from active life; and resigning piracy to younger men, with
the good will of the North and South Atlantic, settled down with a
captured queen on his floating island.
Sometimes he sank a ship for the sake of old times but he no longer
hovered along the trade-routes; and timid merchants watched for other
men.
It was not age that caused him to leave his romantic profession; nor
unworthiness of its traditions, nor gun-shot wound, nor drink; but
grim necessity and force majeure. Five navies were after him. How he
gave them the slip one day in the Mediterranean, how he fought with
the Arabs, how a ship's broadside was heard in Lat. 23 N. Long. 4 E.
for the first time and the last, with other things unknown to
Admiralties, I shall proceed to tell.
He had had his fling, had Shard, captain of pirates, and all his merry
men wore pearls in their ear-rings; and now the English fleet was
after him under full sail along the coast of Spain with a good North
wind behind them. They were not gaining much on Shard's rakish craft,
the bad ship Desperate Lark, yet they were closer than was to his
liking, and they interfered with business.
For a day and a night they had chased him, when off Cape St. Vincent
at about six a.m. Shard took that step that decided his retirement
from active life, he turned for the Mediterranean. Had he held on
Southwards down the African coast it is doubtful whether in face of
the interference of England, Russia, France, Denmark and Spain, he
could have made piracy pay; but in turning for the Mediterranean he
took what we may call the penultimate step of his life which meant for
him settling down. There were three great courses of action invented
by Shard in his youth, upon which he pondered by day and brooded by
night, consolations in all his dangers, secret even from his men,
three means of escape as he hoped from any peril that might meet him
on the sea. One of these was the floating island that the Book of
Wonder tells of, another was so fantastic that we may doubt if even
the brilliant audacity of Shard could ever have found it practicable,
at least he never tried it so far as is known in that tavern by the
sea in which I glean my news, and the third he determined on carrying
out as he turned that morning for the Mediterranean. True he might yet
have practised piracy in spite of the step that he took, a little
later when the seas grew quiet, but that penultimate step was like
that small house in the country that the business man has his eye on,
like some snug investment put away for old age, there are certain
final courses in men's lives which after taking they never go back to
business.
He turned then for the Mediterranean with the English fleet behind
him, and his men wondered.
What madness was this,--muttered Bill the Boatswain in Old Frank's
only ear, with the French fleet waiting in the Gulf of Lyons and the
Spaniards all the way between Sardinia and Tunis: for they knew the
Spaniards' ways. And they made a deputation and waited upon Captain
Shard, all of them sober and wearing their costly clothes, and they
said that the Mediterranean was a trap, and all he said was that the
North wind should hold. And the crew said they were done.
So they entered the Mediterranean and the English fleet came up and
closed the straits. And Shard went tacking along the Moroccan coast
with a dozen frigates behind him. And the North wind grew in strength.
And not till evening did he speak to his crew, and then he gathered
them all together except the man at the helm, and politely asked them
to come down to the hold. And there he showed them six immense steel
axles and a dozen low iron wheels of enormous width which none had
seen before; and he told his crew how all unknown to the world his
keel had been specially fitted for these same axles and wheels, and
how he meant soon to sail to the wide Atlantic again, though not by
the way of the straits. And when they heard the name of the Atlantic
all his merry men cheered, for they looked on the Atlantic as a wide
safe sea.
And night came down and Captain Shard sent for his diver. With the sea
getting up it was hard work for the diver, but by midnight things were
done to Shard's satisfaction, and the diver said that of all the jobs
he had done--but finding no apt comparison, and being in need of a
drink, silence fell on him and soon sleep, and his comrades carried
him away to his hammock. All the next day the chase went on with the
English well in sight, for Shard had lost time overnight with his
wheels and axles, and the danger of meeting the Spaniards increased
every hour; and evening came when every minute seemed dangerous, yet
they still went tacking on towards the East where they knew the
Spaniards must be.
And at last they sighted their topsails right ahead, and still Shard
went on. It was a close thing, but night was coming on, and the Union
Jack which he hoisted helped Shard with the Spaniards for the last few
anxious minutes, though it seemed to anger the English, but as Shard
said, "There's no pleasing everyone," and then the twilight shivered
into darkness.
"Hard to starboard," said Captain Shard.
The North wind which had risen all day was now blowing a gale. I do
not know what part of the coast Shard steered for, but Shard knew, for
the coasts of the world were to him what Margate is to some of us.
At a place where the desert rolling up from mystery and from death,
yea, from the heart of Africa, emerges upon the sea, no less grand
than her, no less terrible, even there they sighted the land quite
close, almost in darkness. Shard ordered every man to the hinder part
of the ship and all the ballast too; and soon the Desperate Lark, her
prow a little high out of the water, doing her eighteen knots before
the wind, struck a sandy beach and shuddered, she heeled over a
little, then righted herself, and slowly headed into the interior of
Africa.
The men would have given three cheers, but after the first Shard
silenced them and, steering the ship himself, he made them a short
speech while the broad wheels pounded slowly over the African sand,
doing barely five knots in a gale. The perils of the sea he said had
been greatly exaggerated. Ships had been sailing the sea for hundreds
of years and at sea you knew what to do, but on land this was
different. They were on land now and they were not to forget it. At
sea you might make as much noise as you pleased and no harm was done,
but on land anything might happen. One of the perils of the land that
he instanced was that of hanging. For every hundred men that they hung
on land, he said, not more than twenty would be hung at sea. The men
were to sleep at their guns. They would not go far that night; for the
risk of being wrecked at night was another danger peculiar to the
land, while at sea you might sail from set of sun till dawn: yet it
was essential to get out of sight of the sea for if anyone knew they
were there they'd have cavalry after them. And he had sent back
Smerdrak (a young lieutenant of pirates) to cover their tracks where
they came up from the sea. And the merry men vigorously nodded their
heads though they did not dare to cheer, and presently Smerdrak came
running up and they threw him a rope by the stern. And when they had
done fifteen knots they anchored, and Captain Shard gathered his men
about him and, standing by the land-wheel in the bows, under the large
and clear Algerian stars, he explained his system of steering. There
was not much to be said for it, he had with considerable ingenuity
detached and pivoted the portion of the keel that held the leading
axle and could move it by chains which were controlled from the
land-wheel, thus the front pair of wheels could be deflected at will,
but only very slightly, and they afterwards found that in a hundred
yards they could only turn their ship four yards from her course. But
let not captains of comfortable battleships, or owners even of yachts,
criticise too harshly a man who was not of their time and who knew not
modern contrivances; it should be remembered also that Shard was no
longer at sea. His steering may have been clumsy but he did what he
could.
When the use and limitations of his land-wheel had been made clear to
his men, Shard bade them all turn in except those on watch. Long
before dawn he woke them and by the very first gleam of light they got
their ship under way, so that when those two fleets that had made so
sure of Shard closed in like a great crescent on the Algerian coast
there was no sign to see of the Desperate Lark either on sea or land;
and the flags of the Admiral's ship broke out into a hearty English
oath.
The gale blew for three days and, Shard using more sail by daylight,
they scudded over the sands at little less than ten knots, though on
the report of rough water ahead (as the lookout man called rocks, low
hills or uneven surface before he adapted himself to his new
surroundings) the rate was much decreased. Those were long summer days
and Shard who was anxious while the wind held good to outpace the
rumour of his own appearance sailed for nineteen hours a day, lying to
at ten in the evening and hoisting sail again at three a.m. when it
first began to be light.
In those three days he did five hundred miles; then the wind dropped
to a breeze though it still blew from the North, and for a week they
did no more than two knots an hour. The merry men began to murmur
then. Luck had distinctly favoured Shard at first for it sent him at
ten knots through the only populous districts well ahead of crowds
except those who chose to run, and the cavalry were away on a local
raid. As for the runners they soon dropped off when Shard pointed his
cannon though he did not dare to fire, up there near the coast; for
much as he jeered at the intelligence of the English and Spanish
Admirals in not suspecting his manoeuvre, the only one as he said that
was possible in the circumstances, yet he knew that cannon had an
obvious sound which would give his secret away to the weakest mind.
Certainly luck had befriended him, and when it did so no longer he
made out of the occasion all that could be made; for instance while
the wind held good he had never missed opportunities to revictual, if
he passed by a village its pigs and poultry were his, and whenever he
passed by water he filled his tanks to the brim, and now that he could
only do two knots he sailed all night with a man and a lantern before
him: thus in that week he did close on four hundred miles while
another man would have anchored at night and have missed five or six
hours out of the twenty-four. Yet his men murmured. Did he think the
wind would last for ever, they said. And Shard only smoked. It was
clear that he was thinking, and thinking hard. "But what is he
thinking about?" said Bill to Bad Jack. And Bad Jack answered: "He may
think as hard as he likes but thinking won't get us out of the Sahara
if this wind were to drop."
And towards the end of that week Shard went to his chart-room and laid
a new course for his ship a little to the East and towards
cultivation. And one day towards evening they sighted a village, and
twilight came and the wind dropped altogether. Then the murmurs of the
merry men grew to oaths and nearly to mutiny. "Where were they now?"
they asked, and were they being treated like poor honest men?
Shard quieted them by asking what they wished to do themselves and
when no one had any better plan than going to the villagers and saying
that they had been blown out of their course by a storm, Shard
unfolded his scheme to them. Long ago he had heard how they drove
carts with oxen in Africa, oxen were very numerous in these parts
wherever there was any cultivation, and for this reason when the wind
had begun to drop he had laid his course for the village: that night
the moment it was dark they were to drive off fifty yoke of oxen; by
midnight they must all be yoked to the bows and then away they would
go at a good round gallop.
So fine a plan as this astonished the men and they all apologised for
their want of faith in Shard, shaking hands with him every one and
spitting on their hands before they did so in token of good will.
The raid that night succeeded admirably, but ingenious as Shard was on
land, and a past-master at sea, yet it must be admitted that lack of
experience in this class of seamanship led him to make a mistake, a
slight one it is true, and one that a little practice would have
prevented altogether: the oxen could not gallop. Shard swore at them,
threatened them with his pistol, said they should have no food, and
all to no avail: that night and as long as they pulled the bad ship
Desperate Lark they did one knot an hour and no more. Shard's failures
like everything that came his way were used as stones in the edifice
of his future success, he went at once to his chart-room and worked
out all his calculations anew.
The matter of the oxen's pace made pursuit impossible to avoid. Shard
therefore countermanded his order to his lieutenant to cover the
tracks in the sand, and the Desperate Lark plodded on into the Sahara
on her new course trusting to her guns.
The village was not a large one and the little crowd that was sighted
astern next morning disappeared after the first shot from the cannon
in the stern. At first Shard made the oxen wear rough iron bits,
another of his mistakes, and strong bits too. "For if they run away,"
he had said, "we might as well be driving before a gale and there's no
saying where we'd find ourselves," but after a day or two he found
that the bits were no good and, like the practical man he was,
immediately corrected his mistake.
And now the crew sang merry songs all day bringing out mandolins and
clarionets and cheering Captain Shard. All were jolly except the
captain himself whose face was moody and perplexed; he alone expected
to hear more of those villagers; and the oxen were drinking up the
water every day, he alone feared that there was no more to be had, and
a very unpleasant fear that is when your ship is becalmed in a desert.
For over a week they went on like this doing ten knots a day and the
music and singing got on the captain's nerves, but he dared not tell
his men what the trouble was. And then one day the oxen drank up the
last of the water. And Lieutenant Smerdrak came and reported the fact.
"Give them rum," said Shard, and he cursed the oxen. "What is good
enough for me," he said, "should be good enough for them," and he
swore that they should have rum.
"Aye, aye, sir," said the young lieutenant of pirates.
Shard should not be judged by the orders he gave that day, for nearly
a fortnight he had watched the doom that was coming slowly towards
him, discipline cut him off from anyone that might have shared his
fear and discussed it, and all the while he had had to navigate his
ship, which even at sea is an arduous responsibility. These things had
fretted the calm of that clear judgment that had once baffled five
navies. Therefore he cursed the oxen and ordered them rum, and
Smerdrak had said "Aye, aye, sir," and gone below.
Towards sunset Shard was standing on the poop, thinking of death; it
would not come to him by thirst; mutiny first, he thought. The oxen
were refusing rum for the last time, and the men were beginning to eye
Captain Shard in a very ominous way, not muttering, but each man
looking at him with a sidelong look of the eye as though there were
only one thought among them all that had no need of words. A score of
geese like a long letter "V" were crossing the evening sky, they
slanted their necks and all went twisting downwards somewhere about
the horizon. Captain Shard rushed to his chart-room, and presently the
men came in at the door with Old Frank in front looking awkward and
twisting his cap in his hand.
"What is it?" said Shard as though nothing were wrong.
Then Old Frank said what he had come to say: "We want to know what you
be going to do."
And the men nodded grimly.
"Get water for the oxen," said Captain Shard, "as the swine won't have
rum, and they'll have to work for it, the lazy beasts. Up anchor!"
And at the word water a look came into their faces like when some
wanderer suddenly thinks of home.
"Water!" they said.
"Why not?" said Captain Shard. And none of them ever knew that but for
those geese, that slanted their necks and suddenly twisted downwards,
they would have found no water that night nor ever after, and the
Sahara would have taken them as she has taken so many and shall take
so many more. All that night they followed their new course: at dawn
they found an oasis and the oxen drank.
And here, on this green acre or so with its palm-trees and its well,
beleaguered by thousands of miles of desert and holding out through
the ages, here they decided to stay: for those who have been without
water for a while in one of Africa's deserts come to have for that
simple fluid such a regard as you, O reader, might not easily credit.
And here each man chose a site where he would build his hut, and
settle down, and marry perhaps, and even forget the sea; when Captain
Shard having filled his tanks and barrels peremptorily ordered them to
weigh anchor. There was much dissatisfaction, even some grumbling, but
when a man has twice saved his fellows from death by the sheer
freshness of his mind they come to have a respect for his judgment
that is not shaken by trifles. It must be remembered that in the
affair of the dropping of the wind and again when they ran out of
water these men were at their wits' end: so was Shard on the last
occasion, but that they did not know. All this Shard knew, and he
chose this occasion to strengthen the reputation that he had in the
minds of the men of that bad ship by explaining to them his motives,
which usually he kept secret. The oasis he said must be a port of call
for all the travellers within hundreds of miles: how many men did you
see gathered together in any part of the world where there was a drop
of whiskey to be had! And water here was rarer than whiskey in decent
countries and, such was the peculiarity of the Arabs, even more
precious. Another thing he pointed out to them, the Arabs were a
singularly inquisitive people and if they came upon a ship in the
desert they would probably talk about it; and the world having a
wickedly malicious tongue would never construe in its proper light
their difference with the English and Spanish fleets, but would merely
side with the strong against the weak.
And the men sighed, and sang the capstan song and hoisted the anchor
and yoked the oxen up, and away they went doing their steady knot,
which nothing could increase. It may be thought strange that with all
sail furled in dead calm and while the oxen rested they should have
cast anchor at all. But custom is not easily overcome and long
survives its use. Rather enquire how many such useless customs we
ourselves preserve: the flaps for instance to pull up the tops of
hunting-boots though the tops no longer pull up, the bows on our
evening shoes that neither tie nor untie. They said they felt safer
that way and there was an end of it.
Shard lay a course of South by West and they did ten knots that day,
the next day they did seven or eight and Shard hove to. Here he
intended to stop, they had huge supplies of fodder on board for the
oxen, for his men he had a pig or so, plenty of poultry, several sacks
of biscuits and ninety-eight oxen (for two were already eaten), and
they were only twenty miles from water. Here he said they would stay
till folks forgot their past, someone would invent something or some
new thing would turn up to take folks' minds off them and the ships he
had sunk: he forgot that there are men who are well paid to remember.
Half way between him and the oasis he established a little depot where
he buried his water-barrels. As soon as a barrel was empty he sent
half a dozen men to roll it by turns to the depot. This they would do
at night, keeping hid by day, and next night they would push on to the
oasis, fill the barrel and roll it back. Thus only ten miles away he
soon had a store of water, unknown to the thirstiest native of Africa,
from which he could safely replenish his tanks at will. He allowed his
men to sing and even within reason to light fires. Those were jolly
nights while the rum held out; sometimes they saw gazelles watching
them curiously, sometimes a lion went by over the sand, the sound of
his roar added to their sense of the security of their ship; all round
them level, immense lay the Sahara: "This is better than an English
prison," said Captain Shard.
And still the dead calm lasted, not even the sand whispered at night
to little winds; and when the rum gave out and it looked like trouble,
Shard reminded them what little use it had been to them when it was
all they had and the oxen wouldn't look at it.
And the days wore on with singing, and even dancing at times, and at
nights round a cautious fire in a hollow of sand with only one man on
watch they told tales of the sea. It was all a relief after arduous
watches and sleeping by the guns, a rest to strained nerves and eyes;
and all agreed, for all that they missed their rum, that the best
place for a ship like theirs was the land.
This was in Latitude 23 North, Longitude 4 East, where, as I have
said, a ship's broadside was heard for the first time and the last. It
happened this way.
They had been there several weeks and had eaten perhaps ten or a dozen
oxen and all that while there had been no breath of wind and they had
seen no one: when one morning about two bells when the crew were at
breakfast the lookout man reported cavalry on the port side. Shard who
had already surrounded his ship with sharpened stakes ordered all his
men on board, the young trumpeter who prided himself on having picked
up the ways of the land, sounded "Prepare to receive cavalry". Shard
sent a few men below with pikes to the lower port-holes, two more
aloft with muskets, the rest to the guns, he changed the "grape" or
"canister" with which the guns were loaded in case of surprise, for
shot, cleared the decks, drew in ladders, and before the cavalry came
within range everything was ready for them. The oxen were always yoked
in order that Shard could manoeuvre his ship at a moment's notice.
When first sighted the cavalry were trotting but they were coming on
now at a slow canter. Arabs in white robes on good horses. Shard
estimated that there were two or three hundred of them. At sixty yards
Shard opened with one gun, he had had the distance measured, but had
never practised for fear of being heard at the oasis: the shot went
high. The next one fell short and ricochetted over the Arabs' heads.
Shard had the range then and by the time the ten remaining guns of his
broadside were given the same elevation as that of his second gun the
Arabs had come to the spot where the last shot pitched. The broadside
hit the horses, mostly low, and ricochetted on amongst them; one
cannon-ball striking a rock at the horses' feet shattered it and sent
fragments flying amongst the Arabs with the peculiar scream of things
set free by projectiles from their motionless harmless state, and the
cannon-ball went on with them with a great howl, this shot alone
killed three men.
"Very satisfactory," said Shard rubbing his chin. "Load with grape,"
he added sharply.
The broadside did not stop the Arabs nor even reduce their speed but
they crowded in closer together as though for company in their time of
danger, which they should not have done. They were four hundred yards
off now, three hundred and fifty; and then the muskets began, for the
two men in the crow's-nest had thirty loaded muskets besides a few
pistols, the muskets all stood round them leaning against the rail;
they picked them up and fired them one by one. Every shot told, but
still the Arabs came on. They were galloping now. It took some time to
load the guns in those days. Three hundred yards, two hundred and
fifty, men dropping all the way, two hundred yards; Old Frank for all
his one ear had terrible eyes; it was pistols now, they had fired all
their muskets; a hundred and fifty; Shard had marked the fifties with
little white stones. Old Frank and Bad Jack up aloft felt pretty
uneasy when they saw the Arabs had come to that little white stone,
they both missed their shots.
"All ready?" said Captain Shard.
"Aye, aye, sir," said Smerdrak.
"Right," said Captain Shard raising a finger.
A hundred and fifty yards is a bad range at which to be caught by
grape (or "case" as we call it now), the gunners can hardly miss and
the charge has time to spread. Shard estimated afterwards that he got
thirty Arabs by that broadside alone and as many horses.
There were close on two hundred of them still on their horses, yet the
broadside of grape had unsettled them, they surged round the ship but
seemed doubtful what to do. They carried swords and scimitars in their
hands, though most had strange long muskets slung behind them, a few
unslung them and began firing wildly. They could not reach Shard's
merry men with their swords. Had it not been for that broadside that
took them when it did they might have climbed up from their horses and
carried the bad ship by sheer force of numbers, but they would have
had to have been very steady, and the broadside spoiled all that.
Their best course was to have concentrated all their efforts in
setting fire to the ship but this they did not attempt. Part of them
swarmed all round the ship brandishing their swords and looking vainly
for an easy entrance; perhaps they expected a door, they were not
sea-faring people; but their leaders were evidently set on driving off
the oxen not dreaming that the Desperate Lark had other means of
travelling. And this to some extent they succeeded in doing. Thirty
they drove off, cutting the traces, twenty they killed on the spot
with their scimitars though the bow gun caught them twice as they did
their work, and ten more were unluckily killed by Shard's bow gun.
Before they could fire a third time from the bows they all galloped
away, firing back at the oxen with their muskets and killing three
more, and what troubled Shard more than the loss of his oxen was the
way that they manoeuvred, galloping off just when the bow gun was
ready and riding off by the port bow where the broadside could not get
them, which seemed to him to show more knowledge of guns than they
could have learned on that bright morning. What, thought Shard to
himself, if they should bring big guns against the Desperate Lark! And
the mere thought of it made him rail at Fate. But the merry men all
cheered when they rode away. Shard had only twenty-two oxen left, and
then a score or so of the Arabs dismounted while the rest rode further
on leading their horses. And the dismounted men lay down on the port
bow behind some rocks two hundred yards away and began to shoot at the
oxen. Shard had just enough of them left to manoeuvre his ship with an
effort and he turned his ship a few points to the starboard so as to
get a broadside at the rocks. But grape was of no use here as the only
way he could get an Arab was by hitting one of the rocks with shot
behind which an Arab was lying, and the rocks were not easy to hit
except by chance, and as often as he manoeuvred his ship the Arabs
changed their ground. This went on all day while the mounted Arabs
hovered out of range watching what Shard would do; and all the while
the oxen were growing fewer, so good a mark were they, until only ten
were left, and the ship could manoeuvre no longer. But then they all
rode off.
The merry men were delighted, they calculated that one way and another
they had unhorsed a hundred Arabs and on board there had been no more
than one man wounded: Bad Jack had been hit in the wrist; probably by
a bullet meant for the men at the guns, for the Arabs were firing
high. They had captured a horse and had found quaint weapons on the
bodies of the dead Arabs and an interesting kind of tobacco. It was
evening now and they talked over the fight, made jokes about their
luckier shots, smoked their new tobacco and sang; altogether it was
the jolliest evening they'd had. But Shard alone on the quarter-deck
paced to and fro pondering, brooding and wondering. He had chopped off
Bad Jack's wounded hand and given him a hook out of store, for captain
does doctor upon these occasions and Shard, who was ready for most
things, kept half a dozen or so of neat new limbs, and of course a
chopper. Bad Jack had gone below swearing a little and said he'd lie
down for a bit, the men were smoking and singing on the sand, and
Shard was there alone. The thought that troubled Shard was: what would
the Arabs do? They did not look like men to go away for nothing. And
at back of all his thoughts was one that reiterated guns, guns, guns.
He argued with himself that they could not drag them all that way on
the sand, that the Desperate Lark was not worth it, that they had
given it up. Yet he knew in his heart that that was what they would
do. He knew there were fortified towns in Africa, and as for its being
worth it, he knew that there was no pleasant thing left now to those
defeated men except revenge, and if the Desperate Lark had come over
the sand why not guns? He knew that the ship could never hold out
against guns and cavalry, a week perhaps, two weeks, even three: what
difference did it make how long it was, and the men sang:
Away we go, Oho, Oho, Oho,
A drop of rum for you and me
And the world's as round as the letter O
And round it runs the sea.
A melancholy settled down on Shard.
About sunset Lieutenant Smerdrak came up for orders. Shard ordered a
trench to be dug along the port side of the ship. The men wanted to
sing and grumbled at having to dig, especially as Shard never
mentioned his fear of guns, but he fingered his pistols and in the end
Shard had his way. No one on board could shoot like Captain Shard.
That is often the way with captains of pirate ships, it is a difficult
position to hold. Discipline is essential to those that have the right
to fly the skull-and-cross-bones, and Shard was the man to enforce it.
It was starlight by the time the trench was dug to the captain's
satisfaction and the men that it was to protect when the worst came to
the worst swore all the time as they dug. And when it was finished
they clamoured to make a feast on some of the killed oxen, and this
Shard let them do. And they lit a huge fire for the first time,
burning abundant scrub, they thinking that Arabs daren't return, Shard
knowing that concealment was now useless. All that night they feasted
and sang, and Shard sat up in his chart-room making his plans.
When morning came they rigged up the cutter as they called the
captured horse and told off her crew. As there were only two men that
could ride at all these became the crew of the cutter. Spanish Dick
and Bill the Boatswain were the two.
Shard's orders were that turn and turn about they should take command
of the cutter and cruise about five miles off to the North East all
the day but at night they were to come in. And they fitted the horse
up with a flagstaff in front of the saddle so that they could signal
from her, and carried an anchor behind for fear she should run away.
And as soon as Spanish Dick had ridden off Shard sent some men to roll
all the barrels back from the depot where they were buried in the
sand, with orders to watch the cutter all the time and, if she
signalled, to return as fast as they could.
They buried the Arabs that day, removing their water-bottles and any
provisions they had, and that night they got all the water-barrels in,
and for days nothing happened. One event of extraordinary importance
did indeed occur, the wind got up one day, but it was due South, and
as the oasis lay to the North of them and beyond that they might pick
up the camel track Shard decided to stay where he was. If it had
looked to him like lasting Shard might have hoisted sail but it it
dropped at evening as he knew it would, and in any case it was not the
wind he wanted. And more days went by, two weeks without a breeze. The
dead oxen would not keep and they had had to kill three more, there
were only seven left now.
Never before had the men been so long without rum. And Captain Shard
had doubled the watch besides making two more men sleep at the guns.
They had tired of their simple games, and most of their songs, and
their tales that were never true were no longer new. And then one day
the monotony of the desert came down upon them.
There is a fascination in the Sahara, a day there is delightful, a
week is pleasant, a fortnight is a matter of opinion, but it was
running into months. The men were perfectly polite but the boatswain
wanted to know when Shard thought of moving on. It was an unreasonable
question to ask of the captain of any ship in a dead calm in a desert,
but Shard said he would set a course and let him know in a day or two.
And a day or two went by over the monotony of the Sahara, who for
monotony is unequalled by all the parts of the earth. Great marshes
cannot equal it, nor plains of grass nor the sea, the Sahara alone
lies unaltered by the seasons, she has no altering surface, no flowers
to fade or grow, year in year out she is changeless for hundreds and
hundreds of miles. And the boatswain came again and took off his cap
and asked Captain Shard to be so kind as to tell them about his new
course. Shard said he meant to stay until they had eaten three more of
the oxen as they could only take three of them in the hold, there were
only six left now. But what if there was no wind, the boatswain said.
And at that moment the faintest breeze from the North ruffled the
boatswain's forelock as he stood with his cap in his hand.
"Don't talk about the wind to _me_," said Captain Shard: and Bill was
a little frightened for Shard's mother had been a gipsy.
But it was only a breeze astray, a trick of the Sahara. And another
week went by and they ate two more oxen.
They obeyed Captain Shard ostentatiously now but they wore ominous
looks. Bill came again and Shard answered him in Romany.
Things were like this one hot Sahara morning when the cutter
signalled. The lookout man told Shard and Shard read the message,
"Cavalry astern" it read, and then a little later she signalled, "With
guns."
"Ah," said Captain Shard.
One ray of hope Shard had; the flags on the cutter fluttered. For the
first time for five weeks a light breeze blew from the North, very
light, you hardly felt it. Spanish Dick rode in and anchored his horse
to starboard and the cavalry came on slowly from the port.
Not till the afternoon did they come in sight, and all the while that
little breeze was blowing.
"One knot," said Shard at noon. "Two knots," he said at six bells and
still it grew and the Arabs trotted nearer. By five o'clock the merry
men of the bad ship Desperate Lark could make out twelve long
old-fashioned guns on low wheeled carts dragged by horses and what
looked like lighter guns carried on camels. The wind was blowing a
little stronger now. "Shall we hoist sail, sir?" said Bill.
"Not yet," said Shard.
By six o'clock the Arabs were just outside the range of cannon and
there they halted. Then followed an anxious hour or so, but the Arabs
came no nearer. They evidently meant to wait till dark to bring their
guns up. Probably they intended to dig a gun epaulment from which they
could safely pound away at the ship.
"We could do three knots," said Shard half to himself as he was
walking up and down his quarter-deck with very fast short paces. And
then the sun set and they heard the Arabs praying and Shard's merry
men cursed at the top of their voices to show that they were as good
men as they.
The Arabs had come no nearer, waiting for night. They did not know how
Shard was longing for it too, he was gritting his teeth and sighing
for it, he even would have prayed, but that he feared that it might
remind Heaven of him and his merry men.
Night came and the stars. "Hoist sail," said Shard. The men sprang to
their places, they had had enough of that silent lonely spot. They
took the oxen on board and let the great sails down, and like a lover
coming from over sea, long dreamed of, long expected, like a lost
friend seen again after many years, the North wind came into the
pirates' sails. And before Shard could stop it a ringing English cheer
went away to the wondering Arabs.
They started off at three knots and soon they might have done four but
Shard would not risk it at night. All night the wind held good, and
doing three knots from ten to four they were far out of sight of the
Arabs when daylight came. And then Shard hoisted more sail and they
did four knots and by eight bells they were doing four and a half. The
spirits of those volatile men rose high, and discipline became
perfect. So long as there was wind in the sails and water in the tanks
Captain Shard felt safe at least from mutiny. Great men can only be
overthrown while their fortunes are at their lowest. Having failed to
depose Shard when his plans were open to criticism and he himself
scarce knew what to do next it was hardly likely they could do it now;
and whatever we think of his past and his way of living we cannot deny
that Shard was among the great men of the world.
Of defeat by the Arabs he did not feel so sure. It was useless to try
to cover his tracks even if he had had time, the Arab cavalry could
have picked them up anywhere. And he was afraid of their camels with
those light guns on board, he had heard they could do seven knots and
keep it up most of the day and if as much as one shot struck the
mainmast... and Shard taking his mind off useless fears worked out on
his chart when the Arabs were likely to overtake them. He told his men
that the wind would hold good for a week, and, gipsy or no, he
certainly knew as much about the wind as is good for a sailor to know.
Alone in his chart-room he worked it out like this, mark two hours to
the good for surprise and finding the tracks and delay in starting,
say three hours if the guns were mounted in their epaulments, then the
Arabs should start at seven. Supposing the camels go twelve hours a
day at seven knots they would do eighty-four knots a day, while Shard
doing three knots from ten to four, and four knots the rest of the
time, was doing ninety and actually gaining. But when it came to it he
wouldn't risk more than two knots at night while the enemy were out of
sight, for he rightly regarded anything more than that as dangerous
when sailing on land at night, so he too did eighty-four knots a day.
It was a pretty race. I have not troubled to see if Shard added up his
figures wrongly or if he under-rated the pace of camels, but whatever
it was the Arabs gained slightly, for on the fourth day Spanish Jack,
five knots astern on what they called the cutter, sighted the camels a
very long way off and signalled the fact to Shard. They had left their
cavalry behind as Shard supposed they would. The wind held good, they
had still two oxen left and could always eat their "cutter", and they
had a fair, though not ample, supply of water, but the appearance of
the Arabs was a blow to Shard for it showed him that there was no
getting away from them, and of all things he dreaded guns. He made
light of it to the men: said they would sink the lot before they had
been in action half an hour: yet he feared that once the guns came up
it was only a question of time before his rigging was cut or his
steering gear disabled.
One point the Desperate Lark scored over the Arabs and a very good one
too, darkness fell just before they could have sighted her and now
Shard used the lantern ahead as he dared not do on the first night
when the Arabs were close, and with the help of it managed to do three
knots. The Arabs encamped in the evening and the Desperate Lark gained
twenty knots. But the next evening they appeared again and this time
they saw the sails of the Desperate Lark.
On the sixth day they were close. On the seventh they were closer. And
then, a line of verdure across their bows, Shard saw the Niger River.
Whether he knew that for a thousand miles it rolled its course through
forest, whether he even knew that it was there at all; what his plans
were, or whether he lived from day to day like a man whose days are
numbered he never told his men. Nor can I get an indication on this
point from the talk that I hear from sailors in their cups in a
certain tavern I know of. His face was expressionless, his mouth shut,
and he held his ship to her course. That evening they were up to the
edge of the tree trunks and the Arabs camped and waited ten knots
astern and the wind had sunk a little.
There Shard anchored a little before sunset and landed at once. At
first he explored the forest a little on foot. Then he sent for
Spanish Dick. They had slung the cutter on board some days ago when
they found she could not keep up. Shard could not ride but he sent for
Spanish Dick and told him he must take him as a passenger. So Spanish
Dick slung him in front of the saddle "before the mast" as Shard
called it, for they still carried a mast on the front of the saddle,
and away they galloped together. "Rough weather," said Shard, but he
surveyed the forest as he went and the long and short of it was he
found a place where the forest was less than half a mile thick and the
Desperate Lark might get through: but twenty trees must be cut. Shard
marked the trees himself, sent Spanish Dick right back to watch the
Arabs and turned the whole of his crew on to those twenty trees. It
was a frightful risk, the Desperate Lark was empty, with an enemy no
more than ten knots astern, but it was a moment for bold measures and
Shard took the chance of being left without his ship in the heart of
Africa in the hope of being repaid by escaping altogether.
The men worked all night on those twenty trees, those that had no axes
bored with bradawls and blasted, and then relieved those that had.
Shard was indefatigable, he went from tree to tree showing exactly
what way every one was to fall, and what was to be done with them when
they were down. Some had to be cut down because their branches would
get in the way of the masts, others because their trunks would be in
the way of the wheels; in the case of the last the stumps had to be
made smooth and low with saws and perhaps a bit of the trunk sawn off
and rolled away. This was the hardest work they had. And they were all
large trees, on the other hand had they been small there would have
been many more of them and they could not have sailed in and out,
sometimes for hundreds of yards, without cutting any at all: and all
this Shard calculated on doing if only there was time.
The light before dawn came and it looked as if they would never do it
at all. And then dawn came and it was all done but one tree, the hard
part of the work had all been done in the night and a sort of final
rush cleared everything up except that one huge tree. And then the
cutter signalled the Arabs were moving. At dawn they had prayed, and
now they had struck their camp. Shard at once ordered all his men to
the ship except ten whom he left at the tree, they had some way to go
and the Arabs had been moving some ten minutes before they got there.
Shard took in the cutter which wasted five minutes, hoisted sail
short-handed and that took five minutes more, and slowly got under
way.
The wind was dropping still and by the time the Desperate Lark had
come to the edge of that part of the forest through which Shard had
laid his course the Arabs were no more than five knots away. He had
sailed East half a mile, which he ought to have done overnight so as
to be ready, but he could not spare time or thought or men away from
those twenty trees. Then Shard turned into the forest and the Arabs
were dead astern. They hurried when they saw the Desperate Lark enter
the forest.
"Doing ten knots," said Shard as he watched them from the deck. The
Desperate Lark was doing no more than a knot and a half for the wind
was weak under the lee of the trees. Yet all went well for a while.
The big tree had just come down some way ahead, and the ten men were
sawing bits off the trunk.
And then Shard saw a branch that he had not marked on the chart, it
would just catch the top of the mainmast. He anchored at once and sent
a hand aloft who sawed it half way through and did the rest with a
pistol, and now the Arabs were only three knots astern. For a quarter
of a mile Shard steered them through the forest till they came to the
ten men and that bad big tree, another foot had yet to come off one
corner of the stump for the wheels had to pass over it. Shard turned
all hands on to the stump and it was then that the Arabs came within
shot. But they had to unpack their gun. And before they had it mounted
Shard was away. If they had charged things might have been different.
When they saw the Desperate Lark under way again the Arabs came on to
within three hundred yards and there they mounted two guns. Shard
watched them along his stern gun but would not fire. They were six
hundred yards away before the Arabs could fire and then they fired too
soon and both guns missed. And Shard and his merry men saw clear water
only ten fathoms ahead. Then Shard loaded his stern gun with canister
instead of shot and at the same moment the Arabs charged on their
camels; they came galloping down through the forest waving long
lances. Shard left the steering to Smerdrak and stood by the stern
gun, the Arabs were within fifty yards and still Shard did not fire;
he had most of his men in the stern with muskets beside him. Those
lances carried on camels were altogether different from swords in the
hands of horsemen, they could reach the men on deck. The men could see
the horrible barbs on the lanceheads, they were almost at their faces
when Shard fired, and at the same moment the Desperate Lark with her
dry and suncracked keel in air on the high bank of the Niger fell
forward like a diver. The gun went off through the tree-tops, a wave
came over the bows and swept the stern, the Desperate Lark wriggled
and righted herself, she was back in her element.
The merry men looked at the wet decks and at their dripping
clothes. "Water," they said almost wonderingly.
The Arabs followed a little way through the forest but when they saw
that they had to face a broadside instead of one stern gun and
perceived that a ship afloat is less vulnerable to cavalry even than
when on shore, they abandoned ideas of revenge, and comforted
themselves with a text out of their sacred book which tells how in
other days and other places our enemies shall suffer even as we
desire.
For a thousand miles with the flow of the Niger and the help of
occasional winds, the Desperate Lark moved seawards. At first he
sweeps East a little and then Southwards, till you come to Akassa and
the open sea.
I will not tell you how they caught fish and ducks, raided a village
here and there and at last came to Akassa, for I have said much
already of Captain Shard. Imagine them drawing nearer and nearer the
sea, bad men all, and yet with a feeling for something where we feel
for our king, our country or our home, a feeling for something that
burned in them not less ardently than our feelings in us, and that
something the sea. Imagine them nearing it till sea birds appeared and
they fancied they felt sea breezes and all sang songs again that they
had not sung for weeks. Imagine them heaving at last on the salt
Atlantic again.
I have said much already of Captain Shard and I fear lest I shall
weary you, O my reader, if I tell you any more of so bad a man. I too
at the top of a tower all alone am weary.
And yet it is right that such a tale should be told. A journey almost
due South from near Algiers to Akassa in a ship that we should call no
more than a yacht. Let it be a stimulus to younger men.