The Governor came clattering back on his great horse to see that we'd
started, and then went on ahead again, the black A.D.C. bumping along
after him.
You can imagine what a row we made, and how, as we got into the streets,
all the shutters of the windows were thrown back and people peered at us
from behind the bars; dogs, too, flew out and barked from every doorway.
It was a wonderful night--a big moon and millions of stars, the tops of
the mountains showing up all round us. Jolly cold it was, too, and the
Angel and I were glad to snuggle together under a rug.
We seemed to go a long way round, skirting the city, and though
sometimes at street corners pickets and patrols challenged us, they were
quite satisfied. Presently we passed close to a great shadowy building
high up on our right. It had a funny little tower at one corner, and we
recognised the shadow at once--it was San Sebastian.
The Angel and I squeezed each other to buck ourselves up, and kept our
eyes on it all the time. It looked most awfully gloomy, and it seemed
horrid to think that only twelve hours ago Billums had driven past it
with us, and now he was inside and we were going back without him.
'What will he think of us?' I gulped. 'Poor old Billums!'
Well, we got on to the main road, left the city behind us, and presently
began to go downhill. Mr. Perkins went to sleep soon, his jolly red
face rolling from side to side as the carriage bumped, and the Captain
snuggled down in the other corner, and we knew when he went to sleep,
because his eyeglass fell out, and he didn't 'tut, tut,' and put it
back.
We didn't go to sleep for a long time--we were too miserable and
cold--and watched the troopers riding on each side of us with their
blankets over their shoulders, and every half-mile or so, flaming fires
at the side of the road, with soldiers sitting round them. We could hear
them challenging the carriages in front, but when we got up to them,
they only stared at us, or called out to the escort, and wrapped their
blankets round them more closely. There was a huge nigger chap riding
on my side of the carriage, and both he and his wretched thin horse
seemed nearly asleep. I watched him bobbing and lurching from side to
side in his saddle, waking up with a start whenever his poor brute
stumbled, and then must have gone to sleep, because the next I remember
was finding that we were going past rows of houses--pitch dark, with not
a sound coming from them--and knew that we'd got down to Los Angelos.
I was colder than ever, because the Angel had all the rug, but the smell
of the sea was grand.
We drove down to the wharf where we'd landed in the morning. The
carriages all stopped--I could hardly stand when I got out because my
legs were so cramped--and two of our barges were waiting for us, their
mids. holding up lanterns and singing out to let us know where they
were.
The cavalry escort clattered away, the old Governor kissed the hands of
all the ladies as he helped them into the boats, the two A.D.C.'s,
looking frightfully sleepy, clicked their heels and bowed, the Captain
said, 'Tut, tut,' a good many times and shook the Governor by the hand,
the Angel and I managed to get hold of the fat A.D.C. and shake his
hand, and off we all went.
It was simply splendid to be in a boat again and to hear the oars go
'click, click' in the rowlocks, and when we'd got round the end of the
breakwater to see the lights of the _Hector_ and _Hercules_. The other
chaps who had gone back before us had taken orders for the two barges to
wait in, all night, if necessary; that was why we'd found them there.
The Angel and I were both of us dead tired, and went down below to turn
in, but there was a lot of scurrying up above; we heard the Gunnery
Lieutenant sent for, and the Captain's Clerk was turned out. Evidently
something exciting was going to happen, so we ran up on deck again and,
peeping down the ward-room skylight, saw our Captain and the Captain of
the _Hercules_, the Commander, and most of our senior officers all
sitting round the table, which was littered with papers and confidential
books.
We stole away, because the officer of the watch whacked us over the back
with his telescope, and were undressing in the gun-room flat when the
bugler sounded the 'officers' call' and 'both watches fall in.' We
heard 'Clear lower deck' being shouted along the mess decks and bugles
sounding aboard the _Hercules_, so instead of undressing we shifted into
uniform, whilst every one else tumbled out of their hammocks and shifted
into theirs. We all clattered up on deck.
'Everybody aft' was piped, and the men came streaming through the dark
battery door into the glare of the group light on the quarterdeck,
buttoning up the tops of their trousers and stuffing their flannels down
them.
The master-at-arms reported 'Lower deck cleared, sir,' to the Commander,
he reported to the Captain, and the Captain, standing on the top of the
after 9.2 inch turret, coughed, said 'tut, tut,' a good many times, and
then told the men that Billums had been collared because he was so much
like his brother, who'd mixed himself up in politics, that the President
was going to keep him till Gerald surrendered, and that all the foreign
Ministers were agreed that steps had to be taken jolly quickly to get
him out of San Sebastian.
The men were as quiet as lambs, waiting for the exciting part and to
know what he intended doing. You couldn't hear a sound. 'I want you to
clear for action--now--do it quickly--I'm going to take the _Hector_
inside the breakwater at daylight, whilst Captain Roger Hill'--he called
him 'Old Spats,' but corrected himself--'gets under way in the
_Hercules_ and prepares to tackle the forts. They've got some--you've
seen them--up on the hill above the town--but won't give us much
trouble. If Mr. Wilson is not at the landing-stage at noon, the foreign
Ministers will be, and they and all the Europeans who wish will come
aboard this ship. That being the case, I shall then--acting under the
Ministers' orders--take possession of the five Santa Cruz cruisers and
gunboats inside and shall tow them out.'
You could feel the men getting excited, and then he gave several more
'tut, tuts,' and told us that a revolution had started, and that, as the
revolutionary people came from both the provinces to the north and
south, and the mountains separated them and made it impossible for them
to combine successfully by land, the only way they could do so was by
the sea, and as long as the President had his cruisers and gunboats he
could prevent them doing so, and keep the upper hand.
'If we capture his ships, the insurgents can do what they like,' and he
finished up with, 'There are ladies aboard--we couldn't leave them in
Santa Cruz--so work quietly. Carry on, Commander!' We dug out like
smoke, turning the boats in and filling them with water, getting down
davits and rails, lashing the rigging, and working hard till daylight
came.
Then all us mids. scrambled down below to get some hot cocoa and bread
and butter, and were up on deck again in a jiffy, for the buglers
sounded 'cable officers,' which meant that we were just going to weigh
anchor, and we didn't want to miss any of the fun.
The _Hercules_, cleared for action, just astern of us, was looking
awfully grim, her long guns simply bristling over the sides, and white
ensigns lashed in her rigging.
Petty Officer O'Leary came up to ask about Billums--he was very worried
about him--and, just as we began to steam ahead, a cloud of smoke shot
out from one of the forts above the town.
'They're going to fight,' I sang out, not quite certain that I wasn't
frightened.
But O'Leary growled, and said, 'No such luck, sir, anyway, that's only
the sunrise gun--late as usu'l, sir.'
'General quarters' was sounded--we could hear it too aboard the
_Hercules_--and we all had to rush to our stations. Mine was in the
starboard for'ard 9.2 turret, and you may bet your life that directly
we'd cleared it away, and had things ready inside, I got my head jammed
outside the sighting hood to see what was going on.
We headed straight inshore, and then made a wide sweep round the
lighthouse and the end of the breakwater.
As we turned, the white forts about the town came into view, and we
tried to get our gun to bear on them, but though we gave it extreme
elevation, cocking it up in the air, we couldn't elevate it nearly
enough.
Mr. Bigge, the lieutenant in charge of my turret, was very angry about
it, but of course nothing could be done. That was why the _Hercules_
was steaming backwards and forwards, far enough outside the breakwater
for her guns to bear.
As we crept up to the town, I kept my telescope glued on the forts, but
couldn't see any sign of life in them.
'They aren't going to fight, sir, are they?' I asked Mr. Bigge, and he
didn't think they were, which was very disappointing--one doesn't mind
being fired at when one is inside a turret.
On the port side--the breakwater side--we were now right alongside the
Santa Cruz Navy--miserable dirty little ships when you saw them close to
us. Their people were awake and on deck, but hardly bothered to look at
us, and were fishing over the side, smoking cigarettes, and spitting in
the water, some of them washing clothes and hanging them up in the
rigging. They did hoist their colours--the vertical green and yellow
stripes--after a time, but that was the only thing they did. Not very
exciting, after all we had been hoping for, was it?
Just before we got up to the end of the breakwater we'd dropped a kedge
anchor made fast to our biggest wire hawser, and as we went along we
paid the hawser out astern. Then when we'd got just beyond the
landing-stage we dropped an anchor, and there we were in a pretty close
billet, not enough room to turn, but our kedge ready to haul us out
stern first, and everything as snug as a tin of sardines. We were not a
hundred yards from the wharves where that guard of honour had been
yesterday, but only a few people and some mules were moving sleepily
about, and a lonely-looking sentry leant against a great pile of cocoa
bales and yawned.
Well, we'd taken them by surprise right enough, and there was nothing to
do but to wait till noon and see what happened. It was a jolly long
wait, and I don't really know whether I wanted most to see Billums come
off, or to capture the cruisers if he didn't. I know that all the other
chaps didn't want him to come off. Outside the breakwater the
_Hercules_ still steamed backwards and forwards, with her guns trained
on the forts in case anything happened, and during the forenoon got down
her top-masts and wireless gear. This made her look all the more
ferocious, and our Commander began bellowing and cursing 'that he'd have
to do the same and spoil all his paint-work.' It took us a couple of
hours, but it was much better than doing nothing, and later on in the
morning crowds of people came down on the wharves to look at us, and
watch us working. My eye! but it was appallingly hot in there.
At about ten o'clock the forts began to show signs of life, hoisting
yellow and green flags and training their guns round and round. They
had two dynamite guns in one of them--so the books said--and we felt as
though they couldn't possibly miss us if they had fired. That sounded
far too exciting--dynamite seemed rather unpleasant---but the Gunnery
Lieutenant's 'Doggy' brought the news that none of the guns in the fort
could be depressed enough to hit us, which was rather a
relief--really--though the others didn't think so. The cruisers, too,
began to get up steam, let down their gun ports, and ran their guns out.
We could see them being loaded, and then they were trained on us, which
was very exciting when you remember that they were only fifty yards
away.
Directly they had the cheek to do this our port guns were trained on
them--the foremost 9.2 on one, the port for'ard 9.2 on another, two of
the 7.5's on a third, and so on, with orders to fire directly the Santa
Cruz ships fired.
Of course these poor little things wouldn't have stood a chance, but
they kept their crews at their guns, and if they'd only been able to let
off one broadside it would have swept our decks. This made it jolly
interesting for all of us who were getting down the topmasts and had to
work in the open.
I had never thought about how Billums or the Ministers were coming off,
and when at seven bells the first and second barges were called away,
you can imagine how excited I was, because the second barge was mine.
They lowered us into the water, planked a Maxim gun in the bows,
revolvers and cutlasses were served out to the crew, and I had my dirk
and revolver.
The Commander bellowed down that we were to go inshore, lie off the
steps at the landing-place, and wait for Billums or the Ministers.
I was in white uniform with a white helmet, and it was so boilingly hot
that, though the men only had on straw hats, flannels, and duck
trousers, they sweated under their cutlass belts before they'd pulled
half-way inshore.
As we got close to the wharf it was more exciting still, because the
people crowding there and the soldiers began shouting and jeering at us,
shaking sticks and throwing stones--not to hit us, but to splash us.
They weren't brave enough to do any more, because they could see all the
starboard twelve-pounders on board the _Hector_ trained on them. I felt
jolly important, and when Blotchy Smith--the midshipman of the first
barge and a pal of mine--sang out for me to 'lay on my oars,' we bobbed
up and down only about ten yards away and pretended we didn't see them.
We waited and waited; eight bells struck aboard the _Hector_, there
wasn't a sign of any one coming, and the black ruffians on the wharf
became more irritating than ever. Several lumps of mud and dirt had
been thrown into the boats, and one had struck my clean helmet, but I
still pretended not to notice anything. It got so bad soon that Blotchy
Smith sang out to me to train my Maxim on the crowd, and you would have
laughed if you'd seen the brutes clearing away.
Then the _Hector_ signalled across that carriages could be seen coming
down the road from Santa Cruz, and after another long wait we heard the
mob ashore groaning and hooting, and a lot of cavalry and several
carriages came clattering and rattling along the wooden wharves.
You can guess how we wondered whether it was Billums coming or only the
Ministers. It wasn't Billums, for we saw all the foreign Ministers, and
knew that they would not have come with him.
Some soldiers made a way for them, and then we had to pull backwards and
forwards, taking them and a lot of Europeans--Mr. Macdonald among
them--off to the ship, and afterwards go back for their luggage.
'Well, we'll have a bit of a "dust up" after this, sir,' my coxswain
said, and that was about the only comfort.
The Angel told me afterwards that when the Ministers got on board their
wives came up and made asses of them, they were so jolly pleased to see
them, but they'd all been sent below by the time my boat had been
hoisted in. Then we had to collar the cruisers.
Well, even that was disappointing, because they never made any
resistance, the officers simply shrugged their shoulders when we hauled
their colours down and hoisted our own white ensigns, and ordered their
men to pull ashore. You couldn't really blame them, because our 9.2
shells would have blown them to smithereens; but, for all that, it was
very tame.
By half-past one we'd got hawsers aboard their flagship, the _Presidente
Canilla_, and by three o'clock hawsers had been passed from her to the
others, and we simply went astern, hauling on our kedge anchor till we
were clear of the breakwater, and then steamed astern with the whole of
the Santa Cruz Navy coming along after us like a lot of toy ships on the
end of a string. It looked perfectly silly, and the last one--a gunboat
as big as a decent Gosport ferry-boat--fouled the end of the breakwater
till our chaps aboard of her shoved her off, and along she came after
the rest of them. By five o'clock we and the _Hercules_ had anchored,
and all the prizes as well.
It was a jolly tame ending to all the excitement, and we all wondered
what we should do next to make them give up Billums. The A.P. said that
we should probably land and take possession of the Custom House.
He bucked us up a good deal, but not even that came off, because before
we finished making everything shipshape for the night, out puffed the
port launch, flying a huge white flag in her bows and the yellow and
green ensign in the stern, bringing out our friend the Governor and his
two A.D.C.'s. They came along to make complete apologies, and say that
Billums should be given up next morning. He brought a letter from the
President simply grovelling to the various Ministers and imploring them
and the merchants to come ashore again. Wasn't that grand, although,
you know, we couldn't help feeling that we'd been rather playing the
bully?
When it got dark, the Angel, and I, and Mr. Bostock, the Gunner, with
half-a-dozen hands, were sent aboard one of the ships, the _Salvador_,
an old torpedo-gunboat kind of affair, to keep watch through the night.
We had revolvers served out to us in case any chaps from shore tried to
play the idiot; but they didn't, and we simply sat down under an awning
with our coat-collars turned up, and took it in turns to keep watch, or,
if we were all awake, got Mr. Bostock to tell us tales of Ladysmith.
In the morning we all went back to the _Hector_, and at five minutes
past ten o'clock old Billums came along in the port launch, the Governor
bringing him off and making more apologies. Billums _was_ glad to get
back again--he wanted a shave and a clean collar most awfully--and you
can guess how jolly glad we were to have him. The Commander bellowed at
him that he'd make him pay for all the paint-work which had been spoilt
by clearing for action, but it was only his way--he couldn't help
it--and the _Hercules_ gun-room sent a signal, 'Sub to ditto. We are all
jolly glad to get you back,' which was nice of him, though his beasts of
mids. didn't join in with the signal--just like them.
Well, the Ministers and the merchants went ashore jolly pleased with
themselves, but they left all the ladies on board, as they thought it
wiser for them to go to Prince Rupert's Island with us till things had
quieted down in Santa Cruz.
We gave Billums a rousing good sing-song, till the Commander ordered us
to chuck it, and was appallingly rude to him; and next morning we left
the Santa Cruz Navy for its own people to take back behind the
breakwater, and shoved off for Prince Rupert's Island.
You should have seen the Angel looking after the Minister's two
daughters! It was too asinine for words, and I told him so. He said I
was jealous, and we jolly nearly came to punching each other's heads
about them.
*CHAPTER V*
*Gerald Wilson captures San Fernando*
_Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson_
Those thirty-six hours in San Sebastian are over and done with, and I
shouldn't care to go through them again. They were the longest hours I
have ever spent, and they, at any rate, taught me what it does feel like
to be a prisoner, and to look through an iron gateway and envy
everything outside it, and everybody. The other chaps--_insurrectos_
they all were--had been jolly decent to me, although I could not
understand their lingo, and the way they settled down and took things as
a matter of course was simply extraordinary. Even when two more were
dragged out the morning I was released, and shot against that parapet,
the others only shrugged their shoulders and simply smoked cigarettes
all the harder. You could only imagine that they were but
half-civilized, had known no other way of carrying on the politics of
the Republic, and were so used to violence and murder that, when their
turn came to go 'under,'they simply bowed to the inevitable, their only
consolation being that probably in another few weeks or months, if luck
favoured their party, that same stuffy room would be crowded with
President's men, and quite possibly the same villainous-looking
firing-party would just as cheerfully prop them up against that wall and
shoot them down. These same miserable-looking convicts, whom I'd seen
with chains round their ankles, would almost certainly be there to dig
fresh graves.
Of course, all those hours I wondered what our chaps were doing to bail
me out, but didn't worry much--I knew things would come right in the
end--and of course they did.
But I did worry about Gerald and what his hare-brained adventures would
lead him to. He had always been getting into trouble at home, and that
was why the pater and mater had shipped him out to Santa Cruz, though
they little thought that he'd take a leading part in a revolution, and
the poor old mater would be fearfully worried when she heard about it.
It was jolly to know that an Englishman, and my own brother, was such a
boss among these fierce, blood-thirsty, half-Spanish people, but that
wouldn't be much comfort to the mater if he was stuck up against the
parapet of San Sebastian, which would certainly be his fate if he ever
fell into the clutches of the President.
It was my chum of the cigarette case who actually fetched me down and
took me aboard the _Hector_. Even whilst I was trying to thank him, the
Commander began bellowing that 'He'd make me pay for the paint he'd
spoilt clearing for action and housing the topmasts.' He was as rude as
it was possible to be, but every one else--'Old Tin Eye' included--was
all right, and Ginger signalled congratulations from the _Hercules_.
Of course my adventure was known all over Princes' Town before we'd
anchored more than an hour or two, and reporters from the local papers
and Reuter's Agent came bustling on board for more details, but were
told nothing, except that I'd been arrested by mistake, and that, as a
hint to the President to let me out again, 'chop, chop,' one or two of
the Santa Cruz gunboats had been seized. We had all been ordered to
give no political information to anybody, but you may imagine that their
ears were rigged out for something more exciting than that, and you can
jolly well guess who gave it to them--the Angel backed up by Cousin Bob.
They saw their way to getting a cheap 'blow out' at the Savannah Hotel,
and actually had the cheek to tell the two local reporters that if
they'd stand them a dinner there, they would tell them all they knew
about it.
They had put their names down in the leave book for the late boat and
went ashore, but of course I had no idea what their game was. I had
turned in early, and they woke me, by knocking at my cabin and asking if
they could come in.
I switched on my light, and there they were, in their best blue suits,
grinning from ear to ear.
They both began talking twenty to the dozen. 'We've given you such a
"leg up"--we've had a topping feed at the Savannah, and you'll see all
about it in the papers to-morrow!'
'All what?' I asked.
'All about you fighting dozens of soldiers, knocking them over, and of
our trying to rescue you.'
'We put in a lot of extras to make it look better,' Bob squeaked.
'We told them all about knocking over the rotten _Hercules_ mids., and
about you being so like Cousin Gerald.'
'What!' I sang out, sitting up in my bunk. 'You blessed idiots, what rot
have you been up to? You know you had orders not to speak of it.'
'We didn't say a word about politics, not a word,' Bob said rather
nervously. 'It's quite all right; we never mentioned politics.' The
Angel added, 'We didn't tell them the real way you escaped.'
'Out with it! What did you tell them, you fools?'
They were backing out of the cabin--rather sulky--but I yelled for them
to come back. 'Now, none of your tomfoolery. What did you tell them?'
'Well, we gave ourselves a bit of a leg up too,' the Angel began,
looking down his nose as good as gold.
'It really was all a joke,' Bob interrupted, 'it was their fault if they
believed it. We told them that we waited till night under the walls of
San Sebastian, wriggled over the parapet, and found your dungeon.'
'We told them that we'd whistled "Rule, Britannia!"--very
softly--till--we--heard--you--whistle back,' the Angel stuttered out,
choking with laughter, 'and that the sentry was asleep, and we only had
to knock him down--and gag him--steal the key--open the door--all of us
crawling away again over the walls and tramping it on our flat feet down
to Los Angelos.'
'You don't mean to tell me that they believed all that rot?'
'We think they did--wasn't it a joke?' Bob said--he was beginning to see
that I didn't think it a joke. 'We gave them the key of the dungeon--an
old brass key we'd found on the armourer's bench before we went ashore.'
'It was the key of the bread-room that was broken yesterday,' the Angel
gurgled, when he could stop laughing. 'And we said we'd all swum off to
the ship in the dark.'
I wasn't in the humour to see how it was funny, and sent them out of it.
'If anything does come out in the papers, I'll beat you both,' I told
them.
'Well, the feed was worth a hiding, and the joke too,' Bob mumbled, as
they went away--thank goodness the Angel was no relation of mine and had
no mother or sister who could write snorters to me, so he didn't dare to
be rude.
You can guess how angry I was next morning, when the wretched local
papers did come aboard, and saw in big letters: 'Romantic Escape of
British Naval Officer--Plucky Middies effect Rescue,' and underneath it
was the silliest nonsense you could possibly read. Honestly, even now I
don't know whether it was put in as a joke, and whether, instead of Bob
and the Angel pulling the reporters' legs, they were pulling ours.
Angry! I was too angry to speak!
They described me as Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, the celebrated
United Service half-back, and the brilliant naval officer, specially
appointed to command the _Hector's_ gun-room by the Lords of the
Admiralty as a mark of their appreciation of my services! Angry! My
blessed potatoes! I sent for my dear cousin and the Angel and gave them
six of the best over the gun-room table--as hard as I could lay it
on--the first three for making their Sub look a fool, and the last three
for disobeying the Captain's orders. I know which were the hardest
whacks, and I didn't care a biscuit what Bob's sister, Daisy, thought or
wrote. They went away muttering that the dinner was worth it--every
time--which was meant to be rude, because they both had got it into
their noddles that they'd actually given me a 'leg up,' and couldn't see
that they'd only made a laughing-stock of me.
First of all the Commander sent for me on the quarterdeck. He had
Perkins there as a witness, and before I ever had a chance of saying
anything, bellowed out, 'You're the "brilliant naval officer," are you?
You're a fool, and an idiot, and a useless idiot. You can't keep order
in the gun-room, and the sooner you get out of the ship the better.' He
bellowed till the maintopmen, painting masts and yards up aloft, left
off painting to listen to him. He didn't ask me to speak, so I
didn't--said not a word--which made him almost apoplectic with rage, his
ugly red face getting perfectly crimson. Every time he stopped for
breath, Perkins kept on trying to tell him that perhaps it wasn't my
fault, which sprung him off again, and at last he turned round and
cursed him for interfering.
Perkins twisted round on his heel and hobbled off, but the Commander
called for him to come back, and he did, his jolly face all tightened
out.
'Did you hear the Commander curse me on the quarterdeck?' he asked very
quietly.
'I did, sir,' I said; and he turned to the Commander, 'Very well, I
shall see the Captain about it. I'm not going to stand any more of it.'
You should have seen the Commander's face. His mouth opened, and he
looked as if he would willingly have murdered the two of us, then he
bounced off the quarterdeck, and into his cabin just inside the battery,
and banged the door, like the childish bully he was. As he didn't come
out again, I went below.
Then the Skipper sent for me. He was grinning all over his face: 'Those
two boys have made a fool of you, Wilson; tut! tut! stop their
leave--whack 'em both.'
'I've beaten them, sir, already,' I told him, 'and given them six
apiece--as hard as I could,' and explained to him that I had no idea why
they went ashore.
'Tut! tut! no harm done; they got their dinner all right; tell 'em to
lunch with me, tut! tut!--if they can sit down--I'd have done it myself
for a good dinner--thirty years ago.'
Old Ginger and I had arranged to go for a walk together that afternoon,
to shake up our livers, and I was not particularly keen, after what had
happened, to ask leave from the Commander, but I screwed up my courage
and did so, and was flattened aback when he said, 'Very good, Wilson.
Come and have "chow" with me in the ward-room to-night--celebrate your
release.'
That was the rotten, or rather the irritating, part about him. After
he'd been as rude as a fishwife, and long before you'd got over bubbling
with anger at the sight of him, he'd come up as if nothing had happened
and take the wind out of your sails.
Of course I had to say 'Yes,' although at the time I'd have much
preferred to take him on with bare knuckles and punch his head to
relieve my feelings.
Old Ginger met me at the Governor's steps, where we landed, and we had a
fifteen-mile walk as hard as we could go--tearing along till we hadn't a
dry rag between us.
Fifteen miles in that climate takes more out of you than twice the
distance in England, so you can guess we were pretty well 'done' by the
time we got back to the landing-steps.
Whilst we waited for our boats we sat under the shade of the fruit
market and watched the niggers--all as cheerful as sand-boys--unloading
a cargo of cocoa-pods from a small schooner. The washer-ladies were
coming ashore, too, from the _Hector_ and _Hercules_, cackling like hens
because of the huge bundles of clothes they'd got. Perkins's friend,
Arabella de Montmorency, was the first to waddle up the steps, grinning
from ear to ear, and carrying a huge bundle. 'The good Lo'd be
praised,' she sang out to a buck-nigger waiting for her, 'Massa Perkins
pay Arabella the three shilling and tuppence--Massa Perkins know
Arabella good vash-lady--no black trash for Massa Perkins. I pray de
good Lo'd keep Massa Perkins in His strong hand.' She went back into
the boat for more washing, but the other washer-ladies had bagged it,
and there was a fine row. All their men friends joined in shouting, and
yelling, and shaking their fists at each other, and we hoped to see a
good free-fight, but the Sikh policeman on duty stepped majestically
forward, said a few sharp words, and they all burst out laughing,
Arabella waddling away with her man carrying the disputed bundle, and
trying to look dignified, telling everybody: 'Arabella no black
trash--Arabella vash for de British naval officah.'
It was too funny for words, Ginger and I were simply doubled up with
laughter, when I felt some one touch my shoulder, and, looking round,
saw a thick-set native chap, as brown as leather--like those soldier
chaps we'd seen on the wharf at Los Angelos--in a blue striped cotton
vest, which showed his lumpy chest muscles through it, and a pair of
loose cotton drawers, his brown legs and feet naked. He was bowing and
holding a broad Spanish grass hat in front of him with one hand.
'William Wilson,' he kept on saying.
'What is it, old cock? me William Wilson--all light--belong ploper.
What's your game?'
His face beamed, and he pulled a dirty crumpled letter from under his
vest and handed it to me.
It was addressed to me in Gerald's handwriting, and I tore it open, his
face beaming again as he pointed a thin brown finger first to the
address, and then circled it round my face, saying, 'William Wilson.'
It was the only English he seemed to know. I read:
'DEAR OLD BILLUMS--Sorry to have cleared out so hurriedly the other
day--just managed to give them the slip in time--heard news of your
adventure and the Navy business--wish you chaps would collar the lot of
them, for good. Keep a look-out for that little chap who was shadowing
me; he'll try and get even with one of us. Tell the mater I'm having a
ripping time--better than planting--will pay better than planting if our
side wins. Tell her those socks she made me are A1. Look out for
yourself--you're too much like me for this corner of the world. Don't
send an answer.--GERALD.'
The nigger was still beaming and bowing, and he pointed to my hair. I'm
jiggered if he hadn't spotted me by it.
That was a funny go, if you like, and I was jolly glad to know that
Gerald was all right. It didn't worry me a ha'penny candle about that
detective chap--I'd be only too jolly glad to see his ugly face and
smash it. Ginger and I thought that the little messenger must have come
in one of the many trading-schooners which slipped across from the
mainland at night when the land breeze sprung up. We gave him all the
small change we had in our pockets, and he smiled, and bowed, and
disappeared among the merry crowd round us. He couldn't speak a word of
English except my name, and my Chinese pidgin-English wasn't a success.
This was the only excitement and the only news I got from Gerald for
several weeks. In the meantime the _Hector_ and the _Hercules_ carried
out the gunnery practices which had been interrupted at Gibraltar,
returning to anchor off Princes' Town every Thursday night till Monday
morning, so we managed to get in a good many football matches. Ginger
and I borrowed grounds and had some more gun-room matches as well, but
they didn't smooth things over, rather the reverse, for when we beat the
_Hercules_ at rugby by a try, which, they swore, wasn't one, matters
went from bad to worse. There actually was some doubt about it, for
Perkins had been referee (we couldn't get any one else) and couldn't
keep up with the ball on account of his game leg. We had to separate
the two teams in the pavilion, and after that my mids. seldom came back
to the ship from a tennis party, picnic, or dance, or anything in fact,
without having some furious tale to spin.
Old Ginger and I pretty nearly washed our hands of them and let them go
their own way.
There was no regular news from Santa Cruz all this time, because the
President had closed the Telegraph Company's office, but the Pickford
and Black steamers still called at Los Angelos twice a month before
coming to Princes' Town, and they brought news of what was going on.
As it chiefly came from Santa Cruz, it was from the President's point of
view, and if it was at all correct, most of de Costa's people were
already in San Sebastian or flying in front of the President's
invincible troops.
Our fat friend, Mr. Macdonald, appeared at the Princes' Town Club one
day when I happened to be there, and he, too, gave me anything but
cheering news. Nearly every week, he told me, the guns of San Sebastian
fired a salute in honour of another victory over the _insurrectos_.
'They're not showing fight anywhere; the President's troops are scouring
the provinces and driving them from place to place, whilst his cruisers
and gunboats scour the coast and prevent any arms or ammunition being
smuggled ashore.' This made me jolly nervous about Gerald, and very
miserable too, for he also had told me that Gerald's rubber plantation
had been entirely destroyed in revenge for his taking up arms. It may
have served him right, but it was beastly hard luck on the pater, who
had bought the place for him.
Of course we seemed to be in the thick of everything, because Prince
Rupert's Island was only fifty-two miles from the nearest point on the
coast of Santa Cruz, and, as it was the centre of all the foreign trade
of the Republic, the revolution, which was going on there, was
practically the only thing talked about. By listening to the English
merchants and officials talking at the Club we got to know quite a lot
about the military position and the chances of the two parties.
You see the Republic of Santa Cruz stretches for almost a hundred and
fifty miles along the eastern shore of South America, and is made up of
three big provinces.
Starting from the south, there was the province of Leon, with its vast
swamps, forests of mahogany, and other valuable trees, and its rubber
and cocoa plantations. It was on the northern border of this province
that Gerald had his plantation.
The capital and centre of its trade was San Fernando, situated at the
top of a narrow inlet of the sea called La Laguna. Most of this trade
was in the hands of Europeans, and the town itself was held for the
President by a General Moros with about a thousand troops. From what we
heard, he didn't worry much about anything, except to loot the Custom
House occasionally or take bribes from the merchants and captains of
trading-ships. The President always had a 'down' on this province, and
hindered its trade as much as he could without stopping it altogether;
and, after his old General had had a 'picking' at San Fernando, every
ship had to stop at the narrow mouth of La Laguna and pay more dollars.
The President had a pretty modern fort there--El Castellar--to make them
heave to if they forgot to stop, and directly the revolution started he
had given orders that no ships whatever were to be allowed to pass, so
you can pretty well imagine how the English merchants cursed. Then
northward of the province of Leon came the towering mountain ranges and
plateaus of Santa Cruz, arid, and scorched, and dusty, rising almost
precipitously from the forests of Leon, and falling again in terrific
ridges and chasms into the northern province of San Juan, the eastern
slopes falling into the sea as we had seen at Los Angelos. The mineral
wealth--copper, gold, and silver--of the Republic was in these
mountains, and they absolutely cut off the southern province of Leon
from any communication with the northern province of San Juan. There
were mountain paths and dangerous mule-tracks, but what I mean is that
no armies could possibly assist each other across them, and old Canilla
could sit up in Santa Cruz, at the top of his mountain, and jolly well
choose his own time to crush any rising in the provinces spread out at
his feet, and, so long as his Navy was loyal, could prevent any
insurgents from one province getting to the other by sea.
However, there was one thing 'up against' the President. The province
of San Juan bred all the cattle and live-stock of the Republic, and he
was obliged to keep a big army down in the northern plains to guard
them. Once the insurgents got the upper hand in San Juan he would have
to depend entirely on importing cattle from the neighbouring Republics
or from Prince Rupert's Island--not so much to feed his troops, but
Santa Cruz itself.
Now you will have a rough idea how the land lay, and can understand
that, so long as his Navy was loyal to him and prevented the two
insurgent provinces on either side of him from combining, the President
would be cock of the walk.
That was the opinion of nearly every one in Princes' Town, and, though
they all favoured the insurgents and wanted them to win, they'd shake
their heads and say that old Gerald's chances were pretty bad.
Then came news, from Santa Cruz, that there'd been a great battle fifty
miles or so to the north'ard of San Fernando, and that de Costa's
insurgent troops had been defeated with great slaughter. There was a
rumour going through the Club that Gerald had been killed, but I
couldn't find how it had started.
'Don't you worry. All my eye!' my chum 'in the know' said; 'de Costa
isn't such a fool as to try a pitched battle yet. Wait for another six
months. The President is only trying to bluff the people who are finding
the money to keep his end up.' Then he told me something more about
that big armoured cruiser _La Buena Presidente_.
He had an idea that de Costa's people were trying to get hold of her.
'If they do,' he said, 'she can simply wipe the floor with all Canilla's
rotten old tubs, and his game will be finished in a couple of months.'
I couldn't help worrying about Gerald and the mater--when she heard the
news--for she thought he was still tapping his rubber trees. It may
have been because of that, but I played abominably against the Prince
Rupert's Island team that afternoon. It was fearfully hot, the sweat
seemed to make my eyes all hazy; my fingers were all thumbs, I fumbled
my passes, and if I did gather them properly, could think of nothing
except to get rid of the ball quickly, without passing forward. I was
playing centre three-quarters, so messed up the whole of our attack and
we lost badly. The Angel at 'half kept looking at me with a puzzled
face, wondering what was wrong, and all our chaps were shouting
themselves hoarse, 'Buck up, Wilson,' but nothing would go right, and
directly after the match I trudged down to the Governor's steps by
myself, to smoke a pipe and wait for our boat.
You know what it feels like to have lost the game for your side; so I
wanted to be alone, slung my heavy sweater over my back, with the arms
tied round my neck, put on my coat over it, and sat down where old
Ginger and I had sat that time before.
I smoked and watched a crowd of niggers hustling round me unloading a
lighter which had come ashore from one of Pickford and Black's steamers
lying off in the harbour--she had come in from Los Angelos that
morning--and had just taken off my straw hat to light another match
inside it, when I heard a naked footstep behind me, a fierce kind of a
grunting hiss, and something struck my shoulder.
I was on my feet and had turned in a second, and there was that little
brute who had been shadowing Gerald, and had nabbed me up at Santa Cruz.
He had a long knife in his hand, and I knew him at once, although he was
dressed as a coolie, by the scar on his forehead--the one my pipe had
made.
I had hold of his wrist in a jiffy, but it was all oily. He wriggled
himself free, I made another grab at him, but he was like an eel, and
bolted through the crowd of niggers. It was all done so quickly that no
one seemed to have noticed him, and, though I dashed after him, I lost
sight of the little beast. Something warm began trickling down inside
my jersey, and I gave up following him to see what damage had been done.
The knife had made a gash in the skin over my left collar-bone, and I
was bleeding like a pig. Like an ass, I must have fainted, for when I
woke up my head was resting in the huge lap of Arabella de Montmorency,
who was pinching up the skin near the gash; there were crowds of
jabbering niggers all squashing round me; the tall grave Sikh policeman
had his notebook out, and I heard her chattering away: 'The good Lo'd be
praised. He send Arabella to sab de life of de British naval
officah--some black trash hab done dis--no buckra niggah from Princes'
Town--oh, de pretty yellow hair.'
Luckily for me Dr. Clegg and the rest of the football team came up and
rescued me, or the old 'washa-lady' would probably have kissed me.
Of course I was all right directly, and Dr. Clegg stitched me up when we
got aboard, but I was on the sick list for a week. The knife had cut
clean through the knot in the sleeves of my sweater, and this had
probably saved my life. Strangely enough, when I got on board, there
was a letter waiting for me from my friend the fat A.D.C., telling me,
in very bad English, that Pedro Mendez--that was the name of the ugly
brute--had been dismissed the police force for bungling Gerald's arrest,
and had left Santa Cruz burning to be revenged on us both. The letter
and the ex-policeman had probably come across together in the Pickford
and Black steamer which I'd been watching.
It was awfully decent of my A.D.C. chum to have taken all this trouble
to warn me, because it must have been jolly hard work for him to write a
letter in English.
He signed himself Alfonso Navarro, and I shouldn't forget his 'tally' in
a hurry. It wasn't his fault that the letter had been a bit late, and
it didn't make me the less grateful.
The Angel and Bob, pale with excitement, came rushing into my cabin
directly Dr. Clegg had finished with me, and of course they wanted to
see the letter. Bob wanted the stamps and begged the envelope. He gave a
whoop. 'Look at that, Billums--on the back--it's in French!'
Scrawled in pencil very hurriedly was _Votre frere est blesse seulement
dans le bras droit_.
Phew! then there had been a battle after all, and I felt sick all over,
because it struck me that my brother might have been captured, otherwise
how would the A.D.C. know? And if he was captured, I knew it meant San
Sebastian and a firing-party.
It was mail day too; I had to write home, and it was jolly difficult not
to tell the mater what I'd heard about Gerald. I couldn't tell her
about the little brute either--only about my having done so badly at
football.
It was lucky I didn't say anything about Gerald, because three days
later--Dr. Clegg still kept me in my bunk--one of our boats brought off
another note to me.
'One of those nigger kind of chaps gave it me, sir,' the coxswain of the
boat said. 'Didn't seem to talk English--nothing but your name, sir.
He cleared out directly he'd got rid of it.'
I thought of Gerald's messenger and thought it must be from Gerald,
though it wasn't in his handwriting. It was from Gerald, for all that,
and I soon knew why the handwriting was so funny, for he wrote:
'We've had a bit of a scrap--got a bit of a shell in my right arm.
Learning to write with my left--don't tell the mater. We got a bit of a
hiding--my fault--I'm all serene barring the arm. You'll hear news,
important news soon.--GERALD.'
Well, he wasn't a prisoner, which was the great thing, and I felt jolly
cheerful again.
'Wouldn't it be ripping if we could get some leave and go over there and
chip in?' Bob and the Angel said, their mouths and eyes wide open.
Of course that was what we all wanted to do, and wondered all this time
why the English Government allowed the President to go on stopping our
trade. It was jolly galling to all of us to see the fleet of local
British steamers lying in Princes' Town harbour doing nothing, simply
because the President up at Santa Cruz wanted to punish the insurgents.
The English merchants were grumbling furiously, and wanting to know what
use the _Hector_ and _Hercules_ were if they weren't to be used to
protect their trade. Everybody was saying that it was a thousand pities
that more people hadn't followed Gerald's example and gone in for the
revolution 'bald headed.' In fact, Gerald had become a popular hero,
and you can imagine how proud it made me. But then I got rather a nasty
jar. The Captain sent for me, and I found him in his cabin with a lot
of papers in front of him. He tut, tutted and hummed and hawed a good
deal, and then burst out with: 'Look here, Wilson, you'd better give
that brother of yours the tip to keep clear of Princes' Town or an
English man-of-war. I've got orders to arrest him if I can get my hands
on him. Look at this!' and he showed me a big document beginning,
'Whereas it has been represented to us by our Minister resident in Santa
Cruz in the Republic of Santa Cruz that a person, Gerald Wilson--known
as Don Geraldio--being a British Subject, has taken up arms against the
Government of Santa Cruz Republic, that Government being at present on
terms of friendship with his Britannic Majesty's Government, all
law-abiding subjects of his Britannic Majesty are hereby warned, on pain
of being indicted for felony, to abstain from affording any assistance
to the aforesaid Gerald Wilson.'