"No can do."
"Oh, rot!" said the Junior Watch-keeper, who up to this juncture had
been gracefully pursuing the olive at the bottom of his glass with the
tip of his tongue. "Pull your socks up, Ah Chee, an' think of
something."
The Messman brooded darkly. "S'pose you go shore-side, catchee salmon,
catchee snipe, pl'aps can do."
"By Jove, yes," said the A.P., rising and walking to the scuttle. "We
never thought of that. But it's a God-forsaken place--look at it."
The ship was anchored in a little bay off the mouth of a shallow river.
On one side the ground rose abruptly to a bleak promontory, and on the
other stretched a waste of sand-dunes. Inland not a tree or vestige of
human habitation broke the dreary expanse of plain, which was covered
with stunted bushes and rolled away to a range of low hills in the
distance.
"All very fine to talk about salmon," said the Young Doctor, "but there
isn't a rod in the ship, and no one could use it if there was."
"Make one," suggested the Junior Watchkeeper, with cheerful resource
begotten of cocktails.
"But flies--? A rod's no good without flies and things."
"I'll make a spinner. They won't take a fly in these parts, a fellow
told me at Shanghai. 'Sides, we can't chuck a fly."
The Carpenter was summoned to the conclave, and the result of his
labours was a formidable spar, resembling more closely a hop-pole than a
salmon-rod, some fourteen feet in length.
"Why not take the lower boom and have done with it?" inquired the Young
Doctor, who had abandoned 'Bradshaw' in favour of his gun-case, and was
dabbling with awful joy in oil and cotton-waste.
The Junior Watch-keeper vouched no reply. His was the spirit of the
"Compleat Angler," and armed with a nippers and clasp-knife he wrestled
grimly with the lid of a tobacco-tin. Half an hour's toil, conducted in
profane silence, resulted in a triangular object which, embellished with
red bunting and bristling with hooks, he passed round for the startled
consideration of the Mess.
"Well," admitted the Young Doctor, with the air of one generously
conceding a debatable point, "you _might_ catch the bottom, with a
certain amount of luck, but--" a well-flung cushion cut short further
criticism, and the Committee of Supplies adjourned.
The rising sun next morning beheld three depressed-looking figures
disembarking on the sandy beach. The Junior Watch-keeper had fashioned
a wondrous reel out of pieces of a cigar-box, and the Boatswain had
provided about thirty fathoms of mackrel-line and some thin wire. The
A.P. essayed a joke about using the rod as a flagstaff to commemorate
their landing, but it lacked savour--as indeed jests do in the pale
light of dawn. Wreaths of mist hung over the river, swirling between
sandy banks, leaden-grey and noiseless. A few gulls wheeled overhead,
protesting at the invasion with dismal cries, and the waves broke
whispering along the beach in an arc of foam.
The three adventurers gazed despondently at the sand-dunes, the receding
stern of the boat, and finally each other's sleepy, unshaven faces. The
Young Doctor broke suddenly into a feeble cackle of laughter. An
unfamiliar chord of memory vibrated, and with it came a vision of a
certain coffee-stall outside Charing Cross Station and the Junior
Watch-keeper's wan face surmounted by a battered opera-hat. "Jove!" he
murmured. "... Reminds me ... Covent Garden Ball...!"
The A.P. had toiled to the top of an adjacent mound, from which, like
Moses of old, he "surveyed the landscape o'er." "Come on," he shouted
valiantly.
"Well," said the Junior Watch-keeper, "_Vive le sport_! If there were
no fools there'd be no fun." He shouldered his strange impedimenta and
joined the A.P.
Away to their left a glint of water showed intermittently as the river
wound between clumps of low bushes and hillocks. Patches of level
ground covered with reeds and coarse grass fought with the sand-dunes,
and stretched away in dreary perspective to the hills. Briefly they
arranged their plan of campaign: the Junior Watch-keeper was to fish
up-stream, the other two meeting him about five miles inland in a couple
of hours' time. They separated, and the Junior Watchkeeper dipped
behind a rise and was lost to view.
It is not recorded what exactly the snipe were doing that day. The
Young Doctor had it that they were "taking a day off," the A.P. that
they had struck the wrong part of the country. But the melancholy fact
remains that two hours later they sat down to share their sandwiches
with empty bags and clean barrels. A faint shout from out of the
distance started them again into activity.
"He's fallen in," suggested the Young Doctor with cheerful promptitude.
"Sat on the hook, more likely." There was grim relish in the A.P.'s
tone. Neither was prepared for the spectacle that met their astonished
eyes when they reached the river.
Standing on a partly submerged sand-bank, in the middle of the stream,
dripping wet and "full of strange oaths," was the Junior Watchkeeper.
The point of his rod was agitated like the staff of a Morse signaller's
flag, while a smother of foam and occasional glimpses of a silver belly
twenty yards up-stream testified that the age of miracles had not yet
passed.
"Play him, you fool!" yelled the A.P.
"Can't," wailed the Junior Watch-keeper, battling with the rod. "The
reel's jammed!"
"Look out, then!" shouted the Young Doctor, and the safety-catch of his
gun snapped. "Let me have a shot----"
But the Junior Watch-keeper had abandoned his rod. Seizing the stout
line in his fingers, his feet braced in the yielding sand, shamelessly
he hauled the lordly fish, fighting, to his feet. "Come on," he
spluttered, "bear a hand, you blokes!" The "blokes" rushed into the
shallows, and together they floundered amid a tangle of line and showers
of spray, grabbing for its gills. Eventually it was flung ashore, and
the _coup de grace_ administered with the butt-end of the A.P.'s gun.
"Thirty pounds, if it's an ounce," gasped the Junior Watch-keeper,
wringing the water out of his trousers. They stood and surveyed it in
amazed silence, struck dumb with the wonder of the thing. Contrasted
with the salmon as they knew it--decorated with sprigs of fennel on a
fishmonger's slab--it looked an uncouth creature, with an underhung jaw
and a curiously arched back. The A.P. prodded it suspiciously with the
toe of his boot.
"'S'pose it's all right--eh? Clean run, an' all the rest of it?"
"Course it is," replied the Junior Watchkeeper indignantly. He knew no
more about its condition than the other two, but his was all the pride
of capture. He relieved the tedium of the return journey with tales of
wondrous salmon that lurked in pools beneath the bank; unmoved they
listened to outrageous yarns of still larger salmon that swam in
open-mouthed pursuit of the home-made spinner, jostling each other by
reason of their numbers. The Junior Watch-keeper had set out that
morning an honourable man, who had never angled for anything larger than
a stickleback in his life. He returned at noon hugging a thirty-pound
salmon, his mouth speaking vanity and lies.
"An' I nearly shot the damn thing," sighed the Young Doctor at the close
of the recital.
"What _did_ you shoot, by the way?" asked the Junior Watch-keeper
loftily.
"Nothing," was the curt reply, and his cup of happiness ran over.
* * * * *
The principal guest of the evening eyed a generous helping of salmon
that was placed in front of him, and turned to his neighbour. "Pardon
me," he said courteously, "but does this fish happen to have been caught
in any of the local rivers?"
All eyes turned to the Junior Watchkeeper, who, prevented by a mouthful
from replying, sat breathing heavily through his nose. "Because if it
was," went on the Russian, "I think I ought to warn you--at the risk of
giving you offence--that local salmon are poisonous. That is, unfit for
human consumption."
Followed an awful silence. The Young Doctor broke it. "How
interesting," he observed feebly; "but why?"
The Russian shook his head. "I don't really know. And I hope you will
forgive me for assuring you that they are dangerous to the health."
"Oh," said the captor faintly, "I've eaten my whack!"
The remainder of the dinner was not, gastronomically speaking, a
success. The Mess and their guests eyed one another at intervals with
furtive apprehension, much as Cleopatra's poisoned slaves must have
awaited the appearance of each other's symptoms. But it was not until
some hours later that the Young Doctor was awakened by some one calling
his name aloud. He sat up in his bunk and listened, and presently it
was borne upon him that somewhere, in the stillness of the night,
watches, the Junior Watch-keeper was dreeing his weird.
*XII.*
*THAT WHICH REMAINED.*
Oddly enough, no record exists of the origin of his nickname.
"Periwinkle" he had been all through crammer and _Britannia_ days. As
senior Signal Midshipman of the Mediterranean Flagship, he was still
"The Periwinkle," small for his years, skinny as a weasel, with straight
black hair, and grey eyes set wide apart in a brown face; the eyelashes,
black and short, grew very close together, which gave him the perpetual
appearance of having recently coaled ship and neglected to clean the
dust from his eyes.
The Signal Midshipmen of a fleet, especially the Mediterranean Fleet of
those days, were essentially keen on their "job." The nature of the
work and inter-ship rivalry provided for that. But with the Periwinkle,
Signals were more than a mere "job." They formed his creed and
recreation: the flag-lockers were tarpaulin-covered shrines; the
semaphores spoke oracles by day as did the flashing lamps by night. And
the high priest of these mysteries was the Flag-Lieutenant, a Rugby
International and right good fellow withal, but, to the Periwinkle, a
very god who walked among men.
To understand something of his hero-worship you would need to have been
on the bridge when the Fleet put out to sea for tactics. It was
sufficient for the Periwinkle to watch this immaculate, imperturbable
being snap out a string of signals apparently from memory, as he so
often did, while hoist after hoist of flags leaped from the lockers and
sped skywards, and the bridge was a whirl of bunting. Even the Admiral,
who spoke so little and saw so much, was in danger of becoming a mere
puppet in the boy's sight.
But there was more than this to encourage his ardour. The
Flag-Lieutenant, recognising the material of a signalman of unusual
promise, would invite the Periwinkle to his cabin after dinner and
unfold, with the aid of printed diagrams and little brass oblongs
representing ships, the tactical and strategical mysteries of his craft.
There was one unforgettable evening, too, when the Periwinkle was bidden
to dinner ashore at the Malta Club. The dinner was followed by a dance,
whereat, in further token of esteem, the Flag-Lieutenant introduced him
to a lady of surpassing loveliness--The Fairest (the Periwinkle was
given to understand) of All the Pippins.
The spring gave place to summer, and the island became a glaring
wilderness of sun-baked rock. For obscure reasons of policy the Fleet
remained at Malta instead of departing on its usual cruise, and week
after week the sun blazed pitilessly down on the awnings of the anchored
ships. Week by week the Periwinkle grew more brown and angular, and
lost a little more of his wiry activity. The frequent stampedes up and
down ladders with signals for the Admiral sent him into a lather like a
nervous horse; at the end of a watch his hair was wet with perspiration
and his whites hung clammily on his meagre limbs. After a while, too,
he began to find the glare tell, and to ease the aching of his eyes, had
sometimes to shift the telescope from one eye to the other in the middle
of a signal. As a matter of fact, there was no necessity for him to
read signals at all: that was part of the signalman's duty. And if he
had chosen to be more leisurely in his ascent and descent of ladders, no
one would have called him to account. But his zeal was a flame within
him, and terror lest he earned a rebuke from the Flag-Lieutenant for
lack of smartness, lent wings to his tired heels.
It was August when the Flag-Lieutenant sought out the Fleet Surgeon in
the Wardroom after dinner, and broached the subject of the Periwinkle.
"P.M.O., I wish you'd have a look at that shrimp; he's knocking himself
up in this heat. He swears he's all right, but he looks fit for nothing
but hospital."
So the Periwinkle was summoned to the Fleet Surgeon's cabin. Vehemently
he asserted that he had never felt better in his life, and the most the
fatherly old Irishman could extort from him was the admission that he
had not been sleeping particularly well. As a matter of fact he had not
slept for three nights past; but fear lest he should be "put on the
list" forbade his admitting either this or the shooting pain behind his
eyes, which by now was almost continual. The outcome of the interview,
however, was an order to turn in forthwith. Next morning the Periwinkle
was ignominiously hoisted over the side in a cot--loudly protesting at
the indignity of not even being allowed to walk--en route for Bighi
Hospital as a fever patient.
*II.*
The news of the world is transmitted to Naval Stations abroad by cable,
and promulgated by means of Wireless Telegraphy to ships cruising or out
of reach of visual signalling. At Malta the news is distributed to
ships present in harbour by semaphore from the Castile, an eminence
above the town of Valletta, commanding the Grand Harbour and nearly
opposite the Naval Hospital.
One morning a group of convalescents were sunning themselves on the
balcony of the hospital, and one, watching the life of the harbour
through a telescope, suddenly exclaimed, "Stand by! They're going to
make the Reuter Telegram. I wonder how the Navy got on at Lords."
"It's hopeless trying to read it," said another, "they make it at such a
beastly rate."
The Periwinkle, fuming in bed in an adjacent ward, overheard the
speaker. In a second he was on his feet and at the open window, a
tousled-haired object in striped pyjamas, crinkling his eyes in the
glare. "I can read it, sir; lend me the glass."
"You ought to be in bed, my son. Haven't you got Malta Fever?"
"It's very slight," replied the Periwinkle--as indeed it was,--"and I'm
quite as warm out here as in bed. May I borrow your glass?"
He took the telescope and steadied it against a pillar. The distant
semaphore began waving, and the group of convalescents settled down to
listen. But no sound came from the boy. He was standing with the
eye-piece held to his right eye, motionless as a statue. A light wind
fluttered the gaudy pyjamas, and their owner lowered the glass with a
little frown, half-puzzled, half-irritated.
"I--it's--there's something wrong--" he began, and abruptly put the
glass to his left eye. "Ah, that's better...." He commenced reading,
but in a minute or two his voice faltered and trailed off into silence.
He changed the glass to his right, and back to his left eye. Then,
lowering it, turned a white scared face to the seated group. "I'm
afraid I can't read any more," he said in a curiously dry voice; "I--it
hurts my eyes."
He returned the glass to its owner and hopped back into bed, where he
sat with the clothes drawn up under his chin, sweating lightly.
After a while he closed his left eye and looked cautiously round the
room. The tops of objects appeared indistinctly out of a grey mist. It
was like looking at a partly fogged negative. He closed his right eye
and repeated the process with the other. His field of vision was clear
then, except for a speck of grey fog that hung threateningly in the
upper left-hand corner.
By dinner-time he could see nothing with the right eye, and the fog had
closed on half the left eye's vision.