THE GUARDA COSTA.
During the two preceding months we had been daily expecting orders to
embark for the Crimea, and this expectation formed almost our sole
topic at mess; but days became weeks, and weeks became months, yet we
heard no more of it than what passed among ourselves.
Transports laden with troops--horse, foot, and artillery--touched
daily at the Rock, and steamed on into the bright blue Mediterranean,
with spirit-stirring cheers rising from their crowded decks.
Regiments junior to ours were withdrawn from the Rock and dispatched
to that scene of bravery and bloodshed, of mismanagement and
disaster, towards which all our thoughts, our hopes, and hearts were
turned; but the route never came for "Ours," and we grew decidedly
peevish, and found the dull routine of duty among the endless
batteries, bastions, curtains, magazines, and casemates of that
mighty fortress which was so long boasted (before the days of steam)
as the key of "the great French lake," sufficiently tedious; for we
felt that we were merely playing at soldiers like militiamen, while
our comrades of the line were engaged in desperate work, and played
the great game of war, with the eyes of all the world upon them.
One evening, about a week after the departure of the ladies, I was
captain of the guard at the New Mole Fort, and Jack Slingsby was my
subaltern. We had just finished the dinner which had been sent to
us, hot and smoking, from the mess-house, in a conveyance for the
purpose; the windows of the officers' guardroom were open, and with a
box of contraband cigars, a few periodicals from the garrison
library, a telescope to watch the passing ships, and a bottle or two
of very choice mess claret, we were dozing the sunny evening of
Andalusia very comfortably away.
The last dispatches from the Crimea had been read and discussed by
us; the last lists of killed, wounded, frozen, or missing in the
trenches had been conned over for some familiar name, which brought
vividly before us some fine fellow we should never see again; but
whose sudden fate was the more interesting to us, because it soon
might be our own.
Whether it was the result of the good dinner, the good wine, the
sultry atmosphere, or our own thoughts that oppressed us, I know not;
but we sat long silent, and gazing at the varied scenery and
glittering waters of the bay.
My thoughts were still wandering after Paulina, and I was
endeavouring to imagine what she might be about at that precise
moment.
Slingsby had lost a very heavy and very absurd bet, on an interesting
race run at Grand Cairo between an Irish mare and an Arab horse
belonging to Halim Pasha, when the former beat the latter "all to
nothing," as Jack phrased it, and he had to hand over 500_l._ to
Morton, our colonel, for booking on a horse which neither of them had
ever seen. The same race was offered for the last two years against
all England, for ten thousand sovereigns, and, as all the sporting
world know, the challenge was not accepted. Blue-devilled by his
loss, Jack Slingsby sipped his claret in silence and made wise
resolutions which he never intended to keep, with moral reflections
which he never could practise, and longed for the Crimea, insensible
to the charms of this delightful climate, where, even in January, the
narcissus-polyanthus hang in white clusters from the rocks; where the
purple lavender flowers in large beds and parterres; where the
palmetto spreads its fan-like foliage to the sun; where the gigantic
aloe puts forth its leaves, and the prickly pear expands its
ponderous bunches, while the wild tulip and the damascus-tree are in
full blossom under the gloom of the solemn pine, or the lighter
foliage of the cork-tree--and where all is verdure, fragrance, and
joy! Yet, amid all this, Jack Slingsby, like the rest of "Ours,"
sighed for the frozen camp, the battered trenches, and the misery of
Sebastopol.
"So you have not got the better of your Spanish fancies, eh?" said
he, for lack of something better to talk about; "the charming
Paulina--that most rotund of elderly females, her mamma, and all that
sort of thing?"
"What leads you to think so?" I asked languidly, as I lay stretched
at length on the Windsor chairs, watching the smoke which ascended
from my lips to the ceiling.
"It is quite plain, dear Don Ricardo."
"You cannot mimic her, so don't attempt it, Jack; but how is it
plain, eh?"
"As clear as when the right is in front, the left is the pivot."
"A technical reply."
"Dick Ramble, my boy, you are quite sad about her, and there is no
use in attempting to conceal it," continued Slingsby.
"Not sad, exactly," said I, making an effort to look brave; "never
was I fool enough to be sad about any woman yet; there are as good
fish, &c., and as for the Spanish girl--try another Cuba, the box is
beside you."
"Thanks--about this Spanish girl?"
"Fill your glass, and push across the decanter; has not that bottle
been a little corked, think you?"
"Perhaps--about this Spanish girl?" continued Jack doggedly.
"Well, what the deuce about her?"
"You were just on the point of remarking some thing."
"Only that her eyes were very fine, were they not?"
"Very, but I prefer blue--
"'No fair fräulein nor dem-----'
"For heaven's sake, Jack, don't begin that ever-lasting ditty!" said
I, pettishly; "yes, Paulina's eyes were beautiful; they seemed, as
the Spaniards say, to be in mourning for the murders they committed."
"A stale compliment," was Jack's retort to my interruption of a song
with which he had favoured the mess every night since we left
Southampton, for a small amount of vocal talent will go a long way to
charm a mess-table; "she murdered you, however, with very little
compunction; but to think of the doctor's botanising with the mother
being mistaken for love-making--was it not glorious, Dick?"
"I have sometimes thought of a month's leave, just between musters,"
said I, without joining in Jack's boisterous laugh.
"Leave! for what purpose?"
"A ride into Spain--say, as far as Seville; what do you think of it?"
"Seventy miles or more to help you to continue a flirtation begun in
the casemates of Gibraltar. Thank you, Ramble; I would rather hold
myself excused. I had a little adventure in Spain once before, and
its devilish concomitants quite cured me of all taste for another;
though if I had not lost this unlucky 500_l._ perhaps--"
"Well, why the deuce did you not let Halim Pasha and his nag alone?
What did their race matter to you?"
"But lend me the telescope--what is that puff--a gun?"
"It is a smuggler running right for the harbour, pursued by a Spanish
guarda costa; bang! there goes another gun from the Don."
"And right through the felucca's sail too!"
"Hollo! they will be within gunshot of us ere long," said I,
springing up: "and this will be work for us. Sentry, call the gunner
of the guard."
"Gunner of the guard!" reiterated the sentinel, who stood, bayonet in
hand, under a sunshade, at the guard-house door.
The solitary artilleryman, who was attached to my guard, appeared in
an instant with his sword by his side, and a lintstock in his hand.
"Get ready a gun," said I; "for there is a Spanish guarda costa in
pursuit of a smuggler, and we must protect our friend."
"An 18-pounder, or a 24, sir?"
"Oh, give him a twenty-four, and take a file of the guard to assist
you."
While the smuggler, with her long sweeps out, and every stitch of
canvas crowded on her long and tapering masts and whip-like yards,
was straining every nerve to escape from the Spanish cruiser, which
plied away with her bow guns, and bore after her close-hauled, and
rushing through the shining waves till they seemed to smoke under
her, it may be necessary to inform the reader that the manufacture
and smuggling of tobacco and cigars at Gibraltar is a never-failing
and never-ending source of angry discussion between the Governments
of Spain and Britain; for, by the former, tobacco has long been
reckoned a royal monopoly. Now, in Gibraltar, almost every second
house is a cigar-shop, and more than two thousand men are daily
employed in the manufacture of these articles of luxury, without
which a Spaniard would be, as some one says. like a steamer without
a funnel. Three-fourths of the British exports from Gibraltar to the
three United Kingdoms are also smuggled, and to such an extent is the
contraband trade carried, that the annual importation of tobacco into
that fortified town, says Mr Porter, in his "Progress of the Nation,"
"amounts to from six millions to eight millions of pounds, nearly the
whole of which is purchased by smugglers."
The boats of the contrabandistas are generally rigged as feluccas,
and painted black; they are built sharp as a pike-head, and carry a
heavy brass gun, which, in harbour, is usually concealed under a pile
of old boxes and casks, with a tarpaulin thrown over it, while in
cases of emergency, various pistols, pikes, and cutlasses, make their
appearance in the hands of the brown-visaged, black-bearded,
red-sashed, and rather pictorial-looking ruffians, whose chief
occupation is to sleep and lounge about their decks by day.
To look out for these lads of the knife and pistol, the Government of
Her Most Catholic Majesty maintains a number of fast-sailing revenue
craft, called guarda costas, commanded by brave and vigilant
officers. These are the abhorrence of the contrabandistas, whose
operations are greatly facilitated on land by the concurrence of the
corrupt Spanish officials; and those guarda costas, in their zeal,
had, of late, been rash enough to pursue their prey into those waters
which are under the jurisdiction of the Governor and
Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar; and in three instances had boarded
them with pistol and cutlass, shot the crews, or driven them
overboard, and thereafter cut the feluccas out from under the very
guns of Her Britannic Majesty's fortress.
This, however, was not to be tolerated again, and strict orders had
been issued that every guarda costa who ventured into troubled waters
should be fired on. John Bull is consistently absurd and unjust in
all things, and, with all his boasted justice, is the most veritable
bully in the world--except, perhaps, his thriving son Jonathan; he
would no doubt cut his own smugglers out of any port in the world,
and in the same moment would deny the poor Spaniards the right to do
the same; for John is a man full of honour and liberality, or a man
of neither, just as may suit his own particular purpose for the time;
but to return,--
On came the felucca in question, running straight for the anchorage,
which was protected by the heavy guns of the New Mole Fort where we
were on guard. and the parapet of which was lined by the soldiers,
all eager to witness the result of that most exciting of all things,
a chase--a struggle between a strong party and a weak one. On came
the guarda costa in pursuit, plying her bow-chaser, cleaving asunder
the clouds of white smoke which ever and anon it rolled ahead of her,
and riding over the waves, then shining in all the rosy brilliance of
a Spanish sunset, while astern waved the large ensign with the red
and yellow horizontal bars of Castile and Leon.
Suddenly the little felucca ran up British colours; a sharp patter
rang over the water, and a wreath of smoke rose from her stern as the
devil-may-care contrabandistas gave the cruiser a dose of small arms.
Boom again! The don gave another shot from his brass gun, and this
time an angry shout arose from our own vessels in the roadstead, for
the ball had crossed the forefoot of a Newcastle collier.
"Ramble, this will never do," said Slingsby; "that Spanish craft is
too near by half--much nearer than our standing orders permit."
"Now, gunner, is that 24-pounder ready?" said I.
"All ready, sir."
"Then bang at her."
We all watched the shot with breathless interest, for to us, the
whole affair was merely a race, a game of hazard, like any other.
The sullen roar of the 24-pounder shook the solid parapet of the New
Mole Fort, and pealed in repeated echoes round all the shore to the
extremity of Rosia Bay; and as the cloud of light smoke curled away
from before us, we saw the shot whipping the water far astern of the
guarda costa, and a flush of annoyance spread over the honest face of
the artilleryman; for, as all our eyes were bent upon his
performance, he had been most anxious to excel, and this very anxiety
had probably defeated its object.
A muttered exclamation of impatience escaped him.
"Run back the gun," said he to the guard.
Back went the carronade, and home went the sponge, as he set his
teeth, and, with hasty determination, proceeded to reload.
"Quick, quick," said I; "for if she hauls her wind, gunner, there
will barely be time to give another shot."
"I'll toss you for it, Señor Capitano," said Slingsby; "bet you a
bottle of champagne that I will hit the guarda costa."
"Done," said I; "toss for the first fire."
We tossed, and it fell to Jack.
"Take care that you don't hit the felucca."
"Miss the pigeon and hit the crow--eh, Dick?" he said, while,
laughing, he applied his eye to the sites on the breech, and
proceeded to adjust the screw, to the evident annoyance of the
gunner, who, while he could not decline to relinquish his place to an
officer, was piqued on being deprived of a chance of retrieving his
name as a professional marksman; and now he stood by, with his match
lighted, in the earnest hope, doubtless, that Jack Slingsby would
send his shot as wide of the mark as possible. Cigar in mouth, Jack
glanced coolly--almost carelessly--along the gun, and on covering his
object, cried--"fire!"
Again the lintstock fell on the touch-hole; again the gun-shot rolled
along the echoing shore, and pealed away to seaward; a large white
splinter was seen on the gunwale of the guarda costa; her sails
shivered and flapped in the wind, as the ball struck her, and
suddenly backing her mainyard, she lay to, heaving like a wounded
seabird, on the long glassy ridges of the ground-swell, ere the burst
of applause with which our soldiers greeted Slingsby had died
away--for my friend Jack was one of their most favourite officers.
"You did for her, there, sir," said the gunner, approvingly, as he
rammed home the sponge.
"Yes, but as you fired when she was much further off, remember that I
have the less credit in hitting," replied Jack, as he gave the gunner
a crown-piece to console him.
By this time the felucca, with a shout of derision rising from her
deck, ran into the harbour, ducking her colours thrice to us in
salute, as she passed the New Mole Fort.
I had not been looking for more than a minute through the spy-glass
at the guarda costa, when I became assured that some one on board had
been wounded severely, either by the shot or its splinters. The
crew--all save the man at the wheel--were grouped amidships; many
were kneeling on the deck, and, once or twice, clenched hands were
fiercely shaken in menace towards the battery; then we saw a man
borne carefully aft between several others.
"Some one has evidently been killed or wounded desperately," said I,
handing the glass to Slingsby.
"Good Heaven! do you say so?" cried Jack; "well, it would seem
so--poor fellow--you know, Ramble, I did not exactly anticipate such
a thing--so it is--so it is! There is a man stretched on the deck!"
he added, passing the telescope to our soldiers.
"We have only obeyed a standing garrison order," said I; "and the
responsibility thereof, if any, does not lie with us, but with those
who issued it. Come back to the guard-room, Jack, and my servant
shall go to the messman for that bottle of champagne you have won so
well."
"Oh! deuce take the champagne, and all that sort of thing," said
Jack, looking still at the guarda costa.
For a time an evident confusion and indecision, seemed to reign among
her crew. She lay heaving and tossing, rising and falling on the
long and ridgy rollers, with the setting sun glaring full upon her
white mainsail, which lay flat to the mast; the light of day soon
sank in the west, behind the upper peak of the rocky mountain, from
which a myriad rays shot upward and played on the masses of floating
cloud; the strait was still bathed in the amber glory of evening, and
each glassy billow of the slow ground-swell as it rolled away from
west to east, rose like a bank of gold from a plain of brilliant
blue; and all the amphitheatre of the town, which stretches along the
base of the rock, and rises gradually from the shore in the most
delightful manner--mingling in picturesque confusion, the lofty and
airy Spanish caza, with its flat roof, verandah, and sun-shaded
windows, the close, compact English house, the solid rampart, and the
flimsy wooden storehouse--all were bathed in the warmest tints, and
every casement and window flung back the gleams of radiance, as if
they had been illuminated by lamps of crimson and gold.
Soon after the departed sun had shed its last ray on the bare scalp
of the sugar-loaf, the crew of the guarda costa, as a protection
probably, hoisted British colours, and crept past us into the
harbour, and immediately on dropping her anchor, sent a boat ashore.
We supposed that this visit could only be for the purpose of lodging
a complaint against the officer in command at the New Mole Fort--to
wit myself, a complaint which we knew would be unavailing: but we
were mistaken; for my servant, on returning from the barracks with
the bottle of champagne and other &c. requisite to enable Jack and me
to pass the night on guard agreeably, brought us the unpleasant
information that the shot had carried away both legs of the
unfortunate Spanish lieutenant who commanded the guarda costa, and
that doctor M'Leechy of "Ours" had at once gone off to the vessel to
succour the patient, who--poor fellow!--had died under his hands.
This catastrophe proved a great damper to us, and to Jack in
particular, for he was one of the best-hearted fellows in the
service; so we had more champagne brought from the mess-house, and we
talked of the guarda costa and her poor lieutenant almost till the
morning gun was fired; and the affair furnished me with a special
paragraph for that "column of remarks" in the guard report which
seldom contains memoranda of greater importance than a notice of "the
cracked pane of glass, handed over by Captain O'Brien of the 88th;"
or, "the poker, handed over, broken, by the last guard under
Lieutenant Smith, of the Buffs," and so forth.
In the morning we found that the guarda costa had sailed in the
night, taking her dead commander with her; and long before the end of
the week we had ceased even to speak of the circumstance at mess, and
I forgot the affair as the image of Paulina came before me again, and
thoughtless Jack Slingsby was as gay as ever.
But I must mention, that on being relieved from guard at the New Mole
Fort, I found waiting me, at my quarters, Pedro de Urquija, a
well-known contrabandista, and king of the smugglers of Gibraltar,
who gave me a profusion of thanks "for saving his little felucca, La
Buena Fortuna, from that devil of a guarda costa," saying it was the
closest run he had ever experienced in twenty years of arduous
smuggling; and he insisted upon my acceptance of several boxes of
prime Cubas and some dozen yards of magnificent lace, worked by the
nuns of Cadiz and the poor sisters of Santa Theresa at Estrelo, and
we parted the best friends in the world: but a heavy rod was in
pickle for Jack and me; and the affair was destined to cost us more
danger, trouble, and anxiety, than we could ever have calculated on
risking.