The Yellow Flag.
The harbour of Timber Town was formed by a low-lying island shaped like
a long lizard, which stretched itself across an indentation in the
coast-line, and the tail of which joined the mainland at low tide,
while the channel between its head and the opposing cliffs was deep,
practicable, and safe.
Immediately opposite this end of the island the wharves and quays of
Timber Town stretched along the shore, backed by hills which were dotted
with painted wooden houses, nestling amid bowers of trees. Beyond these
hills lay Timber Town itself, invisible, sheltered, at the bottom of its
basin.
The day was hot, clear and still; the water lapped the shore lazily, and
the refracted atmosphere shimmered with heat, wherever the sea touched
the land.
A little dingey put off from the shore. It contained two men, one of
whom sat in the stern while the other pulled. Silently over the surface
of the calm, blue water the little craft skimmed. It passed through a
small fleet of yachts and pleasure-boats moored under the lee of the
protecting island, and presently touched the pebbles of a miniature
beach.
Out stepped the Pilot of Timber Town and Captain Sartoris.
"An' you call this blazin' climate o' yours temperate," exclaimed the
shipwrecked mariner.
"Heat?" said the Pilot, making the painter of the boat fast to some
rusty bits of iron that lay on the shore; "you call this heat, with the
sea-breeze risin', and the island cooling like a bottle of champagne in
an ice-chest. It's plain to see, Sartoris, you're a packet-rat that
never sailed nowhere except across the Western Ocean, in an' out o'
Liverpool and New York." They had approached the end of the island, and
overlooked the harbour entrance. "Now, this is where I intend to place
the beacon. What do you think of it?" Sartoris assumed the manner and
expression of supreme interest, but said nothing. "Them two leading
lights are all very well in their way, but this beacon, with the near
one, will give a line that will take you outside o' that sunken reef
which stretches a'most into the fairway; and a vessel 'll be able to
come in, scientific and safe, just like a lady into a drawing-room."
With a seaman's eye Sartoris took in the situation at a glance. "Very
pretty," he said, "very neat. A lovely little toy port, such as you see
at the theayter. It only wants the chorus o' fisher girls warbling on
that there beach road, and the pirate brig bringing-to just opposite,
an' the thing would be complete."
"Eh! What?" ejaculated the Pilot. "What's this play-goin' gammon? You
talk like a schoolboy that's fed on jam tarts and novelettes, Sartoris.
Let's talk sense. Have you ever heard of an occulting light?"
"No, certainly not; not by that name, anyhow."
"D'you know what an apparent light is?"
"No, but I know plenty of apparent fools."
"An apparent light is a most ingenious contraption."
"I've no doubt."
"It's a optical delusion, and makes two lights o' one--one on shore,
which is the real one, and one here, which is the deception." But while
the Pilot went on to talk of base plates, lewis bats, and all the
paraphernalia of his craft, the skipper's eye was fixed on a string of
little islands which stood off the end of the western arm of the great
bay outside.
"Now, I never saw those when I was coming in," said he. "Where did you
get them islands from, Summerhayes? Are they occulting, real, or
apparent? Changing your landmarks, like this, is deceiving."
The Pilot, forgetting the technicalities of his profession, looked at
the phenomenon which puzzled the skipper, and said, as gruffly as a
bear, "That's no islands: it's but a bit of a mirage. Sometimes there's
only one island, sometimes three, sometimes more--it's accordin' to
circumstances. But what's this craft coming down the bay? Barque or
ship, Sartoris?--I've forgot me glass."
Both men stood on the seaward edge of the island, and looked long and
hard at the approaching vessel.
"Barque," said Sartoris, whose eyes were keener than the older man's.
"There's no barque due at this port for a month," said the Pilot. "The
consignees keep me posted up, for to encourage a sharp lookout. The _Ida
Bell_ should arrive from London towards the middle of next month, but
_she_ is a ship. This must be a stranger, putting in for water or
stores; or maybe she's short-handed."
For a long time they watched the big craft, sailing before the breeze.
"Sartoris, she's clewing up her courses and pulling down her
head-sails."
"Isn't she a trifle far out, Pilot?"
"It's good holding-ground out there--stiff clay that would hold
anything. What did I tell you?--there you are--coming-to. She's got
starn-board. There goes the anchor!"
The skipper had hitherto displayed but little interest in the strange
vessel, but now he was shouting and gesticulating, as a flag was run up
to her fore-truck.
"Look at that, Summerhayes!" he exclaimed. "If you ain't blind, tell me
what that flag is. Sure as I'm a master without a ship, it's the
currantine flag."
"So it is, so it is. That means the Health Officer, Sartoris." And the
gruff old Pilot hastened down to the dingey.
As the two seamen put off from the island, the skipper, who was in the
stern of the little boat, could see Summerhayes's crew standing about on
the slip of the pilot-shed; and by the time the dingey had reached the
shore, the Pilot's big whale-boat lay by the landing-stage.
"Where's the doctor?" roared Summerhayes. "Is he goin' to make us hunt
for him when he's required for the first time this six weeks?"
"All right, all right," called a clear voice from inside the great shed.
"I'm ready before you are this time, Pilot."
"An' well you are," growled the gruff old barnacle. "That
furrin'-lookin' barque outside has hoisted the yellow flag. Get aboard,
lads, get aboard."
"Your men discovered the fact half an hour ago, by the aid of your
telescope." The doctor came slowly down the slip, carrying a leather
hand-bag.
"If you've any mercy," said the Pilot, "you'll spare 'em the use o'
that. Men die fast enough without physic."
"Next time you get the sciatica, Summerhayes, I'll give you a double
dose."
"An' charge me a double fee. I know you. Shove her off, Johnson."
The grim old Pilot stood with the steering-oar in his hand; the skipper
and the doctor sitting on either hand of him, and the crew pulling as
only a trained crew can.
"Steady, men," said the Pilot: "it's only half tide, and there's plenty
of water coming in at the entrance. Keep your wind for that,
Hendricson."
With one hand he unbuttoned the flap of his capacious trouser-pocket,
and took out a small bunch of keys, which he handed to Sartoris.
"Examine the locker," he said. "It's the middle-sized key." The captain,
in a moment, had opened the padlock which fastened the locker under the
Pilot's seat.
"Is there half-a-dozen of beer--quarts?" asked Summerhayes.
"There is," replied Sartoris.
"Two bottles of rum?"
"Yes."
"Glasses?"
"Four."
"An' a corkscrew?"
"It's here."
"Then we've just what the doctor ordered: not this doctor--make no
mistake o' that. An' them sons o' sea cooks, forrard there, haven't yet
found a duplicate key to my locker. Wonderful! wonderful!"
The crew grinned, and put their backs into every stroke, for they knew
"the old man" meant that they shouldn't go dry.
"I'm the Pilot o' this here port, eh?"
"Most certainly," said the doctor.
"An' Harbour Master, in a manner o' speaking?"
"That's so."
"And captain o' this here boat?"
They were hugging the shore of the island, where the strength of the
incoming tide began to be felt in the narrow tortuous channel. The bluff
old Pilot put the steering-oar to port, and brought his boat round to
starboard, in order to keep her out of the strongest part of the
current.
"Now, lads, shake her up!" he shouted.
The men strained every nerve, and the boat was forced slowly against
the tide. With another sudden movement of the steering-oar Summerhayes
brought the boat into an eddy under the island, and she shot forward.
"Very well," he said; "it's acknowledged that I'm all that--Pilot,
Harbour Master, and skipper o' this boat. Then let me tell you that I'm
ship's doctor as well, and in that capacity, since we're outside and
there's easy going now under sail, I prescribe a good stiff glass all
round, as a preventive against plague, Yellow Jack, small-pox, or
whatever disease it is they've got on yonder barque."
Sartoris uncorked a bottle, and handed a glass to the doctor.
"And a very good prescription, too," said the tall, thin medico, who had
a colourless complexion and eyes that glittered like black beads; "but
where's the water?"
"Who drinks on my boat," growled the Pilot, "drinks his liquor neat. I
drown no man and no rum with water. If a man must needs spoil his
liquor, let him bring his own water: there's none in my locker."
The doctor took the old seaman's medicine, but not without a wry face;
Sartoris followed suit, and then the Pilot. The boat was now under sail,
and the crew laid in their oars and "spliced the main brace."
"That's the only medicine we favour in this boat or in this service,"
said the Pilot, as he returned the key of the locker to his pocket, "an'
we've never yet found it to fail. Before encount'ring plague, or after
encount'ring dirty weather, a glass all round: at other times the locker
is kept securely fastened, and I keep the key." Saying which, he
buttoned the flap of his pocket, and fixed his eyes on the strange
barque, to which they were now drawing near.
It could be seen that she was a long time "out"; her sails, not yet all
furled, were old and weather-worn; her sides badly needed paint; and as
she rose and fell with the swell, she showed barnacles and "grass" below
the water-line. At her mizzen-peak flew the American ensign, and at the
fore-truck the ominous quarantine flag.
As the boat passed under the stern, the name of the vessel could be
seen--"_Fred P. Lincoln_, New York"--and a sickly brown man looked over
the side. Soon he was joined by more men, brown and yellow, who jabbered
like monkeys, but did nothing.
"Seems they've got a menag'ry aboard," commented Sartoris.
Presently a white face appeared at the side.
"Where's the captain?" asked the Health Officer.
"With the mate, who's dying."
"Then who are you?"
"Cap'n's servant."
"But where's the other mate?"
"He died a week ago."
"What's wrong on board?"
"Don't know, sir. Ten men are dead, and three are sick."
"Where are you from?"
"Canton."
"Canton? Have you got plague aboard?"
"Not bubonic. The men go off quiet and gradual, after being sick a long
time. I guess you'd better come aboard, and see for yourself."
The ladder was put over the side, and soon the doctor had clambered on
board.
The men in the boat sat quiet and full of contemplation.
"This is a good time for a smoke," said the Pilot, filling his pipe and
passing his tobacco tin forrard. "And I think, Sartoris, all hands 'd be
none the worse for another dose o' my medicine." Again his capacious
hand went into his more capacious pocket, and the key of the locker was
handed to Sartoris.
"Some foolish people are teetotal," continued Summerhayes, "and would
make a man believe as how every blessed drop o' grog he drinks shortens
his life by a day or a week, as the case may be. But give me a glass o'
liquor an' rob me of a month, rather than the plagues o' China strike me
dead to-morrer. Some folks have no more sense than barn-door fowls."
A yellow man, more loquacious than his fellows, had attracted the
attention of Sartoris.
"Heh! John. What's the name of your skipper?"
The Chinaman's reply was unintelligible. "I can make nothing of him,"
said Sartoris. But, just at that moment, the man who had described
himself as the captain's servant reappeared at the side of the ship.
"My man," said Summerhayes, "who's your captain?"
"Cap'n Starbruck."
"Starbruck!" exclaimed Sartoris. "I know him." In a moment he was
half-way up the ladder.
"Hi! Sartoris," roared the Pilot. "If you go aboard that vessel, you'll
stay there till she's got a clean bill o' health."
"I'm going to help my old shipmate," answered Sartoris from the top of
the ladder. "Turn and turn about, I says. He stood by me in the West
Indies, when I had Yellow Jack; and I stand by him now." As he spoke his
foot was on the main-rail. He jumped into the waist of the quarantined
barque, and was lost to sight.
"Whew!" said the Pilot to the vessel's side. "Here's a man just saved
from shipwreck, and he must plunge into a fever-den in order to be
happy. I wash my hands of such foolishness. Let 'im go, let 'im go."
The thin, neat doctor appeared, standing on the main-rail. He handed his
bag to one of the boat's crew, and slowly descended the ladder.
"An' what have you done with Sartoris?" asked the Pilot.
"He's aboard," replied the doctor, "and there he stops. That's all I can
say."
"And what's the sickness?"
"Ten men are dead, five more are down--two women, Chinese, and three
men. I should call it fever, a kind of barbiers or beri-beri. But in
the meanwhile, I'll take another drop of your excellent liquor."
The doctor drank the Pilot's medicine in complete silence.
"Let go that rope!" roared Summerhayes. "Shove her off. Up with your
sail." The trim boat shot towards the sunny port of Timber Town, and
Sartoris was left aboard the fever-ship.