Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (335 page)

The Admiral visited her once in Simon’s Bay, and she was bad, even for a flat-iron gunboat, strictly designed for river and harbour defence. She sweated clammy drops of dew between decks in spite of a preparation of powdered cork that was sprinkled over her inside paint. She rolled in the long Cape swell like a buoy; her foc’s’le was a dog- kennel; Judson’s cabin was practically under the water-line; not one of her dead-lights could ever be opened; and her compasses, thanks to the influence of the four-inch gun, were a curiosity even among Admiralty compasses. But Bai-Jove-Judson was radiant and enthusiastic. He had even contrived to fill Mr. Davies, the second-class engine-room artificer, who was his chief engineer, with the glow of his passion. The Admiral, who remembered his own first command, when pride forbade him to slack off a single rope on a dewy night, and he had racked his rigging to pieces in consequence, looked at the flat-iron keenly. Her fenders were done all over with white sennit, which was truly, white; her big gun was varnished with a better composition than the Admiralty allowed; the spare sights were cased as carefully as the chronometers; the chocks for spare spars, two of them, were made of four-inch Burma teak carved with dragons’ heads (that was one result of Bai-Jove- Judson’s experiences with the naval brigade in the Burmese war), the bow-anchor was varnished instead of being painted, and there were charts other than the Admiralty scale supplied. The Admiral was well pleased, for he loved a ship’s husband — a man who had a little money of his own and was willing to spend it on his command. Judson looked at him hopefully. He was only a Junior Navigating Lieutenant under eight years’ standing. He might be kept in Simon’s Bay for six months, and his ship at sea was his delight. The dream of his heart was to enliven her dismal official gray with a line of gold-leaf and, perhaps, a little scroll-work at her blunt barge-like bows.

‘There’s nothing like a first command, is there?’ said the Admiral, reading his thoughts. ‘You seem to have rather queer compasses though. Better get them adjusted.’

‘It’s no use, sir,’ said Judson. ‘The gun would throw out the Pole itself. But — but I’ve got the hang of most of the weaknesses.’

‘Will you be good enough to lay that gun over thirty degrees, please?’ The gun was put over. Round and round and round went the needle merrily, and the Admiral whistled.

‘You must have kept close to your convoy?’

‘Saw her twice between here and Madeira, sir,’ said Judson with a flush, for he resented the slur on his steamship. ‘She’s — she’s a little out of hand now, but she will settle down after a while.’

The Admiral went over the side, according to the rules of the Service, but the Staff-Captain must have told the other men of the squadron in Simon’s Bay, for they one and all made light of the flat-iron for many days. ‘What can you shake out of her, Judson?’ said the Lieutenant of the Mongoose, a real white-painted ram-bow gunboat with quick-firing guns, as he came into the upper verandah of the little naval Club overlooking the dockyard one hot afternoon. It is in that club, as the captains come and go, that you hear all the gossip of all the Seven Seas.

‘Ten point four,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson.

‘Ah! That was on her trial trip. She’s too much by the head now. I told you staying that topmast would throw her out.’

‘You leave my top-hamper alone,’ said Judson, for the joke was beginning to pall on him.

‘Oh, my soul! Listen to him. Juddy’s top-hamper. Keate, have you heard of the flat-iron’s top-hamper? You’re to leave it alone. Commodore Judson’s feelings are hurt.’

Keate was the Torpedo Lieutenant of the big Vortigern, and he despised small things. ‘His tophamper,’ said he slowly. ‘Oh, ah yes, of course. Juddy, there’s a shoal of mullet in the bay, and I think they’re foul of your screws. Better go down, or they’ll carry away something.’

‘I don’t let things carry away as a rule. You see I’ve no Torpedo Lieutenant aboard, thank God.’

Keate within the past week had so managed to bungle the slinging-in of a small torpedo-boat on the Vortigern, that the boat had broken the crutches on which she rested, and was herself being repaired in the dockyard under the Club windows.

‘One for you, Keate. Never mind, Juddy, you’re hereby appointed dockyard-tender for the next three years, and if you’re very good and there’s no sea on, you shall take me round the harbour. Waitabeechee, Commodore. What’ll you take? Vanderhum for the “Cook and the captain bold, And the mate o’ the Nancy brig, And the bo’sun tight” [Juddy, put that cue down or I’ll put you under arrest for insulting the lieutenant of a real ship, “And the midshipmite, And the crew of the captain’s gig.”‘

By this time Judson had pinned him in a corner, and was prodding him with the half-butt. The Admiral’s Secretary entered, and saw the scuffle from the door.

‘Ouch! Juddy, I apologise. Take that — er — topmast of yours away! Here’s the man with the bow-string. I wish I were a Staff-captain instead of a bloody lootenant. Sperril sleeps below every night. That’s what makes Sperril tumble home from the waist upwards. Sperril, I defy you to touch me. I’m under orders for Zanzibar. Probably I shall annex it!’

‘Judson, the Admiral wants to see you!’ said the Staff Captain, disregarding the scoffer of the Mongoose.

‘I told you you’d be a dockyard-tender yet, Juddy. A side of fresh beef to-morrow and three dozen snapper on ice. On ice, you understand, Juddy?’

Bai-Jove-Judson and the Staff-Captain went out together.

‘Now, what does the old man want with Judson?’ said Keate from the bar.

‘Don’t know. Juddy’s a damned good fellow, though. I wish to goodness he was on the Mongoose with us.’

The Lieutenant of the Mongoose dropped into a chair and read the mail- papers for an hour. Then he saw Bai-Jove-Judson in the street and shouted to him. Judson’s eyes were very bright, and his figure was held very straight, and he moved joyously. Except for the Lieutenant of the Mongoose, the Club was empty.

‘Juddy, there will be a beautiful row,’ said that young man when he had heard the news delivered in an undertone. ‘You’ll probably have to fight, and yet I can’t see what the old man’s thinking of to — ’

‘My orders are not to row under any circumstances,’ said Judson.

‘Go-look-see? That all? When do you go?’

‘To-night if I can. I must go down and see about things. I say, I may want a few men for the day.’

‘Anything on the Mongoose is at your service. There’s my gig come over now. I know that coast, dead, drunk, or asleep, and you’ll need all the knowledge you can get. If it had only been us two together! Come along with me.’

For one whole hour Judson remained closeted in the stern cabin of the Mongoose, listening, poring over chart upon chart and taking notes, and for an hour the marine at the door heard nothing but things like these: ‘Now you’ll have to lie in here if there’s any sea on. That current is ridiculously under-estimated, and it sets west at this season of the year, remember. Their boats never come south of this, see? So it’s no good looking out for them.’ And so on and so forth, while Judson lay at length on the locker by the three-pounder, and smoked and absorbed it all.

Next morning there was no flat-iron in Simon’s Bay; only a little smudge of smoke off Cape Hangklip to show that Mr. Davies, the second- class engine-room artificer, was giving her all she could carry. At the Admiral’s house the ancient and retired bo’sun who had seen many admirals come and go, brought out his paint and brushes and gave a new coat of pure raw pea-green to the two big cannon balls that stood one on each side of the Admiral’s entrance-gate. He felt dimly that great events were stirring.

And the flat-iron, constructed, as has been before said, solely for the defence of rivers, met the great roll off Cape Agulhas and was swept from end to end, and sat upon her twin screws, and leaped as gracefully as a cow in a bog from one sea to another, till Mr. Davies began to fear for the safety of his engines, and the Kroo boys that made the majority of the crew were deathly sick. She ran along a very badly-lighted coast, past bays that were no bays, where ugly flat- topped rocks lay almost level with the water, and very many extraordinary things happened that have nothing to do with the story, but they were all duly logged by Bai-Jove-Judson.

At last the coast changed and grew green and low and exceedingly muddy, and there were broad rivers whose bars were little islands standing three or four miles out at sea, and Bai-Jove-Judson hugged the shore more closely than ever, remembering what the lieutenant of the Mongoose had told him. Then he found a river full of the smell of fever and mud, with green stuff growing far into its waters, and a current that made the flat-iron gasp and grunt.

‘We will turn up here,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, and they turned up accordingly; Mr. Davies wondering what in the world it all meant, and the Kroo boys grinning merrily. Bai-Jove-Judson went forward to the bows, and meditated, staring through the muddy waters. After two hours of rooting through this desolation at an average rate of five miles an hour, his eyes were cheered by the sight of one white buoy in the coffee-hued midstream. The flat-iron crept up to it cautiously, and a leadsman took soundings all round it from a dinghy, while Bai-Jove- Judson smoked and thought, with his head on one side.

‘About seven feet, isn’t there?’ said he. ‘That must be the tail-end of the shoal. There’s four fathom in the fairway. Knock that buoy down with axes. I don’t think it’s picturesque, some how.’ The Kroo men hacked the wooden sides to pieces in three minutes, and the mooring- chain sank with the last splinters of wood. Bai-Jove-Judson laid the flat-iron carefully over the site, while Mr. Davies watched, biting his nails nervously.

‘Can you back her against this current?’ said Bai-Jove-Judson. Mr. Davies could, inch by inch, but only inch by inch, and Bai-Jove-Judson stood in the bows and gazed at various things on the bank as they came into line or opened out. The flat-iron dropped down over the tail of the shoal, exactly where the buoy had been, and backed once more before Bai-Jove-Judson was satisfied. Then they went up-stream for half an hour, put into shoal water by the bank and waited, with a slip-rope on the anchor.

‘‘Seems to me,’ said Mr. Davies deferentially, ‘like as if I heard some one a-firing off at intervals, so to say.’

There was beyond doubt a dull mutter in the air.

‘Seems to me,’ said Bai-Jove-Judson, ‘as if I heard a screw. Stand by to slip her moorings.’

Another ten minutes passed and the beat of engines grew plainer. Then round the bend of the river came a remarkably prettily-built white- painted gunboat with a blue and white flag bearing a red boss in the centre.

‘Unshackle abaft the windlass! Stream both buoys! Easy astern. Let go, all!’ The sliprope flew out, the two buoys bobbed in the water to mark where anchor and cable had been left, and the flat-iron waddled out into midstream with the white ensign at her one mast-head.

‘Give her all you can. That thing has the legs of us,’ said Judson. ‘And down we go.’

‘It’s war — bloody war! He’s going to fire,’ said Mr. Davies, looking up through the engine-room hatch.

The white gunboat without a word of explanation fired three guns at the flat-iron, cutting the trees on the banks into green chips. Bai- Jove-Judson was at the wheel, and Mr. Davies and the current helped the boat to an almost respectable degree of speed.

It was an exciting chase, but it did not last for more than five minutes. The white gunboat fired again, and Mr. Davies in his engine- room gave a wild shout.

‘What’s the matter? Hit?’ said Bai-Jove-Judson.

‘No, I’ve just seized of your roos-de-gare. Beg y’ pardon, sir.’

‘Right O! Just the half a fraction of a point more.’ The wheel turned under the steady hand, as Bai-Jove-Judson watched his marks on the bank falling in line swiftly as troops anxious to aid. The flat-iron smelt the shoal-water under her, checked for an instant, and went on. ‘Now we’re over. Come along, you thieves, there!’ said Judson.

The white gunboat, too hurried even to fire, was storming in the wake of the flat-iron, steering as she steered. This was unfortunate, because the lighter craft was dead over the missing buoy.

‘What you do here?’ shouted a voice from the bows.

‘I’m going on. Sit tight. Now you’re arranged for.’

There was a crash and a clatter as the white gunboat’s nose took the shoal, and the brown mud boiled up in oozy circles under her forefoot. Then the current caught her stern on the starboard side and drove her broadside on to the shoal, slowly and gracefully. There she heeled at an undignified angle, and her crew yelled aloud.

‘Neat! Oh, damn neat!’ quoth Mr. Davies, dancing on the engine-room plates, while the Kroo stokers beamed.

The flat-iron turned up-stream again, and passed under the hove-up starboard side of the white gunboat, to be received with howls and imprecations in a strange tongue. The stranded boat, exposed even to her lower strakes, was as defenceless as a turtle on its back, without the advantage of the turtle’s plating. And the one big bluff gun in the bows of the flat-iron was unpleasantly near.

But the captain was valiant and swore mightily. Bai-Jove-Judson took no sort of notice. His business was to go up the river.

‘We will come in a flotilla of boats and ecrazer your vile tricks,’ said the captain, with language that need not be published.

Then said Bai-Jove-Judson, who was a linguist: ‘You stayo where you areo, or I’ll leave a holo in your bottomo that will make you muchos perforatados.’

There was a great deal of mixed language in reply, but Bai-Jove-Judson was out of hearing in a few minutes, and Mr. Davies, himself a man of few words, confided to one of his subordinates that Lieutenant Judson was ‘a most remarkable prompt officer in a way of putting it.’

For two hours the flat-iron pawed madly through the muddy water, and that which had been at first a mutter became a distinct rumble.

‘Was war declared?’ said Mr. Davies, and Bai-Jove-Judson laughed. ‘Then, damn his eyes, he might have spoilt my pretty little engines. There’s war up there, though.’

The next bend brought them full in sight of a small but lively village, built round a white-washed mud house of some pretensions. There were scores and scores of saddle-coloured soldiery in dirty white uniforms running to and fro and shouting round a man in a litter, and on a gentle slope that ran inland for four or five miles something like a brisk battle was raging round a rude stockade. A smell of unburied carcases floated through the air and vexed the sensitive nose of Mr. Davies, who spat over the side.