The Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (14 page)

‘Fish,' he explained, ‘are all the same, no matter what size they are. They're lazy, they're idle, they don't want to do nothing except eat, sleep, and take life easy. These basking-sharks, now, if they had their own way, wouldn't do a mortal thing but lie on top of the water and bask! That's what fish are like. There isn't one of them would know what it is to do an honest day's work, if it hadn't been for us sailors coming to teach them.'

‘I suppose you have to work very hard,' said Timothy, ‘to please Gunner Boles?'

‘Me?' exclaimed William Button. ‘Me work? Not blooming likely. Not if I can dodge it—and I'm pretty good at dodging, too. But for fish it's different, of course. They ought to work.'

On the other shark Hew and Henry String had sat for some time without speaking, because each was waiting for the other to begin. Henry String had a thin bony face and blue eyes and dark untidy hair; and every now and then he bent up his arms and looked at his muscles. At last he said to Hew, ‘Have you ever been in any battles?'

‘Not exactly,' said Hew. ‘But I've often fought with my brother.'

‘That's nothing,' said Henry String. ‘Nothing at all! Everybody fights with his brother; that's natural. But I've been in proper battles. Naval battles. Guns firing right and left, cannon-balls cutting the rigging, masts coming down, the yards
coming down, sailors falling dead and wounded, and all the deck covered with blood! I remember once, in a battle, there was only me and the Captain left alive, but we fought on, and after about seven hours the Frenchman struck his colours and we won. But if you'd been there, I don't suppose you'd have done any good at all.'

‘I'd have been as good as you.'

‘No, you wouldn't,' said Henry String.

‘Yes, I would,' said Hew.

‘You're a liar!'

‘And you're another!'

‘I'll knock your block off, if you say that!'

‘I've said it!'

‘Well, I'll knock your block off.'

‘Try it and see,' said Hew.

Then they stood up in the swaying howdah on top of the shark, and Henry twirled his fists in front of his face in a very pugnacious manner. But Hew, pretending to punch with his left hand—as Sam Sturgeon had taught him—made Henry shift his guard to the right side of his head; whereupon Hew, very quickly, punched with his right hand and hit Henry so hard on the jaw that he fell overboard.

The shark, at the same moment, said ‘Moo!' and decided to come up to the surface to bask. Henry was able to climb into the howdah again, and after pricking the shark to make it swim, said to Hew, ‘That wasn't fair, that wasn't. You took me by surprise. So let's try again.'

‘All right,' said Hew, and after two or three
minutes Henry succeeded in hitting him on the cheek-bone, and knocked him out of the howdah. But quickly he stopped the shark and helped him to climb on again.

Hew stood up and was prepared to go on with the fight, but Henry appeared to be less eager. His nose was very red and one of his eyes was a little bruised.

‘There's no need to fight any more,' he said. ‘I'm satisfied now. I only wanted to see what you was made of, see? And now I know, see? You're not so bad, after all.'

‘And I would have been quite useful in a naval battle, wouldn't I?' demanded Hew.

‘Well, you might have been if you'd been properly brought up and got accustomed to it,' Henry admitted; and before Hew could think of a reply he pricked the shark deeply with his lance and said, ‘Let's challenge the others to a race.'

William Button and Timothy were well pleased with the suggestion, and by and by the two sharks were racing through the water side by side at great speed. They swam just below the surface and tore through the sea under glittering curtains of spray. William Button shouted to Timothy, ‘We're making thirty knots at least,' and at the same moment Henry String told Hew, ‘The fastest I've ever gone before was forty knots, and that was one day when I was riding a sword-fish; but we're going just as fast now, I'm sure of it.'

They were undoubtedly travelling at great
speed, and all afternoon the race went on, now with Timothy and William Button in the lead, and then with Hew and Henry String forging ahead and overtaking them. They rounded Cape Wrath, they raced through the North Minch, and swam swiftly down the Little Minch. They swept through the water when it was all golden in the rays of the setting sun, and then, when slowly it grew dark, they decided that they had had enough racing and that Timothy and William Button had won by half a length.

‘And now,' said William Button,' we'll go down and look for a sleeping-shell.'

‘A sleeping-shell?' asked Timothy.

‘You do sleep at night, don't you?' said William.

‘Yes, of course,' said Timothy.

‘Well, then, we'll have to find a sleeping-shell. That stands to reason, doesn't it?'

They dived steeply down, and for a little while swam slowly along the bottom of the sea until they came to an open stretch of sand about the size of a large field, with a thicket of tall weed growing at one side, and in the midst of the thicket there was a little lane with a notice board at the entrance which said: ‘TO THE SLEEPING-SHELL.' They swam up the lane for about fifty yards, and then came into a smaller clearing in the middle of which an enormous shell lay on clean white sand with another notice board in front of it. On this notice board was printed:

NOTICE TO FISH

NO ADMISSION!

SAILORS ONLY

NOTICE TO SAILORS

YOU ARE WELCOME!

BUT NO FIGHTING

AND DON'T LEAVE

CRUMBS AND OLD

SHOES LYING ABOUT

‘Well, here we are,' said William, and quickly he and Henry String unsaddled the sharks and tied them to two rings in a little ledge of rock behind the shell. Timothy and Hew went in—the opening of the shell was large enough for a full-grown man—and found inside it four bunks, made of whale-bone and filled with fine soft sand, which, they thought, would make very comfortable beds. The inner part of the shell grew narrower and narrower, and twisted round rather like a spiral staircase. There were several cupboards on the walls of this narrower part, on the doors of which were neatly printed notices that read: SHRIMP PASTE, BLOATER PASTE, LOBSTER PASTE, WHALE MILK, and RUM. They opened them and found that all the pastes were made up in neat little parcels, rather like small bricks, and the whale milk and the rum were in large old-fashioned bottles.
William Button and Henry String came in and said, ‘What's for dinner?'

‘Shrimp paste, bloater paste, lobster paste, rum and whale's milk,' said Timothy.

‘Just the usual old stuff,' said William. ‘That's what you always find in these sleeping-shells.'

‘And we're not allowed to drink the rum,' said Henry gloomily. ‘It's only the grown-ups can drink rum, though some of those Cabin Boys sneak a cupful now and then, and start fighting and singing and showing off.'

Timothy and Hew each took one of the little bricks of shrimp paste, and found it more delicious than anything they had ever tasted on land. Then they had a brick of bloater paste, and another of lobster paste, and both were so good that they had second helpings of each. But they did not care for the whale milk, which had a slight flavour of castor-oil.

‘You'll get used to it in time,' said William Button.

‘And you'll get tired of shrimp paste too,' said Henry String. ‘It's all right to begin with, but when you've been eating it for a hundred years or so you begin to think you'd like something else for a change.'

Timothy and Hew enjoyed their supper, however, and when they had eaten all they wanted, they lay down in two of the sandy bunks while William and Henry took those on the other side, and very soon they were all fast asleep.

They woke when morning came and went out for a little walk, and the first person they met was a very large and elderly Crab who spoke to them in a dignified voice.

‘I hope,' he said, ‘that you found everything to your satisfaction? This shell is widely known among travellers, and enjoys, I'm glad to say, a very fine reputation for comfort, cleanliness, good wholesome food, and beautiful surroundings.'

‘Thank you,' said Timothy. ‘We've been very comfortable here.'

‘Is it your shell?' asked Hew.

‘I am the caretaker, gentlemen,' said the Crab. ‘Merely the humble caretaker, but, as you have doubtless seen for yourselves, I take a pride in my profession and endeavour to give the best possible service to all travellers who honour me with their company.'

William Button and Henry String now came out and joined in the conversation. They were not so much impressed by the Crab as Timothy and Hew had been, and William said to him quite rudely, ‘Why weren't you here to meet us when we came in last night? What were you doing, you old skrimshanker, you? Sound asleep under the weeds, I suppose?'

‘Not at all,' said the Crab. ‘You misjudge me sorely, you do indeed. I had been summoned to the assistance of a neighbour of mine, who unhappily is in very indifferent health. I was sitting up all night, gentlemen, with a poor sick friend.'

‘I don't believe a word of it,' said William.

‘You were sleeping under the weeds,' said Henry.

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,' said the Crab reproachfully. ‘You misjudge me sorely! There is no more honest, sober, hard-working, conscientious a crab in the Western Ocean than your humble servant. I have been in the public service for eighty-seven years——'

‘And been asleep for eighty-five,' said William.

‘Come on,' said Henry, ‘we've got no time to listen to this old croaker.—Go in and get your breakfast, you two, and we'll saddle up.'

Timothy and Hew went in and made a good breakfast on shrimp paste and whale's milk, and talked politely to the Crab, whose feelings had been hurt by the rudeness of the Powder Monkeys. Then they made their beds, which didn't take long, and William and Henry came in and ate a large breakfast in a very short time. They said good-bye to the Crab, and remounting their sharks, began the second day of their voyage.

All day they swam swiftly to the south-west, and most of the time they travelled on the surface or just under it. But they kept a good look-out for ships and fishing-boats, and whenever they saw one in the distance they dived deeply and only came up again when they had made sure that there was no other vessel in sight.

That night they slept in a shell that lay on the bottom of the sea about forty miles from the west
coast of Donegal, and the following morning they made another early start and in fine weather continued their journey.

‘Gunner Boles,' said Timothy, ‘told us not to waste time, and we certainly haven't wasted any yet.'

William Button yawned and said, ‘Not half, we haven't.'

Timothy yawned too, for they were all getting a little tired of rushing through the bright water, and the sharks had to be pricked more and more often to keep them swimming.

At midday they were moving just below the surface of a calm blue sea under an almost cloudless sky, and nobody had spoken for nearly an hour. They were going quite slowly now, and they all felt rather bored after sitting for two and a half days in their howdahs. But their attention was attracted by a school of porpoises which suddenly appeared not far in front, and with something like envy they watched them leaping out of the water, and diving and reappearing, in the liveliest way. The porpoises appeared to be enjoying themselves, and in comparison with their brisk and cheerful movement it seemed very dull to be sitting still in a whale-bone box on top of a basking-shark.

‘I don't count this worth anything at all,' said William Button. ‘Anyone can ride a shark, even old men like Gunner Boles. It takes something, though, to ride one of them porpoises. There's not many can do that.'

‘Have you ever ridden one?' asked Timothy.

‘Often,' said William. ‘Often and often.'

On the other shark Henry String had said to Hew, ‘I bet you couldn't sit on a porpoise for more than two minutes.'

‘Could you?' asked Hew.

‘Me?' said Henry. ‘I've ridden them for years. But I've got a good seat, I've got good hands, and I understand them. Now you'd be thrown off before you knew where you were.'

‘If you can ride them, I dare say I can too,' said Hew.

Henry String laughed scornfully and shouted to William Button, ‘He thinks he could ride one of them porpoises.'

‘That's what Timothy thinks too,' said William.

‘Well, let 'em try,' said Henry, and standing up in his howdah he whistled to two porpoises who were swimming quite near them. They came alongside, and Henry gave each of them the half of a brick of shrimp paste which he had put in his satchel before leaving the shell in which they had slept.

‘Whe-ooh, whe-ooh,' said the porpoises, and ate the shrimp paste with great pleasure.

‘Now, there you are,' said Henry. ‘There's two of the quietest, best-behaved porpoises in the Atlantic Ocean. If you can't ride them, you can't ride anything.'

When they considered the matter more closely, both Timothy and Hew were inclined to believe that it was quite impossible to sit on a porpoise; for there was nothing to hold. The creatures' dorsal fins were set so far back that it would be necessary to sit in front of them; and in front of the fin there was only a smooth slope down to the nose. The
first time Timothy mounted his porpoise, he slid off immediately.

Then William Button said, ‘Grip with your knees and use his breast-fins as stirrups.' So Timothy tried again, and setting his feet on the breast-fins—which were stiff and strong—he pressed his knees into the porpoise's side, which yielded like a rubber ball; and beneath his weight its back also sank a little, so that he was presently sitting quite comfortably in a small hollow. Then Hew, who had been watching him carefully, mounted the other porpoise and kept his seat without much difficulty.