Chapter 3

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_ CHAPTER THREE.

The good-byes were said, and I was sent off with a ringing cheer by my old companions. My luggage had gone to the ship days before, and I had only a couple of tin cases to take with me in the cab when I reached London and was driven to the docks. Here, after going astray several times, I at last found the great towering-sided _Jumna_, and went on board with my belongings.

Everything was in confusion, for provisions were still being taken on board along with passengers' luggage; and it was some time before I could find any one in the busy crowd which thronged the deck, to show me my cabin, which, to my disgust, I found contained a second berth and several articles of luggage labelled, "Captain Brace, Calcutta," and in smaller letters, "Cabin; wanted on voyage."

"Not much room for two," I thought, as my own luggage was brought in, and I found by the number of my berth that I was to sleep on the shelf-like bed above that on which a portion of the captain's luggage lay.

Then, wondering what he would be like; whether he would be agreeable, or disposed to look down upon me as a boy, I went back on deck, and stood about watching the busy scene, and learning which was the quarter-deck, steerage, forecastle, and the like. By virtue of being an officer, I found myself at liberty to go where I pleased, and noted which were passengers and which were leave-taking friends.

Then I had a good look at the officers and sailors, many of whom were yellow-faced lascars with dark oily-looking eyes, whose whites seemed to have an opalescent tinge.

Every one was busy, and a good many of the dock-men were up aloft giving the finishing touches to the rigging, a great deal of which seemed to be new. But somehow, as an idler, I seemed to be in everybody's way, and was constantly being requested to make way, or stand aside, or my leave was requested in tones rather insulting, as I thought then.

Suddenly I remembered that General Crucie had said that a draft of men was going out in the vessel, in charge of Captain Brace.

"I wonder where the men are," I said to myself; and at last, as I had looked in vain for red or blue uniforms, I asked one of the sailors.

"Swaddies?" he said. "Oh yes. Forrard. There they are."

He pointed toward the head of the vessel as he hurried off in answer to a shout from a red-faced man who was directing a gang of sailors hauling at something up aloft which he called a yard, and I went forward to have a look at the smart detachment of soldiers I was to help to command.

The illusion was soon swept away, for the detachment was composed of about fifty unhappy, thin-looking men in white flannel jackets, sitting about or leaning over the bulwarks, smoking and watching the dock quay where stood a group of slatternly-looking women, staring wearily at the ship; and now and then one of them would wave a hand or a handkerchief to the men in white flannel, a salute as often as not evoking no response, though sometimes a man would take off his ugly blue woollen forage-cap by the red worsted tuft at the top, give it a twist, and put it on again.

"This cannot be the detachment," I thought, and then, thinking that the best way to know was to ask, I said to the nearest man--

"Would you mind telling me whether you belong to Captain Brace's detachment?"

"What?"

A surly, half-insolent question in reply to mine, which I repeated.

"I dunno nothing about no 'tachments," he growled.

"Well, are you in the service, and going out to India?" I said.

"I've took the shilling, and I'm going out to cholera borgus, if that's what you mean. Don't bother!"

"You'll get yourself in for it directly, mate," growled another of the men. "Can't you see the gent's a horficer?"

I felt better at this, but I was damped down directly, for my man I had spoken to growled out--

"Horficer? Well, all I can say is as he don't look it."

As the man turned away to rest his arms on the bulwark and refill his pipe, the second man saluted me.

"Yes, it's all right, sir. We're just down from Warley barracks, and we are going out as part of Captain Brace's draft."

I saluted and walked away, feeling in no wise proud of the men who would be partly under my charge. Physically, they were well-made fellows enough, but there was neither romance nor sentiment about them, and in the midst of all the bustle and confusion on board, with the decks literally swarming, I began to feel horribly lonely and depressed, and a sensation of home-sickness was coming on fast, till I told myself it was all nonsense, the home for which I was sickening was only the kind of school which for many months past I had been longing to leave, and that I should in all probability soon meet father, mother, and sister, as well as begin my career as a man.

Just then my attention was taken up by an angry encounter. Three men were brought on board, almost dragged, and thrown down, and it did not need a second thought to grasp the fact that they were sailors who had been spending their advance-money at one of the public-houses which swarmed about the docks.

All at once one of them, as he lay upon the deck, began to sing, and this brought out a smart-looking officer in uniform.

"Here, get these pigs below," he cried angrily; and half a dozen of the sailors crossed to one side, returned with a coil of rope, fastened it round the waist of one of the last-comers, and then seizing him, trotted forward, dragging him along the deck to an open hatchway, where he was unceremoniously lowered down; one sailor followed to unfasten the rope, which was hauled up, and the other men were hauled to the hatchway and lowered in turn.

"That's the way to serve them," said the officer to me sharply. "Some time before they get drunk again."

He nodded shortly and went aft, while, feeling disgusted with the rough scene, I made my way aft too, and came upon quite a crowd of people, evidently friends of the passengers, bidding good-bye, many of them with tears.

"This is cheerful," I thought, and then by an absurd change of feeling, I was hurt because there was no one to bid good-bye to me.

"Confound it all, sir, do get out of the way, please!" said another officer sharply.

I gave him a resentful look, and backed out of his way into somebody else's, sending a man who was carrying part of a passenger's luggage staggering, so that he caught the corner of a trunk sharply against an officer's shoulder, with anything but a pleasant result for the burdened man, who recovered himself, and hurried to the cabin stairs, while, after apologising to the officer, I followed the man, meaning to go up on the poop deck.

But the staircase was full of people, and I dived under to go below and find my cabin, which I now resentfully remembered was not mine.

"Never mind, I'll go and sit down till dinnertime," I thought. "I suppose there will be some dinner some time."

I went along by the row of cabin doors, and found that I was on the port instead of the starboard side; and, crossing over, I found the right cabin at last, seized the handle sharply, for a man was coming along with more luggage, and, turning the fastening, I was about to dive in, but the door was fast, and a quick, authoritative voice cried from within--

"Well, what is it?"

"Open this door," I said as sharply, for I felt irritated at being shut out of my place of refuge from the noise and misery of the deck.

There was the sound of a bolt shooting back, the door was thrown open, and I was face to face in the dim light with a tall, dark, youngish man, whose expression was stern and severe in the extreme.

"Well, sir," he said shortly, "what is it?"

"What is it?" I cried angrily, with a sharp look at my luggage. "What are you doing here? Why is this door fastened?"

He looked at me quite fiercely for a few moments, and then his face softened a little, and he smiled, but it was a cold, wintry sort of facial sunshine.

"Ah, I see," he said, "you are Mr Vincent, I suppose?"

"Yes, I am, sir, and that is my luggage. What then?"

"Only that my name is Brace, and I suppose we are to be fellow-passengers."

"I--I--beg your pardon," I stammered, with my face turning scarlet.

"There is no need," he said coldly. "Perhaps it was my fault for fastening the door."

He turned away, stooped down to a trunk in which glistened a bunch of keys, turned the lock, and then altered his mind and unlocked the trunk, and took out his keys.

"No," he said rising, "there will be no need for that."

He turned coldly, and went out of the cabin, leaving me with the sensation that I had behaved rudely and insolently to an officer who was my superior, and under whose orders I supposed I was to be.

"Nice beginning," I said to myself, and I sat down on one of my own trunks, feeling anything but comfortable, as I came to the conclusion that I had made an enemy who would pay me handsomely during the voyage.

"This is a happy sort of place," I muttered, as I sat listening to the banging of cabin doors and shouting of people for stewards and others, and angry complaints about being kept waiting; and all the time there was a stamping, tramping, and rattling going on overhead that was maddening.

And there I sat, gazing dreamily at the little round pane of glass which lit the cabin, till I grew so hot and weary of the stuffy little cupboard of a place, that I got up and went on deck again, to find that the great vessel had been cast loose, and that hawsers and capstans were being used to work us out of the dock.

We were already some little distance from the dock wall, which was crowded with the friends of the soldiers and sailors on board, those of the passengers for the most part remaining to go down the river, while the men thronged the bulwarks, and climbed to every point of vantage, to respond, with shouts and cheers, to waving of hands and, bonnets and the shrill good-byes.

"Everybody seems to have some one to say good-bye to him but me," I thought again; and half pitying, half contemptuously, I leaned over the side watching the little crowd of excited women and old men who hurried along the dock quay so as to keep abreast of the vessel.

"A sad thing, too--saying good-bye," I thought. "Perhaps they'll never come back and meet again, and--"

My heart seemed to stand still, and I clutched the edge of the bulwark spasmodically, for all at once as I watched the women pressing along the edge of the stone quay, their faces turned toward us as they cried out to the men on board, I saw one young-looking thing wave her handkerchief and then press it to her eyes, and in imagination I heard her sobbing as she hurried on with the rest. But next instant I saw that she had caught her foot in one of the ropes strained from the great ship to the edge of the quay, and plunged forward headlong to strike the water twenty feet below, and disappear.

A wild shriek from the quay was mingled with the excited shouts of the men on board. Then orders were rapidly given, men ran here and there, and amidst a great deal of shouting, preparations were made for lowering down the nearest boat.

But all the time the huge East Indiaman, now steadily in motion, was gliding slowly toward the dock entrance, and the unfortunate woman had risen to the surface, and was beating the water slowly with her hand.

"She'll be drowned long before that boat's down," said a gruff voice behind me, plainly heard in the shouting and excitement. "Why don't they throw her a life-buoy?"

As whoever it was spoke a yellow ring fell from the vessel, splashed, and floated on the surface, but nowhere near the drowning woman. Two men ran along the quay to throw ropes. Other ropes were sent flying in rings from the _Jumna's_ stern; but I could see that the woman was too helpless to reach them, even if she saw them, which was doubtful, and the watching and waiting grew horrible.

The woman was now many yards away from where I stood, and I had seen her wild eyes gazing up as if into mine as we glided by her, the look seeming in my excitement to appeal specially to me, and at last I could bear it no longer.

I drew myself up on to the bulwark, and looked round.

The boat stuck with something wrong about one of the davits; no other boat was visible; no one had leaped and swum to save the woman, whose clothes, after sustaining her for some moments, were gradually sinking out of sight, and the motion of her hand grew slower.

"Yes; she'll be drowned long before they can save her," I said, I believe aloud, for I seemed to hear the words; and then, without calculating the consequences, I dived from the high side of the great East Indiaman, struck the surface, and went on down, down, into the black muddy water, till I felt as if I should never rise.

Then there was light once again, and I struck out, dimly conscious of shouts and cheering, but fully awake to the fact that I was swimming there with the ship gliding away, and the steep forbidding wall of the dock about a score or two of yards distant, looking slippery, and as if it would afford no hold if I swam there, as for the moment I felt urged to do.

For I had forgotten the object which made me plunge into the dock, and the long immersion had confused me for the time being, as I tried vainly to make out what people were shouting to me from the quay.

All at once, away to my right, I saw a hand appear above the surface, and like a flash it came back, and, amidst shrieks and cheers, I swam as hard as I could for the spot, to reach it just as the hand disappeared.

For the moment I thought all was over, but, thrusting my hands down, they touched something, and the snatch I gave made the woman's shoulder roll up above the surface, then her face appeared, and, knowing the imminent danger, I tried to swerve aside to avoid the clutch of the poor creature's hand.

I was too late. The fingers seized me with a death-grip, and as I was thrown off my balance, I struggled to free myself, went under, made a desperate effort which brought me up again, and recovering myself a little, I tried hard to swim now and keep both afloat.

It was a time of confused effort and excitement I don't know that I felt much fear, only that I was getting weaker and weaker, and in a dull, half-stupefied fashion, I thought that if help did not come soon I should not be able to save the poor woman.

Then all was black again; there was a thundering in my ears, a scalding sensation in my throat, and my arms seemed to be turning to lead. But I was striving hard all the time, and once more in a dim way I saw the light, and struck out blindly enough, my only aim being to keep afloat.

I was conscious of shouting. Some one close by cried, "Hold her!" but the water was rising over my eyes again as I felt a sharp shock; hands clutched me directly after, and I was hauled into a boat, where I lay panting, my heart throbbing, and a sensation at the back of my neck as if I had received a sharp blow.

"Oh, he's all right," said a familiar voice. "Give way, my lads, and let's land her. I dare say they'll bring her to. Better chance than we shall have."

In a dreamy way I saw the dock wall above me, and people looking down; then we reached some steps, and the dripping figure of the woman was lifted out of the boat, and taken by other hands.

"Get her into a room, and fetch a doctor directly," said a voice close to me, which I now recognised as that of the officer I had run against. "Now, my lads, give way.--I say, how are you?"

I looked up, feeling dull and confused, and saw the officer was bending down over me. "That's better," he said. "We'll soon have you on board, and the surgeon will put you right in no time."

In a few minutes the great stern of the _Jumna_ was looming over us, and a tremendous burst of cheering rose as we were pulled alongside; but it did not strike me then what it all meant. I looked up, and could see white faces looking down at us, and handkerchiefs were being waved because the woman was saved, I supposed, but I was too weak and exhausted to trouble much. I was conscious of the hooks being made fast, of the creaking of the blocks as the boat was run up to the davits, and then of being lifted out on to the deck, all wet and cold, with the water streaming from me. There was a crowd of excited people around, but all dimly seen, and a loud humming of voices and an order or two, but the faces were swimming round me, and the voices sounded distant, all but one, which seemed to belong to my cabin, and it said--

"My gallant lad!"

Almost at the same moment, as it appeared to me, a rough hand caught mine, and gripped it so that it would have been painful if all I was passing through had not been confused and misty, as if it were part of a dream. There was a face, too, looking down in mine with a woollen cap and a red tuft, and a suggestion of a white flannel jacket, and a hoarse voice said--

"Bless you for that, sir. She's my dear lass."

Then everything was dark again, as if my head had gone under water, and when I saw clearly once more I was in the cabin and two gentlemen were standing by my berth. _

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