The Ocean Cat's Paw Part 33

"Ah, but they don't run high here, sir. You see, the Sarga.s.sey Sea aren't like other seas, and I suppose it's only part of the Atlantic after all. It's all smooth like because as far as you can see it's all like one great bed of floating seaweed, so thick that you can hardly sail through it at times, and if you go out into it in a boat it's as much as you can do to dip your oars."

"Have you been out amongst it then?" asked Rodd.

"Yes, sir, more'n once. It was when I was in the _Prince George_ off the West Coast of Africa, and we had got a surgeon on board there, and him and our second lieutenant had both got it badly."

"What, West African fever?" cried Rodd.

"No, no, sir; same as your uncle's got--looking after strange things as lives in the sea. I was one of the crew of the second cutter then, and in the beautiful calm weather we used to take the doctor and the second luff out in this Sarga.s.sey Sea, which used to look sometimes as if we were floating about in green fields."

"Oh, you mean the Sarga.s.so Sea!" cried Rodd. "Nay, I don't, sir; I means the Sarga.s.sey Sea."

"Well, that's the same thing, only you spell it differently," cried Rodd.

"Oh no, sir; that I don't. That's a thing as I never pretended to do.

I can take my spell at the pump or at any other job; but what you call spelling was never in my way."

"But you mean the same thing," cried Rodd. "It isn't Sar-ga.s.s-ey; it's Sar-ga.s.s-o."

"Ho! Sar-ga.s.s-ho, is it, sir?"

"Yes, of course."

"All right, sir; I'm willing. But my one was all alive with little things, little fish and slugs and snails of all kinds of rum sorts; and our second luff used to make us haul in great lengths of the seaweed as was floating about, and then help him to pick 'em out into bottles till they were quite full, and looking just as if they was pickles same as you see in the grocers' shops in Plymouth town."

"Well, the same as you saw uncle and me do that day during the calm?"

"Yes, sir, just like that, only yours as you did were small shop and ours was like big warehouse, though I don't think our doctor did much good with them, because so many of them used to go bad, and our cook and his mate used to have to throw no end away and wash the bottles."

"Ah, ours won't go bad," said Rodd confidently. "My uncle will preserve them differently to that."

"Oh, yes, I suppose so, sir. You see, we've all come out this time ready for the job; our officers on the _Prince George_ only did their bit just for a day or two's holiday like, and our job was to look after the mounseers' cruisers, not to catch t.i.ttlebats and winkles, and it wasn't so very long after that we was at it hammer and tongs with a big French frigate, making work for the doctor of a precious different kind, and for our s.h.i.+p's carpenters too. Different sort of nat'ral history that was, sir, I can tell you, for we lost nineteen of our men and had a lot wounded; but we took the frigate, and carried her safe into Portsmouth Harbour."

"Ah!" cried Rodd softly, as his eyes flashed at the thoughts of the deeds of naval daring carried out by our men-of-war. "I wish I'd been there!"

"You do, sir?" said Joe. "Mean it?"

"Mean it? Of course! There, don't look at me like that. I wasn't thinking of being a man, but a reefer--one of those middies that we used to see at Plymouth."

"Ah, it's all very fine, sir," said Joe, shaking his head, "and it sounds very nice about firing broadsides and then getting orders to board when the two big men-of-war get the grappling-irons on board and you have to follow your officers, scrambling with your cutla.s.s in your hand out of the chains from your s.h.i.+p into the enemy's; and all the time there's the roaring of the guns and the popping away of the marines up in the tops, and the men cheering as your officers lead them on. It's a very different thing, sir, to what you think, and so I can tell you."

"Why, Joe," cried Rodd, almost maliciously, "you talk as if you felt afraid!"

"Afraid, sir?" said the man, quietly and thoughtfully. "No, sir. No, sir; I never felt afraid, and I never knowed one of my messmates as said he was."

"Oh no, of course they wouldn't say so," cried Rodd, laughing.

"No, sir, that's right. But I aren't bragging, sir. I've been in several engagements like that, and my messmates always seemed to feel just as I did. You see, they'd got it to do, sir, and we always felt that it was only mounseers that we'd got to beat and captur' their s.h.i.+p; and then as soon as we had begun, whether we was crews of guns, stripped and firing away, or answering the orders to board, why, then we never had time to feel afraid."

"What, not when you saw your messmates shot down beside you?" cried Rodd.

"My word, no, sir!" cried Joe, laughing. "We none of us felt afraid then; it only made us feel wild and want to sarve the other side out.

No, sir," continued the bluff fallow, in a quiet matter-of-fact way, and his voice utterly free of vaunt, "whether it's a sea-fight or things are going wrong in a storm, we sailor fellows are always too busy to feel afraid. You see, I think, sir, it has something to do with the drill and discipline, as they calls it, training the lads all to work together. You see, it makes them feel so strong."

"I can't say I do see," said Rodd.

"No, sir, because you haven't been drilled; but it's like this 'ere.

One man's one man, and a hundred men's a hundred men--no, stop; that aren't quite what I mean. It aren't in my way, Mr Rodd, sir; I never was a beggar to argue. The fat Bun can easily beat me at that. This 'ere's what I mean. One man's one man, and a hundred men's a hundred one men. That's if they aren't drilled and trained like sailors or soldiers; but if they are trained, you see each one man feels as if he has got a hundred men with him all working together, and con-se-quently, sir, every chap aboard feels as if he's as strong as a hundred men. Now don't you see, sir?"

"Well, yes," said Rodd quietly; "I think I begin to see what you mean."

"Why, of course you do, sir. Say it's heaving a boat aboard, and it takes twenty men to do it. Why, if they go and try one at a time, where are you? But if you all go and take hold together, and your officer says to you, 'Now, my lads, with a will, all together! Heave ho!' why then, up she comes. Well now, I do call that rum! Look at that, sir.

If here aren't the old man, just as if he had heard what we was talking about, pa.s.sing the word for gun drill, or else a bit of knicketty knock with the cutla.s.ses and pikes!"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A STRANGE VISITOR.

Upon hearing Joe Cross's announcement Rodd eagerly turned, to find his uncle just coming on deck to take his evening walk after a busy day with his specimens that he had dragged and trawled from the calm sea.

The captain had just given orders to the mate to summon all hands on deck, and one of the first proceedings was to call the men to attention, the next to send them to the small-arms chest, from which each returned with cutla.s.s buckled on and carrying a boarding pike, which were placed in a rack round the mainmast.

Rodd took his position just opposite as the men fell into line; Uncle Paul seated himself as far off as he could get, in a deck-chair, where he sat and frowned; and then Captain Chubb diligently put his men through all the evolutions of cutla.s.s drill over and over again, till he was satisfied, when he bade them fall out for a few minutes to rid themselves of their cutla.s.ses.

In the interval Rodd went up to where his uncle was seated.

"I say, uncle," he said, "how the men have improved!" Uncle Paul grunted, and just then Captain Chubb strolled up.

"Well, sir," he said, "we shall soon have a crew now as smart as a man-of-war's."

"So I see," grumbled Uncle Paul; "and when you have got them perfect what are you going to do with them?"

"Ah, that remains to be seen, sir. There's nothing like being prepared."

"Better let the men rest after all they have done to-day. What with their deck cleaning and the work they have done for me, they don't want setting to play at soldiers."

"Playing at soldiers, eh, sir? I call it playing at sailors. No use to lock the stable-door after the steed's stolen. My lads may never be called upon to fight, but if by bad luck we are, I should like them to be able to use their fighting tools like men."

"Oh, it isn't likely," said Uncle Paul, "in a peaceful voyage like ours."

"Most unlikely things are those that happen first," growled the captain.

"But you worry the men with too much work, and I want them to be fresh and ready for me to-morrow morning. I don't want the poor fellows to be discontented."

"Discontented, sir!" cried the skipper hotly. "I should like to see them look discontented! But not they! They like it. Puts them in mind of their old fighting days. Now you shall see them go through their drill with the boarding pikes, and see how smart I have made them. I say they like it, sir; and I know."

"Then I suppose," said Uncle Paul, "you will set them to work lumbering about that great gun, pretending to load and fire it. Why, who in the world do you expect we are going to encounter out here on the high seas?