Blue Lights: Hot Work in the Soudan Part 12

"Yes, Jack, I've been paying tribute to Neptune lately."

"You looks like it, Miles, judgin' by the colour o' your jib. Where away now?"

"Going for our soup."

"What! made you cook o' the mess?"

"Ay; don't you wish you were me?"

Another roll and flash of spray ended the conversation and separated the friends.

The pea-soup was ready when our hero reached the galley. Having filled the mess-tureen with the appetising mixture, he commenced the return journey with great care, for he was now dependent entirely on his legs, both hands being engaged. Miles was handy, if we may say so, with his legs. Once or twice he had to rush and thrust a shoulder against the bulwarks, and a dash of spray served for salt to the soup; but he was progressing favourably and had traversed full three-quarters of the distance to the hatch when a loud "Hooroo!" caused him to look round smartly.

He had just time to see Corporal Flynn, who had slipped and fallen, come rolling towards him like a sack of flour. Next moment he was swept off his legs, and went into the lee scuppers with his comrade in a bath of pea-soup and salt-water!

Fortunately, the obliging wave which came in-board at the same moment mingled with the soup, and saved both men from a scalding.

Such mishaps, however, were rare, and they served rather to enliven the voyage than otherwise.

Besides the duties already mentioned, our hero had to wash up all the dishes and other things at meal-hours; to polish up the mess-kettles and tin dishes; and, generally, to put things away in their places, and keep things in apple-pie order. Recollecting another of his mother's teachings--"Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well"--he tried his best, and was so ably seconded by the amiable Moses, that the Miles-Moses mess came to be at last regarded as the best-kept one on board.

One morning, after clearing up the dishes and putting things in order, Miles went on deck for a little fresh air. On the way up he met an elderly gentleman whose dress proclaimed him a clergyman.

He looked earnestly at our hero, and, nodding kindly, spoke a few words to him in pa.s.sing. Miles had been aware that there was a clergyman on board going out to Egypt with his family--whether in connection with the troops or for health he did not know. He was much impressed with the looks and expression of this man. It seemed to him as if there were some sort of attractive power about him which was unaccountably strong, and he felt quite interested in the prospect of hearing him preach on the following Sunday.

While on deck the previous day, he had seen the figures of two ladies, whom he rightly judged to be the family above referred to, but as there was nearly the whole distance of the s.h.i.+p's length between them, he could not distinguish their faces.

On taking his place when Sunday came, he observed that the family were present, seated, however, in such a position that he could only see their backs. Speculating in a listless way as to what sort of faces they had, he whiled away the few minutes before the service began.

He was recalled from this condition by the tones of the clergyman's voice, which seemed to have the same effect on him as his look and manner had the day they first met. During the sermon Miles's attention was riveted, insomuch that he almost forgot where he was. The text was a familiar one--"G.o.d is Love,"--but the treatment of it seemed entirely new: the boundless nature of that love; its incomprehensible and almighty force; its enduring certainty and its overwhelming immensity, embracing, as it did, the whole universe in Christ, were themes on which the preacher expatiated in a way that Miles had never before dreamed of.

"All subordinate love," said the preacher, in concluding, "has its source in this. No wonder, then, that it is spoken of in Scripture as a love `which pa.s.seth knowledge.'"

When the men rose to leave, it could be easily seen that they were deeply impressed. As they went out slowly, Miles pa.s.sed close to the place where the ladies sat. The slighter of the two was talking in a low tone to her companion, and the young soldier was struck with the wonderful resemblance in her tone to that of the preacher. He wondered if her face also resembled his in any degree, and glanced back, but the head was turned away.

"I like that parson. He has got _brains_," remarked Sergeant Hardy, as he walked along the deck with Sergeant Gilroy and Corporal Flynn.

"Sur' an' I like him too," said the corporal, "for he's got _heart_!"

"Heart and brains," returned Gilroy: "a grand combination! What more could we want?"

"Don't you think that _tongue_ is also essential?" asked Miles. "But for the preacher's eloquence his heart and brain would have worked in vain."

"Come now, John Miles, don't you be risin' up into poethry. It's not yer natur--though ye think it is. Besides, av a man's heart an' brains is all right, he can make good use of 'em widout much tongue. Me own notion is that it's thim as hasn't got much to spake of, aither of heart or brain, as is over-fond o' waggin' the tongue."

"That's so, Flynn. You're a living example of the truth of your own opinion," retorted Miles.

"Och! is it angered ye are at gittin' the worst o' the argiment?"

rejoined the corporal. "Niver mind, boy, you'll do better by and by--"

As Flynn descended the ladder while he spoke, the sense of what he said was lost, but the truth of his opinion still continued to receive ill.u.s.tration from the rumbling of his voice, until it was swallowed up in the depths of the vessel.

Next day our hero received a shock from which he never finally recovered!

Be not alarmed, reader; it was not paralytic in its nature. It happened on this wise:

Miles had occasion to go to the fore part of the s.h.i.+p on some culinary business, without his coat, and with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows. Arrived there, he found that the captain was taking the ladies round the s.h.i.+p to point out some of its interesting details. As Miles came up, the younger lady turned round so as to present her full face to him. It was then that poor Miles received the shock above referred to.

At that moment a little boy with wings and a bow stepped right in front of the young lady and shot straight at Miles Milton! The arrow entered his heart, and he--no, he did not fall; true men in such circ.u.mstances never fall! They stand transfixed, sometimes, or stupefied. Thus stood Miles and stared. Yes, though naturally modest and polite, he stood and stared!

And small blame to him, as Flynn might have said, for before him stood his ideal of a fairy, an angel, a sylph--or anything beautiful that best suits your fancy, reader! Sunny hair, sunny eyes--earnest and inquiring eyes--sunny smiles, and eyebrows to match. Yes, she had eyebrows distinctly darker than her hair, and well-defined over a pair of large brown eyes.

Poor Miles was stricken, as we have said; but--would you believe it?-- there were men there looking at that girl at that time who, to use their own phraseology, would not have accepted a dozen of her for the girls they had left behind them! One young fellow in particular murmured to himself as follows--"Yes, very well in her way, no doubt, but she couldn't hold a candle to my Emmy!" Perhaps the most cutting remark of all--made mentally, of course--was that of Sergeant Grady, who, for reasons best known to himself, had left a wife, describable as a stout well-favoured girl of forty, behind him.

"In twenty years or so," he thought, "she may perhaps be near as good-lookin' as my Susy, but she'll never come quite up to her--never!"

"Come this way, Mrs Drew," said the captain. "I will show you the men's quarters. Out of the way, my man!"

Flus.h.i.+ng to the roots of his hair, Miles stepped hastily aside.

As he did so there was heard an awful rend of a sort that tests the temper of women! It was followed by a musical scream. The girl's dress had caught on a block tackle.

Miles leaped forward and unhooked it. He was rewarded with a smiling "Thank you," which was followed by a blush of confusion as Miss Drew's mother exclaimed, "Oh! Marion--how _could_ you?" by way of making things easier for her, no doubt!

"You did that, young man, about as smart as I could a' done it myself,"

growled a voice behind him.

The speaker was Jack Molloy, and a general t.i.tter followed Miles as he hurried away.

As we have said, the weather became much worse when the troop-s.h.i.+p drew near to the Bay of Biscay; and it soon became evident that they were not to cross that famous portion of the Atlantic, without experiencing some of the violent action for which it is famed. But by that time most of the soldiers, according to Molloy, had got their sea-legs on, and rather enjoyed the tossing than otherwise.

"I do like this sort o' thing," said a beardless young fellow, as a number of the men sat on camp-stools, or stood on the weather-side of the deck, chatting together about past times and future prospects.

"Ha!" exclaimed a seaman, who stood near them coiling up a rope; "hold on till you've got a taste o' the Bay. This is a mill-pond to that.

And you'll have the chance to-night. If you don't, I'm a Dutchman."

"If I do, you'll have a taste of it too, old salt-water, for we're in the same boat," retorted the young red-coat.

"True, but we ain't in the same body;" returned the sailor. "I should just like to see your four-futt legs wobblin' about in a nor'-west gale.

You'd sing another song."

"Come, Macleod," cried Moses Pyne, "tip us a Gaelic song."

"Hoots, man, wull ye be wantin' to be made sea-seek?--for that's what'll do it," said the big Scotsman. "Na, na, let Gaspard sing us `The Bay o'

Biscay O!' That'll be mair appropriate."

There was a general chorus of a.s.sent to this; and as Gaspard Redgrave was an obliging man, untroubled by false modesty, he cleared his throat and began. His voice, being a really splendid one, attracted all the men who chanced to be within range of it: among others, Miles, who was pa.s.sing at the moment with a bag of biscuits in one hand and a meat-can in the other. He leaned up against one of those funnels which send fresh air down to the stokers of steam-s.h.i.+ps. He had listened only a few moments when Marion Drew glided amongst the men, and seemed to stand as if entranced with delight in front of him, steadying herself by a rope, for the vessel was pitching a good deal as well as rolling considerably.

At the first chorus the crowd burst forth with wild enthusiasm--