Blue Lights: Hot Work in the Soudan Part 13

"As we lay, on that day, In the Bay of Biscay O!"

Dwelling with unnecessary length and emphasis on the "O!"

At the close of the second verse the men were preparing to burst forth again when Miles observed an approaching billow which caused him to start in alarm. Although unused to the aspect of waves, he had an instinctive feeling that there was danger approaching. Voices of warning were promptly raised from different parts of the vessel, but already the loud chorus had begun and drowned every other sound. Miles dropped his biscuits and sprang towards Marion, who, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes and parted lips, was gazing at Gaspard. He just reached her when the wave burst over the side, and, catching most of the men quite unprepared, swept them with terrible violence towards the lee-side of the deck.

Marion was standing directly in the line of this human cataract, but Miles swung her deftly round into the lee of the funnel, a handle of which she happily caught, and clung to it like a limpet.

Her preserver was not so fortunate. The edge of the cataract struck him, swept him off his legs, and hurled him with many comrades against the lee bulwarks, where he lay stunned and helpless in the swis.h.i.+ng water.

Of course soldiers and sailors ran from all parts of the vessel to the rescue, and soon the injured men were carried below and attended to by the doctors; and, considering the nature of the accident, it was matter for surprise that the result was no worse than some pretty severe contusions and a few broken ribs.

When Miles recovered consciousness, he found himself in his hammock, with considerable pain in various parts of his body, and the Reverend James Drew bending over him.

"You're all right now, my fine fellow," he said, in a low comforting voice. "No bones broken, so the doctors say. Only a little bruised."

"Tell me, sir," said Miles, rousing himself, "is--is your daughter safe?"

"Yes, thanks be to G.o.d, and to your prompt a.s.sistance, she is none the worse--save the fright and a wetting."

Miles sank back on his pillows with a feeling of profound satisfaction.

"Now, you must try to sleep if you can," said the clergyman; "it will do you good."

But Miles did not want anything to do him good. He was quite content to lie still and enjoy the simple fact that he had rescued Marion, perhaps from death--at all events from serious injury! As for pain--what was that to him? was he not a soldier--one whose profession requires him to suffer _anything_ cheerfully in the discharge of duty! And was not love the highest duty?

On the strength of some such thoughts he forgot his pain and calmly went to sleep.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

HAS REFERENCE TO MANY THINGS CONNECTED WITH MIND, MATTER, AND AFFECTIONS.

The wave which had burst with such disastrous effect on the deck of the troop-s.h.i.+p was but the herald of one of those short, wild storms which occasionally sweep with desolating violence over the Atlantic Ocean, and too frequently strew with wreck the western sh.o.r.es of Europe.

In the Bay of Biscay, as usual, the power of the gale was felt more severely than elsewhere.

"There's some sort o' mystery about the matter," said Jack Molloy to William Armstrong, as they cowered together under the shelter of the bridge. "Why the Atlantic should tumble into this 'ere bay with greater wiolence than elsewhere is beyond my comprehension. But any man wi'

half an eye can see that it _do_ do it! Jist look at that!"

There was something indeed to look at, for, even while he spoke, a mighty wave tumbled on board of the vessel, rushed over the fore deck like Niagara rapids in miniature, and slushed wildly about for a considerable time before it found its way through the scuppers, into the grey wilderness of heaving billows from which it sprang.

The great s.h.i.+p quivered, and seemed for a moment to stagger under the blow, while the wind shrieked through the rigging as if laughing at the success of its efforts, but the whitey-grey hull rose heavily, yet steadily, out of the churning foam, rode triumphant over the broad-backed billow that had struck her, and dived ponderously into the valley of waters beyond.

"Don't you think," said the young soldier, whose general knowledge was a little more extensive than that of the seaman, "that the Gulf Stream may have something to do with it?"

Molloy looked at the deck with philosophically solemn countenance.

Deriving no apparent inspiration from that quarter, he gazed on the tumultuous chaos of salt-water with a perplexed expression. Finally and gravely he shook his weather-beaten head--

"Can't see that nohow," he said. "In course I knows that the Gulf Stream comes out the Gulf o' Mexico, cuts across the Atlantic in a nor'-easterly direction, goes slap agin the west of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and then scurries away up the coast o' Norway--though _why_ it should do so is best known to itself; p'r'aps it's arter the fas.h.i.+on of an angry woman, accordin' to its own sweet will; but what has that got for to do wi' the Bay of Biscay O? That's wot I wants to know."

"More to do with it than you think, Jack," answered the soldier. "In the first place, you're not quite, though partly, correct about the Gulf Stream--"

"Well, I ain't zactly a scienkrific stoodent, you know. Don't purfess to be."

"Just so, Jack. Neither am I, but I have inquired into this matter in a general way, an' here's _my_ notions about it."

"Draw it fine, Willum; don't be flowery," said the sailor, renewing his quid. "Moreover, if you'll take the advice of an old salt you'll keep a tighter grip o' that belayin'-pin you've got hold of, unless you wants to be washed overboard. Now then, fire away! I'm all attention, as the cat said at the mouth o' the mouse-hole."

"Well, then," began Armstrong, with the slightly conscious air of superior knowledge, "the Gulf Stream does _not_ rise in the Gulf of Mexico--"

"Did I say that it did, Willum?"

"Well, you said that it _came out of_ the Gulf of Mexico--and, no doubt, so far you are right, but what I mean is that it does not originate there."

"W'y don't you say what you mean, then, Willum, instead o' pitchin' into a poor chap as makes no pretence to be a purfessor? Heave ahead!"

"Well, Jack," continued the soldier, with more care as to his statements, "I believe, on the best authority, that the Gulf Stream is only part of a great ocean current which originates at the equator, and a small bit of which flows north into the Atlantic, where it drives into the Gulf of Mexico. Finding no outlet there it rushes violently round the gulf--"

"Gits angry, no doubt, an' that's what makes it hot?" suggested the sailor.

"Perhaps! Anyhow, it then flows, as you say, in a nor'-easterly direction to the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. But it does more than that. It spreads as it goes, and also rushes straight at the coasts of France and Spain. Here, however, it meets a strong counter current running south along these same coasts of France an' Spain. That is difficulty number one. It has to do battle wi' that current, and you know, Jack, wherever there's a battle there's apt to be convulsions of some sort. Well, then, a nor'-westerly gale comes on and rolls the whole o' the North Atlantic Ocean against these coasts. So here you have this part of the Gulf Stream caught in another direction--on the port quarter, as you sailors might call it--"

"Never mind wot us sailors might call it, Willum. Wotever you say on that pint you're sure to be wrong. Heave ahead!"

"Well, then," continued Armstrong, with a laugh, "that's trouble number two; and these troubles, you'll observe, apply to the whole west coast of both countries; but in the Bay of Biscay there is still another difficulty, for when these rus.h.i.+ng and tormented waters try to escape, they are met fair in the face by the whole north coast of Spain, and thus--"

"_I_ sees it!" exclaimed Molloy, with a sudden beam of intelligence, "you've hit the nail on the head, Willum. Gulf Stream flies at France in a hot rage, finds a cool current, or customer, flowin' down south that shouts `Belay there!' At it they go, tooth an' nail, when down comes a nor'-wester like a wolf on the fold, takes the Stream on the port quarter, as you say, an' drives both it an' the cool customer into the bay, where the north o' Spain cries `Avast heavin', both o' you!'

an' drives 'em back to where the nor'-wester's drivin' 'em on! No wonder there's a mortal hullaballoo in the Bay o' Biscay! Why, mate, where got ye all that larnin'?"

Before his friend could reply, a terrific plunge of the vessel, a vicious shriek of the wind, and the entrance of another tremendous sea, suggested that the elements were roused to unusual fury at having the secrets of their operations thus ruthlessly revealed, and also suggested the propriety of the two friends seeking better shelter down below.

While this storm was raging, Miles lay in his hammock, subjected to storms of the bosom with occasional calms between. He was enjoying one of the calms when Armstrong pa.s.sed his hammock and asked how he was getting on.

"Very well, Willie. Soon be all right, I think," he replied, with a contented smile.

For at that moment he had been dwelling on the agreeable fact that he had really rescued Marion Drew from probable death, and that her parents gratefully recognised the service--as he learned from the clergyman himself, who expressed his grat.i.tude in the form of frequent visits to and pleasant chats with the invalid.

The interest and sympathy which Miles had felt on first seeing this man naturally increased, and at last he ventured to confide to him the story of his departure from home, but said nothing about the changed name. It is needless to relate all that was said on the occasion. One can easily imagine the bearing of a good deal of it. The result on Miles was not very obvious at the time, but it bore fruit after many days.

The calm in our hero's breast was not, however, of long duration. The thought that, as a private in a marching regiment, he had not the means to maintain Marion, in the social position to which she had been accustomed, was a very bitter thought, and ruffled the sea of his feelings with a stiff breeze. This freshened to something like a gale of rebellion when he reflected that his case was all but hopeless; for, whatever might have been the truth of the statement regarding the French army under Napoleon, that "every soldier carried a marshal's baton in his knapsack," it did not follow that soldiers in the British army of the present day carried commissions in _their_ knapsacks. Indeed, he knew it was by no means a common thing for men to rise from the ranks, and he was well aware that those who did so were elevated in virtue of qualities which he did not possess.

He was in the midst of one of his bosom storms when Sergeant Hardy came to inquire how he did.

Somehow the quiet, grave, manly nature of that sergeant had a powerful effect, not only on Miles but on every one with whom he came in contact.

It was not so much his words as his manner that commended him. He was curiously contradictory, so to speak, in character and appearance. The stern gravity of his countenance suggested a hard nature, but lines of good-humour lurking about the eyes and mouth put to flight the suggestion, and acts of womanly tenderness on many occasions turned the scale the other way. A strong, tall, stiffly upright and slow-moving frame, led one to look only for elephantine force, but when circ.u.mstances required prompt action our sergeant displayed powers of cat-like activity, which were all the more tremendous that they seemed incongruous and were unexpected. From his lips you looked for a voice of thunder--and at drill you were not disappointed--but on ordinary occasions his speech was soft and low; ba.s.s indeed as to its quality, but never harsh or loud.

"A gale is brewing up from the nor'-west, so Jack Molloy says," remarked Hardy, as he was about to pa.s.s on.