Chapter XII

TOM FINCH AND THE SHARK--SHOOTING IN THE
DISMAL SWAMP--DEATH AND PROMOTION.

It took the _Gurnet_ a year and a half more to complete even two-thirds of her circuit, and this was in reality a voyage round the world of a far more complete nature than any offered by ocean racers nowadays, that do little more than touch at a port, hurry the passengers through the sights, and go off again. There is a vast deal of difference, as every man-o'-war sailor could tell you, between "doing" the world and "seeing" the world. Perhaps the best way to see the world would be to have a yacht of one's own, and to forget there is any such word as "time" in the dictionary. But, alas! few of us are born with silver spoons in our mouths, so we must be content to stay at home and read.

But the _Gurnet_ sailed for the Chinese seas from Ceylon, then visited Java, and next straight away for Australia and New Zealand. After this she steered east and by south straight for stormy Cape Horn, rounding which, amid terrible dangers owing to a gale that drove her--after an accident to her machinery--among the icebergs, she bore up along the coast of South America till past Pernambuco, when the course was changed to north-north-west; and so we find her at long last safe at anchor at Port Royal, Jamaica.

Except for the breakdown in the machinery off the Horn, the _Gurnet_ had not met with a single mishap since she had left the China seas. All had gone well. All hands--thanks perhaps to Dr. Reikie's care and attention, and to the first lieutenant's regard for cleanliness and hygiene--were happy and healthy.

* * * * *

It was now the commencement of what may well be called an unhappy year for Britain--1854--in which we entered upon the war in the Crimea; a war which proved, if anything ever did, that Britain's sons can hold their own, can fight and suffer and die by the sword or by sickness, no matter how badly affairs may be managed by those who sit at ease at home and pull the strings that move great fleets and armies.

But war had not yet been declared; and although it seemed to be known at headquarters here, in garrison and on board ship, that it was looming in the near distance, no one considered that it would be otherwise than simply an affair of a few months, a mere military parade and picnic, a little outing for our troops, with just enough fighting for them and our blue-jackets to give it zest and flavour.

How greatly every one was mistaken events will show.

Things still went on on board the old _Gurnet_, as she was now endearingly called, much in the same way as before. Dr. Reikie, though never relaxing his duties on board, nor neglecting a single patient, however humble, found plenty of time to continue the pursuit of science, often, it must be confessed, under the greatest and drollest difficulties.

The camera, however, he had given up. He had found it unsuitable for his purposes, and so it lay in the obscurity of a locker beneath his cot. But just think for a moment, reader, what a power this instrument has become in our day, what an aid to science and art, in war as well as peace, and even to the advancement of that greatest of all sciences, though only in its infancy, astronomy! For by its assistance myriads of stars beyond the ken of the most powerful telescopes have been revealed.

Well, as the _Gurnet_ must lie here for a few months, her officers settled down to take things pretty easy, each according to his own taste or bent.

There were excursions to be made by land and by sea--these would suit the doctor at all events; there were parties and balls afloat and ashore--Jack and the junior officers, including Gribble the A.P., would go in for these; and there were whist parties and dinners, at which both the captain and his first lieutenant were sure to be present.

Jack's great ambition was to catch a shark. He expected to see them basking in the sunshine or green transparent sunlit water all around the ship.

"In the olden times," he asked Sturdy, who had been here before, "didn't there used to be a very large shark borne on the hooks of the flag-ship and fed with a ration of pork every day, to prevent the men from swimming on shore?"

"Yes," said Sturdy, laughing; "though it wasn't in my day. But at the little village of Twyford in England, in the almshouse, there used to live, and I think lives till this day, an old sailor who, being desirous to go a-boozing, as it is called, swam on shore alongside the shark nearly all the way."

"What! and the shark didn't swallow him?"

"No; I reckon he didn't, Jack, else he would hardly be alive to tell the story every Christmas evening."

"Well, sir, how did he manage?"

"Oh, simply enough. He chose a clear moonlight night, when you could have seen down to the very bottom of the harbour. The sentry was in the know, though not in the swim. In fact, Tom Finch promised to smuggle him off a drop of grog if he turned his back and kept looking astern while the daring sailor dropped quietly over the bows.

"Tom Finch was a splendid swimmer, and he had not burdened himself with a superfluity of garments; but he had three necessaries of life, as he called them: item--a pretty-well-lined purse; item--a big canvas bag containing pieces of pork for the government shark; and item--a big, sharp dagger, with which, he told his messmates, he would rip that tiger of the seas open from stem to stern if he didn't play fair."

"But," said Jack, "weren't there other sharks about as well as the tame one?"

"He wasn't tame, Jack, by any means; but he was king of the water, and when he sailed round, all the others kept at a respectful distance. So Tom Finch could have had no better convoy.

"Well, Tom struck out. But he soon found that this swim of his was going to be no child's play. The distance hadn't looked very insurmountable from the fo'c's'le-head, nor was it; but Tom hadn't considered the tidal current.

"He had swum probably fifty yards, when, as silently as a ghost, there slid up to his very side a great shark. Tom could just see it with the tail of his eye. Indeed, he says its cold, smooth nose touched the back of his hand. At the same moment he made the horrible discovery that this was not the shark.

"Thinking it was all up with him, he was just about to draw his knife, when dashing through the water came the ship's shark himself. There was no mistaking him. He made straight for the first comer.

"'That's Tom Finch,' he seemed to say. 'He's my man and my meat, if he's anybody's.'

"There was no fight between the two sharks, but there must have been a long race, for it was some time before the huge monster returned.

"Now, Jack," continued Sturdy, "I must tell you the rest of the story as old Tom Finch himself related it to the ancient dames in the almshouse not four years ago. I must premise, however, that the poor people are allowed a drop of beer at Christmas, and Tom Finch had drunk his own and had a sup from everybody else's mug.

"'"An' did the shark come back, Tom?" said old Sally.

"'Ah! that he did, Sally, and I was main glad to see him too. There was pork enough in my bag for him, but not for a score, you know.

"'"Good-evening," says Mr. Shark, quite polite like. "It is Tom Finch, isn't it?"

"'"That's me," says I. "I hopes I sees you. How's the wife and all the little 'uns?"

"'You see, ladies, I wanted to keep him talking as long as I could, to make the pork last.

"'"They're all nicely," he says. "But now, Tom, I must do my duty. I mustn't take the Queen's bounty for nothing. I've got to make a meal of you!"

"'"Duty's duty," I replies, swimming as hard as I knew how to; "and a very toothsome meal I'll make. But, my dear friend, how would a nice bit of pork do to begin with?"

"'"On with you then," says he, "if you've got it."

"'"Lie round on your side then, Mr. Shark, and open your pretty little mouth."

"'Round he lies as docile as a cat, and opens a mouth as big as the almshouse door there. I could have slit him down the stomach then and there; but Tom Finch never did a mean thing--thank you, ladies, I will taste again--so I just pitched him a piece of pork, and he caught it like a dog would a morsel of biscuit.

"'Then he winked to me.

"'"More!" he cries,

"'I flung the other piece as far as I could fling it.

"'"Don't do that again, Tom," he says, "else I'll have to begin at the other end of the banquet."

"'My heart began to quake a little now, and the shore seemed a longer way off than ever. I tell you what, ladies, I was getting a bit funky. But there was nothing for it but heave another bit o' pork.

"'"Are you quite ready?" I cries.

"'"Quite ready, Tom."

"'"You're sure?"

"'The shark lashed the water with his tail, and I knew he was losing his temper; so I sung out, "Play!" and threw the pork.

"'"More! more! more!"

"'La! ladies, I began to sweat with fear. The pork wouldn't hold out much longer, and then I knew as well what would happen, Sally, as I know what's in your pewter pot--thanks. So I threw and threw, and was soon down to the last morsel.

"'"I'm going to give you bag and all this time, Mr. Shark," says I; "you'll find the bag toothsome and tasty."

"'"Heave away," he cries; and I whips off the bag and takes out my knife at the same time. The struggle would soon begin. But as good luck would have it, I now found myself not far off the steps.

"'A light glimmered, and a black sentry appeared.

"'I threw the bag to my friend the shark.

"'"Who goes dere free times?" shouted the sentry. Bang went the musket immediately. The bullet tore up the water; but as the sentry had fired at me, of course he didn't touch me.*

* The black sentries on duty at night in or near the dockyards at Jamaica had orders to challenge "Who goes there?" three times, and to fire in the event of not receiving an answer. Their plan, however, was to shout, "Who goes dere free times?" and immediately fire.

"'"Good-bye, Tom," says the shark; "I'm off. Good luck to you till we meet again!"

"'"And may all the bad weather go with you, you ugly beast," says I. "But I'm safe now, and hurrah for a jolly time of it!"

"'I landed further down, and--that's all the story. Well, here's your good health again, ladies.'"

* * * * *

But Jack saw plenty of sharks after a time, and more than one was captured. It is about as poor sport, however, and as cruel as shooting alligators in the swamps.

* * * * *

I have now to describe a rather melancholy event which occurred here at Jamaica on board the _Gurnet_, which no one deplored more than Jack Mackenzie, although it led indirectly to his promotion.

We must go back a few weeks in our narrative, however, to describe how it happened, or rather to give you, as Dr. Reikie would have said, the primary cause of the sad affair.

The _Gurnet_, then, had called at Grey Town, Central America, and had been detained there for about a fortnight; so to pass the time a picnic and big pigeon-shoot were determined upon.

On the swampy island on which the party landed--the party consisting of the A.P. Gribble, the sub-lieutenant, Dr. Reikie, and Jack himself, with a boat's crew, and plenty of prog and grog--there were any number of pigeons on the trees, and almost an equal number of alligators in the swamps. As sly as sin these horrid brutes looked--they seemed to watch every movement of the sportsmen; and slow in movement though they appeared to be at the edge of the water, had any one fallen in they would have darted on him from every point of the compass with lightning speed, and torn him limb from limb more quickly than could be described.

The gunning went on all the forenoon, and by mid-day a very big bag had been made. The exercise, too, had made the sportsmen hungry; so what more natural than that they should light a fire and have a good dinner? Pork and roasted pigeons go well together, and neither biscuits, butter, nor the salt had been forgotten. The birds were spitted on ramrods and done to a turn, and all hands admitted it was the best meal they had eaten since they had left old England.

Then all sat round the camp fire smoking and yarning just as sailors will.

But suddenly the sky began to grow dark; the wind began to moan, and drive the smoke and fire about. A brilliant flash of lightning followed, and a startling peal of thunder. Then big drops of rain commenced to fall, and in a minute more a tropical shower burst over them in all its fury. Dr. Reikie was fain to confess that this shower beat all the showers ever he had known, including even a Scotch mist. There was no shelter, and in a few minutes' time every one was drenched to the skin.

Almost as speedily as they had banked up did the clouds go drifting away seaward, and once again the sun blazed out with redoubled fury.

Now, to permit one's clothes to dry on one's back in cases of this kind is not the best of policy. But what were they to do? Well, there was only one alternative, and that was adopted. They speedily built up a huge fire therefore, though being wet the wood took some time to ignite; then they stripped to the skin, retaining only a kind of kilt or cummerbund depending from the waist, and while the clothes were drying they all ran off to the woods and spent the time in playing at being savages.

The result of this shooting expedition in the dismal swamp was, that in a few days all who had taken part in it were down with ague.

The doctor himself and Jack soon threw off their attack, but on the arrival of the ship at Port Royal, both the A.P. and sub-lieutenant had to be sent to hospital.

Gribble got better from the day he entered, but it was soon apparent to every one that the sub-lieutenant would not get over it, and one forenoon Dr. Reikie returned on board with the melancholy intelligence that the poor fellow was no more.

This cast a gloom over the ship--for all liked the brave young fellow--that it took some time to dispel.

Sorrow, however, is a plant that thrives but badly in a climate like that of Jamaica, and I think the same may be said for other tropical climates--notably, perhaps, that of India. For six weeks I myself lay ill in Bombay of rheumatic fever, but during all that time I never had a single fit of depression or lowness of spirits.

Things then soon resumed their usual level on board the _Gurnet_. Gribble came back from hospital; Mr. Fitzgerald, _alias_ Lord Tomfoozle, was appointed acting sub-lieutenant; and Jack Mackenzie became senior, because sole midshipman, of the ship.