Blue Lights: Hot Work in the Soudan by R. M. Ballantyne (best novels of all time TXT) 📕

“Bad is it?” said Flynn. “Och! it’s worse nor bad I am! Couldn’t ye ax the captin to heave-to for a—”

The suggestive influence of heaving-to was too much for Flynn. He pulled up dead. After a few moments he groaned—

“Arrah! be off, Moses, av ye don’t want my fist on yer nose.”

“Extraordinary!” murmured the kindly man, as he removed to another hammock, the occupant of which was differently constituted.

“Moses,” he said, as the visitant approached.

“Yes, Gaspard,” was the eager reply, “can I do anything for you?”

“Yes; if you’d go on deck, refresh yourself with a walk, and leave us all alone, you’ll con—fer—on—”

Gaspard ceased to speak; he had already spoken too much; and Moses Pyne, still wondering, quietly took his advice.

But if the Channel was bad, the Bay of Biscay was, according to Flynn, “far badder.”

Before reaching that celebrated bay, however, most of the men had recovered, and, with more or less lugubrious aspects and yellow-green complexions, were staggering about, attending to their various duties. No doubt their movements about the vessel were for some time characterised by that disagreement between action and will which is sometimes observed in feeble chickens during a high wind, but, on the whole, activity and cheerfulness soon began to re-animate the frames and spirits of Britain’s warriors.

And now Miles Milton began to find out, as well as to fix, in some degree, his natural character. Up to this period in his life, a mild existence in a quiet home, under a fairly good though irascible father and a loving Christian mother, had not afforded him much opportunity of discovering what he was made of. Recent events had taught him pretty sharply that there was much room for improvement. He also discovered that he possessed a very determined will in the carrying out of his intentions, especially when those intentions were based upon his desires. Whether he would be equally resolute in carrying out intentions that did not harmonise with his desires remained to be seen.

His mother, among her other teachings, had often tried to impress on his young mind the difference between obstinacy and firmness.

“My boy,” she was wont to say, while smoothing his curly head, “don’t mistake obstinacy for firmness. A man who says ‘I will do this or that in spite of all the world,’ against advice, and simply because he wants to do it, is obstinate. A man who says, ‘I will do this or that in spite of all the world,’ against advice, against his own desires, and simply because it is the right thing to do, is firm.”

Remembering this, and repenting bitterly his having so cruelly forsaken his mother, our hero cast about in his mind how best he could put some of her precepts into practice, as being the only consolation that was now possible to him. You see, the good seed sown in those early days was beginning to spring up in unlikely circumstances. Of course the habit of prayer, and reading a few verses from the Bible night and morning, recurred to him. This had been given up since he left home. He now resumed it, though, for convenience, he prayed while stretched in his hammock!

But this did not satisfy him. He must needs undertake some disagreeable work, and carry it out with that degree of obstinacy which would amount to firmness. After mature consideration, he sought and obtained permission to become one of the two cooks to his mess. Moses Pyne was the other.

Nothing, he felt, could be more alien to his nature, more disgusting in every way to his feelings—and he was right. His dislike to the duties seemed rather to increase than to diminish day by day. Bitterly did he repent of having undertaken the duty, and earnestly did he consider whether there might not be some possible and honourable way of drawing back, but he discovered none; and soon he proved—to himself as well as to others—that he did indeed possess, at least in some degree, firmness of character.

The duties that devolved on him were trying. He had to scrub and keep the mess clean and tidy; to draw all the provisions and prepare them for cooking; then, to take them to the galley, and fetch them when cooked. That this last was no simple matter, such as any shore-going tail-coated waiter might undertake, was brought forcibly out one day during what seamen style dirty weather.

It was raining at the time. The sea was grey, the sky was greyer, and as the steamer itself was whitey-grey, it was a grave business altogether.

“Is the soup ready, Moses?” asked Miles, as he ascended towards the deck and met his confrère coming down.

“I don’t know. Shall I go an’ see?”

“No; you can go and look after the table. I will fetch the soup.”

“A nasty sea on,” remarked a voice, which sounded familiar in Miles’s ears as he stepped on deck.

“Hallo! Jack Molloy!” he exclaimed, catching hold of a stanchion to steady himself, as a tremendous roll of the vessel caused a sea to flash over the side and send a shower-bath in his face. “What part of the sky did you drop from? I thought I had left you snug in the Sailors’ Welcome.”

“Werry likely you did, John Miles,” answered the tar, balancing himself with perfect ease, and caring no more for spray than if he had been a dolphin; “but I’m here for all that—one o’ the crew o’ this here transport, though I means to wolunteer for active sarvice when I gets out. An’ no wonder we didn’t come across each other sooner! In sitch a enormous tubful o’ lobsters, etceterer, it’s a wonder we’ve met at all. An’ p’r’aps you’ve bin a good deal under hatches since you come a-boord?”

Molloy said this with a knowing look and a grin. Miles met the remark in a similar spirit.

“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 passing. 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 ship’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—“God 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 passeth knowledge.’”

When the men rose to leave, it could be easily seen that they were deeply impressed. As they went out slowly, Miles passed 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 illustration 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 ship on some culinary business, without his coat, and with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows. Arrived there, he