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

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 rushing 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 passed 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 gratitude 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 circumstances 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; bass 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 pass on.

“Why, I thought it was blowing a gale now!” returned Miles. “At least it seems so, if we may judge from the pitching and plunging.”

“Ah, lad, you are judging from the landlubber’s view-point,” returned the sergeant. “Wait a bit, and you will understand better what Molloy means when he calls this only a ‘capful of wind.’”

Miles had not to wait long. The gale when fully “brewed up” proved to be no mean descendant of the family of storms which have tormented the celebrated bay since the present economy of nature began; and many of those who were on board of the troop-ship at that time had their eyes opened and their minds enlarged as to the nature of a thorough gale; when hatches have to be battened down, and the dead-lights closed; when steersmen have to be fastened in their places, and the maddened sea seems to roar defiance to the howling blast, and all things movable on deck are swept away as if they were straws, and many things not meant to be movable are wrenched from their fastenings with a violence that nothing formed by man can resist, and timbers creak and groan, and loose furniture gyrates about until smashed to pieces, and well-guarded glass and crockery leap out of bounds to irrecoverable ruin, and even the seamen plunge about and stagger, and landsmen hold on to ring-bolts and belaying-pins, or cling to bulkheads for dear life, while mighty billows, thundering in-board, hiss along the decks, and everything, above, below, and around, seems being swept into eternity by the besom of destruction!

But the troop-ship weathered the storm nobly; and the good Lord sent fine weather and moderate winds thereafter; and ere long the soldiers were enjoying the sunshine, the sparkling waters, and the sight of the lovely shores of the blue Mediterranean.

Soon after that broken bones began to mend, and bruises to disappear; and our hero, thoroughly recovered from his accident, as well as greatly improved in general health, returned to his duties.

But Miles was not a happy man, for day by day he felt more and more severely that he had put himself in a false position. Besides the ever-increasing regret for having hastily forsaken home, he had now the bitter reflection that he had voluntarily thrown away the right to address Marion Drew as an equal.

During the whole voyage he had scarcely an opportunity of speaking a word to her. Of course the warm-hearted girl did not forget the important service that had been rendered to her by the young soldier, and she took more than one occasion to visit the fore part of the vessel for the purpose of expressing her gratitude and asking about his health, after he was able to come on deck; but as her father accompanied her on these occasions, the conversation was conducted chiefly between him and the reverend gentleman. Still, it was some comfort to hear her voice and see her eyes beaming kindly on him.

Once the youth inadvertently expressed his feelings in his look, so that Marion’s eye-lids dropped, and a blush suffused her face, to hide which she instantly became unreasonably interested in the steam-winch beside which they were standing, and wanted to understand principles of engineering which had never troubled her before!

“What is the use of that curious machine?” she asked, turning towards it quickly.

“W’y, Miss,” answered Jack Molloy, who chanced to be sitting on a spare yard close at hand working a Turk’s head on a manrope, “that’s the steam-winch, that is the thing wot we uses w’en we wants to hoist things out o’ the hold, or lower ’em into it.”

“Come, Marion, we must not keep our friend from his duties,” said Mr Drew, nodding pleasantly to Miles as he turned away.

The remark was called forth by the fact that Miles had been arrested while on his way to the galley with a dish of salt pork, and with his shirt-sleeves, as usual, tucked up!

Only once during the voyage did our hero get the chance of talking with Marion alone. The opportunity, like most pieces of good fortune, came unexpectedly. It was on a magnificent night, just after the troop-ship had left Malta. The sea was perfectly calm, yet affected by that oily motion which has the effect of breaking a reflected moon into a million fragments. All nature appeared to be hushed, and the stars were resplendent. It was enough, as Jack Molloy said, to make even a bad man feel good!

“Do ’ee speak from personal experience, Jack?” asked a comrade on that occasion.

“I might, Jim, if you wasn’t here,” retorted Molloy; “but it’s not easy to feel bad alongside o’ you.”

“That’s like a double-edged sword, Jack—cuts two ways. W’ich way d’ee mean it?”

“‘W’ichever way you please,’ as the man said w’en the alligator axed ’im w’ether he’d prefer to be chawed up or bolted whole.”

Concluding that, on the whole, the conversation of his friends did not tend to edification, Miles left them and went to one of the starboard gangways, from which he could take a contemplative view of Nature in her beautiful robe of night. Curiously enough, Marion chanced to saunter towards the same gangway, and unexpectedly found him there.

“A lovely night, Mr Miles,” she remarked.

Miles started, and turned with slight confusion in his face, which, happily, the imperfect light concealed.

“Beautiful indeed!” he exclaimed, thinking of the face before him—not of the night!

“A cool, beautiful night like this,” continued the girl—who was of the romantic age of sixteen—“will remain long, I should think, in your memory, and perhaps mitigate, in some degree, the hardships that are before you on the burning sand of Egypt.”

“The memory of this night,” returned Miles, with fervour, “will remain with me for ever! It will not only mitigate what you are pleased to call hardships, but will cause me to forget them altogether—forget everything!”

“Nay, that were impossible,” rejoined Marion, with a slight laugh; “for a true soldier cannot forget Duty!”

“True, true,” said Miles dubiously; “at least it ought to be true; and I have no doubt is so in many cases, but—”

What more he might have said cannot now be told, for they were interrupted at the moment by Captain Lacey, who, happening to walk in that direction, stopped and directed Miss Drew’s attention to a picturesque craft, with high lateen sails, which had just entered into the silver pathway of the moon on the water.

Miles felt that it would be inappropriate in him to remain or to join in the conversation. With a heart full of disappointment and indignation he retired, and sought refuge in the darkest recesses of the pantry, to which he was welcome at all times, being a great