Chapter VI Signals
In the course of the morning Jack received from a carrier a note summoning him to rejoin his ship at once. His cousins were sorry to bid him good-by, and, though he was eager enough to return to his duty, he was so much interested in the strange things that had happened since his arrival at Bastable Grange that he would have liked very well to remain a few days longer and try to unravel the mystery by which he seemed to be surrounded. Before leaving he took Arthur aside for a moment.
“Look here, youngster,” he said, “keep your eye on De Fronsac. If he tries to pump out of you what we saw last night, tell him we saw a boat putting out to sea and wondered whether the smugglers were at work. Don’t say a word about the man we saw put on board. Don’t let him think we suspect him. And it will be as well to take a note of the days when he reels off poetry.”
“All right.—I say!”
“Well?”
“His poetry is fearful rubbish, isn’t it?”
“Never made any myself, but I fancy I could do as well as he. Good-by. Remember what I said.”
Jack returned to Wynport in a carrier’s cart. He went down at once to the harbor, and was rowed to the Fury, which lay at her moorings, just inside the bar. A stout old mariner was leaning over the side, smoking a big pipe. One of his eyes was considerably larger than the other; a big and very bulbous nose seemed to occupy the greater part of his face; and a long black curl hung in a graceful curve over his right brow. Guessing instinctively that this could be none other than Ben Babbage, Gumley’s friend, and bo’sun of the cutter, Jack hailed him.
“Fury ahoy!”
“Ay, ay, sir. Morning, sir, morning, leastways good arternoon, seeing as how we’ve just took in our cargo of dinner. Glad to see you, sir. Mr. Blake he said we was to get under way the very minute you came aboard.”
Jack swung himself up, flung a coin to the boatman, and turned to the old sailor.
“Where’s Mr. Blake?”
“Below, sir, a-laying in his bunk, twisted up with rheumatics. You’re in command, sir, pro tem, as brother Sol used to say.”
“Very well; heave the anchor, and run up the mainsail. You’re the bo’sun, eh?”
“Ay, ay, sir: name Babbage; not Sol, sir; that’s my brother, and a much better chap nor me, though, so far. Ben Babbage my name, sir.”
“Well, Babbage, clear the harbor. I’ll go and see Mr. Blake and get her course. You can call me when you’ve fairly crossed the bar.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
Jack went below and found the lieutenant groaning in his bunk. He was a weather-beaten sea-dog of forty-five, who had long since given up whatever dreams of promotion he might at one time have entertained.
“You’re back, then, Mr. Hardy,” he said. “You see me a martyr to rheumatism: my old enemy serves me like this every time I go to sea. Babbage gave you my message?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what our orders are. French privateers are careering up and down the Channel, dodging our cruisers and swooping down on our merchantmen. We’ve got to cruise at large, keeping one eye on the French, and t’other on the smugglers. They’re expected to be pretty active just now, when every one’s mad with excitement about these flat-bottomed boats that Boney is going to invade us with. The Fury has got to act as a sort of watch-dog.”
“Not much fun about that, sir,” said Jack.
“No, sir, no fun, and no glory. Both you and I, I take it, would sooner sling our hammocks on a frigate or a line-of-battle ship. But we’ve our duty to do, sir, and we can’t do more than our duty, wherever we are. Did you find your relatives well?”
“Yes, sir. Do you know Luscombe?”
“No, I’ve never done this shore-crawling before.”
“A good deal of smuggling goes on there, I am told. ’Tis a quiet little place, almost hidden away in a recess between the cliffs. It doesn’t seem to have been troubled much by the preventive men.”
“The last riding-officer was a slack-twisted fellow, it appears, no good for his job. The new man—I’ve seen him once or twice here—is energetic enough, but not too quick-witted, I should say, and a little inclined to be bumptious.”
At this point a sailor put his head in at the little cabin.
“If you please, sir, Mr. Babbage says we’re off Minton Point, and waits for orders.”
“Very well, Turley. Go on deck, Mr. Hardy, and take a run down Channel. Let me know what you think of the Fury’s sailing powers; we’ve nothing but our speed to trust to if we happen to fall in with the enemy in force.”
All feelings of disappointment vanished from Jack’s mind immediately as he stepped on deck. The Fury was in all respects a model cutter. Jack had admired the beauty of her lines as she lay in harbor, sitting the water like a sea-bird, with every promise of speed in the graceful hull, the long tapering mast and the huge boom extending considerably beyond the stern. Now heeling slightly to a stiff sou’-sou’-westerly breeze, with her great spread of canvas she seemed to Jack like a sea-bird in flight. A stately Indiaman that had left port some time before was working to windward a mile ahead. In order to test the capacity of the Fury Jack brought her a few points nearer the wind, and found that he steadily overhauled the huge vessel. Before nightfall the Indiaman was nearly hull down, and Jack was satisfied that the Fury had the heels of most craft he was likely to meet on the coast.
Two small brass guns, one forward and one aft, comprised her whole armament. Jack could not help contrasting this with the forty huge guns of the Ariadne. The crew consisted of some five and twenty seamen and marines. Most of them had seen much service, and one and all wished they were with Nelson chasing the French instead of being engaged in what they considered the humdrum task of watching the coast. Jack privately thought it might turn out to be not so very humdrum after all. He soon made himself acquainted with the crew, and was rather attracted by a merry-eyed salt named Joe Turley, a handy man who seemed to live to poke fun at Babbage the bo’sun. Among the men that worthy was variously known as Cabbage, Artichoke, Brussels sprouts, Sparrow-grass, and Turnip-tops; he was rarely called by his own name, except to the officers, when he was always alluded to most respectfully as Mr. Babbage.
A fortnight passed away, and Jack, as well as every member of the crew, was growing very tired of the uneventful life. Every day was alike, save for the weather, and that varied little. The cutter cruised up and down the Channel between Weymouth and Portsmouth, putting in occasionally to communicate with the riding-officer and to take in provisions, but finding nothing of any importance to do. The smugglers seemed to be quiet; the only vessels sighted were British merchantmen passing up or down Channel under convoy, or fishing-smacks out from the English ports. The men grumbled at the lack of chances of obtaining prize money, and Jack was impatient of the inactivity to which he was condemned. It was all very well to keep the Fury spick and span, her deck as white as the sails, her brass rails polished to a dazzling brilliance; but he would have liked work a little less domestic—work for the two brass guns that Joe Turley caressed as though they were living creatures.
“Won’t you venture over to the French side, sir?” Jack asked Lieutenant Blake one day. “We aren’t doing any good hugging our own shore.”
“No, I won’t. I can’t blockade a French port with a cutter of two guns. If we run too close to the French shore we might easily be snapped up, and for nothing at all. Besides, orders are orders. I’ve got mine as plain as a pikestaff, and I can’t go beyond ’em.”
Jack was disappointed, but clearly there was nothing to be said.
One evening the Fury was making toward Wynport. She had overhauled a suspicious looking brig passing down Channel, but found that she was a harmless Portuguese sailing in ballast.
“I know she was a Portuguese,” said Joe Turley to his messmates on the forward deck. “But old Turnip-tops, of course he must take his Bible oath she was a Spaniard, and so we’ve wasted three or four hours, on the very night, too, when we’re due at the Goat and Compasses.”
It had been arranged that half the crew should have a night ashore at Wynport—the first since the Fury had spread her sails.
“True, old Sparrow-grass is a nuisance, though he’s got a good heart. Here he comes.”
The bo’sun came forward and joined the group.
“Well, messmates,” he said, “we’ll be late at the Goat and Compasses, and I’m sorry for that, but whenever I’m sorry I think of my brother Sol, who always says, ‘Cheer ho! my hearty,’ and slaps your back in a way that warms the very cockles of your heart. I remember—but what’s that light?”
“What light, Mr. Babbage?” said one of the men.
“There, to larboard.”
He pointed toward the shore. A strong light was shining intermittently, remaining steady for a few seconds, then disappearing, then flashing out again.
“’Tis a signal, sure enough,” cried Turley; “but what for? That’s the point.”
“No, it ain’t the point,” said Babbage. “The point’s a good deal east of that light, and it’s Bantock Point.”
“Well, I meant point in a manner of speaking. The light’s at Luscombe; any one can see that.”
“More like at Totley.”
“I say Luscombe, Mr. Babbage,” was the stubborn rejoinder.
“Totley, I say, and what I say I stick to, as brother Sol says.”
“Ahoy, there!” called Jack from amidships. “What do you make of that light, Babbage?”
“Some one showing a signal from Totley, sir, two miles t’other side of Luscombe.”
“No, it can’t be at Totley. That’s round a bend of the shore. It’s at or near Luscombe itself. A smugglers’ signal, eh?”
“Like as not, sir. They’ve been too quiet of late: a sure sign of something brewing, like a calm after a storm, as brother Sol might say.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s at Luscombe. But ’twill be rather hard to determine exactly in the darkness. Run her in a little toward shore, so that we can take a look at things.”
A few minutes later the dim outlines of two prominent cliffs to the northeast and west-north-west respectively could be seen. Jack saw that he could determine the general direction of the light by those two well-known landmarks. Accordingly he ordered the cutter to be hove to; he then took its position with reference to the two cliffs, and the angle of the light. When this was done he went below and reported to Lieutenant Blake, who was enjoying a nap in his tiny cabin.
“You did very well, Hardy. We’ll return to-morrow and test your observations. There’s no confounded lugger or anything of that sort in sight, eh?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Well, I’ll leave things to you. Run closer in shore, and keep a bright lookout. If there’s nothing in sight, head her for Wynport, but keep a good offing off Bantock Point.”
Carrying out these orders, Jack found that a mile farther in he lost sight of the light. He thought it worth while to run out again and see if it had disappeared altogether, but on returning to nearly the same spot at which the cutter had been hove to, he saw that the light was burning as brightly as ever. All at once it went out. Jack waited for some time to see if it reappeared, but the shore remaining in perfect blackness he saw no good in delaying further, and weathering the Point, with its spine of jagged rocks running out to sea, ran straight for Wynport.
They had not gone far when Babbage declared he saw a sail on the weather beam. Jack instantly put down the helm, but after cruising about for some time and finding nothing he concluded that the bo’sun had been mistaken.
“Another facer for old Onions!” whispered Turley.
At Wynport Mr. Blake put up at the Dolphin, leaving Jack on board. Early in the morning Jack met Mr. Goodman, the riding-officer, on his way to the inn. He had been informed, Goodman said, that the smugglers had made a run in the night, and that their cargo had been concealed somewhere about the premises of Gumley, the one-legged mariner on the hill. This news surprised Jack. It had never occurred to him that Gumley could have anything to do with the smugglers. But when he thought of Gumley’s seclusion, his mysterious ways, the defenses of his cottage, and his bulldog, he began to wonder whether dust had been thrown in his eyes, and the apparently law-abiding gardener was after all engaged in the illicit trade. He told Lieutenant Blake what he knew of Gumley.
“Depend upon it, that’s your man,” cried that officer. “You’d better search his place, Mr. Goodman.”
“Unluckily, sir, most of my men are off rummaging in another direction and won’t be back till to-morrow.”
“Well, I’ll lend you some of my crew. And as you know the place, Mr. Hardy, I’ll send you in charge.”
“Very well, sir,” said Jack, and he went off immediately to collect the men. Within half an hour he set out with a dozen of them, well armed with pikes and cutlasses. They marched through the fields and over the cliffs to Luscombe, avoiding the highroad. Arriving at Gumley’s cottage, Jack rapped smartly on the gate and was answered as before by a furious barking from the dog. Gumley was some time in making his appearance, and Jack, becoming impatient, pulled off his coat, and hoisted himself on to the fence. Seeing who it was, Comely ceased to bark and wagged his tail in friendly recognition. Jack could not help feeling a little mean as he stooped and patted the dog’s head, still more when Gumley appeared from the direction of the cottage, with his board in one hand and a fork in the other.
“Morning, sir,” he said, with a smile. “I was looking for another visit from you.”
“I’m afraid you won’t think me very welcome this time, Gumley,” said Jack gravely. “’Tis an unpleasant job, but I’ve got to search your place.”
“My place, sir? And what do you expect to find?”
“’Tis reported that the smugglers ran a cargo ashore last night, and that you’ve got it, or part of it.”
“Me! And you believe it, sir?”
“I don’t know anything about it. My orders are to search, and I must do it. A dozen men are outside: you’d better open the gate and let them in.”
“Very good, sir. But I must lock Comely up first, sir, else he’ll leave the marks of his teeth somewhere. You’re a friend of his; I introduced you proper myself, but I’ll not introduce him to any preventive men that ought to know better than to come a-nosing round my little place. Who said as how ’twas here the smugglers brought their cargo, sir?”
“I don’t know. Mr. Goodman heard it from some one.”
“One of those villains down in the village, I’ll be bound. Well, I might have expected it, sooner nor this. I tell you straight out, sir, never a shilling’s worth of smuggled goods have passed my gate. I’m a king’s man, leastwise was till I got my stump, and arter that I wouldn’t demean myself by going a-smuggling. Howsomever, orders is orders, and search you must. I’ll just tie up the dog, sir, and then open the gate, for Gumley bean’t the man to shut his doors upon the king’s orders.”
Gumley’s quiet manner made an impression on Jack, and he was half inclined to leave his errand unfulfilled. If the man had protested and blustered Jack would have been at once convinced that he was guilty, but his readiness to submit to the search was hardly that of a guilty man. Then it occurred to him that Gumley might be trying to throw dust in his eyes again. At all events, he could not return to Mr. Blake and confess that he had not carried out orders; so when the dog was secured and the men admitted he directed them to begin the search.
It was but the work of a few minutes to ransack the little cottage. Cupboards were opened, the stone flags of the floor tested, the loft between the rafters and the roof explored, but nothing was found. Gumley watched the operations in silence, puffing at a big pipe in which he was smoking cabbage leaves.
“We’ll have to search the garden now, sir,” said one of the men.
Gumley took his pipe from his lips.
“The garden!” he said. “Well, mind my artichokes. They bean’t ripe, not till the first frost, and it won’t do ’em no good to disturb ’em.”
He knew that in expeditions of this kind every inch of ground would probably be explored. Smugglers had been known to have cunningly devised hiding-places beneath the soil, under the roots of apple trees, or pear trees, or raspberry bushes. He watched with a grim smile as the men spread out over the garden, falling on all fours to smell out any traces of brandy or tobacco. He said nothing when they dug over a plot of ground from which he had recently taken the last of his late potatoes. But when they approached a flourishing bed of artichokes he heaved a great sigh, and said:
“There goes two-pun-ten in Wynport market, and all in the king’s name.”
Jack had felt more and more uncomfortable as the search proceeded. When a square yard of the plot had been cleared of its tall green stalks he suddenly shouted:
“Give over, men. This is all a blind. There are no smuggled goods here. Gumley was a king’s man like yourselves. I don’t believe he has anything hidden; we’ll sheer off and report to Mr. Blake that we can’t find anything. Some one must have a spite against you, Gumley.”
“I could have told you that, sir, but I keeps myself to myself, and ’twas not for me to stand up against the king’s orders. Messmates all, I’m sorry you’ve had your blood warmed for nothing. Bless you, I don’t bear you no ill-will; orders is orders, and God save the king!”
He took off his glazed hat as he spoke.
“Well, Gumley I’m sorry we disturbed you. Look here, take those artichokes up to the Grange when they’re ripe and ask my cousin, the squire, to give you fifty shillings for them. Say I said so. Now, men, we’ll get back. We owe the smugglers one for this, and we’ll pay it back, all in good time.”