Chapter X The Broadsword-Men of the “Breezy” — Kep Cuts Off a Leg
Young Kep Drummond’s work on board the Breezy was no sinecure from the very beginning. Not that any one forced him to do things, but he was good-hearted, and had all a well-bred boy’s willingness to work and help as well.
From the very first he had taken to the doctor, probably from that law in nature which causes large bodies to attract smaller. This merely in a physical sense, but it is true from the mental side also. Dr. McTavish had a large and lofty mind. One of his chief studies was astronomy, or rather a study of the heavens and the illimitable star-depths. Like all students of science, he liked to be listened to by his juniors. Well, he had a good listener and an ardent admirer in Kep.
The Breezy was sent on a special mission back to the Cape of Good Hope, whence they would receive further instructions from the Admiral of that station, and whose house was at Symon’s Bay, but his home really on the rolling deep on board the huge flagship Greater Britain. She was one of a class then being built—30,000 tons, 30 guns, 30 knots an hour. She had a specially constructed bottom, and feared no danger from bursting torpedoes, for the Admiral of the ship and the others of its family could, when in action, so protect the ship that they would explode harmlessly in the water before they could touch her bilge.
The biggest of our present-day ships would look like pigmies beside a monster of the deep like this. The Union was needed in these waters, because the Germans and French had possessions in Africa. And in fact these two countries, although not our open foes, were jealous of our power at sea, and the vast amount of territory occupied. In some of their would-fain-be comic papers the Germans cartooned Britain as the young cuckoo who, as it grows, hustles all its other little comrades to whom the nest in reality belongs, out of it to die. Britain with America really meant not only to occupy the whole of Africa, and civilize it, but the whole world was in time to become an English-speaking world; then all wars would cease. It was a big scheme, but then, like everything else, civilization is, as far as this earth is concerned, infinite. It is a seed that once sown grows and expands with marvellous rapidity, especially when aided by the fostering power of true Christianity.
Well, in their way across the six thousand miles of lonesome water which stretches from Australia to the Cape, although the Breezy encountered many a storm, there were many and many beautiful nights, when the sky was clear, and the stars so near apparently, that the main truck appeared to be moving amongst them.
It was on such nights as these that Kep loved, figuratively, to sit at the feet of the sailor surgeon, and hear him tell the story of the star-depths, those greater universes that exist so far from ours, that even trying to imagine the distance has before now sent even a scientist mad.
But Kep assisted the doctor in the dispensary also, and this was quite as necessary on board the Breezy as a study of the star-depths. And Kep was ever handy with water, sponges, bandages and thread whenever an operation was being performed.
There is no harm in a boy having a good opinion of his abilities, so long as he does know a few things well.
One day the doctor, who was really and truly swinging himself hand over hand towards a main-top battery, when he sprained his ankle. He was so strong and so healthy that he felt he could almost fly, and this was the result.
Next morning early Kep entered his cabin on tiptoe with a bowl of nice ship’s cocoa, which the bold surgeon, who had been awake nearly all night with pain, gratefully drank.
“You are a good lad, Charlie.”
“Yes, I know that. I suppose I can’t help being so. I suppose freaks are mostly always good-hearted. But, sir,” he added coolly, “you won’t turn out to-day. You may keep your mind perfectly easy. I will see the sick.”
The doctor laughed aloud at the conceit of the lad.
An hour afterwards, with an improvised crutch under his arm and his bathing drawers on, McTavish was forward on the upper deck, with a man playing the sea-hose on him and his poor swollen ankle. There were forward also the middies, and one or two of the ward-room officers, all enjoying the same healthy fun. When stripped this marvellous athlete, who three years ago, when only twenty years of age and still a student, had wrestled with and overthrown a champion, was greatly admired. And though on that day the ankle was considerably swollen he put up his 80 lb. dumb-bells just as usual.
He put Kep himself under training, and the boy began to grow from the first fortnight thereof, though he was not tall.
His father, however, had taught him swordmanship, and at this work he could beat every gun-room officer.
There was one man forward, namely Jack Stormalong, Kep’s friend, the gunner, who was almost as tall and well-developed as the sailor-surgeon, who saw him stripped once, and felt his muscles.
“What arms and chest and legs for broadsword exercise à la Scottice,” said the doctor.
“Be they, sir?”
“By St. Andrew, they are, Stormalong. You’re good with the cutlass, I hear.”
“Fair.”
“Well, I think I’ve found a hero worthy of my steel, and with the permission of the first lieutenant, I shall put you under special training, and teach you the broadsword. I’ve got two of those old Highlanders, splendid bits of steel, so we shall see.”
Well, Jack just set his mind to it, and soon mastered the art, and became nearly as proficient as his master. Whenever it was possible the doctor and Jack had broadsword play after the wash-deck bath, and before dressing. McTavish never towelled down, and wouldn’t let Jack do so.
“It isn’t Scotch style,” he said, to the middies who were there in full bathing costume—drawers. “You can’t have too much salt on your skin, boys.”
Even older officers would crowd forward to see the play at early morning. They had, as usual, small bets on, and ridiculous ones, such as “a postage stamp that has only been used once,” or “a hair of the dog that bit you,” etc.
The man who was severely pressed lowered sword, and the bout was over. But often Highland targes—two at the surgeon’s directions were made by the armourer—were used, and long, strong sword-sticks instead of the claymores. There was good fun with these, and they were not so dangerous. Besides, umpiring was more easy, because if one man was marked on the skin above an important group of muscles, or received the point, he was declared hors de combat.
But soon not only the gun-room officers, but the engineers became enamoured of the play, and in time as many as ten couples might be seen fighting like Red Indians on the deck at one time.
Finally, by the time they reached the Cape, a corps was formed of the best athletes, men with timber on hip and calf, and these were called the Broadsword men of the Breezy.
But there was an engineer from Cumberland, a splendid fellow, and another of the same build belonging to Glasgow, who were both desperate wrestlers, though this was unknown to any save themselves. Well, one day there was a kind of gala performance took place on the Breezy, to be followed by music and dancing in the evening, and the two engineers resolved to vary the performance. They told the doctor, and he sanctioned it. It would be a bit of extra fun anyhow.
It was, moreover, the captain’s birthday, and the ship was beautifully dressed with gay bunting below and aloft. The party was very select, and many soldiers were there, and beautiful women, chiefly to see the Broadsword-men of the Breezy, and to listen to Kep’s piping of his favourite Faust and Wagner.
The deck was so seated that everyone had a good view, while the crew clustered everywhere. There were fifteen couples entered the arena with targe and broadsword stick. And the performance was a never-to-be-forgotten one.
The athletes on this occasion wore the costume of stage wrestlers, but the light jerseys of one half were crimson, the other yellow. After an exhausting and beautifully exciting combat the yellows were declared winners, but bouquets of splendid wild flowers from the mountains were handed by the ladies each to the champion she favoured, whether victor or vanquished. The giant surgeon and Jack Stormalong fought with naked claymores, and after a time the former received a scratch on the left shoulder. Blood ran over his shirt, but Kep was at hand, and speedily put matters to rights, and the combat was renewed. After a display that brought down the house, swords were lowered, the combatants saluted and retired. The battle was a drawn one.
Then came Cumberland and Glasgow.
The onlookers received them with rapturous applause and admiration of their splendid formation and muscle. Theirs was claymore and targe, and after a short spell of this, with defiant shout each athlete dashed claymore and targe away, and crouched like panthers watching for the chance to spring.
It was catch where you can wrestling, but Donald Dinnie rules, that is, one man must not only throw his opponent, but keep him down for one minute. The struggle lasted for sixteen minutes, and Cumberland was victor.
Scotland stood with arms folded across the chest grimly surveying his friendly foe.
The doctor approached to where the Admiral and his two daughters were seated.
“They want to have one more tulzie,” he said, saluting.
“Only one then, whoever wins,” said the Admiral.
Ten minutes more, and Scotland stood erect. Cumberland was carried off the deck.
He had only been put to sleep, and soon recovered.
The Admiral recalled all the combatants now, and thanked and praised them. So long, he said, as Britain had men like this, both Scotch and English, to say nothing of the brave Irish, she need never fear a foreign foe, afloat or on shore.
And the cheering almost drowned the music of the band that had struck up “Rule, Britannia,” the men singing to the melody.
“Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves,
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.”
It all ended in dinner and dancing, but every one was happy, the Admiral’s girls especially.
They had never, they said, spent a breezier evening than among the Broadsword-men of the Breezy.
But this cruiser was too smart a ship to be allowed to remain at peace in any place for more than a week. And now receiving orders that some underhand work was taking place up Zanzibar way, the ship was coaled hurriedly.
This coaling in double-quick time was not a real necessity be it known. It is, was, ever, and will be, a species of extra drill in the service.
There was a large number of Kroomen on board, and to them fell the largest share of the dirty work.
These sturdy blacks came from the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone. They were not borne in the ship’s books, being working hands pure and simple. They were under the command of their own head Krooman. This man was a forest chief in his own wild back country. He ruled his men not with a rod of iron, but the end of a stout manilla rope, and woe betide the backs of any who tried to shirk his duty.
But if one gave his chief an insolent word, or even look, he was tied up and had forty lashes there and then. That was called by the Kroomen “fum-fum.”
On this particular day Surgeon McTavish had gone on shore to shoot anything he might come across among the heath-and-geranium-clad mountains that cluster like the hills of an earthly paradise all around the gulph or bay.
He was an ardent student of Natural History, and his gun helped him in his studies.
But he blamed himself to-day for taking leave on a coaling day, for some poor fellow might have an accident. And this made him hurry back, with his bag mostly filled with rock-rabbits and big snakes fully two hours before sundown.
About half an hour before this a bag of coals had fallen from the dock down upon a poor Krooman, smashing his leg in a very dreadful fashion. The man was carried at once to the sick-bay bleeding terribly below the knee, and a boat despatched forthwith to seek for surgical aid from the nearest ship. There was no doctor on board that, nor on another one. The day was exceptionally fine, even for the Cape in summer, and nearly all surgeons had gone on shore.
“We’d better go straight to the Naval Hospital now,” said the middy in charge of the boat.
Meanwhile the man was bleeding to death in the sick bay, when Kep, with all the coolness of a man of fifty from St. Thomas’s, came upon the scene. The lower part of the leg was “smashed to smithereens,” as the sick-bay attendant said.
“Have to come off, I think, sir?”
“Mind your own business,” cried Kep haughtily. “Why on earth did you not apply a tourniquet to the femoral artery?”
“Was taken aback, sir, and couldn’t manage the thing.”
“How long have you been in the Service, sir?” asked Kep indignantly, as his busy fingers were fastening the instrument and stopping the bleeding.
“Five years, sir.”
“A jolly sight too long. I’ll have you disrated. Bring the anesthetics at once. Here, you’re too slow. I’ll manage that. Get out the instruments. Lively does it. Bear a hand, while I send the man off.”
“Yes, certainly, the largest amputating knife; this poor man has a thigh like an ox.”
The attendant bustled now; at the same time he was utterly surprised at the audacity of this boy of barely fifteen.
The man was asleep, and would be kept so.
Kep had taken off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and looked at the instruments. He knew that every one of them was chemically clean, and saw that everything was handy on the table.
“What, sir! Excuse me, sir, but you are surely not going to operate?”
“Undoubtedly I am. Don’t you know that on board of the old Victory in Nelson’s day a loblolly boy cut the limbs from no less than five sailors while the battle was raging? Now then,” he added, “stand by to hand me what I want.”
He made the flaps Secundem Artem and sawed the bone.
“The doctor’s boat!” was the shout from aft one minute after, and when the hospital surgeon entered the poor man’s leg was already raw side down in a pail of water, and Kep coolly picking up and tying the arteries with the shaky assistance of the attendant.
“The devil!” cried the doctor.
“No, sir,” cried the attendant, “only the boy Bowser, the sauciest boy in the Service.”
“Well,” said the hospital doctor, as he began to complete the operation, laughing as he spoke, “the devil himself couldn’t have done the job half as well.”
“How old are you?” he said to Kep after the poor Krooman had been put in his cot.
“Fifteen in five days,” he answered proudly. “Quite old, isn’t it, sir?”
“Did the surgeon leave you in charge of the ship?”
“Oh no, sir. Dr. McTavish is away in the mountains shooting cobras and things, but really, he is such a nice, affable fellow, that I shall always be only too pleased to do any little job like this in his absence.”
The doctor was more amused than ever, and had a rattling good story to tell that evening to his mess-mates.