Chapter XVIII The Hector Goes Home
Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, R.N.
I have not much more to tell you.
The Hercules went off to Bermuda the morning after Bob and I had come back from Santa Cruz, and we waited on deck till the long lines of towering black mountains were lost to sight. I couldn’t bear to leave Gerald up among them, although he was in Zorilla’s house, and practically out of danger, as far as the wound was concerned, but I’d learnt enough about politics, and the way they were ‘run’ in the Republic, to feel sure that his greatest danger lay in the jealousy of the New President, and that he would never be safe in the country—not even if he did resign the Command of the forces.
We ran through the ‘Narrows’ five days later and anchored in Grassy Bay, off the naval dockyard of Ireland Island, Bermuda. It was rather a shock to see the poor old Hector’s two funnels and damaged foremast sticking up behind the dockyard wall, and I noticed that Bob and one or two of the others looked very white when they saw them.
As soon as the repairs to her ward-room had been completed the officers moved out of the gun-room, and I and my mids. were sent aboard her again. It didn’t make much difference to me, but a good many of the mids. did not like going back a little bit. The still half-dismantled ship had too many sad memories for them, and I am sorry to say that Cousin Bob began to mope again—everything reminded him too much of his poor little chum.
Every morning, before breakfast, I made them all run round the dockyard to Moresby Plain, for a hockey practice, below the little Naval Club, and whilst we remained here we had two very pleasant games against the Hercules’ gun-room, but as we had none to fill, properly, the ‘Angel’s’ place at ‘centre-half,’ or Barton’s at ‘outside-right,’ were beaten both times.
‘What a difference, Ginger, old chap,’ I said, as we watched them scrambling into the tea-house together, after the match, just as chummy as they could be.
‘Difference!’ Perkins, who was standing near us, said, smiling, ‘I should think it was a difference. They won’t leave a thimbleful of tea or a bun in the place, and I shall have to go without any, I suppose.’
‘It’s taken a good deal to make ’em friends, hasn’t it?’ Ginger said sadly.
A fortnight later Gerald sent me a telegram, as he had promised, to say that he was allowed out of bed, and I knew that he had sent the same message home to the mater, and felt awfully glad.
Nothing more happened at Bermuda worth telling about; we had to work very hard indeed; in six weeks’ time the ship was seaworthy enough to steam home, and one beautiful Sunday morning in May, the Hercules and ourselves anchored behind Plymouth breakwater.
As you can imagine, the poor old Hector was a great object of curiosity, and paddle-boats were bringing people off from shore, and steaming round her, all day long.
Next morning two dockyard tugs made fast alongside us, we slipped our moorings, and as their paddles began churning the water and we commenced to move up harbour, Captain Roger Hill unbent, for the first time in his life, and ‘cheered ship.’
‘Three cheers for the Hector,’ we heard his Commander shout, and the whole crew swarmed on the upperworks and sent us three great cheers.
‘Tut, tut, lad!’ our Skipper stuttered, dropping his eyeglass, ‘“Old Spats” has forgotten himself. Look at him! He’s actually waving his cap.’
He nodded to the Commander, whose great roaring voice bellowed out, ‘Three cheers for Captain Roger Hill and the Hercules,’ and we all shouted.
We were taken up harbour and put into dry dock immediately, and we heard that we should probably stay there for several months.
As soon as it could be arranged, we got up a subscription for a tablet to the memory of all our people who’d been killed in that fight with La Buena Presidente, and got permission to place it in Portsmouth Dockyard Chapel, where you can see it now.
There were, unfortunately, a great number of names to go on it—Montague, Clegg, Bigge, Pearson, the ‘Forlorn Hope’ and his chum the ‘Shadow’ (whose name was put there because he died as a result of the fight), Barton, the ‘Angel,’ Marchant (the Inkslinger), the cheery, good-tempered, little Captain’s Clerk, and below these the names of fifty-four men—several had died of their wounds at Princes’ Town Colonial Hospital.
Cousin Bob still moped and slept badly, often waking the whole of the gun-room flat by shrieking in his sleep, so that I worried very much about him. I told the Captain.
‘Well, boy! What d’you want me to do? The Fleet Surgeon has been speaking about him too.’
‘I think it would be best to send him home for as long as you can, sir,’ I said.
‘Right oh, lad! Tell him to leave his address and I’ll wire for him when I want him. Have a bit of lunch?’
I stayed to lunch with him, and we talked about Gerald.
‘Grand chap! grand chap! a little too haughty for me. Grand chap though—never thanked me for taking him that hydraulic machinery.’
‘But he never thought you knew about it, sir,’ I said, surprised.
He polished his eyeglass very carefully, screwed it into his eye, and then very deliberately winked at me.
I shipped Cousin Bob off home that very day and was jolly glad to get him away from the ship, although, as a matter of fact, I need not have been in such a hurry, because all the mids. were sent to other ships a few days later. Still he managed to get a little longer leave than the others, and I had a very grateful letter from his sister Daisy.
I had a long letter, too, from Gerald some time afterwards. He had gone back to the rubber plantation with José and the ‘Gnome,’ and said that he was jolly glad to get back there again, start rebuilding the house and planting more trees, but I feared that he was of much too restless a disposition to remain there for long.
Old Zorilla had taken on his job as Commander-in-Chief, and Gerald said that things were going on swimmingly, though what actual difference the change of President had made, he was hanged if he could tell. Little Navarro was limping about Santa Cruz as cheerful as ever, and every one wanted to be remembered to me.
Well, however long I live, I shall never forget them.