Chapter V Gerald Wilson Captures San Fernando
Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson
Those thirty-six hours in San Sebastian are over and done with, and I shouldn’t care to go through them again. They were the longest hours I have ever spent, and they, at any rate, taught me what it does feel like to be a prisoner, and to look through an iron gateway and envy everything outside it, and everybody. The other chaps—insurrectos they all were—had been jolly decent to me, although I could not understand their lingo, and the way they settled down and took things as a matter of course was simply extraordinary. Even when two more were dragged out the morning I was released, and shot against that parapet, the others only shrugged their shoulders and simply smoked cigarettes all the harder. You could only imagine that they were but half-civilized, had known no other way of carrying on the politics of the Republic, and were so used to violence and murder that, when their turn came to go ‘under,’they simply bowed to the inevitable, their only consolation being that probably in another few weeks or months, if luck favoured their party, that same stuffy room would be crowded with President’s men, and quite possibly the same villainous-looking firing-party would just as cheerfully prop them up against that wall and shoot them down. These same miserable-looking convicts, whom I’d seen with chains round their ankles, would almost certainly be there to dig fresh graves.
Of course, all those hours I wondered what our chaps were doing to bail me out, but didn’t worry much—I knew things would come right in the end—and of course they did.
But I did worry about Gerald and what his hare-brained adventures would lead him to. He had always been getting into trouble at home, and that was why the pater and mater had shipped him out to Santa Cruz, though they little thought that he’d take a leading part in a revolution, and the poor old mater would be fearfully worried when she heard about it. It was jolly to know that an Englishman, and my own brother, was such a boss among these fierce, blood-thirsty, half-Spanish people, but that wouldn’t be much comfort to the mater if he was stuck up against the parapet of San Sebastian, which would certainly be his fate if he ever fell into the clutches of the President.
It was my chum of the cigarette case who actually fetched me down and took me aboard the Hector. Even whilst I was trying to thank him, the Commander began bellowing that ‘He’d make me pay for the paint he’d spoilt clearing for action and housing the topmasts.’ He was as rude as it was possible to be, but every one else—‘Old Tin Eye’ included—was all right, and Ginger signalled congratulations from the Hercules.
Of course my adventure was known all over Princes’ Town before we’d anchored more than an hour or two, and reporters from the local papers and Reuter’s Agent came bustling on board for more details, but were told nothing, except that I’d been arrested by mistake, and that, as a hint to the President to let me out again, ‘chop, chop,’ one or two of the Santa Cruz gunboats had been seized. We had all been ordered to give no political information to anybody, but you may imagine that their ears were rigged out for something more exciting than that, and you can jolly well guess who gave it to them—the Angel backed up by Cousin Bob. They saw their way to getting a cheap ‘blow out’ at the Savannah Hotel, and actually had the cheek to tell the two local reporters that if they’d stand them a dinner there, they would tell them all they knew about it.
They had put their names down in the leave book for the late boat and went ashore, but of course I had no idea what their game was. I had turned in early, and they woke me, by knocking at my cabin and asking if they could come in.
I switched on my light, and there they were, in their best blue suits, grinning from ear to ear.
They both began talking twenty to the dozen. ‘We’ve given you such a “leg up”—we’ve had a topping feed at the Savannah, and you’ll see all about it in the papers to-morrow!’
‘All what?’ I asked.
‘All about you fighting dozens of soldiers, knocking them over, and of our trying to rescue you.’
‘We put in a lot of extras to make it look better,’ Bob squeaked.
‘We told them all about knocking over the rotten Hercules mids., and about you being so like Cousin Gerald.’
‘What!’ I sang out, sitting up in my bunk. ‘You blessed idiots, what rot have you been up to? You know you had orders not to speak of it.’
‘We didn’t say a word about politics, not a word,’ Bob said rather nervously. ‘It’s quite all right; we never mentioned politics.’ The Angel added, ‘We didn’t tell them the real way you escaped.’
‘Out with it! What did you tell them, you fools?’
They were backing out of the cabin—rather sulky—but I yelled for them to come back. ‘Now, none of your tomfoolery. What did you tell them?’
‘Well, we gave ourselves a bit of a leg up too,’ the Angel began, looking down his nose as good as gold.
‘It really was all a joke,’ Bob interrupted, ‘it was their fault if they believed it. We told them that we waited till night under the walls of San Sebastian, wriggled over the parapet, and found your dungeon.’
‘We told them that we’d whistled “Rule, Britannia!”—very softly—till—we—heard—you—whistle back,’ the Angel stuttered out, choking with laughter, ‘and that the sentry was asleep, and we only had to knock him down—and gag him—steal the key—open the door—all of us crawling away again over the walls and tramping it on our flat feet down to Los Angelos.’
‘You don’t mean to tell me that they believed all that rot?’
‘We think they did—wasn’t it a joke?’ Bob said—he was beginning to see that I didn’t think it a joke. ‘We gave them the key of the dungeon—an old brass key we’d found on the armourer’s bench before we went ashore.’
‘It was the key of the bread-room that was broken yesterday,’ the Angel gurgled, when he could stop laughing. ‘And we said we’d all swum off to the ship in the dark.’
I wasn’t in the humour to see how it was funny, and sent them out of it. ‘If anything does come out in the papers, I’ll beat you both,’ I told them.
‘Well, the feed was worth a hiding, and the joke too,’ Bob mumbled, as they went away—thank goodness the Angel was no relation of mine and had no mother or sister who could write snorters to me, so he didn’t dare to be rude.
You can guess how angry I was next morning, when the wretched local papers did come aboard, and saw in big letters: ‘Romantic Escape of British Naval Officer—Plucky Middies effect Rescue,’ and underneath it was the silliest nonsense you could possibly read. Honestly, even now I don’t know whether it was put in as a joke, and whether, instead of Bob and the Angel pulling the reporters’ legs, they were pulling ours. Angry! I was too angry to speak!
They described me as Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, the celebrated United Service half-back, and the brilliant naval officer, specially appointed to command the Hector’s gun-room by the Lords of the Admiralty as a mark of their appreciation of my services! Angry! My blessed potatoes! I sent for my dear cousin and the Angel and gave them six of the best over the gun-room table—as hard as I could lay it on—the first three for making their Sub look a fool, and the last three for disobeying the Captain’s orders. I know which were the hardest whacks, and I didn’t care a biscuit what Bob’s sister, Daisy, thought or wrote. They went away muttering that the dinner was worth it—every time—which was meant to be rude, because they both had got it into their noddles that they’d actually given me a ‘leg up,’ and couldn’t see that they’d only made a laughing-stock of me.
First of all the Commander sent for me on the quarterdeck. He had Perkins there as a witness, and before I ever had a chance of saying anything, bellowed out, ‘You’re the “brilliant naval officer,” are you? You’re a fool, and an idiot, and a useless idiot. You can’t keep order in the gun-room, and the sooner you get out of the ship the better.’ He bellowed till the maintopmen, painting masts and yards up aloft, left off painting to listen to him. He didn’t ask me to speak, so I didn’t—said not a word—which made him almost apoplectic with rage, his ugly red face getting perfectly crimson. Every time he stopped for breath, Perkins kept on trying to tell him that perhaps it wasn’t my fault, which sprung him off again, and at last he turned round and cursed him for interfering.
Perkins twisted round on his heel and hobbled off, but the Commander called for him to come back, and he did, his jolly face all tightened out.
‘Did you hear the Commander curse me on the quarterdeck?’ he asked very quietly.
‘I did, sir,’ I said; and he turned to the Commander, ‘Very well, I shall see the Captain about it. I’m not going to stand any more of it.’
You should have seen the Commander’s face. His mouth opened, and he looked as if he would willingly have murdered the two of us, then he bounced off the quarterdeck, and into his cabin just inside the battery, and banged the door, like the childish bully he was. As he didn’t come out again, I went below.
Then the Skipper sent for me. He was grinning all over his face: ‘Those two boys have made a fool of you, Wilson; tut! tut! stop their leave—whack ’em both.’
‘I’ve beaten them, sir, already,’ I told him, ‘and given them six apiece—as hard as I could,’ and explained to him that I had no idea why they went ashore.
‘Tut! tut! no harm done; they got their dinner all right; tell ’em to lunch with me, tut! tut!—if they can sit down—I’d have done it myself for a good dinner—thirty years ago.’
Old Ginger and I had arranged to go for a walk together that afternoon, to shake up our livers, and I was not particularly keen, after what had happened, to ask leave from the Commander, but I screwed up my courage and did so, and was flattened aback when he said, ‘Very good, Wilson. Come and have “chow” with me in the ward-room to-night—celebrate your release.’
That was the rotten, or rather the irritating, part about him. After he’d been as rude as a fishwife, and long before you’d got over bubbling with anger at the sight of him, he’d come up as if nothing had happened and take the wind out of your sails.
Of course I had to say ‘Yes,’ although at the time I’d have much preferred to take him on with bare knuckles and punch his head to relieve my feelings.
Old Ginger met me at the Governor’s steps, where we landed, and we had a fifteen-mile walk as hard as we could go—tearing along till we hadn’t a dry rag between us.
Fifteen miles in that climate takes more out of you than twice the distance in England, so you can guess we were pretty well ‘done’ by the time we got back to the landing-steps.
Whilst we waited for our boats we sat under the shade of the fruit market and watched the niggers—all as cheerful as sand-boys—unloading a cargo of cocoa-pods from a small schooner. The washer-ladies were coming ashore, too, from the Hector and Hercules, cackling like hens because of the huge bundles of clothes they’d got. Perkins’s friend, Arabella de Montmorency, was the first to waddle up the steps, grinning from ear to ear, and carrying a huge bundle. ‘The good Lo’d be praised,’ she sang out to a buck-nigger waiting for her, ‘Massa Perkins pay Arabella the three shilling and tuppence—Massa Perkins know Arabella good vash-lady—no black trash for Massa Perkins. I pray de good Lo’d keep Massa Perkins in His strong hand.’ She went back into the boat for more washing, but the other washer-ladies had bagged it, and there was a fine row. All their men friends joined in shouting, and yelling, and shaking their fists at each other, and we hoped to see a good free-fight, but the Sikh policeman on duty stepped majestically forward, said a few sharp words, and they all burst out laughing, Arabella waddling away with her man carrying the disputed bundle, and trying to look dignified, telling everybody: ‘Arabella no black trash—Arabella vash for de British naval officah.’
It was too funny for words, Ginger and I were simply doubled up with laughter, when I felt some one touch my shoulder, and, looking round, saw a thick-set native chap, as brown as leather—like those soldier chaps we’d seen on the wharf at Los Angelos—in a blue striped cotton vest, which showed his lumpy chest muscles through it, and a pair of loose cotton drawers, his brown legs and feet naked. He was bowing and holding a broad Spanish grass hat in front of him with one hand. ‘William Wilson,’ he kept on saying.
‘What is it, old cock? me William Wilson—all light—belong ploper. What’s your game?’
His face beamed, and he pulled a dirty crumpled letter from under his vest and handed it to me.
It was addressed to me in Gerald’s handwriting, and I tore it open, his face beaming again as he pointed a thin brown finger first to the address, and then circled it round my face, saying, ‘William Wilson.’ It was the only English he seemed to know. I read:
‘DEAR OLD BILLUMS—Sorry to have cleared out so hurriedly the other day—just managed to give them the slip in time—heard news of your adventure and the Navy business—wish you chaps would collar the lot of them, for good. Keep a look-out for that little chap who was shadowing me; he’ll try and get even with one of us. Tell the mater I’m having a ripping time—better than planting—will pay better than planting if our side wins. Tell her those socks she made me are A1. Look out for yourself—you’re too much like me for this corner of the world. Don’t send an answer.—GERALD.’
The nigger was still beaming and bowing, and he pointed to my hair. I’m jiggered if he hadn’t spotted me by it.
That was a funny go, if you like, and I was jolly glad to know that Gerald was all right. It didn’t worry me a ha’penny candle about that detective chap—I’d be only too jolly glad to see his ugly face and smash it. Ginger and I thought that the little messenger must have come in one of the many trading-schooners which slipped across from the mainland at night when the land breeze sprung up. We gave him all the small change we had in our pockets, and he smiled, and bowed, and disappeared among the merry crowd round us. He couldn’t speak a word of English except my name, and my Chinese pidgin-English wasn’t a success.
This was the only excitement and the only news I got from Gerald for several weeks. In the meantime the Hector and the Hercules carried out the gunnery practices which had been interrupted at Gibraltar, returning to anchor off Princes’ Town every Thursday night till Monday morning, so we managed to get in a good many football matches. Ginger and I borrowed grounds and had some more gun-room matches as well, but they didn’t smooth things over, rather the reverse, for when we beat the Hercules at rugby by a try, which, they swore, wasn’t one, matters went from bad to worse. There actually was some doubt about it, for Perkins had been referee (we couldn’t get any one else) and couldn’t keep up with the ball on account of his game leg. We had to separate the two teams in the pavilion, and after that my mids. seldom came back to the ship from a tennis party, picnic, or dance, or anything in fact, without having some furious tale to spin.
Old Ginger and I pretty nearly washed our hands of them and let them go their own way.
There was no regular news from Santa Cruz all this time, because the President had closed the Telegraph Company’s office, but the Pickford and Black steamers still called at Los Angelos twice a month before coming to Princes’ Town, and they brought news of what was going on.
As it chiefly came from Santa Cruz, it was from the President’s point of view, and if it was at all correct, most of de Costa’s people were already in San Sebastian or flying in front of the President’s invincible troops.
Our fat friend, Mr. Macdonald, appeared at the Princes’ Town Club one day when I happened to be there, and he, too, gave me anything but cheering news. Nearly every week, he told me, the guns of San Sebastian fired a salute in honour of another victory over the insurrectos. ‘They’re not showing fight anywhere; the President’s troops are scouring the provinces and driving them from place to place, whilst his cruisers and gunboats scour the coast and prevent any arms or ammunition being smuggled ashore.’ This made me jolly nervous about Gerald, and very miserable too, for he also had told me that Gerald’s rubber plantation had been entirely destroyed in revenge for his taking up arms. It may have served him right, but it was beastly hard luck on the pater, who had bought the place for him.
Of course we seemed to be in the thick of everything, because Prince Rupert’s Island was only fifty-two miles from the nearest point on the coast of Santa Cruz, and, as it was the centre of all the foreign trade of the Republic, the revolution, which was going on there, was practically the only thing talked about. By listening to the English merchants and officials talking at the Club we got to know quite a lot about the military position and the chances of the two parties.
You see the Republic of Santa Cruz stretches for almost a hundred and fifty miles along the eastern shore of South America, and is made up of three big provinces.
Starting from the south, there was the province of Leon, with its vast swamps, forests of mahogany, and other valuable trees, and its rubber and cocoa plantations. It was on the northern border of this province that Gerald had his plantation.
The capital and centre of its trade was San Fernando, situated at the top of a narrow inlet of the sea called La Laguna. Most of this trade was in the hands of Europeans, and the town itself was held for the President by a General Moros with about a thousand troops. From what we heard, he didn’t worry much about anything, except to loot the Custom House occasionally or take bribes from the merchants and captains of trading-ships. The President always had a ‘down’ on this province, and hindered its trade as much as he could without stopping it altogether; and, after his old General had had a ‘picking’ at San Fernando, every ship had to stop at the narrow mouth of La Laguna and pay more dollars. The President had a pretty modern fort there—El Castellar—to make them heave to if they forgot to stop, and directly the revolution started he had given orders that no ships whatever were to be allowed to pass, so you can pretty well imagine how the English merchants cursed. Then northward of the province of Leon came the towering mountain ranges and plateaus of Santa Cruz, arid, and scorched, and dusty, rising almost precipitously from the forests of Leon, and falling again in terrific ridges and chasms into the northern province of San Juan, the eastern slopes falling into the sea as we had seen at Los Angelos. The mineral wealth—copper, gold, and silver—of the Republic was in these mountains, and they absolutely cut off the southern province of Leon from any communication with the northern province of San Juan. There were mountain paths and dangerous mule-tracks, but what I mean is that no armies could possibly assist each other across them, and old Canilla could sit up in Santa Cruz, at the top of his mountain, and jolly well choose his own time to crush any rising in the provinces spread out at his feet, and, so long as his Navy was loyal, could prevent any insurgents from one province getting to the other by sea.
However, there was one thing ‘up against’ the President. The province of San Juan bred all the cattle and live-stock of the Republic, and he was obliged to keep a big army down in the northern plains to guard them. Once the insurgents got the upper hand in San Juan he would have to depend entirely on importing cattle from the neighbouring Republics or from Prince Rupert’s Island—not so much to feed his troops, but Santa Cruz itself.
Now you will have a rough idea how the land lay, and can understand that, so long as his Navy was loyal to him and prevented the two insurgent provinces on either side of him from combining, the President would be cock of the walk.
That was the opinion of nearly every one in Princes’ Town, and, though they all favoured the insurgents and wanted them to win, they’d shake their heads and say that old Gerald’s chances were pretty bad.
Then came news, from Santa Cruz, that there’d been a great battle fifty miles or so to the north’ard of San Fernando, and that de Costa’s insurgent troops had been defeated with great slaughter. There was a rumour going through the Club that Gerald had been killed, but I couldn’t find how it had started.
‘Don’t you worry. All my eye!’ my chum ‘in the know’ said; ‘de Costa isn’t such a fool as to try a pitched battle yet. Wait for another six months. The President is only trying to bluff the people who are finding the money to keep his end up.’ Then he told me something more about that big armoured cruiser La Buena Presidente.
He had an idea that de Costa’s people were trying to get hold of her. ‘If they do,’ he said, ‘she can simply wipe the floor with all Canilla’s rotten old tubs, and his game will be finished in a couple of months.’
I couldn’t help worrying about Gerald and the mater—when she heard the news—for she thought he was still tapping his rubber trees. It may have been because of that, but I played abominably against the Prince Rupert’s Island team that afternoon. It was fearfully hot, the sweat seemed to make my eyes all hazy; my fingers were all thumbs, I fumbled my passes, and if I did gather them properly, could think of nothing except to get rid of the ball quickly, without passing forward. I was playing centre three-quarters, so messed up the whole of our attack and we lost badly. The Angel at ‘half kept looking at me with a puzzled face, wondering what was wrong, and all our chaps were shouting themselves hoarse, ‘Buck up, Wilson,’ but nothing would go right, and directly after the match I trudged down to the Governor’s steps by myself, to smoke a pipe and wait for our boat.
You know what it feels like to have lost the game for your side; so I wanted to be alone, slung my heavy sweater over my back, with the arms tied round my neck, put on my coat over it, and sat down where old Ginger and I had sat that time before.
I smoked and watched a crowd of niggers hustling round me unloading a lighter which had come ashore from one of Pickford and Black’s steamers lying off in the harbour—she had come in from Los Angelos that morning—and had just taken off my straw hat to light another match inside it, when I heard a naked footstep behind me, a fierce kind of a grunting hiss, and something struck my shoulder.
I was on my feet and had turned in a second, and there was that little brute who had been shadowing Gerald, and had nabbed me up at Santa Cruz. He had a long knife in his hand, and I knew him at once, although he was dressed as a coolie, by the scar on his forehead—the one my pipe had made.
I had hold of his wrist in a jiffy, but it was all oily. He wriggled himself free, I made another grab at him, but he was like an eel, and bolted through the crowd of niggers. It was all done so quickly that no one seemed to have noticed him, and, though I dashed after him, I lost sight of the little beast. Something warm began trickling down inside my jersey, and I gave up following him to see what damage had been done. The knife had made a gash in the skin over my left collar-bone, and I was bleeding like a pig. Like an ass, I must have fainted, for when I woke up my head was resting in the huge lap of Arabella de Montmorency, who was pinching up the skin near the gash; there were crowds of jabbering niggers all squashing round me; the tall grave Sikh policeman had his notebook out, and I heard her chattering away: ‘The good Lo’d be praised. He send Arabella to sab de life of de British naval officah—some black trash hab done dis—no buckra niggah from Princes’ Town—oh, de pretty yellow hair.’
Luckily for me Dr. Clegg and the rest of the football team came up and rescued me, or the old ‘washa-lady’ would probably have kissed me.
Of course I was all right directly, and Dr. Clegg stitched me up when we got aboard, but I was on the sick list for a week. The knife had cut clean through the knot in the sleeves of my sweater, and this had probably saved my life. Strangely enough, when I got on board, there was a letter waiting for me from my friend the fat A.D.C., telling me, in very bad English, that Pedro Mendez—that was the name of the ugly brute—had been dismissed the police force for bungling Gerald’s arrest, and had left Santa Cruz burning to be revenged on us both. The letter and the ex-policeman had probably come across together in the Pickford and Black steamer which I’d been watching.
It was awfully decent of my A.D.C. chum to have taken all this trouble to warn me, because it must have been jolly hard work for him to write a letter in English.
He signed himself Alfonso Navarro, and I shouldn’t forget his ‘tally’ in a hurry. It wasn’t his fault that the letter had been a bit late, and it didn’t make me the less grateful.
The Angel and Bob, pale with excitement, came rushing into my cabin directly Dr. Clegg had finished with me, and of course they wanted to see the letter. Bob wanted the stamps and begged the envelope. He gave a whoop. ‘Look at that, Billums—on the back—it’s in French!’
Scrawled in pencil very hurriedly was Votre frère est blessé seulement dans le bras droit.
Phew! then there had been a battle after all, and I felt sick all over, because it struck me that my brother might have been captured, otherwise how would the A.D.C. know? And if he was captured, I knew it meant San Sebastian and a firing-party.
It was mail day too; I had to write home, and it was jolly difficult not to tell the mater what I’d heard about Gerald. I couldn’t tell her about the little brute either—only about my having done so badly at football.
It was lucky I didn’t say anything about Gerald, because three days later—Dr. Clegg still kept me in my bunk—one of our boats brought off another note to me.
‘One of those nigger kind of chaps gave it me, sir,’ the coxswain of the boat said. ‘Didn’t seem to talk English—nothing but your name, sir. He cleared out directly he’d got rid of it.’
I thought of Gerald’s messenger and thought it must be from Gerald, though it wasn’t in his handwriting. It was from Gerald, for all that, and I soon knew why the handwriting was so funny, for he wrote:
‘We’ve had a bit of a scrap—got a bit of a shell in my right arm. Learning to write with my left—don’t tell the mater. We got a bit of a hiding—my fault—I’m all serene barring the arm. You’ll hear news, important news soon.
—GERALD.’
Well, he wasn’t a prisoner, which was the great thing, and I felt jolly cheerful again.
‘Wouldn’t it be ripping if we could get some leave and go over there and chip in?’ Bob and the Angel said, their mouths and eyes wide open.
Of course that was what we all wanted to do, and wondered all this time why the English Government allowed the President to go on stopping our trade. It was jolly galling to all of us to see the fleet of local British steamers lying in Princes’ Town harbour doing nothing, simply because the President up at Santa Cruz wanted to punish the insurgents. The English merchants were grumbling furiously, and wanting to know what use the Hector and Hercules were if they weren’t to be used to protect their trade. Everybody was saying that it was a thousand pities that more people hadn’t followed Gerald’s example and gone in for the revolution ‘bald headed.’ In fact, Gerald had become a popular hero, and you can imagine how proud it made me. But then I got rather a nasty jar. The Captain sent for me, and I found him in his cabin with a lot of papers in front of him. He tut, tutted and hummed and hawed a good deal, and then burst out with: ‘Look here, Wilson, you’d better give that brother of yours the tip to keep clear of Princes’ Town or an English man-of-war. I’ve got orders to arrest him if I can get my hands on him. Look at this!’ and he showed me a big document beginning,
‘Whereas it has been represented to us by our Minister resident in Santa Cruz in the Republic of Santa Cruz that a person, Gerald Wilson—known as Don Geraldio—being a British Subject, has taken up arms against the Government of Santa Cruz Republic, that Government being at present on terms of friendship with his Britannic Majesty’s Government, all law-abiding subjects of his Britannic Majesty are hereby warned, on pain of being indicted for felony, to abstain from affording any assistance to the aforesaid Gerald Wilson.’
I got very red in the face, and then came to the part,
‘The utmost endeavour is to be made to arrest the aforesaid Gerald Wilson should he enter British Territory.’
That was roughly what I read, though I can’t remember now the actual words, but it was so full of legal phrases that it made me feel cold all over. It seemed so beastly cold-blooded too, as if he hadn’t already done more actually for old England than all the rest of us English out here put together.
‘Well, boy, give him the tip to keep clear—that’s all,’ the Skipper said, screwing his eyeglass in and running his fingers through his long hair.
‘I can’t, sir,’ I told him. ‘I don’t know where he is. He’s wounded too, sir.’
Then I told him about the letters I’d received and how I’d got them.
‘Well, well, boy, I can tell you. Tut, tut! Read that—I got it from our Minister this morning—brought across in a trading-schooner. You’re not to speak of it till the news comes out.’
He was simply bubbling with pleasure, and handed me another paper.
‘Received reliable news that General Moros abandoned San Fernando yesterday—insurgents, under Don Geraldio, occupied it immediately—Vice-President de Costa has formed a Provisional Government there. General Zorilla, Governor of Los Angelos, left Santa Cruz hurriedly this morning to take command of President’s army in the south.’
That, then, was the important news Gerald had written to me to expect. I simply felt hot and cold all over with excitement and the pride of imagining him, with his yellow hair and his arm in a sling, head and shoulders above every one else, marching into San Fernando at the head of his troops; and to have the fierce old Governor of Los Angelos on his track—their best fighter—even that was simply glorious.
‘Surely, sir, he won’t be arrested if the insurgents win?’
The Skipper shrugged his shoulders. ‘Those are my orders, whether he’s a hundred Generals rolled into one, or even the President himself, so you’d better give him the tip.’
I went away feeling very proud of Gerald, but very upset about the other thing. It did seem such jolly hard lines after he’d risked everything to help the side that was friendly to Englishmen, and had made a great name for himself in the country, and made all these half-civilized people respect all Englishmen because of him. I was worrying about this in my cabin, and how I could manage to warn him, when Ginger came banging at the door.
‘Look here, Billums, old chap, I’ve just come across from the Hercules. This has got to stop. D’you know what has happened now? One of your chaps in your picket-boat has smashed up our steam pinnace, rammed her whilst she was trying to get alongside the Governor’s steps—cut her down to the water—did it on purpose.’
I had heard about it in the morning; Bob, who was running the picket-boat, had told me. Her pinnace had tried to get alongside before our boat, neither would give way, because the two mids. disliked each other so much, and there’d been a collision.
‘It was your boat’s fault, Ginger; she cut across our bows. I’ve reported it to the Commander.’
‘Be blowed for a yarn. Our Padre was in the boat and said it was done on purpose—the whole boat’s crew said it was. The mid. tried his best to get out of the way, and had his engines full speed astern. It was done on purpose, I tell you.’
‘It wasn’t,’ I said, getting angry with Ginger. ‘It was your confounded mid. who tried to cut across our bows, our Engineer Commander was in the boat and told me so. The picket-boat has had to be hoisted in with her stem smashed in. D’you mean to say you don’t believe me?’
‘Well, if it comes to that, d’you mean to say you don’t believe me?’ Ginger jerked out.
‘No, I’m hanged if I do! you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick,’ I said hotly.
‘But, my dear chap, the Padre said——’
‘I don’t care a hang for your Padre—our Engineer Commander——’
‘Then you won’t take any notice of it?’ Ginger was getting excited now.
‘None,’ I said, ‘except to report your mid.’
‘You won’t cane your chap?’
‘No, I’m hanged if I will. It was young Bob Temple, he’s too stupid to try and do a thing like that. Your boat was simply poaching—I’m hanged if I’ll cane him.’
Ginger’s face looked as angry as mine felt, and he burst out with: ‘Thank goodness, I haven’t got a cousin aboard my ship, and ain’t in love with his sister!’
Well, that finished me, and I swung off that if he thought that was why I didn’t cane him he was welcome to think so for the rest of his blooming existence.
‘All right,’ he muttered angrily, ‘I’ll not trouble to try and patch things up again.’
‘I hope you jolly well won’t. If your chaps want to cut across our bows, tell ’em to look out—that’s all.’
‘You absolutely refuse?’ he said very coldly.
‘Absolutely,’ I answered, just as icily, holding the door curtain back.
‘All right; sorry to have troubled you,’ and Ginger had gone up on deck before I could think of anything more, and I knew that we’d jolly well parted ‘brass rags’ at last—after all the times we’d sworn that we’d never let the gun-room quarrels make any difference to us.
I wanted to rush off to the Hercules and make it ‘up’ on the spot, but that beastly remark about Bob being my cousin—and the other thing—simply set me tingling all over, and I’d see him in Jericho first. If he thought that every time our midshipmen had a row, mine were to go to the wall, he was jolly well mistaken.
There was bound to be a row about the damaged boats, and there was—a regular Court of Inquiry—and a lot of hard swearing on both sides, the only result of which was that Ginger and I—we’d been glaring at each other all the time—got badly snubbed for not keeping better control over our gun-rooms.
Well, all this, coming directly after the worry about Gerald, made me feel pretty bad-tempered. I wanted Ginger to yarn with more than any one, but that was ‘finish,’ and, as my shoulder wasn’t quite all right yet, I had nothing to do but wander about the ship like a caged monkey.
Every one knew about San Fernando in two or three days, and by the time my shoulder was all right and I could go ashore—you bet I kept my eyes skinned to see that chap who’d knifed me—news began coming pretty regularly from that town, brought by small sailing-boats which managed to get through at night—and most of it was pretty bad news.
Gerald and the insurgents had certainly got possession of San Fernando, but El Castellar, the strong fort at the narrow inlet to the bay, was still in the hands of the President, and still stopped all trade. Not only that, but, worse still, the Santa Cruz gun-boats slipped up there and amused themselves by bombarding the defenceless town. The whole Insurgent army didn’t possess anything even as big as a field-gun, so the gunboats could fire away in comfort as long as their ammunition lasted. We heard that the warehouses and offices along the sea-front had already been practically destroyed by shell-fire. As these nearly all belonged to English firms, whose headquarters were at Princes’ Town, the whole colony was in an uproar; and, much to our joy, our Skipper was ordered—from home—to take the Hector up to San Fernando and report on the state of affairs. You can imagine how excited we all were, and how I looked forward to seeing old Gerald bossing round in his General’s uniform.
That chum of mine ashore—the man who seemed to be ‘in the know’—came up to me in the Club, the day before we were to sail, and made me introduce him to the Skipper. ‘I want him to take a few things to San Fernando for me,’ he told me. ‘I’ve got some machinery for one of our estates—it’s been lying on the wharves for the last six weeks, and they can’t get on without it.’
I didn’t hear what passed between them, but knew that the Skipper was in such high spirits that he’d have done anything for anybody just then. And so it turned out, for that evening a lighter came alongside, and I had the job of hoisting in four large crates of hydraulic machinery, some boxes of shafting, and dozens of smaller crates. The Commander was furious, but the Skipper had said ‘yes,’ and although his jolly face fell when he saw how ‘chock-a-block’ the battery deck was, with all these packing-cases, he wouldn’t go back on his word.
After we’d finished I was getting a bit of supper in the gun-room when O’Leary came knocking at the door and wanting to speak to me. He wouldn’t come in. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but I wants to ’ave a word with you, private like.’
‘What is it?’ I asked, taking him into my cabin.
He carefully pulled the curtain across, and then said in a half-whisper, ‘We let down one of they small crates rayther ’eavy like, sir, and started one of the boards, sir.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ I said.
‘Eh, but it do, sir! I banged ’im in again, but not afore I’d seen inside it—a hammunition box—sir—the same as what we’ve got for our twelve-pounder.’
My aunt! that made me all jumpy.
‘Are you quite certain?’ I gasped.
‘As certain as I’m astanding ’ere, sir. That ain’t no bloomin’ ‘ydraulic machinery—they boxes marked “shafting” be guns, sir, that’s what they be.’
Hundreds of things rushed through my head.
‘Did any one else see it?’ I asked, and was jolly glad when he shook his head.
‘N’ary a one, sir; I covered ’em up too quick; and I ain’t going to tell no one neither, sir, for I ‘ears your brother is takin’ a leadin’ part in this ’ere revolution, and maybe he’ll be wantin’ a goodish deal o’ ‘ydraulic machinery before he’s through with it. That’s why I tells you, sir. I couldn’t keep it all to myself—in my chest—without tellin’ some one.’
My brain was so hot that I couldn’t think properly.
‘Don’t mention it to a soul; I’ll think over it,’ I told him.
‘No, that I won’t, sir; good-night, sir;’ and O’Leary left me.
Well, if he was correct, and it was ever found out, the Skipper would get in an awful row; if any one found out that I knew about it, it would mean the ‘chuck’ for me, and if I told what I knew, and it turned out to be true, old Gerald wouldn’t get his guns.
You can pretty easily guess what I did—kept as mum as a mummy—and how I gloated over all that jumble of boxes and packing-cases and the long boxes marked ‘shafting for hydraulic machinery’ when I walked through the battery next morning on my way to the bridge.
As we passed under the stern of the Hercules I saw Ginger on watch, and I was just going to wave to him when I remembered that we’d parted ‘brass rags’ and didn’t. I wished to goodness that we hadn’t quarrelled.
All that watch, as we drew nearer and nearer to the mainland, I kept on thinking of these crates and boxes, frightened lest any one else should have any suspicion about them, and couldn’t help remembering the words in that document which the Skipper had shown me, ‘All law-abiding subjects of his Britannic Majesty are hereby warned to abstain from affording assistance to the aforesaid Gerald Wilson, on pain of being indicted for felony.’
‘Felony’ has a jolly nasty sound about it. And there was another thing. Suppose Gerald came off to the ship when we anchored at San Fernando. Well, they couldn’t arrest him unless he actually came aboard, and I determined to stay on deck all the time, and warn him off before he could get alongside. I’d tell all the watch-keeping lieutenants, and the ‘Forlorn Hope’ and the ‘Shadow’ too, for they kept watch in harbour.