Harry Milvaine: or, The Wanderings of a Wayward Boy

One could not easily fancy a scene more impressive and wild than that which is presented by the crews of a few ships at work on the ice. The incessant moaning of the innocent victims, mingled with the laugh and joke of their murderers; the timid and affrighted, although loving look of the mothers, so different from the earnest, blood-thirsty stare of the authors of their grief. Some are flaying; some are stabbing; some are dragging the fruits of their labour towards the ships; and some are drinking at the ship’s side; but over all there is blood – blood on the decks, blood on the bulwarks; the men’s hands are steeped in it, and the blood is dripping from their clothes. The snow – the beautiful snow, which but yesterday sparkled and glittered in the sunshine, as only the snows of Greenland can, to-day is deluged in blood. Nothing but blood, blood wherever we look! The meat which the men are eating and the glass from which they are drinking are bloody; and the very rudder-wheel has been touched by bloody hands. But then there is joy in that bloody scene – joy to master and joy to man; and the sight of the blood proves a stimulant for still greater exertions and more cruelty.

Yes, it is years since I wrote in this strain, but the cruelties go on now as then. Oh! boys of happy England, raise your voices whenever opportunity occurs against cruelty and against oppression of every kind, whether against the tyranny that crushes the poor that the rich may live luxuriously, or cowardly crime that ties a helpless dog or cat to the vivisection table.

Harry managed to endear himself to all hands. He was, indeed, the favourite of the ship. But he did not neglect his education; Mr Wilson was a good teacher of practical navigation and practical ship’s work, and in a month or two he had made a man of Harry, or a sailor at all events.

Captain Hardy soon found out that the boy could shoot, so he gave him a short, light double-barrelled rifle, and Harry used to go out regularly to stalk seals, when the old sealing commenced. Dangerous work at times, and our hero had more than one ducking by slipping into the sea between the icebergs.

The dog Harold always went with the boy Harry, and although mastiffs are not called water-dogs, still on one occasion, when his young master fell into the sea, dog Harold sprang after him, and supported him until assistance came.

Harry’s opportunity of proving his gratitude came soon after this.

While out walking one day with the dog, they were suddenly startled by the awful roar of a huge bear. The brute appeared immediately after from behind a hummock of ice, and prepared for instant action.

The great mastiff’s hair stood on end with rage, from skull to tail. He gave Bruin no time to think, but sprang at once for his throat.

It was indeed an unequal contest, and would speedily have been all over had not young Harry shown both pluck and presence of mind. He rushed forward, and, biding his chance, fired both barrels of his rifle at once into the bear’s neck behind the ear.

He actually clapped the muzzle there before he drew the triggers.

What mattered it that the recoil threw him on his back, Bruin was slain, and Harold the dog was saved, though sadly wounded and torn.

Before the month of May the Inuita had a good voyage on board. She continued, however, to follow the old seals north as far round as Spitzbergen. The character of the ice now entirely changed: instead of fields of flat floe, with hummocks here and there, which put Harry in mind, as he traversed them, of a Highland moorland in mid-winter, there were pieces large enough to have crushed a ship as big as Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

The mountains, too, on the islands among which the Inuita sailed were rugged and grand in the extreme, and the colours displayed from the terraced cliffs of ice and rock, when the sun shone on them, were more resplendent than any pen or pencil could describe.

Around these islands were walruses in abundance, and many fell to the guns.

Going shoreward one day over the thick bay ice, to enjoy with Mr Wilson and some others some sport among the bears, Harry, who was foremost, was startled beyond measure to notice the ice ahead first heave, then crack and splinter, while a moment afterwards a head, more awful than a nightmare, was protruded.

Harry’s fear – if fear it could be called – was however but momentarily: next moment his rifle was at the shoulder, and the monster paid his life as the penalty for his curiosity.

In a month the Inuita was – what her captain wished her to be – full to the hatches with blubber and skins.

Then all sail was set for merry England.

There was nothing but joy now on board, nothing but jollity and fun.

The men had a ball almost every night, with singing and story-telling to follow.

“I do believe, my dear boy,” said Captain Hardy to Harry one evening, “that you have brought all the luck on board. Well, now, I’m going to tell you a secret.”

“I don’t want you to, you know.”

“Oh, but I want to tell somebody,” said the captain, “and it may as well be you. It is this: As soon as I get my ship cleared and paid off at Hull, I am going straight back to Lerwick to ask Miss Mitford if she will be my wife.”

“Oh, I’m sure she will be glad to!” Harry said.

“Tell me, boy, what makes you think so?”

“Well, because she told me you were the best man in the service, and the tears were in her eyes when she said so.”

“God bless you for these words, dear lad. And you’ll come and see us sometimes, won’t you? I’m going to leave the sea and settle down in a pretty little farm near Hull.”

“That I will, gladly,” said Harry.

In course of time the ship arrived safely in harbour. Her owners were delighted at Captain Hardy’s success, and made him a very handsome present.

Some weeks after this, when the Inuita was dismantled and lying in dock, Hardy, with Harry and Harold the mastiff, suddenly appeared at Beaufort Hall.

I leave the reader to imagine the joy that their presence elicited. But it was quite affecting to see how his mother pressed her boy to her breast, while the tears chased each other over her cheeks.

Eily went wild with joy, and when honest Andrew met his friend Harry again, and shook him by the hand, he could not speak, so much was he affected, and he had to take five or six enormous pinches of snuff by way of accounting for the moisture in his eyes.

Captain Hardy was a welcome guest at Beaufort Hall for many days.

“Your dear boy,” he said, “has had a terribly rough first experience of a life on the ocean wave, but he has braved it well, and that is more than many boys of his age would have done. But I tell you what it is,” he added, “Harry Milvaine will be a sailor.”

“I fear so,” said his mother, sadly.

“Ah, my dear lady, there is many a worse profession than that of an honest sailor.”

“But the dangers of the deep are so great, Captain Hardy.”

“Dangers of the deep?” repeated this kindly-hearted sailor. “Ay, and there are dangers on the dry land as well. Think of your terrible railway smashes, to say nothing, madam, of the tiles and chimney-pots that go flying about on a stormy day.”

Mrs Milvaine could not keep from smiling.

But our wilful, wayward Harry had it all his own way, and three months after this he was treading the decks of a Royal Navy training ship, a bold and brisk-looking naval cadet.

From the training ship, in good time, after having passed a very creditable examination indeed, he was duly entered into the grand old service.

His first ship – if ship it could be called – was H.M. gunboat, the Bunting.

Harry was going to a part of the world where he was bound soon to get the gilt rubbed off his dirk.

Book Two – Chapter Three.

H.M. Gunboat “Bunting” in Chase – A Dark Night’s Dismal Work

It was a night of inky darkness. All day it had been squally, with a more or less steady breeze blowing between each squall, and the sea had been greatly troubled; but now the wind had nearly fallen, the waves were crestless, foamless, but still they tossed and tumbled about so that the motion on board Her Majesty’s gunboat the Bunting was anything but an agreeable one. There could be but little danger, however, for she was well off the land, pretty far out, indeed, in the Indian Ocean.

Every now and then there was the growling of distant thunder; every now and then a bright flash of lurid lightning. But between these flashes was a darkness that could be felt, and never a star was visible. Nor could there be, for at sunset the clouds seemed a good mile thick.

The Bunting had been in chase most of the afternoon, but nightfall put an end to it.

It was in the days – not so long ago – when Said Maja reigned Sultan of Zanzibar, and all the coast line from near Delagoa Bay in the south to beyond Bareda in the north was more or less his sea-board. It was in the days when the slave trade in this strange wild city of the coast was flourishing in all its glory, the Sultan having liberty from our government to take slaves from any one portion of his dominions to another. Hundreds of dhows, nay, but thousands, then covered that portion of the Indian Ocean which laves the forest shores of Eastern Africa. They were either laden with slaves, or returning empty to fetch another cargo.

Our cruisers boarded all they met, but it was but seldom one fell into our hands as a prize, for these cruel and reckless dealers in human flesh found no difficulty in obtaining a permit from the Sultan’s ministers to carry on their inhuman traffic. A bribe was all that was necessary, and the words, “Household slaves of H.M. the Sultan,” in the certificate, were all that was necessary to set British law and British cruisers at defiance.

These dhows were and are still manned and officered by Arabs – gentlemen Arabs they term themselves. Many of these men are exceedingly handsome. I have often admired them in the slave market, both the old and the young. Let me try to describe them:

Here, then, is a young gentleman Arab, probably about twenty-five years of age.

He wears a kind of gilded night-dress of snow-white linen, which reaches some distance below the knee; around the waist of this is a gilded and jewelled sword-belt, supporting a splendid sword, and probably jewelled pistols. Over this linen garment may be a little jacket of crimson with gold braid, worn loose, and hardly visible, because over all is an immense flowing toga of camel’s hair of some dark colour. This is also worn open.

On the head is a gigantic turban, gilded or even jewelled, and the naked feet are placed in beautiful sandals.

He is very tall, lithe, wiry, and stately, and his face is goodly to behold, his nose being well chiselled, and mouth not large.

His colour is usually white or brown, though sometimes black, and dark hair in beautiful ringlets, escaping from under the turban, flows down nearly to the waist.

In his hand he bears a tall spear, on which he leans or touches the ground withal when walking, as a Highland mountaineer does with his long crook.

The carriage and walk of this Arab is grace itself, and gives the individual a noble and majestic appearance, which it is difficult to describe.

Except the Scottish costume, I know of no dress half so picturesque as that of the gentleman Arab and slave-owner.

But here is an old gentleman. Is he bent and decrepit? Nay, but sturdy and stately as his son, he walks with the same bold grace, is dressed in the same fashion, keeps quite as firm a hold of his spear, and could draw his powerful sword and wield it with equal if not greater skill and agility.

But his long beard and moustache are as white as the paper on which I am writing. His brow is wrinkled, and the eyes that glint and glare from beneath the bushy eye-brows are as quick and fierce as those of a golden eagle.

Those Arabs hate the English with a deadly hatred. Even the sight of a blue-jacket makes them scowl. I have passed – more than once – a doorway in Zanzibar, in which one of these men stood, and I have seen him gnash his teeth at the sight of my uniform, and finger his sword or knife, nervously, restlessly, as if he hardly could keep from plucking it out and plunging it into my heart.

It was in pursuit of one of the dhows manned by such gentleman Arabs that the Bunting had been all the previous afternoon.

Had the wind fallen earlier, this dhow would soon have been a prize; but as it did not, she had shown them a clean pair of heels, and might now be anywhere.

That she was a slaver without papers there was not a doubt, and well laden too, for she was deep in the water.

I am going to make a terrible statement, but it is a true one, and if it only has the effect of causing even one of my readers to hate slavery half as much as I do, it will not be made in vain.

Just then, as American traders in crossing the Atlantic, when a dangerous gale comes on, lighten the ship by throwing the cattle overboard, so, at times, do these gentleman Arabs lighten their dhows when chased.

It is a terrible sight to see poor oxen hoisted up in straps with block and tackle and whirled into the storm-lashed ocean. O God, how mournfully they moan, how they seem to plead for mercy! That moan once heard can never, never be forgotten.

The loading of a slave-ship is a terrible sight, but ah! the ruthless cruelty of lightening a dhow of slaves. They are got up one by one or two by two. Children, poor young girls and boys, are pitched screaming into the sea, probably to be devoured by sharks next moment. And sharks speedily come to a feast of blood of this kind.

But whether men or women – if they struggle, and sometimes whether they struggle or not – they are ruthlessly slain on the deck before being thrown overboard. The knife across the neck is used for this terrible butchery. I have been told by eye-witnesses, themselves prisoners, and expecting every minute that their turn would come, that the victims are handed on deck to those who do the work, and that these latter think less about it than a farm servant does of killing a fowl, sometimes laughing and joking with their companions the while; and if telling a story of any kind, they do not even permit the murder they are committing from interrupting their discourse for a single moment.

It is far more unpleasant for me to write these lines than it can possibly be for any one to read them.

“I think,” said Mr Dewar, the navigating sub-lieutenant, as he entered the captain’s cabin after a preliminary service tap at the door – “I think I’ve done all for the best, and done right, sir.”

“Well?” replied Captain Wayland – captain by courtesy, remember, for he really was but a first lieutenant by rank, though in command of the bold and saucy Bunting. He was seated now in his beautiful little saloon, which was situated right aft, right abaft the gun-room or ward-room – the Bunting had, of course, only one living deck, under that being the holds, and above it the main or upper deck, with no other covering except the sky, and now and then a sun awning. This last was not only a luxury but a positive necessity in these seas, where the sun blisters the paint, causes the pitch in the seams to bubble and boil, and takes the skin as effectually off one’s face as if a red-hot iron were passed over it.

I have called Captain Wayland’s quarters a beautiful little saloon. So it was, but do not imagine, dear reader, that the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty had anything to do with the decorating of it. No, they supplied a table, cushioned lockers, and a few chairs, also cushioned, but so hot and clumsy that sitting on one was like sitting on a large linseed-meal poultice.

Captain Wayland returned them to the dockyard, and bought himself others that could boast of elegance and comfort; he re-painted his saloon, too, and hung a few tasteful pictures in it and no end of curtains, to say nothing of a great punkah over the table, which was waving back and fore now, the propelling power being a little curly-headed nigger-boy who squatted in a far-off corner, string in hand.

“Well, sir,” replied Mr Dewar, in answer to the captain’s single word of inquiry, “I’ve douced every glim.”

“In mercy’s name,” cried the captain, “do speak English, Mr Dewar!”

“Well, sir, pardon me, I quite forgot myself, but really we’ve got into a slangy habit in the ward-room; the only one who does speak decent English is young Milvaine, and he is a Highland Scotchman.”

“Sit down,” said the captain, “and have a glass of claret. You’ll find it good.”

“Raggy Muffin!” he continued, turning half round in his easy chair.

The nigger-boy let go the punkah string and sprang to his feet.

“Raggy Muffin stand befoh you, sah!” he said, bowing his towsie head.

“Right, Raggy. Now bring a bottle of claret.”

“Right you are, sah. I fetchee he plenty quick.”

“And I’ll bring myself to an anchor,” said Mr Dewar, “and have a glass of grog with pleasure.”

Respect of person was not the crowning virtue of this warlike youth.

The captain fidgeted uneasily.

“Well, sir, I’ve douced – I mean I’ve put out all lights. I have men in the chains – not that we’re likely to fall in with shoal water here, you know – ”

“Oh, bother, you’re right to be safe. The Wasp ran aground in about this same place. Well, who’s watch is it?”

“Young Milvaine’s.”

“Right, we’re safe.”

Mr Dewar looked at Captain Wayland for a few moments.

“You believe in that youngster, sir?” he asked.

“I do. He’s faithful, bold, or rather brave – ”

“Yes, sir, he’s as plucky as a bantam. He thrashed big Crawford the first day he came on board. Crawford has been good-natured ever since. He showed fine fighting form when we brushed against those Arabs above ’Mbasa, and he jumped overboard, you know, and saved Raggy’s life off the Quillimane river.”

“Raggy die some day for Massa Milvaine,” put in the nigger-boy.

“Hush, Raggy, when your betters are talking.”

“Raggy die all same, though,” the boy persisted.

“The young scamp will have the last word. Yes, Mr Dewar, young Milvaine ought to have a medal for that; but, poor fellow, he won’t, though I’m told there were sharks about by the dozen.”

“I saw it all,” said young Dewar. “It was my cap that fell off, just before we crossed the bar. Raggy made a plunge for it, and over he went; Milvaine threw off his coat, and over he went. The coolness of the beggar, too, amused me.”

“Don’t say ‘beggar.’”

“Well, ‘fellow.’ There was a basking shark in the offing, with its fin above the water, and a bird perching on it like a starling on the back of a sheep. The cap – the very one I wear now, sir – was between this brute and Milvaine, but no sooner had he got Raggy – cockerty-koosie, as he called it – on his shoulder, than he swam away out and seized the cap with his teeth, then handed it to Raggy. And the young monkey put it on, too. We picked him up just in time, for the sharks looked hungry, and angry as well.”

Mr Dewar helped himself to another half-tumbler full of claret.

“There is a wine-glass at your elbow,” said the captain, with a mild kind of a smile.

“Bother the wine-glass!” replied the middy. “Pardon me, sir, but I’d have to fill it so often. My dear Captain Wayland, there’s no more pith and fooshion in this stuff than there is in sour buttermilk.”

The captain laughed outright. Mr Dewar was an officer of a very old and obsolete type.

“Why, my dear sir, that is my very best claret. Claret Lagrange, Mr Dewar; I paid seventy-five shillings a dozen for it.”

“Raggy,” he added; “bring the rum, Raggy.”

“Try a drop of that, then.”

“Ah! that indeed, captain,” exclaimed Mr Dewar, with beaming eyes. “That’s a drop o’ real ship’s.”

He was moderate, though, but he smacked his lips. “I feel in famous form now,” he said. “I hope we’ll come up with that rascally dhow before long. With my good sword now, Captain Wayland, and a brace of colts, I think – ”

At this moment Midshipman Milvaine – our Harry – entered, cap in hand.

He has greatly improved since we last saw him, almost a giant, with a bright and fearless eye and a most handsome face and agile figure. His shoulders are square and broad. He is very pliant in the waist; indeed, the body above the hips seems to move independent of hips or legs. Harry had now been four years in the service, and was but little over sixteen years of age.

“Anything occurred, Mr Milvaine?”

“Yes, sir, something is occurring, something terrible, murder or mutiny. The night is now very still, and the stars are out I can’t see anything, but from away over yonder, two or three points off the port bow, there is fearful screaming, and I can even hear splashing in the water.”

Captain Wayland sprang up, so did young Dewar.

“The scoundrels!” cried the former. “It is the dhow. They are lightening ship to get away from us with the morning breeze.”

“Mr Milvaine,” he added, hurriedly, “we’ll go to quarters. Do not sound the bugle. – Let all be done quietly. Keep her, Mr Milvaine, straight for the sounds you hear, and tell the engineers to go ahead at full speed.”

“The moon will rise in half an hour,” said Harry.

“Thank Heaven for that,” was the captain’s reply.

For the boats of a small ship like the Bunting to board a heavily armed fighting dhow like the one they had been giving chase to, is no mean exploit even by day: by night such an adventure requires both tact and skill and determination as well.

But the thing has been done before, and it was going to be tried again now.

The captain himself went on deck.

There was already a faint glimmer of light from the rising moon on the south-eastern sky.

But the sea was all as silent as the grave; there was the rattling of the revolving screw and the noise of the rushing, bubbling, lapping waves as the vessel cleaved her way through them. Further than this, for the space of many minutes, sound there was none.

“In what direction did you say you heard the cries?” asked Captain Wayland of young Harry Milvaine.

“We are steering straight for it now, sir, and – ”

Suddenly he was interrupted. From a point still a little on the port bow, and apparently a mile distant, came a series of screams, so mournful, so pleading, so pitiful, as almost to freeze one’s blood.

“Ah-h! Oh-h-h! Oh! Oh! Oo-oo-ok!”

The last cry was wildly despairing, and cut suddenly short, as I have tried to describe, by the letters “ok.”

A moment or two afterwards there came across the water the sound of a plash, and next minute there was a repetition of the dreadful yells and cries.

The captain took two or three hasty turns up and down the deck. He was a very humane and kindly-hearted officer.

“I hardly know what to do for the best,” he said.

“Suppose, sir,” replied Mr Dewar, whom he seemed to be addressing, “we fire a gun to let her know we are near?”

“No,” replied the captain; “there is still wind enough, and time enough, for her to escape in the dark. We’ll keep on yet a short time. Stand by to lower the boats. They are already armed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Escape in the dark!” muttered the captain to himself through his set teeth. “Dark indeed will be the work as soon as our lads get on board of this fiend’s ship.”

Book Two – Chapter Four.

Life in a Gunboat – The Captain’s Birthday

Mr Dewar had charge of the first cutter, Mr Mavers, sub-lieutenant, of the second, and Harry himself commanded the whaler.

These were all the boats told off for the fight, about five-and-thirty men all told.

Five-and-thirty men? Yes, but they were five-and-thirty broad-shouldered British blue-jackets, armed with cutlass and revolver. And what is it, pray, that blue-jackets will not dare, ay, and do as well as dare?

Even Dr Scott and the other officers had left their swords behind them, preferring the ship’s cutlass.

Every man had stripped to the waist before starting, for the night was sultry and hot.

The boats were silently lowered before they came in sight of the dhow, therefore before the dhow could see the Bunting.

With muffled oars, nearer and nearer they sweep to the spot from whence the sounds proceed.