Charlie to the Rescue

For once Mrs Leather’s knitting-needles came to a sudden stop, and she looked inquiringly at her young friend. So did May.

“Have you accepted it?”

“Well, yes. I have.”

“I’m so sorry,” said May; “I don’t know what Shank will do without you.”

At that moment a loud knocking was heard at the door. May rose to open it, and Mrs Leather looked anxiously at her son.

A savage undertoned growl and an unsteady step told all too plainly that the head of the house had returned home.

With sudden interest in worsted fabrics, which he was far from feeling, Charlie Brooke turned his back to the door, and, leaning forward, took up an end of the work with which the knitter was busy.

“That’s an extremely pretty pattern, Mrs Leather. Does it take you long to make things of the kind?”

“Not long; I—I make a good many of them.”

She said this with hesitation, and with her eyes fixed on the doorway, through the opening of which her husband thrust a shaggy dishevelled head, with dissipation stamped on a countenance which had evidently been handsome once.

But Charlie saw neither the husband’s head nor the poor wife’s gaze, for he was still bending over the worsted-work in mild admiration.

Under the impression that he had not been observed, Mr Leather suddenly withdrew his head, and was heard to stumble up-stairs under the guidance of May. Then the bang of a door, followed by a shaking of the slimly-built house, suggested the idea that the poor man had flung himself on his bed.

“Shank Leather,” said Charlie Brooke, that same night as they strolled on the sea-shore, “you gave expression to some sentiments to-day which I highly approved of. One of them was ‘Speak out your mind, and fear nothing!’ I mean to do so now, and expect that you will not be hurt by my following your advice.”

“Well!” exclaimed Shank, with a dubious glance, for he disliked the seriousness of his friend’s tone.

“Your father—” began Charlie.

“Please don’t speak about him,” interrupted the other. “I know all that you can say. His case is hopeless, and I can’t bear to speak about it.”

“Well, I won’t speak about him, though I cannot agree with you that his case is hopeless. But it is yourself that I wish to speak about. You and I are soon to separate; it must be for a good long while—it may be for ever. Now I must speak out my mind before I go. My old playmate, school-fellow, and chum, you have begun to walk in your poor father’s footsteps, and you may be sure that if you don’t turn round all your hopes will be blasted—at least for this life—perhaps also for that which is to come. Now don’t be angry or hurt, Shank. Remember that you not only encouraged me, but advised me to speak out my mind.”

“Yes, but I did not advise you to form a false, uncharitable judgment of your chum,” returned Leather, with a dash of bitterness in his tone. “I admit that I’m fond of a social glass, and that I sometimes, though rarely, take a little—a very little—more than, perhaps, is necessary. But that is very different from being a drunkard, which you appear to assume that I am.”

“Nay, Shank, I don’t assume that. What I said was that you are beginning to walk in your dear father’s footsteps. No man ever yet became a drunkard without beginning. And I feel certain that no man ever, when beginning, had the most distant intention or expectation of becoming a drunkard. Your danger, dear old fellow, lies in your not seeing the danger. You admit that you like a social glass. Shank, I candidly make the same admission—I like it,—but after seeing your father, and hearing your defence, the danger has been so deeply impressed on me, that from this hour I resolve, God helping me, never more to taste a social glass.”

“Well, Charlie, you know yourself best,” returned his friend airily, “and if you think yourself in so great danger, of course your resolve is a very prudent one; but for myself, I admit that I see no danger, and I don’t feel any particular weakness of will in regard to temptation.”

“Ah, Shank, you remind me of an eccentric old lady I have heard of who was talking with a friend about the difficulties of life. ‘My dear,’ said the friend, ‘I do find it such a difficult thing to resist temptation—don’t you?’ ‘No,’ replied the eccentric old lady, ‘I don’t, for I never resist temptation, I always give way to it!’”

“I can’t quite make out how your anecdote applies to me, Charlie.”

“Don’t you see? You feel no weakness of will in regard to temptation because you never give your will an opportunity of resisting it. You always give way to it. You see, I am speaking out my mind freely—as you have advised!”

“Yes, and you take the whole of my advice, and fear nothing, else you would not risk a quarrel by doing so. But really, my boy, it’s of no use your troubling your head on that subject, for I feel quite safe, and I don’t mean to give in, so there’s an end on’t.”

Our hero persevered notwithstanding, and for some time longer sought to convince or move his friend both by earnest appeal and light pleasantry, but to all appearance without success, although he reduced him to silence. He left him at last, and went home meditating on the truth of the proverb that “a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

Chapter Five.

All Things to All Men

Under the influence of favouring breezes and bright skies the Walrus swept gaily over the ocean at the beginning of her voyage, with “stuns’ls slow and aloft, royals and sky-scrapers,” according to Captain Stride. At least, if these were not the exact words he used, they express pretty well what he meant, namely, a “cloud of canvas.”

But this felicitous state of things did not last. The tropics were reached, where calms prevailed with roasting heat. The Southern Atlantic was gained, and gales were met with. The celebrated Cape was doubled, and the gales, if we may say so, were trebled. The Indian Ocean was crossed, and the China Seas were entered, where typhoons blew some of the sails to ribbons, and snapped off the topmasts like pipe-stems. Then she sailed into the great Pacific, and for a time the Walrus sported pleasantly among the coral islands.

During all this time, and amid all these changes, Charlie Brooke, true to his character, was the busiest and most active man on board. Not that his own special duties gave him much to do, for, until the vessel should reach port, these were rather light; but our hero—as Stride expressed it—“must always be doing.” If he had not work to do he made it—chiefly in the way of assisting other people. Indeed there was scarcely a man or boy on board who did not have the burden of his toil, whatever it was, lightened in consequence of young Brooke’s tendency to put his powerful shoulder voluntarily to the wheel. He took the daily observations with the captain, and worked out the ship’s course during the previous twenty-four hours. He handled the adze and saw with the carpenter, learned to knot and splice, and to sew canvas with the bo’s’n’s mate, commented learnedly and interestingly on the preparation of food with the cook, and spun yarns with the men on the forecastle, or listened to the long-winded stories of the captain and officers in the cabin. He was a splendid listener, being much more anxious to ascertain exactly the opinions of his friends and mates than to advance his own. Of course it followed that Charlie was a favourite.

With his insatiable desire to acquire information of every kind, he had naturally, when at home, learned a little rough-and-tumble surgery, with a slight smattering of medicine. It was not much, but it proved to be useful as far as it went, and his “little knowledge” was not “dangerous,” because he modestly refused to go a single step beyond it in the way of practice, unless, indeed, he was urgently pressed to do so by his patients. In virtue of his attainments, real and supposed, he came to be recognised as the doctor of the ship, for the Walrus carried no medical man.

“Look here, Brooke,” said the only passenger on board—a youth of somewhat delicate constitution, who was making the voyage for the sake of his health,—“I’ve got horrible toothache. D’you think you can do anything for me?”

“Let’s have a look at it,” said Charlie, with kindly interest, though he felt half inclined to smile at the intensely lugubrious expression of the youth’s face.

“Why, Raywood, that is indeed a bad tooth; nothing that I know of will improve it. There’s a cavern in it big and black enough to call to remembrance the Black Hole of Calcutta! A red-hot wire might destroy the nerve, but I never saw one used, and should not like to try it.”

“Horrible!” exclaimed Raywood. “I’ve been mad with pain all the morning, and can’t afford to be driven madder. Perhaps, somewhere or other in the ship there may be a—a—thingumy.”

“A whatumy?” inquired the other.

“A key, or—or—pincers,” groaned Raywood, “for extracting—oh! man, couldn’t you pull it out?”

“Easily,” said Charlie, with a smile. “I’ve got a pair of forceps—always carry them in case of need, but never use them unless the patient is very bad, and must have it out.”

Poor Raywood protested, with another groan, that his was a case in point, and it must come out; so Charlie sought for and found his forceps.

“It won’t take long, I suppose?” said the patient rather nervously, as he opened his mouth.

“Oh no. Only a moment or—”

A fearful yell, followed by a gasp, announced to the whole ship’s company that a crisis of some sort had been passed by some one, and the expert though amateur dentist congratulated his patient on his deliverance from the enemy.

Only three of the ship’s company, however, had witnessed the operation. One was Dick Darvall, the seaman who chanced to be steering at the time, and who could see through the open skylight what was being enacted in the cabin. Another was the captain, who stood beside him. The third was the cabin-boy, Will Ward, who chanced to be cleaning some brasses about the skylight at the time, and was transfixed by what we may style delightfully horrible sensations. These three watched the proceedings with profound interest, some sympathy, and not a little amusement.

“Mind your helm, Darvall,” said the Captain, stifling a laugh as the yell referred to burst on his ears.

“Ay, ay, sir,” responded the seaman, bringing his mind back to his duty, as he bestowed a wink on the brass-polishing cabin-boy.

“He’s up to everything,” said Darvall in a low voice, referring to our hero.

“From pitch-and-toss to manslaughter,” responded the boy, with a broad grin.

“I do believe, Mr Brooke, that you can turn your hand to anything,” said Captain Stride, as Charlie came on deck a few minutes later. “Did you ever study doctoring or surgery?”

“Not regularly,” answered Charlie; “but occasionally I’ve had the chance of visiting hospitals and dissecting-rooms, besides hearing lectures on anatomy, and I have taken advantage of my opportunities. Besides, I’m fond of mechanics; and tooth-drawing is somewhat mechanical. Of course I make no pretension to a knowledge of regular dentistry, which involves, I believe, a scientific and prolonged education.”

“May be so, Mr Brooke,” returned the captain, “but your knowledge seems deep and extensive enough to me, for, except in the matter o’ navigation, I haven’t myself had much schoolin’, but I do like to see a fellow that can use his hands. As I said to my missus, not two days before I left ’er: ‘Maggie,’ says I, ‘a man that can’t turn his hands to anything ain’t worth his salt. For why? He’s useless at sea, an’, by consequence, can’t be of much value on land.’”

“Your reasoning is unanswerable,” returned Charlie, with a laugh.

“Not so sure o’ that,” rejoined the captain, with a modestly dubious shake of his head; “leastwise, however unanswerable it may be, my missus always manages to answer it—somehow.”

At that moment one of the sailors came aft to relieve the man-at-the-wheel.

Dick Darvall was a grave, tall, dark, and handsome man of about five-and-twenty, with a huge black beard, as fine a seaman as one could wish to see standing at a ship’s helm, but he limped when he left his post and went forward.

“How’s the leg to-day, Darvall!” asked young Brooke, as the man passed.

“Better, sir, thankee.”

“That’s well. I’ll change the dressing in half-an-hour. Don’t disturb it till I come.”

“Thankee, sir, I won’t.”

“Now then, Raywood,” said Charlie, descending to the cabin, where his patient was already busy reading Maury’s Physical Geography of the Sea, “let’s have a look at the gum.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” said Raywood. “D’you know, I think one of the uses of severe pain is to make one inexpressibly thankful for the mere absence of it. Of course there is a little sensation of pain left, which might make me growl at other times, but that positively feels comfortable now by contrast!”

“There is profound sagacity in your observations,” returned Charlie, as he gave the gum a squeeze that for a moment or two removed the comfort; “there, now, don’t suck it, else you’ll renew the bleeding. Keep your mouth shut.”

With this caution the amateur dentist left the cabin, and proceeded to the fore-part of the vessel. In passing the steward’s pantry a youthful voice arrested him.

“Oh, please, sir,” said Will Ward, the cabin-boy, advancing with a slate in his hand, “I can’t make out the sum you set me yesterday, an’ I’m quite sure I’ve tried and tried as hard as ever I could to understand it.”

“Let me see,” said his friend, taking the slate and sitting down on a locker. “Have you read over the rule carefully?”

“Yes, sir, I have, a dozen times at least, but it won’t come right,” answered the boy, with wrinkles enough on his young brow to indicate the very depths of puzzlement.

“Fetch the book, Will, and let’s examine it.”

The book was brought, and at his teacher’s request the boy read:—

“Add the interest to the principal, and then multiply by—”

“Multiply?” said Charlie, interrupting. “Look!”

He pointed to the sum on the slate, and repeated “multiply.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the cabin-boy, with a gasp of relief and wide-open eyes, “I’ve divided!”

“That’s so, Will, and there’s a considerable difference between division and multiplication, as you’ll find all through life,” remarked the teacher, with a peculiar lift of his eyebrows, as he handed back the slate and went on his way.

More than once in his progress “for’ard” he was arrested by men who wished hint to give advice, or clear up difficulties in reference to subjects which his encouragement or example had induced them to take up, and to these claims on his attention or assistance he accorded such a ready and cheerful response that his pupils felt it to be a positive pleasure to appeal to him, though they each professed to regret giving him “trouble.” The boatswain, who was an amiable though gruff man in his way, expressed pretty well the feelings of the ship’s company towards our hero when he said: “I tell you, mates, I’d sooner be rubbed up the wrong way, an’ kicked down the fore hatch by Mr Brooke, than I’d be smoothed or buttered by anybody else.”

At last the fo’c’sl was reached, and there our surgeon found his patient, Dick Darvall, awaiting him. The stout seaman’s leg had been severely bruised by a block which had fallen from aloft and struck it during one of the recent gales.

“A good deal better to-day,” said Charlie. “Does it pain you much?”

“Not nearly as much as it did yesterday, sir. It’s my opinion that I’ll be all right in a day or two. Seems to me outrageous to make so much ado about it.”

“If we didn’t take care of it, my man, it might cost you your limb, and we can’t afford to bury such a well-made member before its time! You must give it perfect rest for a day or two. I’ll speak to the captain about it.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, sir,” objected the seaman. “I feel able enough to go about, and my mates’ll think I’m shirkin’ dooty.”

“There’s not a man a-board as’ll think that o’ Dick Darvall,” growled the boatswain, who had just entered and heard the last remark.

“Right, bo’s’n,” said Brooke, “you have well expressed the thought that came into my own head.”

“Have ye seen Samson yet, sir?” asked the boatswain, with an unusually grave look.

“No; I was just going to inquire about him. No worse, I hope?”

“I think he is, sir. Seems to me that he ain’t long for this world. The life’s bin too much for him: he never was cut out for a sailor, an’ he takes things so much to heart that I do believe worry is doin’ more than work to drive him on the rocks.”

“I’ll go and see him at once,” said our hero.

Fred Samson, the sick man referred to, had been put into a swing-cot in a berth amidships to give him as much rest as possible. To all appearance he was slowly dying of consumption. When Brooke entered he was leaning on one elbow, gazing wistfully through the port-hole close to his head. His countenance, on which the stamp of death was evidently imprinted, was unusually refined for one in his station in life.

“I’m glad you have come, Mr Brooke,” he said slowly, as his visitor advanced and took his thin hand.

“My poor fellow,” said Charlie, in a tone of low but tender sympathy, “I wish with all my heart I could do you any good.”

“The sight of your kind face does me good,” returned the sailor, with a pause for breath between almost every other word. “I don’t want you to doctor me any more. I feel that I’m past that, but I want to give you a message and a packet for my mother. Of course you will be in London when you return to England. Will you find her out and deliver the packet? It contains only the Testament she gave me at parting and a letter.”

“My dear fellow—you may depend on me,” replied Brooke earnestly. “Where does she live?”

“In Whitechapel. The full address is on the packet. The letter enclosed tells all that I have to say.”

“But you spoke of a message,” said Brooke, seeing that he paused and shut his eyes.

“Yes, yes,” returned the dying man eagerly, “I forgot. Give her my dear love, and say that my last thoughts were of herself and God. She always feared that I was trusting too much in myself—in my own good resolutions and reformation; so I have been—but that’s past. Tell her that God in His mercy has snapped that broken reed altogether, and enabled me to rest my soul on Jesus.”

As the dying man was much exhausted by his efforts to speak, his visitor refrained from asking more questions. He merely whispered a comforting text of Scripture and left him apparently sinking into a state of repose.

Then, having bandaged the finger of a man who had carelessly cut himself while using his knife aloft, Charlie returned to the cabin to continue an interrupted discussion with the first mate on the subject of astronomy.

From all which it will be seen that our hero’s tendencies inclined him to be as much as possible “all things to all men.”

Chapter Six.

Disaster, Starvation, and Death

The least observant of mortals must have frequently been impressed with the fact that events and incidents of an apparently trifling description often lead to momentous—sometimes tremendous—results.

Soon after the occurrence of the incidents referred to in the last chapter, a colony of busy workers in the Pacific Ocean were drawing towards the completion of a building on which they had been engaged for a long time. Like some lighthouses this building had its foundations on a rock at the bottom of the sea. Steadily, perseveringly, and with little cessation, the workers had toiled for years. They were small insignificant creatures, each being bent on simply performing the little bit of work which he, she, or it had been created to do probably without knowing or caring what the result might be, and then ending his, her, or its modest labours with life. It was when this marine building had risen to within eight or ten feet of the surface of the sea that the Walrus chanced to draw near to it, but no one on board was aware of the existence of that coral-reef, for up to the period we write of it had failed to attract the attention of chart-makers.

The vessel was bowling along at a moderate rate over a calm sea, for the light breeze overhead that failed to ruffle the water filled her topsails. Had the wind been stormy a line of breakers would have indicated the dangerous reef. As it was there was nothing to tell that the good ship was rushing on her doom till she struck with a violent shock and remained fast.

Of course Captain Stride was equal to the emergency. By the quiet decision with which he went about and gave his orders he calmed the fears of such of his crew as were apt to “lose their heads” in the midst of sudden catastrophe.

“Lower away the boats, lads. We’ll get her off right a way,” he said, in a quick but quiet tone.

Charlie Brooke, being a strong believer in strict discipline, at once ran to obey the order, accompanied by the most active among the men, while others ran to slack off the sheets and lower the topsails.

In a few minutes nearly all the men were in the boats, with hawsers fixed to the stern of the vessel, doing their uttermost to pull her off.

Charlie had been ordered to remain on deck when the crew took to the boats.

“Come here, Mr Brooke, I want you,” said the Captain, leading his young friend to the taffrail. “It’s pretty clear to me that the poor old Walrus is done for—”

“I sincerely hope not sir,” said Charlie, with anxious looks.

“A short time will settle the question,” returned the Captain, with unwonted gravity. “If she don’t move in a few minutes, I’ll try what heaving out some o’ the cargo will do. As supercargo, you know where it’s all stowed, so, if you’ll pint out to me which is the least valooable, an’ at the same time heaviest part of it, I’ll send the mate and four men to git it on deck. But to tell you the truth even if we do git her off I don’t think she’ll float. She’s an oldish craft, not fit to have her bottom rasped on coral rocks. But we’ll soon see.”

Charlie could not help observing that there was something peculiarly sad in the tone of the old man’s voice. Whether it was that the poor captain knew the case to be utterly hopeless, or that he was overwhelmed by this calamity coming upon him so soon after the wreck of his last ship, Charlie could not tell, but he had no time to think, for after he had pointed out to the mate the bales that could be most easily spared he was again summoned aft.

“She don’t move,” said the captain, gloomily. “We must git the boats ready, for if it comes on to blow only a little harder we’ll have to take to ’em. So do you and the stooard putt your heads together an’ git up as much provisions as you think the boats will safely carry. Only necessaries, of course, an’ take plenty o’ water. I’ll see to it that charts, compasses, canvas, and other odds and ends are ready.”

Again young Brooke went off, without saying a word, to carry out his instructions. Meanwhile one of the boats was recalled, and her crew set to lighten the ship by heaving part of the cargo overboard. Still the Walrus remained immovable on the reef, for the force with which she struck had sent her high upon it.

“If we have to take to the boats, sir,” said Charlie, when he was disengaged, “it may be well to put some medicines on board, for poor Samson will—”

“Ay, ay, do so, lad,” said the captain, interrupting; “I’ve been thinkin’ o’ that, an’ you may as well rig up some sort o’ couch for the poor fellow in the long-boat, for I mean to take him along wi’ myself.”

“Are you so sure, then, that there is no chance of our getting her off?”

“Quite sure. Look there.” He pointed, as he spoke, to the horizon to windward, where a line of cloud rested on the sea. “That’ll not be long o’ comin’ here. It won’t blow very hard, but it’ll be hard enough to smash the old Walrus to bits. If you’ve got any valooables aboard that you’d rather not lose, you’d better stuff ’em in your pockets now. When things come to the wust mind your helm, an’ look out as I used to say to my missus—”

He stopped abruptly and turned away. Evidently the thought of the “missus” was too much for him just then.

Charlie Brooke hurried off to visit the sick man, and prepare him for the sad change in his position that had now become unavoidable. But another visitor had been to see the invalid before him. Entering the berth softly, and with a quiet look, so as not to agitate the patient needlessly, he found to his regret, though not surprise, that poor Fred Samson was dead. There was a smile on the pale face, which was turned towards the port window, as if the dying man had been taking a last look of the sea and sky when Death laid a hand gently on his brow and smoothed away the wrinkles of suffering and care. A letter from his mother, held tightly in one hand and pressed upon his breast told eloquently what was the subject of his last thoughts.