Part 1 (1/2)
Under the Chilian Flag.
by Harry Collingwood.
CHAPTER ONE.
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE PERICLES.
”You, Thompson, go down and send the second mate up to me. Tell him to leave whatever he is doing and to come up here at once. I want to speak to him,” growled Captain Fisher of the steamer _Pericles_, turning, with a menacing expression, to the grizzled old quartermaster who stood beside him on the bridge.
Thompson, as though only too glad of an excuse to leave the neighbourhood of his skipper, grunted out an a.s.sent, and, swinging round on his heel, shambled away down the ladder leading from the bridge to the spar-deck, and departed on his errand.
The _Pericles_ was an iron single-screw steamer of two thousand tons or thereabout. She was employed in the carriage of nitrates, silver ore, hides, etcetera, between Chilian ports and Liverpool. She was owned by a company, which also possessed two similar vessels employed in the same trade. Captain Fisher, her skipper, had a considerable number of shares in this company, a circ.u.mstance which accounted in no small measure for the fact of his being the skipper of the _Pericles_; for a man less fit to have the control of other men it would have been exceedingly difficult to find.
Fisher was a man of enormous stature and splendid physique, but his features, which would otherwise have been considered handsome, were marred by a ferocious expression, due to his chronic condition of ill- humour. He was constantly ”hazing” his men, and was never at a loss for an excuse for irritating them in every possible way. In this pleasing occupation he was ably seconded by his first mate, an American, named Silas Hoover. Between the pair of them they had contrived, during the course of the several voyages which they had performed together, to render their men thoroughly dissatisfied almost to the verge of mutiny; and there is little doubt that long before this the crew would have given open and forcible expression to their feelings had it not been for the efforts of the second mate, a young fellow of eighteen years of age, named James Douglas. This was the individual for whom Fisher had just sent. He had conceived a most virulent hatred for him, in consequence, probably, of the fact that Douglas was the only officer in the s.h.i.+p for whom the men would work willingly and for whom they showed any real respect. The lad had been left an orphan at an early age, and as he showed even from he first a predilection for a seafaring life, he had been sent by his uncle at the age of fourteen as an apprentice on board a sailing s.h.i.+p, and during the four following years he had gradually worked his way upward until now he was second mate of the _Pericles_.
Up to the time when he joined that s.h.i.+p he had had no cause to regret his choice of a profession; but the six or seven months which he had spent under Fisher had proved so thoroughly unpleasant that he had made up his mind he would leave the s.h.i.+p at the first port at which she called. This resolve was echoed by his own particular chum, Terence O'Meara, third engineer of the same s.h.i.+p, who had likewise found life on board the _Pericles_ anything but to his liking. The steamer was, at the time when this story opens, on her way to Valparaiso, the princ.i.p.al seaport of Chili; and, as she was now in the very centre of the South Atlantic, Douglas hoped to escape from his tormentor in about a month's time. As a matter of fact, Douglas and his friend were just talking the matter over when the grizzled old quartermaster popped his head into Douglas's cabin with the remark, ”Skipper wants to see you, sir, on the bridge. He told me particularly to say that he wanted you to come _immediately_; and he do seem to be in a rare bad mood this morning, so I shouldn't keep him waiting, sir, if I were you.”
”All right, Thompson, all right,” answered Douglas. ”I'll be there in a moment.” Then, turning to Terry O'Meara, he remarked: ”I wonder what fault he will have to find this morning. I'll wager that he only wants to see me in order to blow me up about something, confound him! Well, Terry, old boy, I'll see you again when you come off duty in the evening. Trot along to my cabin at about ten o'clock, as usual. Good- bye for the time being.”
With a wave of his hand, Douglas slipped out of the cabin and hurried along the alleyway, anxious to avoid keeping Fisher waiting any longer than was absolutely necessary. In a few seconds he reached the foot of the bridge ladder, and, running quickly up it, found the captain impatiently pacing up and down, evidently in the very worst of bad tempers.
”You wish to see me, sir,” said Douglas respectfully.
The skipper glared at him for a moment and then burst out with, ”Yes, you lazy young scoundrel, I do; and a precious long time you've been coming, too. I suppose you thought that, being off duty, you could skulk in your cabin and do nothing. I expect you were hatching some mischief with that other bright spark, your friend O'Meara. But let me tell you, sir, I will have no idlers on board my s.h.i.+p. Just remember that; and don't let me see you talking quite so much to that young scamp O'Meara. But that's not what I wanted to see you about. Why have you not carried out my instructions as to that paint-work which I told you to see about? I gave you my orders three days ago, and there is no sign as yet of the work being commenced. What do you mean by such conduct, sir? What possible excuse can you have for not--”
”Pardon me, sir,” interrupted Douglas. ”I fear you are making a mistake, or that you have been misinformed. I _did_ put the paint-work in hand directly you told me; and the work was nearly completed when we ran into that heavy sea yesterday. You know that we s.h.i.+pped it solid over our bows, and the paint being still wet was, of course, nearly all washed off. I set the men to work, however, to clean things up again, and they have restarted the job this morning. You can see them at work now.”
”Yes, of course I can,” roared Fisher; ”and I wanted to know why you had not seen fit to start the job until just now. However, you have given me an excuse, and I suppose I must accept it; but if you had carried out my orders with a little more prompt.i.tude the paint would have been dry before we ran into that breeze. You can go now, sir, and take care that I do not have cause to reprimand you again. I am getting sick of your laziness, incapacity, and insubordination.”
Douglas turned on his heel and left the skipper without any more ado, but his cheeks burned with indignation at the injustice of it all. He had carried out his orders to the letter directly they had been given him, and it was certainly not his fault that the work had to be done over again. Neither was he lazy nor insubordinate; while, far from being incapable, he had earned the good-will of every skipper with whom he had sailed, with the solitary exception of this one. He returned to his cabin and lay down to think things over, with the result that he went on duty a few hours later more than ever resolved to make this his last voyage under Captain Fisher. True, he would be compelled to desert and would consequently lose his certificate, and probably have some difficulty in getting another s.h.i.+p; but even that would be better than the life he was living at present, which, he felt, was not fit for a dog.
The days slipped slowly away, however, in spite of all the discomfort and annoyance; and Douglas at length began to look upon his quarrels with the skipper as unavoidable, and to treat them as a matter of course. The _Pericles_ rounded Cape Horn, steamed up the Chilian coast, and on January 7, 1879, dropped her anchor in Valparaiso harbour. The long and dreary voyage was at an end at last! Douglas and Terry O'Meara had long before this completed all their plans for an early escape; and the two lads were now standing just by the break of the p.o.o.p, looking across the blue water towards the fair city, aptly named the ”Valley of Paradise.”
This was not the first time that the boys had been there, and both knew the place fairly well; but this morning they seemed to notice some indefinable change in the appearance of the city, and tried to discover in what it consisted.
Presently Douglas started up with the remark: ”I know what it is, Terry, old boy; there's some tremendous excitement or other ash.o.r.e there. If you will take a squint through this gla.s.s you will see that the shops are all shut, and that a good many of the streets are barricaded. Up there at the back of the town there is a body of Chilian soldiers busily throwing up earthworks or constructing a fort of some kind. Take my word for it, lad, there's a revolution in progress there, or something akin to it. What luck, Terry! We shall be able to get right into the thick of it; and I shall be much mistaken if we don't find plenty of employment ready for us when we get ash.o.r.e. But what on earth's all this? This looks as though something more serious than a mere revolution were in progress!”
Douglas's exclamation of astonishment had been drawn from him by the sight of a squadron of wars.h.i.+ps which had just put in their appearance round the point, and which were slowly steaming in column of line ahead, and were evidently making their way toward the wars.h.i.+p anchorage in the roads. There were five of them altogether, two large and three small s.h.i.+ps, all flying the Chilian ensign. By means of the gla.s.s the lads made out that the first two craft were the _Almirante Cochrane_ and the _Blanco Encalada_, both battles.h.i.+ps. Then came the corvettes _O'Higgins_ and _Chacabuco_; and, lastly, the sloop _Esmeralda_.
Presently they all slowed up and anch.o.r.ed; and as they did so there came the sound of tumultuous cheering from the city, to which the s.h.i.+ps replied by dipping their ensigns.
”As you say, Jim, this is no revolution,” answered Terry. ”War has probably broken out between Chili and some other country--I wonder which. Peru, I expect. And it seems to me, my lad, that we have just arrived in the very nick of time. Here is the chance of our lives, and we shall be foolish if we don't make the most of it.”
”What do you mean?” replied Jim; ”I don't quite follow--”
”Why, simply this,” answered Terry. ”We want to get away from this steamer, don't we? And in the usual course of events we might have some difficulty in finding another; but here is our opportunity ready made for us. Chili is apparently at war with some other country; and the thing for us to do is to get ash.o.r.e and enlist in the Chilian navy.
They are sure to want all the men they can lay hands on. We have had plenty of experience; and you may be certain that no awkward questions will be asked. They will accept us, and be more than glad to get us; thus, you see, we shall have employment immediately, instead of having to wait, perhaps, several months for it. We are indeed in luck's way!
The only question is, How are we to get ash.o.r.e? for I don't suppose the 'old man' will grant any leave, under the circ.u.mstances. We will try him first, however, and if he refuses we shall have to think of some other means of getting away from the s.h.i.+p. Let us go to your cabin and talk the matter over; this is a business which we had better decide as soon as possible.”
He slipped his arm through Douglas's and the pair went off to the latter's cabin, where they spent the whole afternoon in making plans, with the result that, by the evening, they had perfected all their arrangements. They applied to the captain for leave in the usual way, but, as they had antic.i.p.ated, it was refused, so they had to look about for some means of getting away from the s.h.i.+p without being observed, and they managed it very simply, thus.