Complete Works of Bram Stoker (481 page)

“Dr. Fairbrother, there is a sick man here! look at his pale face. Something wrong with his liver, I suppose. It’s the only thing that makes a seaman’s face white when there’s fighting ahead. Take him down to sick bay, and do something for him. I’d like to cut the accursed white liver out of him altogether!” and with that he went down to his cabin.

Well if we was hot for fighting before, we was boiling after that, and we all came to know that the next attack on the Red Stockade would be the last, one way or the other! We had to wait two more days before that could come off, for the boats and tackle had to be made ready, and there wasn’t going to be any mistakes made this time.

It was just after midnight when we began to get ready. Every man was to his post. The moon was up, and it was lighter nor a London day, and the captain stood by and saw every man to his place, and nothing escaped him. By and by, as No. 6 boat was filling, and before the officer in charge of it got in, came the midshipman, young Tempest, and when the captain saw him he called him up and hissed out before all the crew:

“Why are you so white? What’s wrong with you, anyway? Is your liver out of order, too?”

True enough, the boy was white, but at the flaming insult the blood rushed to his face and we could see it red in the starlight.  Then in another moment it passed away and left him paler than ever, and he said with a gentle voice, though standing as straight as a ramrod:

“I can’t help the blood in my face, sir. If I’m a coward because I’m pale, perhaps you are right. But I shall do my duty all the same!” and with that he pulled himself up, touched his cap, and went down into the boat.

Old Land’s End was behind me in the boat with him, number five to my six, and he whispered to me through his shut teeth:

“Too rough that! He might have thought a bit that he’s only a child. And he came all the same, even if he was afeer’d!”

We stole away with muffled oars, and dropped silently into the river on the floodtide. If any man had had any doubts as to whether we was in earnest at other times, he had none then, anyhow. It was a pretty grim time, I tell you, for the most of us felt that whether we won or not this time, there would be many empty hammocks that night in the “George Ranger;” but we meant to win even if we went into the maws of the sharks and crocodiles for it. When we came up close on the flood we lost no time but went slap at the fort. At first, of course, we had crawled up the river in silence, and I think that we took the beggars by surprise, for we was there before the time they expected us. Howsomever, they turned out quick enough and there was soon music on both sides of the stockade. We didn’t want to take any chance on the mud-banks this time, so we ran in close under the stockade at once and hooked on. We found that they had repaired the breach we had made the last time. They fought like devils, for they knew that we could beat them hand to hand, if we could once get in, and they sent round the boats to take us on the flank, as they had done each time before. But this time we wasn’t to be drawn away from our attack, and we let our boats outside tackle them, while we minded our own business closer home.

It was a long fight and a bloody one. They was sheltered inside, and they knew that time was with them, for when the tide should have fallen, if we hadn’t got in we should have our old trouble with the mud-banks all over again. But we knew it, too, and we didn’t lose no time. Still, men is only men, after all, and we couldn’t fly up over a stockade out of a boat, and them as did get up was sliced about dreadful, - they are handy workmen with their kreeses, and no doubt! We was so hot on the job we had on hand that we never took no note of time at all, and all at once we found the boat fixed tight under us.

The tide had fallen and left us on the bank under the Red Stockade, and the best half of the boats was cut off from us. We had some thirty men left, and we knew we had to fight whether we liked it or not. It didn’t much matter, anyhow, for we was game to go through with it. The captain, when he seen  the state of things, gave his orders to take the boats out into mid-stream, and shell and shot the fort, whilst we was to do what we could to get in. It was no use trying to bridge over the slobs, for the masts of an old seventy-four wouldn’t have done it. We was in a tight place, then, I can tell you, between two fires, for the guns in the boats couldn’t fire high enough to clear us every time, without going over the fort altogether, and more than one of our own shots did some of us a harm. The cutter came into the game, and began sending the war-rockets from the tubes. The pirates didn’t like that, I tell you, and more betoken, no more did we, for we got as much of them as they did, till the captain saw the harm to us, and bade them cease. But he knew his business, and he kept all the fire of the guns on the one side of the stockade, till he knocked a hole that we could get in by. When this was done, the Malays left the outer wall and went within the fort proper. This gave us some protection, since they couldn’t fire right down on us, and our guns kept the boats away that would have taken us from the riverside.  But it was hot work, and we began dropping away with stray shots, and with the stinkpots and hand-grenades that they kept hurling over the stockade on to us.

So the time came when we found that we must make a dash for the fort, or get picked out, one by one, where we stood. By this time some of our boats was making for the opening, and there seemed less life behind the stockade; some of them was up to some move, and was sheering off to make up some other devilment. Still, they had their guns in the fort, and there was danger to our boats if they tried to cross the opening between the piles. One did, and went down with a hole in her within a minute. So we made a burst inside the stockade, and found ourselves in a narrow place between the two walls of piles. Anyhow, the place was drier, and we felt a relief in getting out of up to our knees in steaming mud. There was no time to lose, and the second lieutenant, Webster by name, told us to try to scale the stockade in front.

It wasn’t high, but it was slimy below and greasy above, and do what we would, we couldn’t get no nigher. A shot from a pistol wiped out the lieutenant, and for a moment we thought we was without a leader. Young Tempest was with us, silent all the time, with his face as white as a ghost, though he done his best, like the rest of us. Suddenly he called out:

“Here, lads! take and throw me in. I’m light enough to do it, and I know that when I’m in you’ll all follow.”

Ne’er a man stirred. Then the lad stamped his foot and called again, and I remember his young, high voice now:

“Seamen to your duty! I command here!”

At the word we all stood at attention, just as if we was at quarters. Then Jack Pring, that we called the Giant, for he was six feet four and as strong as a bullock, spoke out:

“It’s no duty, sir, to fling an officer into hell!” The lad looked at him and nodded.

“Volunteers for dangerous duty!” he called, and every man of the crowd stepped out.

“All right, boys!” says he. “Now take me up and throw me in. We’ll get down that flag, anyhow,” and he pointed to the black flag that the pirates flew on the flagstaff in the fort. Then he took the small flag of the float and put it on his breast, and says he: “This’ll suit better.”

“Won’t I do, sir?” said Jack, and the lad laughed a laugh that rang again.

“Oh, my eye!” says he, has any one got a crane to hoist in the Giant?” The lad told us to catch hold of him, and when Jack hesitated, says he:

“We’ve always been friends, Jack, and I want you to be one of the last to touch me!” So Jack laid hold of him by one side, and Old Land’s End stepped out and took him by the other. The rest of us was, by this time, kicking off our shoes and pulling off our shirts, and getting our knives open in our teeth. The two men gave a great heave together and they sent the boy clean over the top of the stockade. We heard across the river a cheer from our boats, as we began to scramble. There was a pause within the fort for a few seconds, and then we saw the lad swarm up the bamboo flagstaff that swayed under him, and tear down the black flag. He pulled our own flag from his breast and hung it over the top of the post. And he waved his hand and cheered, and the cheer was echoed in thunder across the river. And then a shot fetched him down, and with a wild yell they all went for him, while the cheering from the boats came like a storm.

We never knew quite how we got over that stockade. To this day I can’t even imagine how we done it! But when we leaped down, we saw something lying at the foot of the flagstaff all red, - and the kreeses was red, too! The devils had done their work! But it was their last, for we came at them with our cutlasses, - there was never a sound from the lips of any of us, - and we drove them like a hail-storm beats down standing corn! We didn’t leave a living thing within the Red Stockade that day, and we wouldn’t if there had been a million there!

It was a while before we heard the shouting again, for the boats was coming up the river, now that the fort was ours, and the men had other work for their breath than cheering.

Between us, we made a rare clearance of the pirates’ nest that day. We destroyed every boat on the river, and the two ships that we was looking for, and one other that was careened. We tore down and burned every house, and jetty, and stockade in the place, and there was no quarter for them we caught. Some of them got away by a path they knew through the swamp where we couldn’t follow them. The sun was getting low when we pulled back to the ship. It would have been a merry enough home-coming, despite our losses, - all but for one thing, and that was covered up with a Union Jack in the captain’s own boat. Poor lad! when they lifted him on deck, and the men came round to look at him, his face was pale enough now, and, one and all, we felt that it was to make amends, as the captain stooped over and kissed him on the forehead.

“We’ll bury him to-morrow,” he said, “but in blue water, as becomes a gallant seaman.”

At the dawn, next day, he lay on a grating, sewn in his hammock, with the shot at his feet, and the whole crew was mustered, and the chaplain read the service for the dead. Then he spoke a bit about him, - how he had done his duty, and was an example to all, - and he said how all loved and honored him. Then the men told off for the duty stood ready to slip the grating and let the gallant boy go plunging down to join the other heroes under the sea; but Old Land’s End stepped out and touched his cap to the captain, and asked if he might say a word.

“Say on, my man!” said the captain, and he stood, with his cocked hat in his hand, whilst Old Land’s End spoke:

“Mates! ye’ve heerd what the chaplain said. The boy done his duty, and died like the brave gentleman he was! And we wish he was here now. But, for all that, we can’t be sorry for him, or for what he done, though it cost him his life. I had a lad once of my own, and I hoped for him what I never wanted for myself, - that he would win fame and honor, and become an admiral of the fleet, as others have done before. But, so help me God! I’d rather see him lying under the flag as we see that brave boy lie now, and know why he was there, than I’d see him in his epaulettes on the quarter-deck of the flagship!  He died for his Queen and country, and for the honor of the flag! And what more would you have him do!”

THE SEER

I had just arrived at Cruden Bay on my annual visit, and after a late breakfast was sitting on the low wall which was a continuation of the escarpment of the bridge over the Water of Cruden. Opposite to me, across the road and standing under the only little clump of trees in the place was a tall, gaunt old woman, who kept looking at me intently. As I sat, a little group, consisting of a man and two women, went by. I found my eyes follow them, for it seemed to me after they had passed me that the two women walked together and the man alone in front carrying on his shoulder a little black box-a coffin. I shuddered as I thought, but a moment later I saw all three abreast as they had been. The old woman was now looking at me with eyes that blazed. She came across the road and said to me without preface:

“What saw ye then, that yer e’en looked so awed?” I did not like to tell her so I did not answer. Her great eyes were fixed keenly upon me, seeming to look me through and through. I felt that I grew quite red, whereupon she said, apparently to herself: “I thocht so! Even I did not see that which he saw.”

“How do you mean?” I queried. She answered ambiguously:

“Wait! Ye shall perhaps know before this hour to-morrow!”

Her answer interested me and I tried to get her to say more; but she would not. She moved away with a grand stately movement that seemed to become her great gaunt form.

After dinner whilst I was sitting in front of the hotel, there was a great commotion in the village; much running to and fro of men and women with sad mien. On questioning them I found that a child had been drowned in the little harbour below. Just then a woman and a man, the same that had passed the bridge earlier in the day, ran by with wild looks. One of the bystanders looked after them pityingly as he said:

“Puir souls. It’s a sad home-comin’ for them the nicht.”

“Who are they?” I asked. The man took off his cap reverently as he answered:

“The father and mother of the child that was drowned!” As he spoke I looked round as though someone had called me.

There stood the gaunt woman with a look of triumph on her face.

The curved shore of Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire, is backed by a waste of sandhills in whose hollows seagrass and moss and wild violets, together with the pretty “grass of Parnassus” form a green carpet. The surface of the hills is held together by bent-grass and is eternally shifting as the wind takes the fine sand and drifts it to and fro. All behind is green, from the meadows that mark the southern edge of the bay to the swelling uplands that stretch away and away far in the distance, till the blue mist of the mountains at Braemar sets a kind of barrier. In the centre of the bay the highest point of the land that runs downward to the sea looks like a miniature hill known as the Hawklaw; from this point onward to the extreme south the land runs high with a gentle trend downwards.