Chapter 12

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER TWELVE.

Left alone in the boat, Tom Bodger sat down on one of the thwarts with his wooden pegs stuck straight out before him. Then he brought them close together with a sharp rap and began to rub one over the other gently; but these movements had nothing to do with the thinking, though he more than once told himself that he thought better when he was rubbing his legs together.

As he sat there he naturally enough began to watch the man-o'-war boat with her smart young officer and neat, trim-looking crew, while, continuing his inspection, he ran his eyes over the boat and admired its beautiful lines.

This brought up memories of the time when career and body had both been cut short by that unlucky cannon ball, leaving him a cripple and a pensioner.

"But I dunno," he said to himself, in a way he had of making the best of things, "if I hadn't been hit I might ha' lived on and been drowned, and then there'd ha' been no pension to enj'y as I enj'ys mine; and I don't never have to buy no boots nor shoes, so there arn't much to grumble about, arter all."

So Tom sat rubbing his wooden legs together, watching the sailors in the boat, thinking of how he'd been coxswain of just such a boat as that, and then beginning to feel an intense longing to compare notes with the men left with the middy in charge; but the young officer kept his men in order, and twice over had them busily at work stowing away the vegetables, fresh meat, bacon, and butter that were brought down from time to time and packed well out of the way fore and aft.

Consequently there was no opportunity allowed for him to get up a gossip, the young officer looking fiercely important, and the men making no advance.

"Beautifully clean and smart," said Tom. "Wonder how long Master Aleck'll be."

Then he swept the edge of the pier ten feet above his head in search of inimical boys, letting one hand down by his side to finger his cudgel, and indulging in a chuckle at the skilful way in which he had brought down the young offender a short time before.

"Pretty well scared him away," said Tom to himself; "he won't show himself here again to-day."

But as it happened Tom was wrong, for the boy, after landing in safety, with the water streaming down inside his ragged breeches and escaping at the bottom of the legs when it did not slip out of the holes it encountered on its way, had made his way up the steep cliff and round to the back of the town so as to get up on the moorland, where the sun came down hotly, when he began to drip and dry rapidly.

He could sweep the pier and harbour now easily, looking over the fishing-boats and watching those belonging to the man-o'-war and Aleck Donne, with Tom Bodger sitting with his legs sticking straight out.

And then he called Tom Bodger a very seaside salt and wicked name, in addition to making a vow of what he would do to "sarve him out."

The boy gave another glance round as if in search of coadjutors, but all his comrades had disappeared; so he stood thinking and drying as he turned his thoughts inland, with the result that he had a happy thought, under whose inspiration he set off at a trot round by the back of the little town till he came within view of a group of patches of sandy land roughly fenced in and divided by posts of wreck-wood and rails covered with pitch--rough fragments that had once been boat planks.

He ran a little faster now, and externally did not seem wet, for his hair was cropped so short that no water could find a lodgment, and his worn-old, knitted blue shirt and cloth breeches had ceased to show the moisture they had soaked up.

Once within hearing of the rough fenced-in gardens he put both hands to his mouth and uttered a frightful yell, with the result that a head suddenly shot up from behind one of the fences, and its owner was seen down to the waist, looking as if he were leaning upon an old musket.

But this was only the handle of a hoe, and the holder proved to be Big Jem, occupied in his father's garden, where he had been hoeing and earthing up potatoes in lazy-boy fashion with a chip-chop and a long think, supplemented by a rest at the end of each row to chew tobacco.

A minute later and the boys were lying down side by side, resting upon their elbows and kicking up their heels over their backs, what time the newcomer related what had passed down on the pier, and also what he should like to do.

The narrative seemed to afford Big Jem intense satisfaction, for he uttered a hoarse crowing laugh from time to time and blinked his eyes, squeezing the lids very close and then opening them wide, when sundry signs of black, green and blue bruises became visible.

When the newcomer had finished his narration, Big Jem crowed more hoarsely than ever, and indulged in what looked like an imitation of an expiring fish, for he stretched himself out flat and threw himself over from his face on to his back, beat the ground with his closed legs, and then flopped back again, over and over again, putting ten times the vigour and exertion into his acts that he had bestowed upon the hoeing, and ending by springing up, stooping to secure his hoe, and then tossing it right away to fall and lie hidden in one of the newly-hoed furrows between the potatoes.

"Do, won't it?" cried the new arrival.

"Yes," cried Big Jem, hoarsely. "Sarve 'em both out. Come on!"

No time was lost, the two boys going off at a trot round by the back of the town and aiming for the shore, where by descending a very steep bit of ivy-draped and ragwort-dotted cliff they could get down to a row of black sheds used for fish-drying and the storage of nets, which lay snugly upon a shelf of the cliff.

The place was quite deserted as the boys let themselves slide down a water-formed gully, peered about a bit, and then made for one of several boats moored some fifty yards from the sandy shore.

More or less salt water was nothing to the Rockabie boys, and after a glance along the shore, followed by a sweeping of the pier, which ran out between them and the harbour, they waded a little way out till the water reached their chests, and then began to swim for the outermost boat, into which Big Jem climbed, to hold out a hand, and the next moment his comrade had followed and leaned over, dripping away, to cast loose the rope attached to the buoy, while Big Jem put an oar out over the stern and began to scull.

"Ibney allus leaves one oar in his boat," said Jem, sculling away.

"But we mustn't go yet."

"You hold your mouth," said Big Jem. "I'll show you. You shall see what you shall see. Here, lay hold of the rope and make a hitch round that killick. See?"

The other boy evidently did see, for he knelt down and began to edge a big oval boulder stone from where it lay in company with three more for ballast amidship, worked it right forward into the bows, and then lifted it on to the locker, when he took hold of the boat's painter at the end furthest from the ring-bolt, to which it was secured, and fastened the hempen cord round the boulder with a nautical knot.

By the time this was done and the boy looked round for orders he caught sight of something moving at the shore end of the pier.

"Here comes the sailors back to their boat," he said. "They'll see us."

"Over with the killick, then--easy. Don't splash."

Big Jem drew in his oar, with which he had been making the boat progress by means of a fishtail movement, laid it along the thwarts, and then, as the other boy lifted the stone over the bows into the water, which it kissed without disturbance, it was let go and sank with a wavy movement, sending up a long train of glittering bubbles, running the rope out fast till bottom was reached and the boat swung from its stone anchor.

"Now, then, down with you," said Big Jem, and the next minute the two boys lay in the bottom, each with a great boulder for pillow, quite out of sight, unless their presence had been suspected, when a bit of coarse blue-covered body might have been seen, but then only to be taken for some idle fisher making up for last night's fishing with a nap.

Hence it was that when Tom Bodger swept the pier from where he sat in Aleck's boat lying by the steps in the harbour, he saw nothing but the top of the pier, and his eyes fell again upon the sloop's beautifully clean boat, which he again compared with the one he occupied, with such unfavourable effect to the latter that he muttered to himself a little, took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves over his tattooed arms, and went in for a general clean up.

Tom was as busy as a bee and, to judge from the latter's usually contented hum, just as much satisfied, for his efforts certainly vastly improved the aspect of Aleck's boat; and he was still hard at work swabbing and drying and laying ropes in coils, when a remark from one of the sailors in the adjacent boat made the midshipman spring up out of a doze in the hot sunshine and give the order to "Be smart!"

In other words, to be ready to help their messmates returning with their officer, well laden with fresh stores, which soon after were handed down into the boat and stowed. Then the men took their places again, while the officers took theirs, the order was given to cast off, there was a thrust or two given by the coxswain, and the boat glided from the steps, leaving Tom Bodger watching the movements, smiling, and thinking of the past.

He smiled again as the oars were poised for a minute and then at a word dropped to starboard and larboard with a splash before beginning to dip with rhythmic regularity, the midshipman seizing the lines and steering her for her run outward to the sloop.

"Well," said the midshipman, in a low voice, "what luck?"

"Pretty good," was the reply. "Not all I should like, but I've seen enough to say that we ought to get a dozen smart fellows easily. There's some game or another on I hear from a man I know--a sort of meeting of fellows from along the coast--and Brown picked up a hint or two."

"A meeting, sir?"

"Well, call it what you like. Brown thinks there's a cargo to be run somewhere and that the men are here to make arrangements for getting it inland."

"What, right under our noses?" said the midshipman.

"Of course; that's a far better way than right under our eyes, my lad. Give way, lads. I want to get aboard, Mr Wrighton, to hear what the captain and the lieutenant of the cutter have to say."

The sloop's boat passed out between the two arms of the little harbour before Tom Bodger recommenced his polishing up in Aleck's boat.

"A pretty cutter," he said. "There arn't anything better worth looking at afloat than a man-o'-war's launch or cutter well manned by a smart crew. Makes me wish I'd got my understandings again and was an AB once more. Not as I grumbles--not me. Rockabie arn't amiss, and things has to be as they is. Here, let's get all ship-shape afore Master Aleck comes. Wish I'd got a bit o' sand here to give them ring-bolts a rub or two. I like to see his boat look a bit smart.

"Wonder what them two's come in for--they arn't lying off here for nothing! Some 'un's been sending 'em word there's a cargo going to be run along the shore, and so they've come in for soft tack and wegetables. Haw! haw! haw!" he laughed, as he bent over his work. "It's well I know that game. Fresh wegetables for the cook, a look round to find out what's what, and as soon as it's dark a couple o' well-armed boats to beat up the quarters and a dozen or so o' men pressed. I know. Well, I s'pose it's right; the King must have men to fight his battles. They ought to volunteer; but some on 'em won't. They don't like going until they're obliged, and then they do, and wouldn't come back on no account. Strikes me there's going to be a landing to-night. Some un must ha' let 'em know. Wonder who could do it, for there's a bit o' fun coming off to-night, I lay my legs. Eben Megg wouldn't be here for nothing, and there's half a dozen more hanging about.

"Well," he added, after a pause. "I'm not going to tell tales about either side. Don't know much, and what I do know I'm going to keep to myself. Smuggling arn't right; no more arn't playing spy and informer-- so I stands upon my wooden pegs and looks on. They won't take me. Wouldn't mind, though, if they did. There, that looks quite decent and tidy, that does, and if Master Aleck don't say a word o' praise, why I say it's a shame. Well done; just finished in time. Here you are, then, my lad. Got a load? Why didn't yer let me come and carry it? Hold hard a minute, and I'll fetch it aboard."

For Tom Bodger had heard a step on the pier right above him as he stooped and saw the shadow of him who had made the sound cast right down upon the thwart and flooring of the boat, the maker of the shadow being evidently the bearer of some oblong object, which he carried at arm's length above his head.

Tom was balancing himself upon his wooden legs, and in the attitude of rising from his bent-down position, when he was conscious of a faint sound and an alteration in the shadow cast down, while the next instant there was a tremendous crash. _

Read next: Chapter 13

Read previous: Chapter 11

Table of content of Lost Middy: Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book