With Cochrane the Dauntless Part 7

Stephen cut off four or five inches of duck from the bottom of each leg of his trousers, and unravelling the thread he and the mate pressed it into the seams as fast as the sewing was completed.

"I think that that will do," the mate said, looking with a satisfied air at the work. "Now, what it wants is a little tallow to rub in; but there is no candle handy."

"When I was on watch, sir, I saw lots of bees flying in and out of the trees. If we could light on a hive the wax would do first-rate."

"So it would, Steve. However, until we can find one I fancy we shall get on well enough. Five minutes' bailing occasionally will keep her dry enough, I am sure, at any rate for river work. Now we have got the big job before us; let us have a try how we can move her."

The nine men put their strength to the boat, but they found that the deep keel buried itself in the sand, and that they could not drag her along.

Then they tried carrying her, the mate, the two boys, and two men on one side, and the other four men on the other. She was a heavy weight, but they could just manage it, and carried her for some twenty yards before they put her down.

"This will never do," the mate said. "We can't use our strength to advantage, else the weight would not be too great for us. Let us go up to the wood, lads, and chop four poles, turn her over, and lay her down on them. In that way I don't think we shall have much difficulty about it."

It took them longer than they expected, for the wood was so tough that their cutla.s.ses produced but little impression upon it. After an hour's hard work, however, they cut four poles, each about twelve feet long. With these they returned to the boat, laid the poles down on the sand at equal distances apart, and turned the boat over upon them; then a man took each end of a pole, the two boys taking one end together, and at a word lifted the boat with comparative ease. It was very hard work under the blazing sun, and they had to stop every hundred yards or so to rest their arms.

Still they were successful, and after three hours' toil they reached the river. The oars had been lost when they landed, and they determined to take the bottom boards out and cut them into paddles. The first thing, however, was to bathe.

"Don't go far out," the mate said, "there may be sharks or alligators in the river for aught we know."

Greatly refreshed by their dip, they took the boards out of the boat, carried them up into the shade of the trees, and with their jack-knives fas.h.i.+oned them into rude paddles, with thin creepers strips of wood tying down the handles to add to their strength. This took them all the afternoon. When the sun had lost its power they put the boat into the water, and made an experimental trip in her, and were glad to see that the seams were almost water-tight, and that it would need but an occasional use of the bailer to keep her clear. They at once paddled across the river to the opposite side, and then pulling the boat up made a rush for the cocoa-nut trees that they had seen the day before.

"How are we to get up?" Joyce inquired, looking with dismay at the smooth trunks.

"I learnt that on the west coast of Africa," the mate replied. "I was there two years and got to know, I think, all there was to know with regard to steering a boat in a surf; climbing a cocoa-nut tree is easy work in comparison. Fetch the head-rope of the boat."

This was done, and he asked who volunteered for the first climb.

"I will try it, Mr. Towel," Joyce said, "if you will show me how."

"Stand by the side of the tree, Joyce. Now I will put this rope round you and round the tree, leaving a certain amount of slack in the loop. Now you get a grip of the tree with your knees. Then with your hands you s.h.i.+ft the loop up as high as you can, and lean against it. Get a sort of purchase, and so s.h.i.+ft your knees a bit higher. No doubt you will feel it awkward at first, but after a little practice you will find no difficulty whatever in going up at a fair rate of speed."

In spite of his experience aloft Joyce found it hard work to climb the tree. As soon as he was at the top he broke off the nuts and dropped them; when he had picked two nuts for each of the party he descended.

"They are not a bit like cocoa-nuts," Stephen remarked as the first came to the ground. "They look more like queer-shaped gourds."

"They do, lad," the mate agreed. "But you see they are not ripe yet, while those we get in England are over-ripe; instead of the inside nut being enveloped in fibre the whole thing is soft, and, you see"-here he suited the action to the word-"you can cut a hole down right through, and then all that you have got to do is to drink the milk."

The men followed the officer's example, and were soon taking long draughts of the sweet, cool liquor, which differs widely indeed from that of the ripe cocoa-nut.

"How is it that the milk is so cool, sir?" Steve asked.

"That is more than I can tell you, for no matter how hot the weather, the milk of fresh cocoa-nuts is always cool; why it should be so I have no idea."

After they had drunk the milk they broke open the nuts and sc.r.a.ped the soft cream-like paste which lined the inside, and which, when the nut ripened, would have become hard and solid.

"You will find them of different degrees of ripeness," the mate said, "Some of them will furnish us with drink, some with food, and as there are trees along here as far as we can see, we need not worry ourselves as to victuals. Well, we have done our work for the day and will make this our camp, and talk over what is the best thing to do next."

After much deliberation it was decided that they should paddle up the river the next day, leaving two of their number at the edge of the forest to keep a look-out for the s.h.i.+p.

"It is as well to see what there is on the river," the mate said. "Of course if we come to a village we shall let ourselves drop down quietly again. And we must keep a sharp look-out as we go; it would never do to let them get a sight of us, for none of the natives of these islands are to be trusted, and I am sure that none of us wish to have our heads used as a decoration in their huts. What I hope to come upon is the site of an abandoned village. These people often s.h.i.+ft their quarters. They have no belongings to speak of to move, and a couple of days' labour is enough for them to put up fresh huts. But in the places they have occupied we are sure to find bananas; and if we can but get a boat-load of them we shall be victualled for a voyage, and after waiting long enough to give the s.h.i.+p a chance of finding us, the sooner we are off the better. Many of these islands are inhabited by tribes that spare no one who falls into their hands, and it would be better to take our chance on the sea than to remain here. There are a good many little Dutch settlements scattered about. What we have got to do is to light upon one of these. There is no mistaking them for native villages, and once we can get a point of departure we shall have no difficulty in laying our course either for Timor or Java.

Stephen, I shall leave you as the junior officer here to-morrow. Wilc.o.x will stay with you. If you see the s.h.i.+p you will light a big fire and throw green leaves on it to make as big a smoke as possible. They would know at once that it was a signal, for the natives would do nothing to attract notice, especially if their intentions were hostile."

"All right, sir! We will keep a sharp look-out. You won't be away many hours, I suppose?"

"Certainly not. We don't want to do any exploring. All we want to do is to look for food, and the most likely food for us to find is a troop of monkeys among the trees overhanging the river. As a rule, I should not like to shoot the beasts. They are too much like human beings. But if we can get a supply of meat it will be welcome, no matter what it may be. Of course we should not shoot many, for a couple of days would be the outside that meat would keep good here."

"But might not firing a gun bring the natives down on you, sir?" Stephen said.

"Oh, we have seen no signs of natives!" the mate said impatiently, "and there mayn't be any within miles and miles of us, probably not nearer than those hills; for I believe it is there that they princ.i.p.ally do what cultivation there is-in the first place, because it is cooler, and in the next place because there are, we know, tremendous swamps in the low land of Sumatra, though whether this is Sumatra or not I cannot say."

The next morning the boat started as soon as a supply of cocoa-nuts, sufficient for the day, had been thrown down, two or three of the sailors adopting the means the mate had taught Joyce, and going up the trees very much more quickly than he had done.

"What do you think of this 'ere business, Master Stephen?" Wilc.o.x said as they watched the boat making its way slowly against the current.

"I don't know, Wilc.o.x, what to think of it."

"I calls it a risky affair," the sailor said after a pause. "Mr. Towel is a good officer, I don't say as he isn't, but I would rather see an older head on his shoulders just at present. It is all very well for him to say as there may be no natives within twenty miles; but how is he to know that? There may be a village just round the turn of the river. All these chaps are pirates when they get a chance, every mother's son of them, and there may be half a dozen war-canoes lying a mile up this river. It would be natural that they should be somewhere near its mouth, ready to start out if a sail is sighted, or news is brought to them that there is a s.h.i.+p anch.o.r.ed off a coast village within a few hours' row. As to firing a gun, in my opinion it is just madness. As he says himself, meat won't keep two days, and it is just flying in the face of Providence to risk attracting the attention of the natives, for the sake of a day's rations of fresh meat.

"It was all very well to bring the boat up here so as to lie out of sight of any canoes that happened to be pa.s.sing along the sh.o.r.e; but I would much rather have left her where she was, though I allows it would have been risky. I would have just chucked the sail over her and covered that with an inch or so of sand, so that it would not have been noticed by a boat a short way out. But if there is a village up here, why, a boat might come down any moment to do some fis.h.i.+ng, and there we should be caught at once; as for getting away with them makes.h.i.+ft paddles, it would not be worth even thinking of. I hope our chaps will come back without having seen a monkey or a village, or as much as a banana, then the mate won't be hankering to go up again; and I should make free to advise him to get the boat up amongst the trees here till we have decided that the s.h.i.+p won't come, and agree to make a start."

"I am with you to some extent, Wilc.o.x, and I do think that it is a risky thing going up the river. If we were to fill up with cocoa-nuts they would last us for a week anyhow, and then when we saw another grove of them we could land and load up again."

"You can't take an observation, I suppose, Mr. Stephen, and find out in a rough way whereabouts we are?"

Steve shook his head. "No, Wilc.o.x. If I had had my quadrant I might have got near enough to have made a rough guess, for I have got that watch I bought in my pocket, and I have timed it every day with the chronometers, and find that it does not gain more than half a minute a day, so that at the present moment it is not much more than a minute out by them, and if I had had the quadrant I could have made a pretty close calculation. We were about a degree and a half south at noon before that cyclone struck us, but I don't see that that would help us now."

"It is a pity, sir," the sailor said, "for it would help us wonderful if we could find out our position within fifty miles or so."

"I wish we could, Wilc.o.x;" and Stephen sat for some time thinking. At last he said, "I might, anyhow, find out in a rough sort of way whether we have been blown north or south. We will see if we can find a perfectly straight stick, ten or twelve feet long. If I fix that upright in sand the shadow would help us. It was the 25th of March yesterday, and the sun at noon would therefore be exactly overhead of the line at twelve o'clock.

Therefore, if we have been blown north, we should get a very short shadow to the south at twelve o'clock; whereas if we have been blown south, there would be a shadow north. It might not be more than an inch long; but even that would tell us something."

They selected a long straight stick, drove it deeply into the sand, walked round it several times so as to a.s.sure themselves that it was perfectly upright, and then returned again to the shelter of the trees. An hour later the sound of a gun came to their ears.

"He has found some of them monkeys," Wilc.o.x growled.

Three more shots were heard. "How far are they off, do you think?" Stephen asked.

"I dunno, sir. If it was on the open sea and calm like this, I should say they might be two or three miles, but in this 'ere forest there ain't no saying at all. I don't reckon they would be above two miles anyhow, that is if the stream is as strong up there as it is here. They were making very slow way against it when they started. I reckon they have been gone about an hour, and they would not have got more than two miles away against this stream. Well, I hope that they will be content now and turn back again."

Half an hour pa.s.sed, then they heard a gun again; it was quickly followed by another and another.

"More monkeys," Wilc.o.x exclaimed in a tone of disgust.

"I hope it is monkeys," Stephen said. "Listen. There are four more shots close together."

The sailor leapt to his feet. "I believe you are right, sir, that cussed firing has brought the natives down upon them. They would not want to keep on firing at the monkeys. We shall hear in a minute if they fire again.

They have all emptied their pieces. If they load quick and fire again it will be a bad sign. There they are!" he broke off as two shots were heard.

"I am afraid that settles it, sir, and settles us too, for if they are attacked there ain't a ghost of a chance of their getting away, and there won't be much more chance of our doing so."

Four more shots were heard, and then all was quiet. "Now, sir, we will be getting pretty deep in among these trees, keeping close to the bank, so that we can look through the bushes without being seen. If the boat comes along all right, there ain't no harm done; if it don't come along after a bit, we shall know what has happened."