THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF RUDYARD KIPLING: 440+ Tales in One Edition. Rudyard Kipling

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СКАЧАТЬ "Oh, ah yes, of course. Juddy, there's a shoal of mullet in the bay, and I think they're foul of your screws. Better go down, or they'll carry away something."

      "I don't let things carry away as a rule. You see I've no Torpedo Lieutenant on board, thank God!"

      Keate within the past week had so managed to bungle the slinging in of a small torpedo-boat on the "Vortigern", that the boat had broken the crutches in which she rested, and was herself being repaired in the dockyard under the Club windows.

      "One for you, Keate. Never mind, Juddy; you're hereby appointed dockyard-tender for the next three years, and if you're very good and there's no sea on, you shall take me round the harbour. Waitabeechee, Commodore. What'll you take? Vanderhum for the 'Cook and the captain bold, And the mate o' the Nancy brig, And the bo'sun tight' (Juddy, put that cue down or I'll put you under arrest for insulting the lieutenant of the real ship) 'And the midshipmite, And the crew of the captain's gig."

      By this time Judson had pinned him in a corner, and was prodding him with the half-butt. The Admiral's Secretary entered, and saw the scuffle from afar.

      "Ouch! Juddy, I apologise. Take that—er topmast of yours away! Here's the man with the bow-string. I wish I were a staff-captain instead of a bloody lootenant. Sperril sleeps below every night. That's what makes Sperril tumble home from the waist uppards. Sperril, I defy you to touch me. I'm under orders for Zanzibar. Probably I shall annex it!"

      "Judson, the Admiral wants to see you!" said the Staff-Captain, disregarding the scoffer of the "Mongoose".

      "I told you you'd be a dockyard-tender yet, Juddy. A side of fresh beef to-morrow and three dozen snapper on ice. On ice, you understand, Juddy?"

      Bai-Jove-Judson and the Staff-Captain went out together.

      "Now, what does the Admiral want with Judson?" said Keate from the bar.

      "Don't know. Juddy's a damned good fellow, though. I wish to goodness he was on the Mongoose with us."

      The Lieutenant of the "Mongoose" dropped into a chair and read the mail papers for an hour. Then he saw Bai-Jove-Judson in the street and shouted to him. Judson's eyes were very bright, and his figure was held very straight, and he moved joyously. Except for the Lieutenant of the "Mongoose", the Club was empty.

      "Juddy, there will be a beautiful row," said that young man when he had heard the news delivered in an undertone. "You'll probably have to fight, and yet I can't see what the Admiral's thinking of to—"

      "My orders are not to fight under any circumstances," said Judson.

      "Go-look-see? That all? When do you go?"

      "To-night if I can. I must go down and see about things. I say, I may want a few men for the day."

      "Anything on the 'Mongoose' is at your service. There's my gig come in now. I know that coast, dead, drunk, or asleep, and you'll need all the knowledge you can get. If it had only been us two together! Come over with me!"

      For one whole hour Judson remained closeted in the stern cabin of the "Mongoose", listening, poring over chart upon chart and taking notes, and for an hour the marine at the door heard nothing but things like these: "Now you'll have to put in here if there's any sea on. That current is ridiculously under-estimated, and it sets west at this season of the year, remember. Their boats never come south of this, see? So it's no good looking out for them." And so on and so forth, while Judson lay at length on the locker by the three-pounder, and smoked and absorbed it all.

      Next morning there was no flat-iron in Simon's Bay, only a little smudge of smoke off Cape Hangklip to show that Mr. Davies, the second-class engine-room artificer, was giving her all she could carry. At the Admiral's house, the ancient and retired bo'sun, who had seen many Admirals come and go, brought out his paint and brushes and gave a new coat of pure raw pea-green to the two big cannon-balls that stood one on each side of the Admiral's entrance-gate. He felt dimly that great events were stirring.

      And the flat-iron, constructed, as has been before said, solely for the defense of rivers, met the great roll off Cape Agulhas and was swept from end to end and sat upon her twin-screws and leaped as gracefully as a cow in a bog from one sea to another, till Mr. Davies began to fear for the safety of his engines, and the Kroo boys that made the majority of the crew were deathly sick. She ran along a very badly-lighted coast, past bays that were no bays, where ugly flat-topped rocks lay almost level with the water, and very many extraordinary things happened that have nothing to do with the story, but they were all duly logged by Bai-Jove-Judson.

      At last the coast changed and grew green and low and exceedingly muddy, and there were broad rivers whose bars were little islands standing three or four miles out at sea, and Bai-Jove-Judson hugged the shore more closely than ever, remembering what the Lieutenant of the "Mongoose" had told him. Then he found a river full of the smell of fever and mud, with green stuff growing far into its waters, and a current that made the flatiron gasp and grunt.

      "We will turn up here," said Bai-Jove-Judson, and they turned up accordingly; Mr. Davies wondering what in the world it all meant, and the Kroo boys grinning. Bai-Jove-Judson went forward to the bows and meditated, staring through the muddy waters. After six hours of rooting through this desolation at an average rate of five miles an hour, his eyes were cheered by the sight of one white buoy in the coffee-hued mid-stream. The flat-iron crept up to it cautiously, and a leadsman took soundings all around it from a dinghy, while Bai-Jove-Judson smoked and thought, with his head on one side.

      "About seven feet, isn't there?" said he. "That must be the tail end of the shoal. There's four fathom in the fairway. Knock that buoy down with axes. I don't think it's picturesque somehow." The Kroo men hacked the wooden sides to pieces in three minutes, and the mooring-chain sank with the lasst splinters of wood. Bai-Jove Judson laid the flat-iron carefully over the site, while Mr. Davies watched, biting his nails nervously.

      "Can you back her against this current?" said Bai-Jove-Judson. Mr. Davies could, inch by inch, but only inch by inch, and Bai-Jove-Judson sat in the bows and gazed at various things on the bank as they came into line or opened out. The flatiron dropped down over the tail of the shoal, exactly where the buoy had been, and backed once before Bai-Jove-Judson was satisfied. Then they went up stream for half an hour, put into shoal water by the bank and waited, with a slip-rope on the anchor.

      "Seems to me," said Mr. Davies deferentially, "like as if I heard some one a-firing off at intervals, so to say."

      There was beyond doubt a dull mutter in the air. "Seems to me," said Bai-Jove-Judson, "as if I heard a screw. Stand by to slip her moorings."

      Another ten minutes passed and the beat of engines grew plainer. Then round the bend of the river came a remarkably prettily built white-painted gunboat with a blue and white flag bearing a red boss in the centre.

      "Unshackle abaft the windlass! Stream both buoys! Easy, astern. Let go, all!" The slip-rope flew out, the two buoys bobbed in the water to mark where anchor and cable had been left, and the flat-iron waddled out into midstream with the white ensign at her one mast-head.

      "Give her all you can. That thing has the legs of us," said Judson. "And down we go!"

      "It's war—bloody war. He's going to fire," said Mr. Davies, looking up through the engine-room hatch.

      The white gunboat without a word of explanation fired three guns at the flat-iron, cutting the trees on the banks into green chips. Bai-Jove-Judson was at the wheel, and Mr. Davies and the current helped the boat to an almost respectable degree of speed.

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