I opened my eyes late in the morning of the second clay after landing, and saw Mr Fyall and the excellent Aaron Bang sitting one on each side of my bed. Although weak as a sucking infant, I had a strong persuasion on my mind that all danger was over, and that I was convalescent. I had no feverish symptoms whatsoever, but felt cool and comfortable, with a fine balmy moisture on my skin; as yet, however, I spoke with great difficulty.
Aaron noticed this.
“Don’t exert yourself too much, Tom; take it coolly, man, and thank God that you are now fairly round the corner. Is your head painful?”
“No—why should it?
Mr Fyall smiled, and I put up my hand—it was all I could do, for my limbs appeared loaded with lead at the extremities, and when I touched any part of my frame, with my hand for instance, there was no concurring sensation conveyed by the nerves of the two parts—sometimes I felt as if touched by the hand of another; at others, as if I had touched the person of some one else. When I raised my hand to my forehead, my fingers instinctively moved to take hold of my hair, for I was in no small degree proud of some luxuriant brown curls, which the women used to praise. Alas, and alack-a-day! in place of ringlets, glossy with Macassar oil, I found a cool young tender plantain-leaf bound round my temples.
“What is all this?” said I. “A kale-blade where my hair used to be!”
“How came this kale-blade here,
And how came it here?”
sang friend Bang, laughing, for he had great powers of laughter, and I saw he kept his quizzical face turned towards some object at the head of the bed, which I could not see.
“You may say that, Aaron—where’s my wig, you rogue, eh?”
“Never mind, Tom,” said Fyall, “your hair will soon grow again, won’t it, miss?”
“Miss! miss!” and I screwed my neck round, and lo!—
“Ah, Mary, and are you the Delilah who have shorn my locks—you wicked young female lady, you!”
She smiled and nodded to Aaron, who was a deuced favourite with the ladies, black, brown, and white (I give the pas to the staple of the country— hope no offence), as well as with every one else who ever knew him.
“How dare you, friend Bang, shave and blister my head, you dog?” said I. “You cannibal Indian, you have scalped me; you are a regular Mohawk.”
“Never mind, Tom—never mind, my boy,” said he. “Ay, you may blush, Mary Palma. Cringle there will fight, but he will have ‘Palmam qui meruit ferat’ for his motto yet, take my word for it.”
The sight of my cousin’s lovely face, and the heavenly music of her tongue, made me so forgiving that I could be angry with no one. At this moment a nice-looking elderly man slid into the room as noiselessly as a cat.
“How are you, lieutenant? Why, you are positively gay this morning! Preserve me!—why have you taken off the dressing from your head?”
“Preserve me—you may say that, doctor: why, you seem to have preserved me, and pickled me after a very remarkable fashion, certainly! Why, man, do you intend to make a mummy of me, with all your swathings? Now, what is that crackling on my chest? More plaintain-leaves, as I live!”
“Only another blister, sir.”
“Only another blister—and my feet—Zounds! what have you been doing with my feet? The soles are as tender as if I had been bastinadoed.”
“Only cataplasms, sir; mustard and bird-pepper poultices—nothing more.”
“Mustard and bird-pepper poultices!—and pray, what is that long fiddle-case, supported on two chairs in the piazza?”
“What case?” said the good doctor, and his eye followed mine. “Oh, my gun-case. I am a great sportsman, you must know—but draw down that blind,—Mr Bang, if you please, the breeze is too strong.”
“Gun-case! I would rather have taken it for your game-box, doctor. However, thanks be to heaven, you have not bagged me this bout.”
At this moment I heard a violent scratching and jumping on the roof of the house, and presently a loud croak, and a strong rushing noise, as of a large bird taking flight—”What is that, doctor?”
“The devil,” said he, laughing; “at least your evil genius, lieutenant; it is the carrion crows—the large John Crows, as they are called—flying away. They have been holding a council of war upon you since early dawn, expecting (I may tell you, now you are so well) that it might likely soon turn into a coroner’s inquest.”
“John Crow!—Coroner’s inquest!—Cool shavers those West India chaps, after all!” muttered I; and again and again I lay back and offered up my heart-warm thanks to the Almighty for His great mercy to me a sinner.
My aunt and cousin had been on a visit in the neighbourhood, and overnight Mr Fyall had kindly sent for them to receive my last sigh, for to all appearance I was fast going. Oh, the gratitude of my heart, the tears of joy I wept in my weak blessedness, and the overflowing of heart that I experienced towards that almighty and ever-merciful Being who had spared me, and brought me out of my great sickness, to look round on dear friends, and on the idol of my heart, once more, after all my grievous sufferings! I took Mary’s hand—I could not raise it for lack of strength, or I would have kissed it; but as she leant over me, Fyall came behind her and gently pressed her sweet lips to mine, while the dear girl blushed as red as Aaron Bang’s face. By this my aunt herself had come into the room, and added her warm congratulations; and last, although not least, Timothy Tailtackle made his appearance in the piazza at the window, with a clean, joyful, well-shaven countenance. He grinned, turned his quid, pulled up his trousers, smoothed down his hair with his hand, and gave a sort of half-tipsy shamble, meant for a bow, as he entered the bedroom.
“You have forereached on Davy this time, sir. Heaven be praised for it! He was close aboard of you, howsomdever, sir, once or twice.” Then he bowed round the room again, with a sort of swing or caper, whichever you choose to call it, as if he had been the party obliged.—”Kind folk these, sir,” he continued, in what was meant for sotto voce, and for my ear alone, but it was more like the growling of a mastiff puppy than anything else—”Kind folk, sir—bad as their mountebanking looked the first night, sir. Why, Lord bless your honour, may they make a marine of me, if they han’t set a Bungo to wait on us, Bill and I, that is—and we has grog more than does us good—and grub, my eye!—only think, sir,—Bill and Timothy Tailtackle waited on by a black Bungo!” and he doubled himself up, chuckling and hugging himself, with infinite glee.
“All went now merry as a marriage-bell.” I was carefully conveyed to Kingston, where I rallied under my aunt’s hospitable roof, as rapidly almost as I had sickened, and within a fortnight, all bypast strangeness explained to my superiors, I at length occupied my berth in the Firebrand’s gunroom as third-lieutenant of the ship.
CHAPTER XI.
MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA.
“There be land-rats and water-rats—water-thieves and land-thieves—I mean pirates.”
Merchant of Venice.
THE MALADY, from whose fangs I had just escaped, was at this time making fearful ravages amongst the troops and white inhabitants of Jamaica generally; nor was the squadron exempted from the afflicting visitation, although it suffered in a smaller degree.
I had occasion at this time to visit Up-Park camp, a military post about a mile and a half from Kingston, where two regiments of infantry and a detachment of artillery were stationed.
In the forenoon I walked out in company with an officer, a relation of my own, whom I had gone to visit—enjoying the fresh sea-breeze that whistled past us in half a gale of wind, although the sun was vertical, and shining into the bottom of a pint-pot, as the sailors have it.
The barracks were built on what appeared to me a very dry situation (although I have since heard it alleged that there was a swamp to windward of it, over which the sea-breeze blew, but this I did not see), considerably elevated above the hot sandy plain on which Kingston stands, and sloping gently towards the sea. They were splendid, large, airy, two-storey buildings,
well raised off the ground on brick pillars, so that there was a perfectly free ventilation of air between the surface of the earth and the floor of the first storey, as well as through the whole of the upper rooms. A large balcony, or piazza, ran along the whole of the south front, both above and below, which shaded the brick shell of the house from the sun, and afforded a cool and convenient lounge for the men. The outhouses of all kinds were well thrown back into the rear, so that in front there was nothing to intercept the sea-breeze. The officers’ quarters stood in advance of the men’s barracks, and were, as might be expected, still more comfortable; and in front of all were the field-officers’ houses, the whole of substantial brick and mortar. This superb establishment stood in an extensive lawn, not surpassed in beauty by any nobleman’s park that I had ever seen. It was immediately after the rains when I visited it; the grass was luxuriant and newly cut, and the trees, which grew in detached clumps, were most magnificent. We clambered up into one of them, a large umbrageous wild cotton-tree, which cast a shadow on the ground—the sun being, as already mentioned, right overhead—of thirty paces in diameter; but still it was but a dwarfish plant of its kind, for I have measured others whose gigantic shadows, at the same hour, were upwards of one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, and their trunks, one in particular that overhangs the Spanish Town road, twenty feet through of solid timber; that is, not including the enormous spars that shoot out like buttresses, and end in strong twisted roots, that strike deep into the earth, and form stays, as it were, to the tree in all directions.
Our object, however—publish it not in Askalon—was not so much to admire the charms of nature as to enjoy the luxury of a real Havannah cigar in solitary comfort; and a glorious perch we had selected. The shade was grateful beyond measure. The fresh breeze was rushing, almost roaring, through the leaves and groaning branches, and everything around was green, and fragrant, and cool, and delicious—by comparison that is, for the thermometer would, I daresay, have still vouched for eighty degrees. The branches overhead were alive with a variety of beautiful lizards, and birds of the gayest plumage; amongst others, a score of small chattering green paroquets were hopping close to us, and playing at bopeep from the lower surfaces of the leaves of the wild pine (a sort of Brobdignag parasite, that grows, like the mistletoe, in the clefts of the larger trees), to which they clung, as green and shining as the leaves themselves, and ever and anon popping their little heads and shoulders over to peer at us; while the red-breasted woodpecker kept drumming on every hollow part of the bark, for all the world like old Kelson, the carpenter of the Torch, tapping along the top-sides for the dry rot. All around us the men were lounging about in the shade, and sprawling on the grass in their foraging-caps and light jackets, with an officer here and there lying reading, or sauntering about, bearding Phoebus himself, to watch for a shot at a swallow as it skimmed past; while goats and horses, sheep and cattle, were browsing the fresh grass, or sheltering themselves from the heat beneath the trees. All nature seemed alive and happy—a little drowsy from the heat or so, but that did not much signify—when two carts, each drawn by a mule, and driven by a negro, approached the tree whereon we were perched. A solitary sergeant accompanied them, and they appeared, when a bowshot distant, to be loaded with white deal boxes.
I paid little attention to them until they drove under the tree.
“I say, Snowdrop,” said the noncommissioned officer, “where be them black rascals, them pioneers—where is the fateague party, my Lily-white, who ought to have the trench dug by this time?”
“Dere now,” grumbled the negro, “dere now—easy ting to deal wid white gentleman, but debil cannot satisfy dem worsted sash.” Then aloud—”Me no know, sir—me can’t tell; no for me business to dig hole—I only carry what you fill him up wid;” and the vampire, looking over his shoulder, cast his eye towards his load, and grinned until his white teeth glanced from ear to ear.
“Now,” said the Irish sergeant, “I could brain you, but it is not worth while!”—I question if he could, however, knowing, as I did, the thickness of their skulls.—”Ah, here they come!” and a dozen half-drunken, more than half-naked, bloated, villanous-looking blackamoors, with shovels and pickaxes on their shoulders, came along the road, laughing and singing most lustily. They passed beneath where we sat, and, when about a stone-cast beyond, they all jumped into a trench or pit, which I had not noticed before, about twenty feet long by eight wide. It was already nearly six feet deep, but it seemed they had instructions to sink it further, for they first plied their pickaxes, and then began to shovel out the earth. When they had completed their labour, the sergeant, who had been superintending their operations, returned to where the carts were still standing beneath the tree. One of them had six coffins in it, with the name of the tenant of each, and number of his company, marked in red chalk on the smallest end!
“I say, Snowdrop,” said the sergeant, “how do you come to have only five bodies, when Cucumbershin there has six?”
“To be sure I hab no more as five, and weight enough too. You no see Corporal Bumblechops dere? You knows how big he was.”
“Well, but where is Sergeant Heavystern?—why did you not fetch him away with the others?”
The negro answered doggedly, “Massa Sergeant, you should remember dem no die of consumption—cough you call him—nor fever and ague, nor any ting dat waste dem; for tree day gone—no more—all were mount guard—tout and fat—so, as for Sergeant Heavystern, him left in de dead-house at de hospital.”
“I guessed as much, you dingy thief,” said the sergeant, “but I will break your bones if you don’t give me a sufficing rason why you left him.” And he approached Snowdrop with his cane raised in act to strike.
“Top, massa,” shouted the negro; “me will tell you—Dr Plaget desire dat Heavystern should be leave.”
“Confound Dr Plaget!” and he smote the pioneer across the pate, whereby he broke his stick, although, as I anticipated, without much hurting his man; but the sergeant instantly saw his error, and with the piece of the baton he gave Snowdrop a tap on the shin-bone that set him pirouetting on one leg, with the other in his hand, like a teetotum.
“Why, sir, did you not bring as many as Cucumbershin, sir?”
Because,” screamed Snowdrop in great wrath, now all alive and kicking from the smart—”Because Cucumbershin is loaded wid light infantry, sir, and all of mine are grenadier, Massa Sergeant—dat dem good reason surely!”
“No, it is not, sir; go back and fetch Heavystern immediately, or by the powers but I will—”
“Massa Sergeant, you must be mad—Dr Plaget—you won’t yeerie—but him say, five grenadier—especially wid Corporal Bumblechop for one—is good load—ay, wery tif load—equal to seven tallion company [battalion, I presume], and more better load, great deal, den six light infantry; beside him say, Tell Sergeant Pivot to send you tack at five in de afternoon wid four more coffin, by which time he would have anoder load, and in trute de load was ready prepare in de dead-house before I come away, only dem were not well cold just yet.”
I was mightily shocked at all this, but my chum took it very coolly. He slightly raised one side of his mouth, and, giving a knowing wink with his eye, lighted a fresh cigar, and continued to puff away with all the composure in the world.
At length the forenoon wore away, and the bugles sounded for dinner, when we adjourned to the mess-room. It was a very large and handsome saloon, standing alone in the lawn, and quite detached from all the other buildings, but the curtailed dimensions of the table in the middle of it, and the ominous crowding together of the regimental plate, like a show-table in Rundle and Bridge’s back-shop, gave startling proofs of the ravages of the “pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth at noon-day;” for although the whole regiment was in barracks, there were only nine covers laid, one of which was for me. The lieutenant-colonel, the major, and, I believe, fifteen other officers, had already been gathered to their fathers within four mon
ths from the day on which the regiment landed from the transports. Their warfare was o’er, and they slept well. At the first, when the insidious disease began to creep on apace, and to evince its deadly virulence, all was dismay and anxiety—downright, slavish, unmanly fear, even amongst case-hardened veterans, who had weathered the whole Peninsular war, and finished off with Waterloo. The next week passed over, the mortality increasing, but the dismay decreasing; and so it wore on, until it reached its horrible climax, at the time I speak of, by which period there was absolutely no dread at all. A reckless gaiety had succeeded—not the screwing-up of one’s courage for the nonce, to mount a breach, or to lay an enemy’s frigate aboard, where the substratum of fear is present, although eased over by an energetic exertion of the will; but an unnatural light-heartedness—for which account, ye philosophers, for I cannot—and this, too, amongst men who, although as steel in the field, yet whenever a common cold overtook them in quarters, or a small twinge of rheumatic pain, would, under other circumstances, have caudled and beflanneled themselves, and bored you for your sympathy, at no allowance, as they say.
The major elect—that is, the senior captain—was in the chair; as for the lieutenant-colonel’s vacancy, that was too high an aspiration for any man in the regiment. A stranger of rank and interest and money would of course get that step, for the two deaths in the regimental staff made but one captain a major, as my neighbour on the left hand feelingly remarked. All was fun and joviality; we had a capital dinner, and no allusion whatever, direct or indirect, was made to the prevailing mortal epidemic, until the surgeon came in, about eight o’clock in the evening.