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73 pages

English

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Set sail for classic high seas adventure with this eclectic volume of short stories from William Clark Russell. Ranging from straightforward nautical action in the traditional vein to tales with a terrifying twist of the supernatural, you won't be able to put it down.

Sujets

Adventure

Adventure (Guyana)

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juillet 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776580774
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE HONOUR OF THE FLAG
AND OTHER STORIES
* * *
WILLIAM CLARK RUSSELL

*
The Honour of the Flag And Other Stories First published in 1895 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-077-4 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-078-1 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
The Honour of the Flag Cornered! A Midnight Visitor Plums from a Sailor's Duff The Strange Adventures of a South Seaman The Adventures of Three Sailors The Strange Tragedy of the "White Star" The Ship Seen on the Ice
The Honour of the Flag
*
A THAMES TRAGEDY.
Manifold are the historic interests of the river Thames. There isscarcely a foot of its mud from London Bridge to Gravesend Reach thatis not as "consecrated" as that famous bit of soil which Dr. SamuelJohnson and Mr. Richard Savage knelt and kissed on stepping ashore atGreenwich. One of the historic interests, however, threatens to perishout of the annals. It does not indeed rise to such heroic proportionsas you find in the story of the Dutch invasion of the river, or in oldHackluyt's solemn narrative of the sailing of the expedition organisedby Bristol's noble worthy, Sebastian Cabot; but it is altogether toogood and stirring to merit erasure from the Thames's history books bythe neglect or ignorance of the historian.
It is absolutely true: I pledge my word for that on the authority ofthe records of the Whitechapel County Court.
In the year 1851 there dwelt on the banks of the river Thames aretired tailor, whom I will call John Sloper, out of regard to thefeelings of his posterity, if such there be. This man had for manyyears carried on a flourishing trade in the east end of London. Havinggot together as much money as he might suppose would supply his dailyneeds, he built himself a villa near the pleasant little town ofErith. His house overlooked the water; in front of it sloped aconsiderable piece of garden ground.
Mr. Sloper showed good sense and good taste in building himself alittle home on the banks of the Thames. All day long he was able, ifhe pleased, to entertain himself with the sight of as stirring andstriking a marine picture as is anywhere to be witnessed. He couldhave built himself a house above bridges, where there is no lack ofelegance and river beauty of many sorts; but he chose to command aview of the Thames on its commercial side.
In his day there was more life in the river than there is now. In ourage the great steamer thrusts past and is quickly gone; the tug runsthe sailing-ship to the docks or to her mooring buoys, and there is nolife in the fabric she drags. In Sloper's time steamers were few; thewater of the river teemed with sailing craft of every description;they tacked across from bank to bank as they staggered to theirdestination against the wind.
Sloper, sitting at his open window on a fine day, would be able tocount twenty different types of rigs in almost as many minutes. Thathe took a keen interest in ships, however, I do not assert; that hecould have told you the difference between a brig and a schooner isbarely imaginable. The board on which Sloper had flourished was notshipboard, it had nothing to do with starboard or larboard; he was atailor, not a sailor, and the friends who ran down to see him were ofhis own sort and condition.
Sloper was a widower; how many years he had lived with his wife Ican't say. She died one Easter Monday, and when Sloper took possessionof his new house near Erith he mounted some small cannon on his lawn,and these pieces of artillery he regularly fired every Easter Mondayin celebration of what he called the joyfullest anniversary of hislife. From which it is to be assumed that Sloper and his wife had notlived together very happily. But though the Whitechapel County Courtrecords have been searched and inquiries made in that part of Londonwhere Sloper's shop was situated, it has not been discovered that Mrs.Sloper's end was hastened by her husband's cruelty; that, in short,more happened between them than constant quarrels. Yet it must be saidthat Sloper behaved as though, in truth (as the old adage would putit), his little figure contained no more than the ninth part of asoul, when he mounted his guns and rudely and noisily triumphed overthe dead whom he perhaps might have been afraid of in life, andcoarsely emphasised with blasts of gunpowder his annual joy over hisrelease.
Now in the east end of London, not above twenty minutes' walk fromSloper's old shop, there lived a sailor, named Joseph Westlake. Thisman had served when a boy under Collingwood, had smelt gunpowder atNavarino under Codrington, had been concerned in several dashingcutting-out jobs in the West Indies, and was altogether as hearty andworthy a specimen of an old English sailor of the vanished school asyou could ask to see.
He had been shot in the leg; he carried a great scar over his brow; hewas as full of yarns as a piece of ancient ship's biscuit of weevils;he swore with more oaths than a Dutchman; sneered prodigiously atsteam; and held the meanest opinion of the then existing race ofseamen, who, he said, never could have won the old battles which hadbeen the making of this kingdom, whether under Howe's or gallantJervis's, or the lion-hearted Nelson's flag.
The country had no further need of his services on his being paid offout of his last ship, and he was somewhat at a loss, until happeningto be in the neighbourhood of Wapping, and looking in upon an oldshipmate who kept a public house, he learnt that a lawyer had beenmaking inquiries for him. He called upon that lawyer, and wasastounded to hear that during his absence from England a fortune of£15,000 had been left to him by an aunt in Australia.
Joe Westlake on this took a little house in the Stepney district, andendeavoured to settle down as an east-end gent; but his efforts toride to a shore-going anchor were hopeless. His mind was alwaysroaming. He had followed the sea man and boy for hard upon fiftyyears, and the cry of his heart was still for water—water withoutrum!—water fresh or salt! it mattered not what sort of water it wasso long as it was —water.
So as Joe Westlake found that he couldn't rest ashore he looked abouthim, and, after a while, fell in with and purchased a smart littlecutter, which he re-christened the Tom Bowling , out of admiration ofthe song which no sailor ever sang more sweetly than he. It wasperfectly consistent with his traditions as a man-of-wars man that,having bought his little ship, he should arm her. He equipped her withfour small carronades and a pivoted brass six-pounder on theforecastle. He then went to work to man her, but he did not veryeasily find a crew. Joe was fastidious in his ideas of seamen, andthough some whom he cast his eye upon came very near to his taste, itcost him a great deal of trouble to discover the particular set ofJacks he wanted.
Three at last he found: Peter Plum, Bob Robins, and Tom Tuck. Joe wasadmiral; Plum, coming next, combined a number of grades. He wascaptain, first lieutenant, and boatswain. Robins was the ship'sworking company, and Tom Tuck cooked and was the all-round handy manof the Tom Bowling .
It was Mr. Joe Westlake's intention to live on board his cutter; hefurnished his cabin plainly and comfortably, and laid in a plentifulstock of liquor and tobacco. As he was to cruise under his own flag,and was indeed an admiral on his own account, he conferred with hisfirst lieutenant, Peter Plum, on the question of a colour: whatdescription of flag should he fly at his masthead? They both startedwith the understanding that nothing under a fathom and a half inlength was worth hoisting. After much discussion it was agreed thatthe device should consist of a very small jack in the top corner, andin the middle a crown with a wooden leg under it—the timber toe beingin both Westlake's and Plum's opinion the most pregnant symbol ofBritannia's greatness that the imagination could devise.
Within a few months of his landing from the frigate out of which hehad been paid, Mr. Joseph Westlake was again afloat, but now in asmart little vessel of his own. She had been newly sheathed withcopper, and when she heeled over from the breeze as she stretchedthrough the winding reaches of the river the metal shone like goldabove the wool-white line of foam through which the cutter washed, andlazy men in barges would turn their heads to admire her, andred-capped cooks in the cabooses of "ratching" colliers would step tothe rail to look, and sometimes a party of gay and gallant Cockneys,male and female, taking their pleasure in a wherry, would salute thepassing Tom Bowling with a flourish of hands and pockethandkerchiefs.
Never had old Joe been so happy in all his life. Of a night he'd bringup in some secure nook, and after having seen everything all safe,he'd go below with Peter Plum, and in the cosy interior of the littlecabin, whose atmosphere was rendered speedily fragrant with theperfume of rum punch, which Joe, whilst in the West Indies, had learntthe art of brewing to perfection, the two sailors would sit smokingtheir yards of pipe-clay whilst they discoursed on the past, oneincident recalling another, one briny recollection prompting an evensalter memory, until their eyes grew moist and their vision dim intheir balls of sight; whereupon they would turn in and make the littleship vocal with their noses.
It happened, according to the usual methods of time, that an EasterMonday came round, which,