was dam’ glad to see it after that dead bore of a voyage—and no dreary haul across the desert in prospect either. The camel journey was a penance I’d endured in the past, but now it was rails all the way from Alex to Suez, by way of Cairo, and what had once taken days of arse-burning discomfort was now a journey of eight hours, thanks to our engineers who’d won the con cession in the teeth of frantic French opposition. They were hellish jealous of their great canal, which was then within a year of com pletion, with gangs of thousands of the unfortunate fellaheen being mercilessly flogged on the last lap, for it was built with slave labour in all but name. [9]
We didn’t linger in Alexandria; Egypt’s the last place you want to carry a cargo of valuables, so I made a quick sortie to the H otel de l’Europe for a bath and a civilised breakfast while the Marine sergeant drummed up the local donkey drivers to carry the boxes to the station, and then we were rattling away, four hours to Cairo, another four on the express to Suez, and before bed-time I’d pre sented myself to the port captain and was dining in the Navy mess. Abyssinia was on every lip, and when it was understood that the celebrated Flashy was bringing Napier his war-chest, [10] it was heave and ho with a vengeance. A steam sloop commanded by a cheerful infant named Ballantyne with a sun-peeled nose and a shock of fair hair bleached almost white by the sun was placed at my disposal, his tars hoisted the strong-boxes aboard and stowed them below, the Jollies were crammed into the tiny focsle, and as the sun came up next morning we were thrashing down the Gulf of Suez to the Red Sea proper, having been in and out of Egypt in twenty-four hours, which is a day longer than you’d care to spend there.
The Suez gulf isn’t more than ten miles across at its narrowest point, and Ballantyne, who was as full of gas and high spirits as a twenty-year-old with an independent command can be, informed me that this was where the Children of Israel had made their famous crossing in the Exodus, “but it’s all balls and Banbury about the sea being parted and Pharaoh’s army being drowned, you know. There are places where you can
His bosun said beggin’ his pardon, sir, but that was blasphemy, and they fell to arguing while the tars grinned and chaffed and my Bootneck sergeant scowled disapproval; he wasn’t used to the free and easy style of these Navy youngsters who couldn’t help bringing their fifth-form ways to sea, and treated their men more like a football team of which they were captain, than a crew. It was natural enough: the young cornet or ensign in the Army, when he joined his regiment for the first time, entered a world of rigid for mality and discipline, but here was this lad just out of his ’teens with a little floating kingdom all his own, sent to fight slavers and pirates, chase smugglers, shepherd pilgrims, and escort the precious bullion on which a whole British army would depend—and not a senior to turn to for advice or guidance, but only his own sense and judgment. Young Ballantyne couldn’t follow orders, because he hadn’t any beyond a roving commission; his crew were all older than he was, but he must live with ’em and mess with ’em, share their hardships and dangers as one of ’em, and make them like and trust him because he was what he was, so that when he said “Go!” they’d obey, even unto death.
I’d never have done for the Navy. You may fool soldiers by holding aloof and looking martial, but Jack would have seen through me before we’d crossed the bar. That’s the hellish thing about life aboard ship—there’s nowhere to hide either your carcase or your nature.
We had a taste of Ballantyne’s the second day out, just after we’d passed the Ras Mohammed point at the foot of Sinai, and the hand in the bows spotted a low, ugly-looking craft with a great lateen sail which sheered away at sight of us, running for a little cluster of islands near the Egyptian shore.
“Slaver, pound to a penny!” yells our young Nelson. “Bosun, clear away the gun. Tomkins, open the arms chest! Sir Harry, I’d be obliged if your fellows would take station two either side, ready to fire if need be. Tally-ho!” And he seized the wheel while his engineer thundered his motor and our little sloop fairly flew over the water. Ballantyne’s dozen tars were diving below deck and emerging with pieces and cutlasses, and I directed my sergeant to place his fellows at the rail as requested, and shocked his military soul by countermanding his order to them to put on their hats and coats. You shoot straighter in shirt-sleeves when there’s an African sun blazing down on you.
But they didn’t get the chance, for the slavers reached a rocky island ahead of us and abandoned ship, taking their human cargo with them. We were still half a mile off and powerless to interfere as a dozen or so white-robed Arabs and upwards of a hundred naked niggers, men, women, and children, were tumbling ashore and up into the rocks; we could hear their squeals and the crack of the courbashes as the slavers lashed them on, the leader of the gang turning to jeer and gesture obscenely as we hove to a pistol-shot off shore. Ballantyne danced with rage and shook his fist.
“You disgusting bastards, I’ll larn you!” yells he, his voice fairly cracking. “Bosun, stand by the gun—no, belay that! Marines, take aim at that son-of-a-bitch—no, dammit, belay that too!” For the slavers’ leader had snatched up one of the infants as a shield, and his rascals followed suit or mingled with the panic-stricken slaves so that we daren’t fire.
“Oh, you cads!” bawls Ballantyne. “Oh, you cowardly rotters! You shan’t escape us! Run her in, bosun! Stand by with your cut lasses, you men! We’ll settle your hash, you beastly black villains! They can’t outrun us with the slaves! Pistols, Tomkins, and load two for me! And two for Sir Harry—and a cutlass! We’ll run ’em to earth in a jiffy, sir, what? Ha-ha!”
He was such a happy little blood-spiller, just bursting to be at the enemy, that I hated to spoil his fun, but I was shot if I was going to be plunged into a cut-and-thrust brawl with those des perate brutes—and I had the perfect excuse for overriding him. I bellowed an order to the engineer to hold on, and cut short Ballantyne’s falsetto protest.
“Sorry, my lad, it’s no go! We’re carrying an army’s treasury, and it ain’t to be risked for a gaggle of slaves!”
“But we can cut ’em up in no time, and rescue the poor souls!” cries he. “We’ve done it before, you know! Bosun’ll tell you—”
“Well, you ain’t doing it today,” says I, and he was hitting Top C until the bosun shook his head and said I was right, beggin’ your pardon, sir, can’t risk the dollars no-how. Ballantyne looked as though he would cry, but made the best of it like a good ’un.
“Quite right, Sir Harry, I wasn’t thinkin’! Forgive me—dam’ thoughtless! I say, though, we can sink the beggars’ boat! That’ll spoil their filthy trade for them! Bosun, man the gun!”
“Wot abaht the slaves, sir?” says bosun. “Them black devils is liable to cut their throats aht o’ spite if we sink her.”
Ballantyne weighed this for a good two seconds, frowning judicially like Buggins Major undecided whether to thrash Juggins Minor or set him a hundred lines of Virgil. Then he snapped: “No. If we don’t scupper ’em those poor creatures will be sold like cattle. They cannot be worse off if they and those fiends are left stranded. And by gum there’ll be one less hell-ship runnin’ black ivory!”
Bosun touched his hat, but pointed out that their six-pounder would take all day to smash the slaver’s timbers. “Then burn the bugger!” cries Ballantyne, and two men were sent in the gig to set her ablaze with bundles of tow. She went up like a November bonfire, while the slavers screamed helplessly from the hillside. Then we stood off, Ballantyne scowling and vowing vengeance.
“It’s too bad!” says he. “The white-livered ruffians always take to the nearest shore, but we’ve chased ’em and brought off the slaves two or three times, ’cos they never make a fight of it, the chicken-hearted scoundrels!” He stared back at the shore and the blazing vessel. “Aye, they’re well up in the rocks, the beasts—and you must be careful, you know. Chum of mine, Jack Legerwood, chased one gang too far, just a couple of months ago. They caught him, made an awful mess of him, poor old chap. Gad, if I could only lay hands on them!”
You know my opinion of heroics, and I’d not break sweat myself to save a parcel of handless niggers being sold into slavery—which is probably no worse than the lives they’ve been living in some desert pesthole, and may well be a blessed change for the females who find a billet in some randy bashaw’s hareem. I mentioned this to Ballantyne, and he blushed crimson and exclaimed: “I say!” A true-blue Arnoldian paladin, he was, pure of heart and full of Christian zeal to cherish the weak and have a grand time cutting up the ungodly.
But I ain’t mocking him, much, and I’ve a sight more use for him and his like than for the psalm-smiting Holy Joes who pay lip-service to delivering the heathen from error’s chain by preaching and giving their ha’pence to the Anti-Slavery Society, but spare never a thought for young Ballantyne holding the sea-lanes for civilisation and Jack Legerwood dying the kind of death you wouldn’t wish for your worst enemy. I’ve even heard ’em maligned like my
