Kitabı oku: «Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon», sayfa 12
Chapter Eighteen.
My Patient in the River Police
“Don’t you find it very dreary at night upon the river?” I said to one of my regular patients – a river policeman – who preferred my services to those of the divisional surgeon for a long bout of sciatica.
“Just like the old woman’s eels, sir, and the skinning: one gets used to it. It’s lonesome like of a night upwards; but there you have the lights on the bridges and there’s gas here and gas there; and a faint roar comes over the housetops from out of the streets. It’s when you’re below bridge that it seems dull; where the big vessels are moored in the black muddy stream, that goes hurrying by them with a low, rushing noise – creeping and leaping at their slimy sides, covering their anchor chains, or the buoy to which they swing, with all sorts of muddy refuse; and sometimes of a night there’ll be a body get hanging on somehow, ready for us to find and take ashore.
“Now, if I give you a bit of tight chain going from a ship’s bows to an anchor down in the mud, on one side; and if I give you a dead body floating along on the other side, you’d think directly as there’d be no chance of the one stopping by the other – you’d think as one would float down all slimy and horrible, touch against t’other, and then rising, it would ride far enough out to sea. But, Lor’ bless you, that’s where you’re wrong; for how it is I can’t tell you, but it always seems to me, and has seemed ever since I was in the river police, that dead bodies lash and hang themselves somehow against mooring chains, on purpose that they might be found, and get a decent burial. Else how could they stop as they do, over and over again? I can’t tell, nor you can’t tell, nor nobody can’t tell; it’s a nat’ral mystery, and mysteries is things as gets over all of us.
“Since I was nearly being found myself, hitched on to a mooring chain – for I’ll lay any money that if I had been bested I should have gone quite naturally all the same to where I’d seen so many before – I’ve got to take a little more than a business interest in such things. It’s very awful, you know; and though I’m an ignorant man, it often sets me thinking on the dark nights when our galley’s going slowly with the stream, floating along the black, rushing river – yes, it often sets me thinking about the state of affairs in our great city, and wondering whether all our great civilisation’s so good after all, when it brings down stream to-night a decently-dressed body with the pockets inside out, and marks as of blows on the swollen face; to-morrow night a well-dressed body with no marks, and money and watch and all there; next night the body of a young woman with an oldish face, but on that face a weary, despairing look, that seems to say there was no rest anywhere but in the river, and into the river she had come; next night, again, perhaps another well-dressed body, most likely with a bit of paper and a half washed-out address pinned inside the torn dress bosom – and this one, perhaps, would be young, and fair, and pale, and sometimes not at all horrible to look at.
“There, I’ve seen great, strong, rough men, used to all sorts of things, stand with their hats off by such sights, and speak in even choky voices, as if they could hardly keep back something that they would be ashamed for others to see, down by some river stairs, where the muddy tide has gone ‘lap, lap,’ at one, two, or three o’clock in the morning. Why, at such times I’ve often felt creepy myself; for people may say what they like, but you never do get used to death, and whenever you meet it you feel a strange sense of quietness stealing over you; and one of the first things generally done when we land a body is, old or young, to cover it with sheet or sack; and even then there’s a horrible sort of drawing of you in it; and I’ve sat before now watching, and unable to get away from the uncouth covered thing, with the stream of water trickling slowly away to get back to the river.
“But, there, I think you’ve had enough about what goes floating down the river and floating up the the river, backwards and forwards, with the tide grinding it against wharf, and pier, and buttress, till there’s no telling who or what it was. I dare say you’ve had enough; but it’s a thing I could go on talking about for hours – beginning with me, or one of my mates, or a River Jack finding of them, and then going on, through the giving notice, and the inquest, and all the rest of it; and it’s all going on day after day, month after month, year after year. Talk of the River Jacks, though, what a singular thing it is: they never by any chance find a body with any valuables about it; but always, when they come across it, watch, money, pins, brooches, they’re all gone; and when, quite serious-like, I’ve asked them how they can account for it, I’ve always got the same answer – a knowing wink of the left eye.
“Ours is a strange sort of life, and lots hardly know of our existence; but, bless you, there’d soon be some rum goings-on if our little row galleys were not always busy at work up and down the river. You take plenty of precautions on shore, don’t you, where there’s wealth? Well, don’t you think there’s as much need afloat, where there’s millions of pounds’ worth of stuff almost at the mercy of the thief? For though sailors are pretty good at keeping watch out at sea, get ’em in port, and watching with them means choosing the softest plank under the bulwarks, and having a good caulk. So that’s where we come in useful – working along with the Custom House officers to keep down the plundering and smuggling that, but for us, would be carried on to an awful extent. For, you see, there are gangs who make it a practice to work with lightermen and with sailors; and sometimes by night, sometimes in open day – they carry off prizes that are pretty valuable.
“River pirates you may call them, though they’ve got half a score of cant names, and tea chests, bags of rice or sugar, kegs of spirits, rolls of tobacco, all’s fish that comes to their net; and if they can’t get things of that sort, why they’ll go in for bits of sails, ropes and chains, or blocks, anything even to a sheet of copper or a seaman’s kit – once they get their claws into it, there’s not much chance of its being seen again.
“It used to be ten times worse than it is now, and in those days there was a fellow whom I’ll call River Jack, who was about the most daring and successful rascal that ever breathed. We knew his games, but we could never catch him in the fact; and at last of all I got so riled at the fault found with us, as robbery after robbery took place, that one night, after a row about a ship’s bell stolen off the deck of a large Swedish corn barque, I made up my mind that I’d never let things rest till I’d caught Mr River Jack at some one or other of his games, and had him sent out of the country.
“Now, talking was one thing and doing another, and just at that time I’d been making arrangements for putting a stop to my activity by hanging a weight round my neck. I needn’t mention any names, but there was a young lady there – my wife now – that I used to go and see, and as soon as ever it came to my time for going off to duty there used to be a scene, for she got it into her head that I should be sure to meet with some terrible accident on the river; and at last, from being rather soft after her, what with the talk and tears, I used to be in anything but a good trim for my spell.
“‘There, don’t be such a chicken,’ I used to say, when she’d laid her little head on my shoulder, and been talking a whole lot of unreasonable nonsense; but it was of no use to talk, she would be a chicken; and one night I went away, feeling as if I had caught the infection, for I never felt more chicken-hearted in my life.
“An hour after I was on the river, with three more, pulling very gently along in and out amongst the shadows of the great ships. But whether we were in the shadow or out, it did not make much difference, for a darker night I never saw, and one and all we came to the conclusion that if we were lucky, there must be something for us to do; for that some of River Jack’s gang would be at work we were one and all sure. You see, it was just the sort of night they would like; for looking out was no use, since we could see nothing four yards ahead; all we could do was to wait in the hope that our friends might come near us – and come they did.
“We had been paddling gently about for a couple of hours, and at last had pulled under the stern of a great vessel that had come up the river that evening, but had been too late to get into dock. She was fresh over from the East Indies; and besides saltpetre, and tea, and cochineal, she had on board a large freight of odds and ends – curiosities and such-like. Of course we did not know this then; but a big vessel like she was seemed very likely to prove a bait to the river pirates, and there we lay holding on to the rudder chains.
“‘I wish I was a-bed,’ says Jack Murray, one of the men under me that night.
“‘I wish I was over a pipe and a glass of grog,’ says Tom Grey, who was another.
“And then we sat still again, knowing that we should be sure to hear of something wrong in the morning, and knowing, too, that even if there was some game carried on within a dozen yards of us we should not hear it.
“We were in luck, though, this night, for a minute after there was a soft plash heard above the rushing of the river, something dark passed over where a miserable glim of a lamp was shining. Then there was a faint low whistle from over our heads, another from out of the black darkness where we heard the plash, and then a boat brushed close by us; there was the sound as of something being lowered down, and before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’ we’d grappled that boat, and the man in it; slipped on the handcuffs, and got him fast, with a bale of silk handkerchiefs in his boat; and in a few minutes we’d got a couple of the sailors as well.
“You may guess my surprise and delight when I took a look at our prisoner with a lantern, to find that it was River Jack himself; and, to make a long story short, he was convicted and sentenced to ten years’ transportation.
“‘But I’ll be back before that, Tom Johnson,’ he shouts to me as soon as he had got his sentence; ‘and when I do come – look out.’
“He was hurried out of court before he could say any more; but those words somehow, for a time, sunk into my memory, and worried me a deal, till I got married, and then I forgot them.
“Well, my married life was just the same as any other man’s married life, except that my wife always had such a dislike to my way of business. Twenty times over she would have had me leave it for something else; but, as I said to her, ‘a bird in the hand’s worth two in the bush, ’specially if the one’s bread and cheese and the other ain’t.’ For, you know, what was the good of me giving up the certain sure for the certain chance?
“‘But I do have such horrible dreams about you,’ she says.
“‘Dreams never come true,’ says I.
“‘Oh, yes, they do,’ she says. ‘My aunt once dreamt that they were going to have the bailiffs in; only a month after, in they came.’
“‘Well, I don’t mind believing that,’ says I, ‘for it’s a very likely thing to happen to any of us.’
“‘But I’m always dreaming you’re being drowned,’ she says.
“‘Well, then don’t dream so any more,’ I says huffishly, for I was in a hurry to be off.
“And I ask you, just as a fair question, is it pleasant, if your duty takes you on the water all day or all night, as the case may be, to have the wife of your bosom always dreaming that you are brought home drowned?
“I got to be obstinate at last, for it was all nonsense to think of giving up a decent position on chance; so the more my wife dreamed about me being drowned, the more I came home at regular times, sound as a roach, and dry as a bone, except in wet weather. Matters went on as usual; chaps were caught stealing or smuggling, and they were imprisoned or fined; and all this time I’d forgotten about River Jack, till one evening, when, from information I’d received, I had myself rowed, as soon as it was dark, on to one of half a score of lighters moored off the Surrey shore, and loaded with the freight they had been taking out of a full-rigged ship, just about a hundred yards ahead. For, you see, some owners won’t go to the expense of having their vessel in dock, but have it unladen where she lies. I had had a hint or two that there was likely to be something on the way; but as it was a light night, I knew very well that if our boat lay anywhere on the watch, the consequence would be that the plundering party would never come near.
“Well, I had myself rowed there, crept on to one lighter quietly, loosened an end of a tarpaulin, got underneath, and made myself snug as possible, giving my men orders to lay off behind a brig two hundred yards away, ready to come up to my help when they heard me whistle. Then, in a moment or two, I heard the oars dip, growing fainter and fainter each moment, till all was still but the sighing of the wind, and the lapping, rushing noise of the tide running down hard.
“What an easy thing it is to plan out anything on paper, or in your own head, and what a different affair it turns out when you work it out in practice! Here was I lying snug in hiding, and all I’d got to do was to wait patiently till anybody came to plunder the lighters, then jump up, staff or pistol in hand, and arrest the lot; whistle, when our galley would come up; the men be transferred into the boat; taken to the station; and praise and promotion for me would most likely follow.
“That’s how it was on paper; this is how it turned out in practice.
“I’d lain there for quite half an hour, in not the most comfortable of positions, when, growing tired, I took a glance out through a hole I slit with my knife in the tarpaulin; but all was still – nothing to be heard but the rushing of the river past the great barge, and I lay back once more, wondering whether the enemy would come, and, if they did come, how long they would be first.
“I don’t think I’m more of a coward than most men, but somehow just about then I began to wish that I had made a couple of our fellows stay with me; then I wished that it was morning; and then, as I turned cold and shivering, I began to think about that dream of my wife’s; and from being cold I now grew hot and wet with perspiration, so that I was thinking of lifting the tarpaulin a little, when I stopped the idea, for I heard all at once a sharp, scratching noise.
“‘Bats,’ I said to myself; and I began to think of the amount of mischief the little wretches do on shipboard, getting carried out, too, in the bales to the lighters, and from them into warehouse and bonded store.
“Then came the scratching again, and a slight rustling; and I uttered a loud, sharp hiss to drive them away; for, shut up as I was, I did not much like the idea of being nibbled by rats.
“That hiss did it; for it was all that some one wanted to know. My whereabouts was nearly guessed at: that showed it exactly.
“The rats seemed to have gone, and I was peering about in the darkness, when there came another faint rustling noise, and then —crash– it was as though half a dozen bales of cotton had been thrown upon me. I was nearly suffocated; but I had sense enough to know that several men had thrown themselves upon the tarpaulin; that my enemies had been too much for me, and had been lying in hiding beneath the coverings when I came, and had now taken me at a disadvantage.
“The thoughts ran rapidly through my brain, and I struggled hard to get myself sufficiently at liberty to blow my whistle, when a voice that I seemed to know whispered —
“‘Lie still, or we’ll drive a knife through to you.’
“Struggling was, I knew, useless then; so I prepared myself for an effort when opportunity offered. But they were too much for me. As the tarpaulin was raised, three men crept under; a lot of oakum was thrust into my mouth; my whistle taken away; the handcuffs in my pocket, ready unlocked, thrust upon my own wrists; and, with many a warning growl, I was rolled off the lighter side into a boat that I had supposed to belong to one of the barges.
“‘Now, Jack, you and Dick take him off,’ was whispered; and I thought I caught the word ‘Erith.’
“‘They’ll lay me in one of the reed-beds, bound hand and foot,’ I thought; ‘and the others will help clear this lighter the while.’
“I was so excited that I made a bit of a struggle, but only to have the end of an oar brought down heavily across my forehead; and the next moment some one leaned over me, and for a few seconds the glaring light of a bull’s-eye rested upon my face.
“The next minute my blood ran cold; for there was a low laugh at my ear, and a voice I seemed to know said —
“‘Every dog has its day, my lad. It’s my turn now!’
“I wanted no telling – I could understand all plainly enough. River Jack had come back, and he meant to have his revenge.
“But what would he do? He would not mur —
“Pooh! nonsense! his companions would interfere. But there was only one here, and they were softly but swiftly rowing me down with the tide. If they would land me at Erith! They said so; but then this scoundrel had not known me, and now that we had openly recognised one another, he could not afford to have me as a witness to his having returned before his time.
“Was my wife’s dream coming true? I shuddered from head to foot as I heard the washing of the water beneath the boat’s keel; and then I thought of the bodies I had seen brought out, and the mooring chains; and then it seemed to me that I was to be as I had seen others, and a horrible sweat of terror broke out on me. But just then my attention was taken up by a low muttering between the men, and Hope whispered that one of them was opposing the other’s plans. Whatever was said, though, silence followed, and they rowed on swiftly for what must have been a quarter of an hour, though to me it seemed an age, when, before I could do more than utter an inarticulate roar of despair, I was lifted quickly to the boat’s gunwale, and in another moment I was beneath the cold, rushing water.
“A struggle or two brought me to the surface again, and I made an effort with my fastened hands to reach the boat; but, with brutal indifference, Jack placed the blade of his scull against my chest, and thrust me under; and when I again rose, it was out of sight of those who had thrown me in.
“Even in that time of agony, with the water burning and strangling in my nostrils, and thundering in my ears, I could think of the plunder the scoundrels would get; of how my men would stay waiting for my whistle; of my wife’s dream; and lastly, of the finding of my handcuffed body, floating up and down with the tide. The papers would call it a mysterious murder, for I was sure to be found; but that River Jack would have it brought home to him was not likely.
“I could do but little; every struggle seemed to send me lower; I tried to float, but in vain; and the water whirled me round and round, drove me against vessel sides that I could not clutch, past lights that I could not hail, and I was fast lapsing into insensibility, when I struck something hard, raised my arms over it, and clung there with my nostrils above water – learning the secret of how bodies could hang to a mooring chain.
“At the end of a fortnight’s fever, I learned how that I had been found soon after by another of our galleys, clinging to the mooring chain of a great vessel; but it was for some time a question of doubt whether our men had found a body with or without life.
“That’s many years ago now, and such deeds have happily grown rare; though you don’t know of all that goes on down the river. I’m in the force still, and mean to stay; for River Jack was taken, and report says he was shot by a sentry while attempting to escape, out in one of the penal settlements.”
Chapter Nineteen.
My Patient the Emigrant
Talking of penal settlements naturally suggests settlements that are not penal, where our most enterprising unsuccessful men go to seek the home and prosperity that they have not been able to discover here. One such man as this was Samson Harris, who, after twenty years of Australian life, returned home with a comfortable competency for a man of his class. He was no millionaire, but he had made enough to live upon to the end of his days, and then leave enough for his children.
I attended his family, the little that they needed of medical aid, and finding him a thoroughly well-informed man, full of general knowledge, a certain amount of intimacy ensued, and he at various times told me so much of his life out at the Antipodes, that I was pretty well able to picture it from beginning to end.
He gave me one very vivid account of an incident in his career which I have endeavoured to reproduce.
From his description of his home, it might have been in one of the midland counties, the scene was so calm and peaceful. The roughly-built cottage, with its familiar English objects here and there – the loudly-ticking clock, the cleanly-scrubbed three-legged table; the big old family Bible; the cage of white wicker, with its ragged-tailed thrush hopping from perch to perch; and I picture to myself Samson Harris seated there upon a stool in the midst of the humble room, before a tin bucket of water, Englishman written boldly in the lines of his rugged, ruddy, sun-tanned face, as he bent to his task of washing out the barrel of his rifle – a necessity for protection in those early settling days – making the water play up like a fountain from the nipple, to the great delight of two rosy children who were looking on.
It might have been here, in one of the midland counties, but there was something about the brightness of the afternoon sun which streamed in at the open door, the blueness of the sky, the clearness of the atmosphere, and the scenery around, that was not English. The flowers that clustered about the door and nodded round the rough window-frame, and the objects that peeped here and there from some corner, too, told of a foreign land; while the huge pines that shot up arrow-like towards the sky were such as could be seen nowhere but in Australia.
“The poor brutes have been calling you, lass, for the last half-hour,” said he, looking up as a tall, fair-haired girl entered the room where he was busy, milking-pail in hand, and stood to watch the task with as much interest as the children.
“They shan’t wait any longer, father,” said the girl; and she passed slowly through the door, humming a cheery old country ditty, and was gone.
The barrel was taken from the water, and wiped out; and then Harris set to work oiling the lock.
“Hallo, what are you back for?” he exclaimed as a roughly-dressed, heavy-faced man came up to the hut-door at a trot, his forehead streaming with perspiration, which had marked its course in lighter lines through his dust-grimed face. Directly behind him came, at an easy, loping swing, a tall, thin, fleshless-looking native, whose black skin shone as he came into the hut after his companion.
“Blacks out,” panted the heavy-faced man, seizing the door as if to shut it, at the same time examining the cap upon the rifle he carried – “Blacks out, master.”
“Blacks out, Tom?” said Samson; “blacks out? ’Pon my word, I never saw such a coward in my life. Now what in the world were you lagged for that your conscience must make you see a nigger in his paint behind every tree, or peeping up above the scrub? Blacks! Poor, inoffensive beggars. Why, you had your rifle, hadn’t you, ready to scare off a hundred? This makes six times you’ve run home to cry wolf. And you’ve left those sheep to take care of themselves,” he continued, forcing the ramrod into its place as he rose as if to leave the hut.
“’Tain’t wolf this time, master; ’tain’t, indeed,” cried the man earnestly; and then, seeing Harris’s smile of incredulity, he relapsed into a look of sullen injury, and stood leaning upon his rifle-barrel.
“Here, come along,” said Samson.
“Load up first, master,” said Tom. “’Tis true, indeed,” he exclaimed, once more seeking to obtain credence for his story. “I saw scores. Ask Teddy here.”
Now Teddy – or, as he was known in his tribe, Bidgeebidgee – stood spear in hand, showing his white teeth, and apparently listening intently, from the way in which his nostrils expanded and twitched. That something was amiss was evident, for, leaning his spear against the wall, he now took off the ragged blue shirt he wore, unfastened his girdle, and set free a formidable-looking waddy, or club, before throwing himself flat upon the ground to listen.
Samson paused, startled, and though uncharged, he involuntarily cocked his piece as Teddy, the black shepherd, leaped up and exclaimed —
“Black fellows all a-coming – one – two – ten hundred.”
The next instant he threw himself into an attitude of attack, poising his spear for hurling at the first who should cross the threshold.
“Get out,” exclaimed Samson, recovering himself; “here have I lived now two years and only seen a party or two of the poor wretches begging, and – ”
“But they burned Riley’s hut, and butchered his wife and children,” said Tom, earnestly.
“Don’t believe it,” said Samson, sturdily, “only a bugbear made up by some of them pioneering chaps to frighten new-comers from going up country and taking claims, so that they may have best choice themselves.”
“Wallace’s boy’s head was battered in,” said Tom.
“Gammon,” said Samson, who, however, could not help looking uneasily towards the black.
“Then there was Ellis’s poor gal; you know how they served her.”
“Hold your tongue, will you?” growled Samson; “do you want to frighten the women to death?” and as he spoke he clapped his hand over his convict servant’s mouth, and glanced uneasily towards the door which led into the interior of the hut – one that was unusually large, for during Samson’s pleasant sojourn in this smiling wilderness, matters had prospered with him, and bit by bit he had added to his dwelling, and found himself compelled to make fresh arrangements for his flocks and ever-multiplying herds.
“Did you call?” said a pleasant voice, and then the door opened, and Samson’s comely wife made her appearance.
“No,” said Samson, “I didn’t call, but – ”
“Here a come,” said Teddy, and all present heard the rapid beat of feet, audible to the black’s keen sense some time before. Tom cocked and raised his rifle; Samson snatched down a revolver from a hook over the fireplace, knocking down and breaking a little china group of the children in the wood, an ornament brought from the far-off English home.
But the next moment arms were lowered, and Teddy’s spear was not thrown, for two men, whose faces were known to all present, dashed panting into the hut.
“Look out,” one of them gasped, “the blacks are out.”
“Now then, master!” cried Tom triumphantly.
“Don’t see nothing blacker about than your face, neighbour,” said Samson dryly, as he turned to one of his visitors. “Ain’t neither of you killed, are you?”
The man did not answer, but turning up the sleeve of his woollen shirt to the elbow, showed a long, jagged but superficial scratch from the upper joint to the wrist, with here the blood drying fast, there still standing in beads upon the lips of the wound.
“I might have been,” said the new-comer grimly, “if the fellow who threw the spear that made that long scratch had been truer in his aim. The blacks are out strong, well armed, and in their war-paint; and if you don’t want them in here, Samson Harris, you’d better shut that door.”
Half-grudgingly, the squatter made two steps towards the door; then he stopped for he caught sight of his wife, standing with blanched and drawn face, holding tightly her two children. She did not speak; but, as their eyes met, her lips parted to form one word which the father read in an instant. Thought after thought rushed lightning-like through his brain; all the old colonists’ tales and their horrors seemed to force themselves upon him; the burning of Riley’s hut, and the cruel butchery of wife and children, and the other barbarities said to have been committed; the child of a squatter named Wallace beaten to death with clubs; the death of the blooming daughter of one Ellis. A mist seemed to swim before his eyes for an instant; but the next he had shouted, “Come on, such of you as are men;” for he had again encountered the agonised face of his wife – again interpreted that one word her lips had parted to form, and he dashed to the hut-door; but only to be grasped tightly by his convict servant, Tom.
“Let me go!” he shouted, “are you mad?” and he dealt the man a heavy blow in the chest, and sent him staggering back, shouting – “Hold him, hold him!”
“Let me go, Anderson – Jones!” cried Samson, again struggling to reach the door, but held back by the new-comers. “Are you mad, are you men, when poor Mary is out there in the scrub?”
The wounded man gave more of a yell than a cry, as Samson Harris uttered those words, and, loosing his hold of the father, he made for the door himself, but only to fall heavily, tripped up by the waddy the black shepherd had cunningly placed between his legs.
The fall was heavy; but as he went down two spears darted through the open door, and stuck quivering one in the floor, the other in the table. The next moment the door was dashed to by Teddy, and its rough wooden bar laid across.
“Better there, than through you, Master Anderson,” said Tom, dragging the quivering spear out of the table, and passing it to Teddy.
The young man did not speak; but his eyes glared, and the curls of his black beard seemed to move and writhe as his features worked. Then, grasping the rifle he held in his hand, he turned to Samson Harris, saying in a husky voice —
“Are you ready?”
Samson forced a bullet down upon the powder of the rifle he was now engaged in charging, and nodded his head by way of reply.
