Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (326 page)

‘Are you mad?’ thundered Muller. ‘Look!’

‘I see,’ said Gisborne quietly. ‘The mother’s somewhere near. You’ll wake the whole pack, by Jove!’

The bushes parted once more, and a woman unveiled snatched up the child.

‘Who fired, Sahib?’ she cried to Gisborne.

‘This Sahib. He had not remembered thy man’s people.’

‘Not remembered? But indeed it may be so, for we who live with them forget that they are strangers at all. Mowgli is down the stream catching fish. Does the Sahib wish to see him? Come out, ye lacking manners. Come out of the bushes, and make your service to the Sahibs.’

Muller’s eyes grew rounder and rounder. He swung himself off the plunging mare and dismounted, while the jungle gave up four wolves who fawned round Gisborne. The mother stood nursing her child and spurning them aside as they brushed against her bare feet.

‘You were quite right about Mowgli,’ said Gisborne. ‘I meant to have told you, but I’ve got so used to these fellows in the last twelve months that it slipped my mind.’

‘Oh, don’t apologise,’ said Muller. ‘It’s nothing. Gott in Himmel! “Und I work miracles — und dey come off too!”‘

‘BRUGGLESMITH’

This day the ship went down, and all hands was drowned but me.

— CLARK RUSSELL.

THE first officer of the Breslau asked me to dinner on board, before the ship went round to Southampton to pick up her passengers. The Breslau was lying below London Bridge, her fore-hatches opened for cargo, and her deck littered with nuts and bolts, and screws and chains. The Black M’Phee had been putting some finishing touches to his adored engines, and M’Phee is the most tidy of chief engineers. If the leg of a cockroach gets into one of his slide-valves the whole ship knows it, and half the ship has to clean up the mess.

After dinner, which the first officer, M’Phee, and I ate in one little corner of the empty saloon, M’Phee returned to the engine-room to attend to some brass-fitters. The first officer and I smoked on the bridge and watched the lights of the crowded shipping till it was time for me to go home. It seemed, in the pauses of our conversation, that I could catch an echo of fearful bellowings from the engine-room, and the voice of M’Phee singing of home and the domestic affections.

‘M’Phee has a friend aboard to-night — a man who was a boiler-maker at Greenock when M’Phee was a ‘prentice,’ said the first officer. ‘I didn’t ask him to dine with us because — ’

‘I see — I mean I hear,’ I answered. We talked on for a few minutes longer, and M’Phee came up from the engine-room with his friend on his arm.

‘Let me present ye to this gentleman,’ said M’Phee. ‘He’s a great admirer o’ your wor-rks. He has just hearrd o’ them.’

M’Phee could never pay a compliment prettily. The friend sat down suddenly on a bollard, saying that M’Phee had understated the truth. Personally, he on the bollard considered that Shakespeare was trembling in the balance solely on my account, and if the first officer wished to dispute this he was prepared to fight the first officer then or later, ‘as per invoice.’ ‘Man, if ye only knew,’ said he, wagging his head, ‘the times I’ve lain in my lonely bunk reading Vanity Fair an’ sobbin’ — ay, weepin’ bitterly at the pure fascination of it.’

He shed a few tears for guarantee of good faith, and the first officer laughed. M’l’hee resettled the man’s hat, that had tilted over one eyebrow.

‘That’ll wear off in a little. It’s just the smell o’ the engine- room,’ said M’Phee.

‘I think I’ll wear off myself,’ I whispered to the first officer. ‘Is the dinghy ready?’

The dinghy was at the gangway, which was down, and the first officer went forward to find a man to row me to the bank. He returned with a very sleepy Lascar, who knew the river.

‘Are you going?’ said the man on the bollard. ‘Well, I’ll just see ye home. M’Phee, help me down the gangway. It has as many ends as a cato’-nine-tails, and — losh! — how innumerable are the dinghies!’

‘You’d better let him come with you,’ said the first officer. ‘Muhammad Jan, put the drunk sahib ashore first. Take the sober sahib to the next stairs.’

I had my foot in the bow of the dinghy, the tide was making up-stream, when the man cannoned against me, pushed the Lascar back on the gangway, cast loose the painter, and the dinghy began to saw, stern- first, along the side of the Breslau.

‘We’ll have no exter-r-raneous races here,’ said the man. ‘I’ve known the Thames for thirty years — ’

There was no time for argument. We were drifting under the Breslau’s stern, and I knew that her propeller was half out of water, in the middle of an inky tangle of buoys, low-lying hawsers, and moored ships, with the tide ripping through them.

‘What shall I do?’ I shouted to the first officer.

‘Find the Police Boat as soon as you can, and for God’s sake get some way on the dinghy. Steer with the oar. The rudder’s unshipped and — ’

I could hear no more. The dinghy slid away, bumped on a mooring-buoy, swung round and jigged off irresponsibly as I hunted for the oar. The man sat in the bow, his chin on his hands, smiling.

‘Row, you ruffian,’ I said. ‘Get her out into the middle of the river — ’

‘It’s a preevilege to gaze on the face o’ genius. Let me go on thinking. There was “Little Barrnaby Dorrit” and “The Mystery o’ the Bleak Druid.” I sailed in a ship called the Druid once — badly found she was. It all comes back to me so sweet. It all comes back to me. Man, ye steer like a genius.’

We bumped round another mooring-buoy and drifted on to the bows of a Norwegian timber-ship — I could see the great square holes on either side of the cut-water. Then we dived into a string of barges and scraped through them by the paint on our planks. It was a consolation to think that the dinghy was being reduced in value at every bump, but the question before me was when she would begin to leak. The man looked ahead into the pitchy darkness and whistled.

‘Yon’s a Castle liner; her ties are black. She’s swinging across stream. Keep her port light on our starboard bow, and go large,’ he said.

‘How can I keep anything anywhere? You’re sitting on the oars. Row, man, if you don’t want to drown.’

He took the sculls, saying sweetly: ‘No harm comes to a drunken man. That’s why I wished to come wi’ you. Man, ye’re not fit to be alone in a boat.’

He flirted the dinghy round the big ship, and for the next ten minutes I enjoyed — positively enjoyed — an exhibition of first-class steering. We threaded in and out of the mercantile marine of Great Britain as a ferret threads a rabbit-hole, and we, he that is to say, sang joyously to each ship till men looked over bulwarks and cursed us. When we came to some moderately clear water he gave the sculls to me, and said:

‘If ye could row as ye write, I’d respect you for all your vices. Yon’s London Bridge. Take her through.’

We shot under the dark ringing arch, and came out the other side, going up swiftly with the tide chanting songs of victory. Except that I wished to get home before morning, I was growing reconciled to the jaunt. There were one or two stars visible, and by keeping into the centre of the stream, we could not come to any very serious danger.

The man began to sing loudly:

‘The smartest clipper that you could find.

    Yo ho! Oho!

Was the Marg’ret Evans of the Black X Line.

    A hundred years ago!

Incorporate that in your next book, which is marvellous.’ Here he stood up in the bows and declaimed: —

‘Ye Towers o’ Julia, London’s lasting wrong. By mony a foul an’ midnight murder fed —

Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song — And yon’s the grave as little as my bed.

I’m a poet mysel’ an’ I can feel for others.’

‘Sit down,’ said I. ‘You’ll have the boat over.’

‘Ay, I’m settin’ — settin’ like a hen.’ He plumped down heavily, and added, shaking his forefinger at me: —

‘Lear-rn, prudent, cautious self-control

    Is wisdom’s root.

How did a man o’ your parts come to be so drunk? Oh, it’s a sinfu’ thing, an’ ye may thank God on all fours that I’m with you. What’s yon boat?’

We had drifted far up the river, and a boat manned by four men, who rowed with a soothingly regular stroke, was overhauling us.

‘It’s the River Police,’ I said, at the top of my voice.

‘Oh ay! If your sin do not find you out on dry land, it will find you out in the deep waters. Is it like they’ll give us drink?’

‘Exceedingly likely. I’ll hail them.’ I hailed.

‘What are you doing?’ was the answer from the boat.

‘It’s the Breslau’s dinghy broken loose,’ I began.

‘It’s a vara drunken man broke loose,’ roared my companion, ‘and I’m taking him home by water, for he cannot stand on dry land.’ Here he shouted my name twenty times running, and I could feel the blushes racing over my body three deep.

‘You’ll be locked up in ten minutes, my friend,’ I said, ‘and I don’t think you’ll be bailed either.’

‘H’sh, man, h’sh. They think I’m your uncle.’ He caught up a scull and began splashing the boat as it ranged alongside.

‘You’re a nice pair,’ said the sergeant at last.

‘I am anything you please so long as you take this fiend away. Tow us in to the nearest station, and I’ll make it worth your while,’ I said.

‘Corruption — corruption,’ roared the man, throwing himself flat in the bottom of the boat. ‘Like unto the worms that perish, so is man! And all for the sake of a filthy half-crown to be arrested by the river police at my time o’ life!’

‘For pity’s sake, row,’ I shouted. ‘The man’s drunk.’

They rowed us to a flat — a fire or a police-station; it was too dark to see which. I could feel that they regarded me in no better light than the other man. I could not explain, for I was holding the far end of the painter, and feeling cut off from all respectability.

We got out of the boat, my companion falling flat on his wicked face, and the sergeant asked us rude questions about the dinghy. My companion washed his hands of all responsibility. He was an old man; he had been lured into a stolen boat by a young man — probably a thief — he had saved the boat from wreck (this was absolutely true), and now he expected salvage in the shape of hot whisky and water. The sergeant turned to me. Fortunately I was in evening dress, and had a card to show. More fortunately still, the sergeant happened to know the Breslau and M’Phee. He promised to send the dinghy down next tide, and was not beyond accepting my thanks, in silver.

As this was satisfactorily arranged, I heard my companion say angrily to a constable, ‘If you will not give it to a dry man, ye maun to a drookit.’ Then he walked deliberately off the edge of the flat into the water. Somebody stuck a boathook into his clothes and hauled him out.

‘Now,’ said he triumphantly, ‘under the rules o’ the R-royal Humane Society, ye must give me hot whisky and water. Do not put temptation before the laddie. He’s my nephew an’ a good boy i’ the main. Tho’ why he should masquerade as Mister Thackeray on the high seas is beyond my comprehension. Oh the vanity o’ youth! M’Phee told me ye were as vain as a peacock. I mind that now.’

‘You had better give him something to drink and wrap him up for the night. I don’t know who he is,’ I said desperately, and when the man had settled down to a drink supplied on my representations, I escaped and found that I was near a bridge.

I went towards Fleet Street, intending to take a hansom and go home. After the first feeling of indignation died out, the absurdity of the experience struck me fully and I began to laugh aloud in the empty streets, to the scandal of a policeman. The more I reflected the more heartily I laughed, till my mirth was quenched by a hand on my shoulder, and turning I saw him who should have been in bed at the river police-station. He was damp all over; his wet silk hat rode far at the back of his head, and round his shoulders hung a striped yellow blanket, evidently the property of the State.

‘The crackling o’ thorns under a pot,’ said he, solemnly. ‘Laddie, have ye not thought o’ the sin of idle laughter? My heart misgave me that ever ye’d get home, an’ I’ve just come to convoy you a piece. They’re sore uneducate down there by the river. They wouldna listen to me when I talked o’ your worrks, so I e’en left them. Cast the blanket about you, laddie. It’s fine and cold.’

I groaned inwardly. Providence evidently intended that I should frolic through eternity with M’Phee’s infamous acquaintance.

‘Go away,’ I said; ‘go home, or I’ll give you in charge!’

He leaned against a lamp-post and laid his finger to his nose — his dishonourable, carnelian neb.

‘I mind now that M’Phee told me ye were vainer than a peacock, an’ your castin’ me adrift in a boat shows ye were drunker than an owl. A good name is as a savoury bakemeat. I ha’ nane.’ He smacked his lips joyously.

‘Well, I know that,’ I said.

‘Ay, but ye have. I mind now that M’Phee spoke o’ your reputation that you’re so proud of. Laddie, if ye gie me in charge — I’m old enough to be your father — I’ll bla-ast your reputation as far as my voice can carry; for I’ll call you by name till the cows come hame. It’s no jestin’ matter to be a friend to me. If you discard my friendship, ye must come to Vine Street wi’ me for stealin’ the Breslau’s dinghy.’

Then he sang at the top of his voice: —

              ‘In the morrnin’

I’ the morrnin’ by the black van —

We’ll toodle up to Vine Street i’ the morrnin’!

Yon’s my own composeetion, but I’m not vain. We’ll go home together, laddie, we’ll go home together.’ And he sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ to show that he meant it.

A policeman suggested that we had better move on, and we moved on to the Law Courts near St. Clement Danes. My companion was quieter now, and his speech, which up till that time had been distinct — it was a marvel to hear how in his condition he could talk dialect — began to slur and slide and slummock. He bade me observe the architecture of the Law Courts and linked himself lovingly to my arm. Then he saw a policeman, and before I could shake him off, whirled me up to the man singing: —

‘Every member of the Force.