Midnight Webs

I think I got more excited over that scene than over any part of the straggle, and all because I was lying there helpless; but it was of no use to fret, though I lay there with the weak tears running down my cheeks, as that brave man was brought down and laid near the grating, with Mother Bantem at work directly to tear off his coat, and begin to bandage, as if she had been brought up in a hospital.

The door was forsaken, for there was a new guard there, that no one would try to pass, and the silence was explained to us all: first, there was a loud yelling and shrieking outside; and then there was a little thin blue wreath of smoke beginning to curl under the door, crawling along the top step, and collecting like so much blue water, to spread very slowly; for the fiends had been carrying out their wounded and dead, and were now going to burn us where we lay.

I can recollect all that; for now a maddening sense of horror seemed to come upon me, to think that those few poor souls left were to be slain in such a barbarous way, after all the gallant struggle for life; but what surprised me was the calm, quiet manner in which all seemed to take it.

Once, indeed, the men had a talk together, and asked the women to join them in a rush through the passage; but they gave up the thought directly, for they knew that if they could get by the flames, there were more cruel foes outside, waiting to thrust them back.

So they all sat down in a quiet, resigned fashion, listening to the crackle outside the door, watching the thin smoke filter through the crevices, and form in clouds, or pools, according to where it came through.

And you’d have wondered to see those poor fellows, how they acted: why, Joe Bantem rubbed his face with his handkerchief, smoothed his hair and whiskers, and then got his belts square, as if off out on parade, before going and sitting quietly down by his wife.

Measles lay very still, gently humming over the old child’s hymn, “O! that’ll be joyful,” but only to burst out again into a fit of grumbling.

Another went and knelt down in a corner, where he stayed; the rest shook hands all round, and then, seeing Captain Dyer sitting up, and sensible, they went and saluted, and asked leave to shake hands with him, quite upsetting him, poor fellow, as he called them, in a faint voice, his “brave lads,” and asked their pardon, if he’d ever been too harsh with them.

“God bless you! no, sir,” says Joe Bantem, jumping up, and shaking the hand himself, “which that you’ve never been, but always a good officer as your company loved. Keep a brave heart, my boys, it’ll soon be over. We’ve stood in front of death too many times now to show the white feather. Hurray for Captain Dyer, and may he be a colonel in the tother land, and we be some of his men!”

Joe Bantem gave a bit of a reel as he said this, and then he’d have fallen if it hadn’t been for his wife; and though his was rather strong language, you see it must be excused, for, leave alone his wounds, and the mad feeling they’d bring on, there was a wild excitement on the men then, brought about by the fighting, which made them, as you may say, half-drunk.

We must all have been choked over and over again, but for that grating; for the hotter the fire grew above, the finer current of air swept in. The mutineers could not have known of it, or one of their first acts must have been to seal it up. But it was half-covered by some creeping flower, which made it invisible to them, and so we were able to breathe.

And now it may seem a curious thing, but I’m going to say a little more about love. A strange time, you’ll perhaps say, when those poor people were crouching together in that horrible vault, expecting their death moment by moment. But that’s why it was, and not from any want of retiring modesty. I believe that those poor souls wished to show those they loved how true was that feeling; and therefore it was that wife crept to husband’s side, and Lizzy Green, forgetting all else now, placed her arms round my neck, and her lips to mine, and kissed me again and again.

It was no time for scruples; and thus it was that, being close to them, I heard Miss Ross, kneeling by the side of Captain Dyer, ask him – sobbing bitterly the while – ask him to forgive her, while he looked almost cold and strange at her, till she whispered to him long and earnestly, when I knew that she must be telling him all about the events of that morning. It must have been, for with a cry of joy I saw him bend towards her, when she threw her arms round him, and clasped his poor bleeding form to her breast.

They were so when I last looked upon them, and every one seemed lost in his or her own suffering, all save those two children, one of whom was asleep on Mrs Maine’s lap, and the other playing with the gold knot of Captain Dyer’s sword.

Then came a time of misty smoke and heat, and the crackling of woodwork; but all the while there was a stream of hot pure air rushing in at that grating to give us life.

We could hear the black fiends running round and round the burning building, yelling, and no doubt ready to thrust back any one who tried to get out. But there seemed then to come another misty time, from which I was roused by Lizzy whispering to me, “Is it very near now?”

“What?” I said faintly.

“Death,” she whispered, with her lips close to my ear. “If it is, pray God that He will never let us part again in the land where all is peace!”

I tried to answer her, but I could not, for the hot, stifling, blinding smoke was now in my throat. Just then the yelling outside seemed to increase. There was a swift rushing sound; the trampling of horses; the jingling of cavalry sabres; a loud English hurray; and a crash; and I knew that there was a charge of horse sweeping by. Then came the hurried beating of feet, the ring of platoon after platoon of musketry, a rapid, squandering, skirmishing fire; more yelling, and more English cheers; the rush, again, of galloping horses; and, by slow degrees, the sound of a fierce skirmish, growing more and more distant, till there came another rapid beating of hoofs, a sudden halt, the jingle and rattle of harness, and a moment after, bim – bom – bom – bom! at regular intervals; and I waved my hand, and gave a faint cheer, for I could mentally see it all: a troop of light-horse had charged twice; the infantry had come up at the double; and now here were the horse-artillery, with their light six-pounders, playing upon the retreating rebels where the cavalry were not cutting them up.

That faint cheer of mine brought out some more; and then there was a terrible silence, for the relief seemed to have come too late; but a couple of our men crawled to the grating, where the air reviving them, they gave another “Hurray!” which was answered directly.

And then there was a loud shout, the excited buzz of voices, the crashing of a pioneer’s axe against the framework of the grating; and after a hard fight, from which our friends were beaten back again and again, we poor wretches, nearly all insensible, were dragged out about a quarter of an hour before the burning house fell with a crash. Then there was a raging whirlwind of flame, and smoke, and sparks, and the cellar was choked up with the burning ruin.

Story 1-Chapter XXIII

How well I remember coming to myself as I lay there on the grass, with our old surgeon, Mr Hughes, kneeling by my side; for it was our own men that formed the infantry of the column, with a troop of lancers, and one of horse-artillery. There was Colonel Maine kneeling by his wife, who, poor soul, was recovering fast, and him turning from her to the children, and back again; while it was hard work to keep our men from following up the pursuit, now kept up by the lancers and horse-artillery, so mad and excited were they to find only eight wounded men out of the company they had left.

But, one way and another, the mutineers paid dear for what suffering they caused us. I can undertake to say that, for every life they took, half-a-dozen of their own side fell – the explosion swept away, I suppose, quite fifty, just as they had attempted a surprise, and came over from the south side in a night-attack; while the way in which they were cut up in the engagement was something awful.

For, anxious beyond measure at not hearing news of the party left in Begumbagh, Colonel Maine had at length obtained permission to go round by that station, reinforce the troops, and then join the general by another route.

They were making forced marches, when they caught sight of the rebels yelling round the burning building, fully a couple of hundred being outside; when, not knowing of the sore strait of those within, they had charged down, driving the murderous black scoundrels before them like so much chaff.

But you, must not think that our pains were at an end. Is it not told in the pages of history how for long enough it was a hard fight for a standing in India, and how our troops were in many places sore put to it; while home after home was made desolate by the most cruel outrages? It was many a long week before we could be said to be in safety; but I don’t know that I suffered much beyond the pains of that arm, or rather that stump, for our surgeon, Mr Hughes, when I grumbled a little at his taking it off, told me I might be very thankful that I had escaped with life, for he had never known of such a case before. But it was rather hard lying alone there in the temporary hospital, missing the tender hands that one loved.

And yet I have no right to say quite alone, for poor old Measles was on one side, and Joe Bantem on the other, with Mrs Bantem doing all she could for us three, as well as five more of our poor fellows.

More than once I heard Mr Hughes talk about the men’s wounds, and say it was wonderful how they could live through them; but to live they all seemed disposed, except poor Measles, who was terrible bad and delirious, till one day, when he could hardly speak above a whisper, he says to me – being quite in his right mind:

“I daresay some of you chaps think that I’m going to take my discharge; but all the same, you’re wrong, for I mean to go in now for promotion!”

He said “now;” but what he did then was to go in for sleep – and sleep he did for a good four-and-twenty hours, when he woke up grumbling, and calling himself the most unlucky beggar that ever breathed.

Time went on; and one by one we poor fellows got out of hospital cured; but I was the last; and it was many months after, that, at his wish, I called upon Captain – then Major – Dyer, at his house in London. For, during those many months, the mutiny had been suppressed, and our regiment had been ordered home.

I was very weak and pale, and I hadn’t got used to this empty sleeve, and things looked very gloomy ahead; but, somehow, that day when I called at Major Dyer’s seemed the turning-point; for to a poor soldier there was something very soothing for your old officer to jump up, with both hands outstretched to catch yours, and to greet you as warmly as did his handsome, bonny wife.

They seemed as if they could hardly make enough of me; but the sight of their happiness made me feel low-spirited; and I felt no better when Mrs Dyer – God bless her! – took my hand in hers, and led me to the next room, where she said there was an old friend wanted to see me.

I felt that soft jewelled hand holding mine, and I heard the door close as Mrs Dyer went out again, and then I stood seeing nothing – hearing nothing – feeling nothing, but a pair of clinging arms round my neck, and a tear-wet face pressed to mine.

And did that make me feel happy?

No! I can say it with truth. For as the mist cleared away from my eyes, and I looked down on, to me, the brightest, truest face the sun ever shone on, there was a great sorrow in my heart, as I told myself that it was a sin and a wrong for me, a poor invalided soldier, to think of taking advantage of that fine handsome girl, and tying her down to one who was maimed for life.

And at last, with the weak tears running down my cheeks, I told her of how it could not be; that I should be wronging her, and that she must think no more of me, only as a dear friend; when there is that amount of folly in this world, that my heart swelled, and a great ball seemed rising in my throat, and I choked again and again, as those arms clung tighter and tighter round my neck, and Lizzy called me her hero, and her brave lad who had saved her life again and again; and asked me to take her to my heart, and keep her there, for her to try and be to me a worthy loving wife – one that would never say a bitter word to me as long as she lived.

I said that there was so much folly in this world, so how can you wonder at me catching it of her, when she was so close that I could feel her breath upon my cheeks, my hair, my eyes, as once more, forgetting all in her love, she kissed me again and again. How, then, could I help, but with that one hand press her to my heart, and go the way that weak heart of mine wished.

I know it was wrong; but how can one always fight against weakness? And, to tell you the truth, I had fought long enough – so long that I wished for peace. And I must say this, too, you must not be hard on Lizzy, and think that it would have been better for her to have let me do a little more of the courting: there are exceptional cases, and this was one.

I had a true friend in Major Dyer, and to him I owe my present position – not a very grand one; but speaking honestly as a man, I don’t believe, if I had been a general, some one at home could think more of me; while, as to this empty sleeve, she’s proud of it, and says that all the country is the same.

Wandering about as a regiment is, one does not often have a chance to see one’s old messmates; but Sergeant and Mrs Bantem and Sergeant Measles did have tea and supper with us one night here in London, Mrs Bantem saying that Measles was as proud of his promotion as a dog with two tails, though Measles did say he was an unlucky beggar, or he’d have been a captain. And, my! what a night we did have of that, without one drawback, only Measles would spit on my wife’s Brussels carpet; and so we did have a night last year when the old regiment was stationed at Edinburgh, and the wife and me had a holiday, and went down and saw Colonel and Mrs Maine, and those children grown up a’most into a man and woman. But Colonel Dyer had exchanged into another regiment, and they say he is going to retire on half-pay, on account of his wound troubling him.

We fought our old battles over again on those nights; and we did not forget the past and gone; for Mrs Bantem stood up after supper, with her stiff glass of grog in her hand – a glass into which I saw a couple of tears fall, as she spoke of the dead – the brave men who fell in defence of the defenceless and innocent, hoping that the earth lay lightly on the grave of Lieutenant Leigh, while she proposed the memory of brave Harry Lant.

We drank that toast in silence; and more than one eye was wet as the old scenes came back – scenes such as I hope may never fall to the lot of men again to witness; for if there is ever a fervent prayer sent up to the Maker of All by me, an old soldier, who has much to answer for, it is contained in those words, so familiar to you all:

“Peace on Earth!” Amen.

Story Two: Aboard the Sea-Mew

Story 2-Chapter I

I shipped aboard the Sea-mew, full-rigged, trading from the port of London to New Zealand. Two more old shipmates of mine entered along with me; and we were just beginning to feel the breeze that would send us down Channel in less than no time. The skipper came aboard at Gravesend, and the rest of the passengers, and among ’em we had one poor chap who had to be whipped up in a chair, looking the while like as if he’d come aboard to find a hammock and a sailor’s funeral. There was some petticoats, too, about him, and they had to be whipped up too, but I didn’t take much notice, being hurried about here and ordered there, and the passengers all seeming to have an idea, that now they’d come aboard, all there was to do was to get in everybody’s way, and stand wiping their eyes. They would get in your way and aggravate, and when they moved, go and stand somewhere wuss, till it was enough to make a saint swear; and I’m blest if I don’t think that, being a man used to the sea, and a quick-tempered sort of a fellow, Peter hisself would have gone on ’most as bad as I did. What does a great fat fellow of two-and-forty want to go walloping down where the mate had told you to coil forty fathom o’ rope, and then begin blubbering like a great gal? And what do people as have done nothing but grumble and cuss at the old country, go waving their handkerchiefs at it for, and then fall into one another’s arms a-kissing and a-hugging, and just, too, when the deck’s in such a litter that the skipper and the mate are ’most raving mad?

It’s a nice place, deck of a ship just before sailing, what with the lumber, and the crew being all raw, and half of ’em three parts, or quite drunk. We’d a nice lot, we had, aboard the Sea-mew; for it seemed to me, as soon as I saw them together, that the skipper had been having the pick of the docks, and choosing all them as nobody else wouldn’t take aboard a ship. But it was in this way: there’d been a sort of an upset about pay, and half the merchant-sailors were on strike; and as the owners of the Sea-mew had advertised her to sail at a certain time, and it was ten days past that time, the skipper had been obliged to sign articles with any one he could get. They were all fresh ones to us; six-and-twenty of ’em, but mostly seemed to know one another, and how to handle a rope.

We’d a mixed freight – live-stock mostly, going out emigrating, and more live-stock to feed ’em with, and a young doctor to see as they was all well, and had their salts-and-senny reg’lar; and a great big chap as couldn’t stand up down below, but was always chipping his head, and taking the shape out of his hat against what he called the ceiling. They said he was a nat’ralist, though he was about the longest, okkardest, corner-shaped, unnat’ral fellow I ever did see; and he’d got more live-stock in no end of great cages – cock-sparrows and tom-tits, and blackbirds and starnels, and all sorts o’ little twittering things to introduce amongst the New Zealanders. Then there was Brummagem and Manchester and Sheffield goods, and plants and seeds in cases; and the deck that full, that, as I said before, it was enough to make any one swear, let alone a sailor.

’Tain’t a nice time, the first week at sea; for, to begin with, it takes all that time to get the longshore goings-on shook out of the men, and them fit to work well together; then, if it happens to blow a bit, as it mostly does in the Channel, there’s all the passengers badly, cabin and steerage, and their heads chock-full of shipwrecks; and when they ain’t frightened of going to the bottom, calling the doctor a brute for not attending to ’em. Sea-sickness is bad enough, while it lasts, but folks needn’t be so disagreeable about it, and every one think his case ten hundred times worse than anybody else’s; but they will do it; and as for the fat chap as cried so about going away, he quite upset the young doctor, as they called Mr Ward; and if I’d been him, and been bothered as he was, I’d have give Mr Fatsides such a dose o’ Daffy as would have sent him to sleep for a week.

Story 2-Chapter II

“You’ve put your foot in it, Sam Brown,” I says to my old shipmet when things was about knocked together, and we were bowling along well out of sight of land. We’d been putting that and that together, and found out that for some months to come, let alone wind and weather, we’d got our work cut out, the skipper being one of your reg’lar slave-drivers, that nothing can’t satisfy, and the mate a sneak, as would do anything to please the captain. So “You’ve put your foot in it, Sam Brown,” I says; but he only grunted. Bill Spragg, though – my other mate – turns a bit rusty, and says it was me as got them to sign the articles, and it was all my fault; for he was a bit sore, owing to a row he’d been in that day.

But it was no use to growl, and say the ship was a bad one; we were in the ship, and bad captain, bad mate, bad crew, and bad victualling, there it all was, and there was no getting away from it.

“Never mind, lads; ’tain’t bad pay,” I says.

“Pay!” says Bill Spragg. “I’d forfeit to-morrow to be out of it, and – Look ye there, Tom.”

I turned to look; and it was the passenger I’ve spoken of before, him that was whipped up on deck, and now he was out for the first time for a walk, being a bright sunshiny time; while the petticoat as came on board with him was leading him about the deck.

“Looks bad,” I says.

“Yes,” says Bill. “But I meant the lass. Just look at her.”

“What for?” I says.

“Fine lines,” growls Sam Brown, squinting at her, for he was a chap that could squint awful, and when he looked partic’lar at anything his eyes used to get close together, and he had to turn his head first on one side and then on the other. He was such a quiet chap, and spoke so little, that I used to think his eyes tried to turn round and look inside his head, to see what he was thinking about. “Fine lines,” he says, and then he shuts one eye up, and holds it close, while he has another look.

“Beautiful! ain’t she?” says Bill.

“Gammon,” I says. “Wax-doll. She’d better not get wet, or she’d melt. I wish they wouldn’t have no women aboard.”

“Why?” says some one close behind me. And looking round, there was the young doctor and Tomtit, as we called him – the long chap as had all the birds.

“Why?” I says gruffly; “because they’re in the way, and ain’t no good, and consooms the ship’s stores. Would my deck be littered here with hens and cocks singing out eight bells when ’tain’t nothing of the kind; and a couple of cows as is always lowing to be milked, and then giving some thin stuff like scupper-washings; and a goat and sheep till the place only wants an old turkey-cock and jackass or two to be a reg’lar farmyard, ’stead o’ a ship’s deck – would there be all these things there if it warn’t for the women? Bother the women! I wish there wasn’t a woman on the face of the earth.”

“He was crossed in love when he was a young un, sir,” says Bill Spragg with a grin.

“Women’s right enough ashore,” says Sam Brown, and he squinted towards where the sick patient was along with the petticoat, till both his eyes went out of sight behind his nose, which was rather long in the bridge, and then he sighed, and we sprinkled the sea with a little baccy-juice before coming back to the job we were at – scraping the chain-cable.

“One of our protectors wants to pay his regards to you, Miss Bell,” says Mr Ward, the young doctor, you know, for just then she was passing close with the poor thin sick chap, who was her husband, and I saw her just bend her head as the doctor and Tomtit took off their hats to her.

“Sarvant, miss,” I says gruffly, getting my legs straight too, for there was something about her that seemed to compel one to be civil like, being such a bright-eyed girl, with red and white in her face and a set o’ teeth as couldn’t have known what it was to want to be pulled out in their lives. “Sarvant, Miss,” I says, making a scrape, and not a bit took aback. “I was only a-saying as worn – ladies ain’t no business aboard ships.”

“And why not?” she said quietly.

“’Cause all’s rough and ready, and folk’s tongues gets running too free afore them,” I says. And then to myself: “That’s one for you, Mr Jalap;” and then I turned towards the sick young man, whose sunken eyes looked brighter, and angry, and jealous like, as he held tight by his sister’s arm, and he says: “Come, lady, let’s go below. The sailor is right. Drink my health, my man;” and he threw me a shilling.

“That I will, sir,” I says, as he turned away, though I thought to myself it would want drinking a many times before I could do him any good.

The doctor looked rather black at me; but I wouldn’t see it, and got down cross-legged at my work, while Tomtit and he lit their cigars, and began walking up and down the deck.

Story 2-Chapter III

What a wonderful deal a sailor can get to know if he only keeps his eyes and ears open! Of course, I mean aboard ship, where everything is, as you may say, close to your hand. Now, acting after this way, and being a rough, blunt sort of an old fellow – for I always looked old from the time I was forty – people would come and make friends with me, in a fashion, so that I got to know a deal. The doctor would have his chat on things in general, and give me cigars, and by degrees work round to the sick passenger and his case; and I soon could see that though he didn’t care a damp about the sick passenger, he took a deal of interest in his case, and I could guess pretty well why. Then Tomtit would come and fold his back, so that he could lean his elbers on the bulwarks, and he’d chatter about his birds, all the while smoothing his hair, and arranging his tie and collar, and brushing specks off his coat, as he kept looking towards the cabin-stairs, to see if some one was coming up; and when – being a thoroughly good-hearted, weak, soft-Tommy sort of a chap – he’d heave a great sigh, I used to shake my head at him, and say as I could see what was the matter with he, it was wonderful how friendly he’d get.