CHAPTER I
AN OFFICER OVERBOARD!
ON the 19th of October, in the year 18-—, a strange and tragic accident happened on board the cruiser Hercules, en route for Lorient, after long and laborious duty on the station in the Gulf of Benin.
They were in mid-Atlantic, just above the Azores, as nearly as possible to the spot where 25° E. longitude crosses 36° N. latitude. The vessel was running at full speed to the N. N. E. before a cyclone, which had come up about six o’clock in the evening. It was seven, and the starless night only added to the horror of the storm, when either a mistake on the part of the helmsman, or a sudden veering of the wind, brought the cruiser broadside to a formidable wave from the west. A liquid mountain struck the upper deck of the Hercules a blow as if a hammer had done it, carrying away “with it the starboard gun and its carriage; then dashed away like a cataract, leaving a surface of thirty square feet Or more shaved as clean as a hulk. The next instant, as the vessel pursued its course, running before the cyclone, a cry, followed by a second, was heard from the maintop: “An officer overboard, from the upper deck!” “A man wounded!” At the first call the luminous buoy was severed by the stroke of a hatchet, and Commander Harancourt, rushing to the speaking-trumpet, gave in person the order to stop. In two minutes one of the life-boats was afloat, and set off in the tumult of boiling waters in search, and disappeared into the darkness. Amid the gruesome howling of the wind and the furious blows of the waves, seemingly enraged at the slackened speed of the cruiser, the officer in command brought his verbal report to his chief. The officer carried away by the wave, with the cannon from the upper deck, was Midshipman Caoudal. The man wounded in the thigh by a splinter of the planking was seaman Yvon Kermadec. Every one crowded round to listen to the lugubrious report. A half-hour of intense anxiety passed before the life-boat signalled its return, and the fruitlessness of its search. It was hoisted on board, and the dripping crew were treated to a ration of hot rum. Every man of them was obliged to own, with a sob in his voice, that any further attempt at rescue would be useless. The sea held its prey, and would not give it up. The Hercules went on her way, with the poignant regret of every one on board at abandoning to the deep a brave young fellow, certain of promotion, fallen ingloriously and without advantage to any one, in full health and hope, at the threshold of his career. Rend Caoudal was the most popular officer on board, a great favourite with his brother officers; and, among the roughest of the men, there was not one who did not shed a tear. When the commander went below to the hospital to see Yvon Kermadec, he was coming to from a deep swoon, thanks to the energetic means applied by Dr. Patrice, and the frightened blue eyes in his honest, brown Breton face had opened. Presently memory returned to him with the pain; and he explained what occurred as follows:
“I was leaning with my back against the mizzen-mast. M. Caoudal came and went, as if he were surprised at the change of wind, when, all of a sudden, the wave broke right over us. I never saw one like it all the five years since I left Paimpol, nor even before that, when I used to go fishing for cod. It was like a wall of molten metal pouring itself over the Hercules. Everything was broken up, smashed to pieces, and washed away. I had a sort of confused vision of M. Caoudal thrown against and clinging to the breech of the cannon on the upper deck, then, lifted up and swept away with the rest. At the same instant I was blown like a flag against the mast near which I was standing, and an enormous piece of wood broke my left leg, and then I became unconscious. Better for me if I had succumbed,” added the poor lad, in a discouraged tone. “What is the use of living, if I am to lose a leg? I shall be good for nothing. It would have been far better if I had been washed away instead of M. Caoudal! An officer like him is not met with every day!”
This was said with such evident sincerity that the young doctor was deeply moved. Nobody knew better than he what an irreparable loss the French navy had sustained in René Caoudal. He had been his most intimate friend and companion since their childhood. This praise of one whom he had always considered as a brother touched him to such a degree that his hand became unsteady, and he was obliged to wait a moment or two before he could proceed with the dressing of the broken limb. “Come, come, my brave Kermadec, no weakness,” said he to the seaman. “Your leg is not lost yet, and I have good hope of your keeping it, but I can’t promise you that, unless you take the greatest care to use every means to make it .as good again as ever. As to the regrets you express at the premature end of M. Caoudal, certainly they are proper! A braver heart, a more intelligent and distinguished officer, a better son, never lived!”
“How his poor mother will grieve!” pursued the seaman, unconsciously giving expression to the thought that was in the doctor’s mind. “It is hard for us who are left behind; it does n’t seem right; people that are devoted to one another here ought to make a compact to die together. Dear M. René! It was he who convinced me of the folly of spending my money at the drink-shop when I went ashore. I was so glad to have got the better of that habit. But now, who will give me good advice? Who will care whether I keep right or not? Clever gentleman though he was, he didn’t think it beneath him to talk to me and teach me a heap of things. He used to call me Friend Kermadec. Ah, me! I would have gone through fire and water for him, and to see him swept away under my very eyes, without being able to lift a finger to save him!”
The seaman paused, choked with grief. “You know how dear he was to me, my brave Kermadec,” said the doctor at length. “I will try to fill his place to you. If ever you are in need of advice or of help, if you think I can be useful in any way, come to me; for his sake I shall be happy to serve you.”
The dressing of the injured limb was accomplished. The commander and the doctor, having cordially pressed the man’s hand, left him and went on deck. They conversed a few minutes about the deplorable loss of the young officer before the commander went to draw up his report.
Everybody in the officers’ deck saloon was awaiting Patrice with impatience. Still quite young, but as modest as he was clever, lively, a pleasant companion, the doctor was every one’s favourite. No festivity was complete without him. But now, unusual cordiality was shown to him. They all knew what a close friendship had existed between him and Caoudal. They listened with breathless interest to the details of the accident that he had gathered from Kermadec.
“What you have to say only adds to our grief,” said Lieutenant Briant, an officer about forty years of age, with large, prominent, short-sighted eyes, and grave and somewhat repellent expression of face; “and for my part, I cannot tell you how pained I am at his premature death.”
“Dear, brave Caoudal,” cried Midshipman Des Bruyeres, “if he was good-natured and willing to help his inferiors, he was none the less a jolly fellow among his equals. Where shall we find such a cheery messmate? He can never be replaced.”
By a common impulse their thoughts turned to the Caoudal family, and the doctor did all he could to satisfy their respectful curiosity about them.
“René,” said he, “was the son and the grandson of a sailor. Like him, his father and grandfather were both drowned at sea. He was the only son; and poor Madame Caoudal had a great horror of his entering a profession which she felt to be so cruel, and she never ceased to wage war against any tendency in him towards the vocation of the sea, to which she always owed a grudge. Her friends and the servants were warned to be very careful to abstain from any nautical allusions or anything that might tend to foster a desire to follow the father’s example in that respect. Vain precautions! They might as well have tried to prevent a fish from swimming. René was a born sailor; no education but for that end would satisfy him. No one could prevent his seeing from a bend of the river a silhouette of a flying vessel, and what they failed to tell him he divined somehow or other. Nothing in the shape of a boat had ever figured among his toys; but, at seven years of age, he was found making one. “Whence had he got the idea? Surely it must have been inborn. From that time, all his thoughts, waking and sleeping, were taken up with long voyages, to the despair of his poor mother, who saw the birth and growth of a force against which she was powerless to contend. It was still worse when his little cousin Hélène came to live with them. The daughter of a sister of Lieutenant Caoudal, Hélène had been brought up by her mother to worship the profession, and with the most ardent admiration for maritime exploits. The child had been suddenly left an orphan; Madame Caoudal had given her the shelter of her roof, and, with the advent of her niece, fell the frail barriers that she vainly tried to raise between René and an irresistible vocation. At this time the two children were twelve years of age. They had not known each other before, the little girl having always lived in Algeria; but from the first day they were sworn friends. They had the same tastes, the same ambitions. Their talks ran always on the same theme,— distant voyages, expeditions to the North Pole, naval battles, and discoveries of unknown lands. Hélène’s bitter regret at being only a girl was somewhat mitigated by the thought of seeing her dreams take shape by proxy. Meanwhile they prepared for future exploits by the most ridiculous freaks. Our embryo navigators made it a duty to leave no nook or corner of the neighbourhood on the banks of the Loire, in which they lived, unexplored. Their adventures ‘by sea and by land’ were numberless. Hardly a day passed without their coming home either with a bruised forehead, or a limb more or less damaged, and their clothes torn. From that time, René had no wish for any career other than that of the sea. Madame Caoudal, who was a wise as well as a tender mother, brought herself at last to see it, and, sacrificing from that time forward the long cherished hope of keeping her son near her, generously kept her disappointment to herself. She opened, to the children’s great delight, the long closed wardrobes where she kept the sacred relics of her husband and his father, and thenceforth everything relating to the navy became a sort of religion to them. It was now no more a question of adventures ‘á la Robinson Crusoe,’ but seriously to think of preparing for the entrance examination for the naval school. I completed my medical studies the same year that Rend was admitted. Though there was a difference of six years between us, — a great difference at that age, precluding any childish intimacy,—we had always been good friends; we were neighbours, and our mothers on terms of close intimacy. It was a great satisfaction to me when I joined the Hercules. I expected great things from this promising sailor. But how miserably have our hopes been disappointed!”
All listened to this account of their late comrade with sympathetic interest, and Lieutenant Briant thanked the doctor in the name of his brother officers:
“All the details you have given us about him whom we have lost,” added he, “only make his memory the more dear, if that were possible. Qn you, my poor fellow, will devolve the painful task of breaking the mournful news to his mother. Tell her, when she can bear to hear it, of the esteem and affection we all bore for him.”
“And his cousin;” said Des Bruyeres, thoughtlessly, “for her also it will be a frightful blow. Perhaps she was his fiancée!”
“No,” replied the doctor, rather drily, “Mademoiselle Hélène Rieux and Caoudal were not engaged. We are speaking in confidence here. Why should I not tell you that Madame Caoudal’s great desire was that they should marry, but she was destined to be disappointed in this wish also, for they had flatly refused to lend themselves to the project. Hélène and René were brother and sister, or, rather, their regard for one another was like that of two brothers.”
While they chatted thus in the officers’ deck saloon, and Commander Harancourt wrote the details of the catastrophe in the log-book, the storm lost its force and soon ceased altogether. A quieter sea succeeded the formidable waves that had subjected the Hercules to so rude an assault. The watch changed at the usual hour; the men on the watch took up their posts, whilst their comrades separated, to seek in their hammocks the rest they so much needed. All night long the cruiser rolled like a cork on the chopping sea. Then, towards morning, it quieted down again, and, when the sun appeared above the horizon, it lighted up a sea as smooth as a mirror. The Hercules pursued her course. She very soon touched at Lisbon, and was able to repair her damages, after which she again put to sea and, in a few days, arrived at Lorient. It was by this time a fortnight since the loss of Midshipman Caoudal, but the sad event was still fresh in the memory of all. Kermadec, well on the road towards recovery, was already able, by the help of a pair of crutches, to hoist himself up on deck.
Doctor Patrice’s heart was as heavy as lead at the thought of the task that lay before him with regard to his friend’s unfortunate mother, but, with thoughtful delicacy, the commander had desired that she should be informed in this way, rather than by an official despatch from Lisbon.
The pilot had just boarded the Hercules, bringing letters, impatiently awaited by all on board. Suddenly, the commander appeared with a radiant face, and a blue paper in his hand.
“I have good news for you, gentlemen,” said he. “Midshipman Caoudal is safe and sound; picked up at sea by a mail-boat from La Plata. Two days ago he was in the hospital at Lorient, and is now convalescent.”