In Greek Waters: A Story of the Grecian War of Independence

“Surf ahoy!” Horace shouted, imitating as well as he could William Martyn’s usual hail. A minute later the mate’s head appeared above the companion. “My father is coming on board, Mr. Martyn. Will you please bring the dinghy ashore.” The mate hauled up the dinghy, got into it, and in a few strokes was alongside the quay.

Mr. Beveridge descended the steps first. “I am glad to meet you, Mr. Martyn, and to thank you for the kindness you have shown my son in finding this craft for him and seeing to its being fitted out.”

“It has been an amusement, sir,” the mate said. “I was knocking about Exmouth with nothing to do, and it was pleasant to be at work on something.”

“Get in, Horace,” Mr. Beveridge said, “the dinghy won’t carry us all. You can bring it back again for the others.”

The party stayed for half an hour on board. Mr. Beveridge was warm in his approval of the arrangements.

“This is a snug cabin indeed,” he said. “I had no idea that such a small craft could have had such good accommodation. One could wish for nothing better except for a little more head-room, but after all that is of no great consequence, one does not want to walk about below. It is a place to eat and to sleep in, or, if it is wet, to read in. I really wonder I never thought of having a sailing-boat before. I shall certainly take a sail with you sometimes, Horace.”

“I am very glad of that, father, it would be very jolly having you out. I don’t see much of you, you know, and I do think it would do you good.”

William Martyn was not allowed to carry out his intention of staying on board, nor did he resist very earnestly Mr. Beveridge’s pressing invitation. His host differed widely from his preconceived notions of him, and he saw that he need not be afraid of ceremony.

“You can smoke your pipe, you know, in the library after dinner, Mr. Martyn. I have no objection whatever to smoke; indeed, I used to smoke myself when I was in Greece as a young man – everyone did so there, and I got to like it, though I gave it up afterwards. Why did I give it up, Zaimes?”

“I think you gave it up, master, because you always let your cigar out after smoking two or three whiffs, and never thought of it again for the rest of the day.”

“Perhaps that was it; at any rate your smoking will in no way incommode me, so I will take no denial.”

Accordingly the cabins were locked up, and William Martyn went up with the others to the house and there spent a very pleasant evening. He had in the course of his service sailed for some time in Greek waters, and there was consequently much to talk about which interested both himself and his host.

“I love Greece,” Mr. Beveridge said. “Had it not been that she lies dead under the tyranny of the Turks I doubt if I should not have settled there altogether.”

“I think you would have got tired of it, sir,” the mate said. “There is nothing to be said against the country or the islands, except that there are precious few good harbours among them; but I can’t say I took to the people.”

“They have their faults,” Mr. Beveridge admitted, “but I think they are the faults of their position more than of their natural character. Slaves are seldom trustworthy, and I own that they are not as a rule to be relied upon. Having no honourable career open to them, the upper classes think of nothing but money; they are selfish, greedy, and corrupt; but I believe in the bulk of the people.”

As William Martyn had no belief whatever in any section of the Greeks he held his tongue.

“Greece will rise one of these days,” Mr. Beveridge went on, “and when she does she will astonish Europe. The old spirit still lives among the descendants of Leonidas and Miltiades.”

“I should be sorry to be one of the Turks who fell into their hands,” William Martyn said gravely as he thought of the many instances in his own experiences of the murders of sailors on leave ashore.

“It is probable that there will be sad scenes of bloodshed,” Mr. Beveridge agreed; “that is only to be expected when you have a race of men of a naturally impetuous and passionate character enslaved by a people alien in race and in religion. Yes, I fear it will be so at the commencement, but that will be all altered when they become disciplined soldiers. Do you not think so?” he asked, as the sailor remained silent.

“I have great doubts whether they will ever submit to discipline,” he said bluntly. “Their idea of fighting for centuries has been simply to shoot down an enemy from behind the shelter of rocks. I would as lief undertake to discipline an army of Malays, who, in a good many respects, especially in the handiness with which they use their knives, are a good deal like the Greeks.”

“There is one broad distinction,” Mr. Beveridge said: “the Malays have no past, the Greeks have never lost the remembrance of their ancient glory. They have a high standard to act up to; they reverence the names of the great men of old as if they had died but yesterday. With them it would be a resurrection, accomplished, no doubt, after vast pains and many troubles, the more so since the Greeks are a composite people among whom the descendants of the veritable Greek of old are in a great minority. The majority are of Albanian and Suliot blood, races which even the Romans found untamable. When the struggle begins I fear that this section of the race will display the savagery of their nature; but the fighting over, the intellectual portion will, I doubt not, regain their proper ascendency, and Greece will become the Greece of old.”

William Martyn was wise enough not to pursue the subject. He had a deep scar from the shoulder to the elbow of his right arm, and another on the left shoulder, both reminiscences of an attack that had been made upon him by half a dozen ruffians one night in the streets of Athens, and in his private opinion the entire extirpation of the Greek race would be no loss to the world in general.

“I am very sorry you have to leave to-morrow morning,” Mr. Beveridge said presently. “I should have been very glad if you could have stayed with us for a few days. It is some years since I had a visitor here, and I can assure you that I am surprised at the pleasure it gives me. However, I hope that whenever you happen to be at Exmouth you will run over and see us, and if at any time I can be of the slightest service to you I shall be really pleased.”

The next morning William Martyn, still refusing the offer of a conveyance, walked across the hills to meet the coach, and as soon as he had started Horace went down to the yacht. Marco had gone down into the village early, had seen Tom Burdett, and in his master’s name arranged for him to take charge of the Surf, and to engage a lad to sail with him. When Horace reached the wharf Tom was already on board with his nephew, Dick, a lad of seventeen or eighteen, who at once brought the dinghy ashore at Horace’s hail.

“Well, Dick, so you are going with us?”

“Ay, Master Horace, I am shipped as crew. She be a beauty. That cabin is a wonderful lot better than the fo’castle of a fishing-lugger. She is something like a craft to go a sailing in.”

“Good morning, Tom Burdett,” Horace said as the boat came alongside the yacht; “or I ought to say Captain Burdett.”

“No, no,” the sailor laughed; “I have been too long aboard big craft to go a captaining. I don’t so much mind being called a skipper, cos a master of any sort of craft may be called skipper; but I ain’t going to be called captain. Now, Dick, run that flag up to the mast-head. That is yachting fashion, you know, Master Horace, to run the burgee up when the owner comes on board. We ain’t got a burgee, seeing as we don’t belong to a yacht-club; but the flag with the name does service for it at present.”

“But I am not the owner, Tom, that is nonsense. My father got it to please me, and very good of him it was; but it is nonsense to call the boat mine.”

“Them’s the orders I got from your Greek chap down below, Mr. Horace. Says he, ‘Master says as how Mr. Horace is to be regarded as owner of this ’ere craft whenever he is aboard;’ so there you are, you see. There ain’t nothing to be said against that.”

“Well, it is very jolly, isn’t it, Tom?”

“It suits me first-rate, sir. I feel for all the world as if we had just captured a little prize, and they had put a young midshipmite in command and sent me along with him just to keep him straight; that is how I feel about it.”

“What sort of weather do you think we are going to have to-day, Tom?”

“I think the wind is going to shift, sir, and perhaps there will be more of it. It has gone round four points to the east since I turned out before sunrise.”

“And where do you think we had better go to-day, Tom?”

“Well, as the wind is now it would be first-rate for a run to Dartmouth.”

“Yes, but we should have a dead-beat back, Tom; we should never get back before dark.”

“No sir, but that Greek chap tells me as your father said as how there were no occasion to be back to-night, if so be as you liked to make a cruise of it.”

“Did he say that? That is capital. Then let us go to Dartmouth; to-morrow we can start as early as we like so as to get back here.”

“I don’t reckon we shall have to beat back. According to my notion the wind will be somewhere round to the south by to-morrow morning; that will suit us nicely. Now then, sir, we will see about getting sail on her.”

As soon as they began to throw the sail-covers off, Marco came on deck and lent a hand, and in the course of three minutes the sails were up, the mooring slipped, and the Surf was gliding past the end of the jetty.

“That was done in pretty good style, sir,” Tom Burdett said as he took up his station by the side of Horace, who was at the tiller. “I reckon when we have had a week’s practice together we shall get up sail as smartly as a man-of-war captain would want to see. I do like to see things done smart if it is only on a little craft like this, and with three of us we ought to get all her lower sail on her in no time. That Greek chap knows what he is about. Of course he has often been out with you in the fishing-boats, but there has never been any call for him to lend a hand there, and I was quite surprised just now when he turned to at it. I only reckoned on Dick and myself, and put the Greek down as steward and cook.”

“He used to work in a fishing-boat when he was a boy, Tom.”

“Ah, that accounts for it! They are smart sailors, some of them Greeks, in their own craft, though I never reckoned they were any good in a square-rigged ship; but in those feluccas of theirs they ain’t easy to be beaten in anything like fine weather. But they ain’t dependable, none of those Mediterranean chaps are, whether they are Greeks or Italians or Spaniards, when it comes on to blow really hard, and there is land under your lee, and no port to run to. When it comes to a squeak like that they lose their nerve and begin to pray to the saints, and wring their hands, and jabber like a lot of children. They don’t seem to have no sort of backbone about them. But in fine weather I allow they handle their craft as well as they could be handled. Mind your helm, sir; you must always keep your attention to that, no matter what is being said.”

“Are you going to get up the topsail, Tom?”

“Not at present, sir; with this wind there will be more sea on as we get further out, and I don’t know the craft yet; I want to see what her ways are afore we try her. She looks to me as if she would be stiff under canvas; but running as we are we can’t judge much about that, and you have always got to be careful with these light-draft craft. When we get to know her we shall be able to calculate what she will carry in all weathers; but there is no hurry about that. I have seen spars carried away afore now, from young commanders cracking on sail on craft they knew nothing about. This boat can run, there is no mistake about that. Look at that fishing-boat ahead of us; that is Jasper Hill’s Kitty; she went out ten minutes afore you came down. We are overhauling her hand over hand, and she is reckoned one of the fastest craft in Seaport. But then, this craft is bound to run fast with her fine lines and shallow draft; we must wait to see how she will do when there is lots of wind.”

In a couple of hours Horace was glad to hand over the tiller to the skipper as the sea had got up a good deal, and the Surf yawed so much before the following waves that it needed more skill than he possessed to keep her straight.

“Fetch the compass up, Dick,” the skipper said; “we are dropping the land fast. Now get the mizzen off her, she will steer easier without it, and it isn’t doing her much good. Do you begin to feel queer at all, Mr. Horace?”

“Not a bit,” the boy laughed. “Why, you don’t suppose, after rolling about in those fishing-boats when they are hanging to their nets, that one would feel this easy motion.”

“No; you would think not, but it don’t always follow. I have seen a man, who had been accustomed to knock about all his life in small craft, as sick as a dog on board a frigate, and I have seen the first lieutenant of a man-of-war knocked right over while lying off a bar on boat service. One gets accustomed to one sort of motion, and when you get another quite different it seems to take your innards all aback.”