Harper's Round Table, December 17, 1895

CHRISTMAS ON MAJUBA STATION.

BY RICHARD BARRY.

December on the Majuba coast, and the day had been the hottest of the month, as the log-book entry showed.

It was a few minutes past sundown, and the awnings that had covered the decks of the old steam-frigate Sumter were being taken in to allow a freer passage for any air that might begin to stir with the nightfall.

The barefooted sailors trod gingerly about, carefully avoiding the metal-work on the hatch combings and the soft blotches of pitch that had bubbled up through the deck seams. The only sounds were the chattering of a large monkey that was swinging himself to and fro in the heat-slackened shrouds, and the discordant squawking of some tame parrots on the forecastle.

A group of officers lolled against the after-rail, and three or four youngsters, a little apart from them, had just finished a whispered conversation. But for some minutes there had not been a loud word spoken throughout the ship. There was one thought present in the minds and hearts of all, from the Captain, ill and half delirious with fever below in his close sweltering cabin, to Midshipman Bobby Seymour, who had had a lump in his throat for the past twenty-four hours--one thought, over and over--home, home, home.

It was the early evening of the night before Christmas. A sagging wind-sail, that hung down the forward hatchway like a huge empty trouser leg, swayed a little, and the movement caught the junior Lieutenant's eye.

"The land breeze! Feel it?" he said, lifting his hand as if to enforce silence.

Warm, and almost fetid with an indescribable odor, a breath had crept softly across the water from the low-lying African coast--a breath redolent of swamps, of strange unhealthy products of the overheated earth, suggestive of fever that burned into the bones.

"I don't like it," said Bobby Seymour, wriggling his small shoulders. He spoke in a half whisper. "I wish I was at Irvington with the river all iced up, the sleigh-bells jingling-jangling everywhere, and--"

"Oh, I say, quit, please, won't you?" interrupted the boy at his elbow. "It's hard enough to stand things as they are. What wouldn't we all give--" Then he shut his lips firmly without finishing his sentence. "Hear that surf!" he added, after a moment's silence.

Borne on the slight air from the eastward came a deep sound like the booming of a thousand giant drums.

"It doesn't look like any landing to-morrow," remarked Midshipman Seymour, wisely.

Just then the thin musical notes of a concertina drifted out from the forecastle.

"'Be it never so humble, there's no place like home,'"

chanted a voice.

"They have it there too," said Bobby Seymour to himself. "Why shouldn't they?"

But the song died away almost as soon as it had begun. In fact, it had been more like a deep-chested musical sigh than anything else.

"I wonder if we couldn't get the Kroomen to sing something jolly for us to-night?" suggested one of the larger midshipmen.

"I think the old man is too ill to stand much celebrating just now," spoke up another. "But I say, Remson, let's see if one of us can't get ashore to-morrow and get something fresh to eat. I'm sick of this old hooker, anyhow. Might as well be docked in Portsmouth, for all the good we're doing here."

This was fact. Watching for slave-traders under such restrictive orders from the government at Washington as precluded the faintest possibility of making a capture was far from exciting, and, besides, the goings on at home had produced a feeling of uneasiness on shipboard, for this was the troublous winter of '60-1.

It was little wonder that things were doleful on board the old Sumter this particular Christmas eve, and so it passed like the evening of any other day.

But Bobby Seymour, when he awakened the next morning, gazed up at the huge deck beams of the steerage, and suddenly remembered something.

He slid out of his hammock and scrambled over to the chest that had his initials on the lid. He opened it, and dug out a neatly tied package from a corner. It was addressed to him with his full title, and was inscribed "Not to be opened until Xmas day."

He crawled over to an open port, and sitting down on the deck, deftly undid the wrapping. But he paused for a minute before he looked to see what it contained, and his eyes took on the sightless expression of deep thoughts far away as he gazed out over the sea.

The sun was flaming above the tree-tops on the distant shore, and the warm morning breeze fluttered the hair of his tousled curly head.

But Bobby did not see the sun or feel the breeze. He saw a wide stretch of snow-covered lawn, with the pine branches that lined the driveway weighted down, and each elm and apple bough all a-sparkle in a case of ice, and the sleigh bells "jingle-jangling" everywhere. He knew how his skates looked, hanging up on the nail behind the door, and his hockey-stick, and his sled. He could smell the hot buckwheat cakes and hear his little sisters laughing.

"They'd just be taking down their stockings," he said, a quiver coming to his eyelid.

In truth, Midshipman Bobby Seymour was nothing but a boy, and not a very tall one. He looked even younger than he really was as he sat there on the deck hugging his bare knees up to his chin, the still unopened package held tightly under his arm, and if a tear did roll down his cheek, and all the way down his neck beneath his collar, it was nothing to be ashamed of.

"Mr. Seymour," broke in a voice that brought back the heat and the smell of the ship quite suddenly. "Mr. Jephson wishes to see you on deck as soon as possible, sir."

Bobby made a dash at his eyes with the back of his hand, and looked up at the big red-mustached orderly. "Very good; be up there right away," he answered.

Then he arose and hurried into his things, only glancing into the package, and catching sight of two or three letters and some mysterious objects done up in tissue-paper.

As he came on deck he walked quietly aft and touched his cap. Mr. Jephson, the executive officer, saw him.

"Ah, Mr. Seymour, merry Christmas!" he remarked, much as if it was the usual thing to say. "I have some work for your boat's crew, sir. Just step here a minute."

Bobby hastened to the quarter-deck.

"There, do you see that," said the Lieutenant, pointing towards the dark green line of coast--"that white thing floating there, a mile or more from shore?"

"Yes, sir," said Bobby, squinting his little sleepy eyes.

Mr. Jephson picked up his sea-glasses. "In my mind it will help clear up the meaning of that glare to the westward two nights ago," he said. "I think it's a bit of wreckage, or an overturned boat that is drifting in." The Lieutenant spoke slowly as he adjusted the binoculars. Then he turned, and added, quickly:

"Get your coffee; see that the men get theirs; lower away the cutter; pick that up or find out what it is, and come back to the ship. You will be here by breakfast-time."

"Aye, aye, sir," Bobby answered.