In Distant Waters by Richard Woodman Read Free Book Online Page B

ruffled his shirt and through the skylight the sunshine beat down, warming the old ache in his mangled shoulder.
    The mood of the people is much improved since our arrival. Their faces wear smiles this day and I am sanguine that the outbreaks of sporadic drunkenness, of petty-theft and brawling that accompanied our passage of the Atlantic, will cease now that we are brought into better climes and the men become resigned to their task
 . . .
    He looked up and saw the launch coming off, its waist full of filled barricoes of sweet water. Through the skylight he heard orders being given to the watch on deck in preparation for hoisting the casks into the hold. If they worked well today and tomorrow he would give each watch a day’s leave of absence and they could scramble about the island like children on holiday.
    By noon they had reached the tree-line. Quilhampton in the lead gave a great whoop, like a Red-Indian, for it was to be the halting point of the expedition. Drinkwater was panting with the unaccustomed exertion, watching Frey and Belchambers scamper about the increasing number of rocky outcrops that made their appearance as the valley had narrowed and risen.
    As behove the intelligence of naval officers it had been considered necessary to make some purpose of the day. Not forthem the wild and aimless wandering of the men, whose liberty infected them like quarts of unwatered rum. Far below they could hear the shouts and laughter of their unconfined spirits as they chased about the ferny undergrowth. Besides, if the men were to give vent to their pent-up emotions, it was incumbent upon the officers to make way for them. So it had been Quilhampton who had decided the walk ashore should become an expedition, and Drinkwater who had suggested they traced one of the streams upwards to its source.
    Accompanied by the second lieutenant, the two midshipmen, Mr Lallo the surgeon and Derrick the Quaker clerk, they had set off after breaking their fasts and parading divisions. Those left aboard had worn glum expressions, despite promises of their turn tomorrow, such was the liberating infection of the island upon those destined to run amok today.
    The officers began their expedition at the watering place where the stream ran sluggishly out over a bed of pebbles and sand, spreading itself into a tiny delta and carving miniature cliffs and escarpments through the foreshore. But it soon narrowed, its bed deeper and its current swifter, passing beneath a cover of sandalwood trees which already showed evidence of the axe marks of man.
    â€˜The oleaginous qualities of this species,’ pronounced Lallo, patting one of the dark red tree-boles with a proprietorial hand, ‘produces an oil which may, I believe, be substituted for copaiba oil as well as forming an admixture for Indian attars . . .’
    â€˜What the deuce is an attar, Lallo?’ enquired Quilhampton.
    â€˜Perfume, perfume, that fragrance so often necessary to the fair sex in warm weather to render them desirable to men. I should have thought you would have known that, Mr Q, given your strong desire to become a benedick.’
    Quilhampton flushed scarlet and Lallo cast a mischievous glance at Drinkwater. ‘Is that not so, sir?’
    â€˜I fear you embarrass Mr Q, Mr Lallo, but perhaps you would tell me to what use
you
would put such an oil.’
    â€˜Well, as for copaiba, it is a specific in certain complaints of the urinary tract . . . it occurs to me that the sandalwood treemight provide us with oleaginous matter with similar properties.’
    â€˜Very well. We can gather some chips on our return, but our young friends here are anxious to continue, I suspect. They are too young for complaints of the urinary tract.’
    â€˜Very well, sir.
Adelante!
’
    Laughing, they pressed on, ever upwards. The trees thinned to scrub, the ferns that grew prolifically alongside the stream now sprouted from rocks and mosses