“The man in there is unhappy. He weeps. He has taken care not to blubber or sniffle, lest we should find out that he is crying. But I heard—quite distinctly—the sound of a tear falling on his sleeve.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a drop of water falling off the ceiling on him?” asked Gub-Gub.
“Pshaw!—Such ignorance!” sniffed Too-Too. “A drop of water falling off the ceiling would have made ten times as much noise!”
“Well,” said the Doctor, “if the poor fellow’s unhappy, we’ve got to get in and see what’s the matter with him. Find me an axe, and I’ll chop the door down.”
THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER
THE OCEAN GOSSIPS
Right away an axe was found. And the Doctor soon chopped a hole in the door big enough to clamber through.
At first he could see nothing at all, it was so dark inside. So he struck a match.
The room was quite small; no window; the ceiling, low. For furniture there was only one little stool. All round the room big barrels stood against the walls, fastened at the bottom so they wouldn’t tumble with the rolling of the ship; and above the barrels, pewter jugs of all sizes hung from wooden pegs. There was a strong, winey smell. And in the middle of the floor sat a little boy, about eight years old, crying bitterly.
“I declare, it is the pirates’ rum-room!” said Jip in a whisper.
“Yes. Very rum!” said Gub-Gub. “The smell makes me giddy.”
The little boy seemed rather frightened to find a man standing there before him and all those animals staring in through the hole in the broken door. But as soon as he saw John Dolittle’s face by the light of the match, he stopped crying and got up.
“You aren’t one of the pirates, are you?” he asked.
And when the Doctor threw back his head and laughed long and loud, the little boy smiled too and came and took his hand.
“You laugh like a friend,” he said—“not like a pirate. Could you tell me where my uncle is?”
“I am afraid I can’t,” said the Doctor. “When did you see him last?”
“It was the day before yesterday,” said the boy. “I and my uncle were out fishing in our little boat, when the pirates came and caught us. They sunk our fishing-boat and brought us both on to this ship. They told my uncle that they wanted him to be a pirate like them—for he was clever at sailing a ship in all weathers. But he said he didn’t want to be a pirate, because killing people and stealing was no work for a good fisherman to do. Then the leader, Ben Ali, got very angry and gnashed his teeth, and said they would throw my uncle into the sea if he didn’t do as they said. They sent me downstairs; and I heard the noise of a fight going on above. And when they let me come up again next day, my uncle was nowhere to be seen. I asked the pirates where he was; but they wouldn’t tell me. I am very much afraid they threw him into the sea and drowned him.”
And the little boy began to cry again.
“Well now—wait a minute,” said the Doctor. “Don’t cry. Let’s go and have tea in the dining-room, and we’ll talk it over. Maybe your uncle is quite safe all the time. You don’t know that he was drowned, do you? And that’s something. Perhaps we can find him for you. First we’ll go and have tea—with strawberry-jam; and then we will see what can be done.”
All the animals had been standing around listening with great curiosity. And when they had gone into the ship’s dining-room and were having tea, Dab-Dab came up behind the Doctor’s chair and whispered.
“Ask the porpoises if the boy’s uncle was drowned—they’ll know.”
“All right,” said the Doctor, taking a second piece of bread-and-jam.
“What are those funny, clicking noises you are making with your tongue?” asked the boy.
“Oh, I just said a couple of words in duck-language,” the Doctor answered. “This is Dab-Dab, one of my pets.”
“I didn’t even know that ducks had a language,” said the boy. “Are all these other animals your pets, too? What is that strange-looking thing with two heads?”
“Sh!” the Doctor whispered. “That is the pushmi-pullyu. Don’t let him see we’re talking about him—he gets so dreadfully embarrassed.… Tell me, how did you come to be locked up in that little room?”
“The pirates shut me in there when they were going off to steal things from another ship. When I heard some one chopping on the door, I didn’t know who it could be. I was very glad to find it was you. Do you think you will be able to find my uncle for me?”
“Well, we are going to try very hard,” said the Doctor. “Now what was your uncle like to look at?”
“He had red hair,” the boy answered—“very red hair, and the picture of an anchor tattooed on his arm. He was a strong man, a kind uncle and the best sailor in the South Atlantic. His fishing-boat was called The Saucy Sally—a cutter-rigged sloop.”
“What’s ‘cutterigsloop’?” whispered Gub-Gub, turning to Jip.
“Sh!—That’s the kind of a ship the man had,” said Jip. “Keep still, can’t you?”
“Oh,” said the pig, “is that all? I thought it was something to drink.”
So the Doctor left the boy to play with the animals in the dining-room, and went upstairs to look for passing porpoises.
And soon a whole school came dancing and jumping through the water, on their way to Brazil.
When they saw the Doctor leaning on the rail of his ship, they came over to see how he was getting on.
And the Doctor asked them if they had seen anything of a man with red hair and an anchor tattooed on his arm.
“Do you mean the master of The Saucy Sally?” asked the porpoises.
“Yes,” said the Doctor. “That’s the man. Has he been drowned?”
“His fishing-sloop was sunk,” said the porpoises—“for we saw it lying on the bottom of the sea. But there was nobody inside it, because we went and looked.”
“His little nephew is on the ship with me here,” said the Doctor. “And he is terribly afraid that the pirates threw his uncle into the sea. Would you be so good as to find out for me, for sure, whether he has been drowned or not?”
“Oh, he isn’t drowned,” said the porpoises. “If he were, we would be sure to have heard of it from the deep-sea Decapods. We hear all the salt-water news. The shell-fish call us ‘The Ocean Gossips.’ No—tell the little boy we are sorry we do not know where his uncle is; but we are quite certain he hasn’t been drowned in the sea.”
So the Doctor ran downstairs with the news and told the nephew, who clapped his hands with happiness. And the pushmi-pullyu took the little boy on his back and gave him a ride round the dining-room table; while all the other animals followed behind, beating the dish-covers with spoons, pretending it was a parade.
THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER
SMELLS
“Your uncle must now be found,” said the Doctor—“that is the next thing—now that we know he wasn’t thrown into the sea.”
Then Dab-Dab came up to him again and whispered,
“Ask the eagles to look for the man. No living creature can see better than an eagle. When they are miles high in the air they can count the ants crawling on the ground. Ask the eagles.”
So the Doctor sent one of the swallows off to get some eagles.
And in about an hour the little bird came back with six different kinds of eagles: a Black Eagle, a Bald Eagle, a Fish Eagle, a Golden Eagle, an Eagle-Vulture, and a White-tailed Sea Eagle. Twice as high as the boy they were, each one of them. And they stood on the rail of the ship, like round-shouldered soldiers all in a row, stern and still and stiff; while their great, gleaming, black eyes shot darting glances here and there and everywhere.
Gub-Gub was scared of them and got behind a barrel. He said he felt as though those terrible eyes were looking right inside of him to see what he had stolen for lunch.
And the Docto
r said to the eagles,
“A man has been lost—a fisherman with red hair and an anchor marked on his arm. Would you be so kind as to see if you can find him for us? This boy is the man’s nephew.”
Eagles do not talk very much. And all they answered in their husky voices was,
“You may be sure that we will do our best—for John Dolittle.”
Then they flew off—and Gub-Gub came out from behind his barrel to see them go. Up and up and up they went—higher and higher and higher still. Then, when the Doctor could only just see them, they parted company and started going off all different ways—North, East, South and West, looking like tiny grains of black sand creeping across the wide, blue sky.
“My gracious!” said Gub-Gub in a hushed voice. “What a height! I wonder they don’t scorch their feathers—so near the sun!”
They were gone a long time. And when they came back it was almost night.
And the eagles said to the Doctor,
“We have searched all the seas and all the countries and all the islands and all the cities and all the villages in this half of the world. But we have failed. In the main street of Gibraltar we saw three red hairs lying on a wheelbarrow before a baker’s door. But they were not the hairs of a man—they were the hairs out of a fur-coat. Nowhere, on land or water, could we see any sign of this boy’s uncle. And if we could not see him, then he is not to be seen.… For John Dolittle—we have done our best.”
Then the six great birds flapped their big wings and flew back to their homes in the mountains and the rocks.
“Well,” said Dab-Dab, after they had gone, “what are we going to do now? The boy’s uncle must be found—there’s no two ways about that. The lad isn’t old enough to be knocking around the world by himself. Boys aren’t like ducklings—they have to be taken care of till they’re quite old.… I wish Chee-Chee were here. He would soon find the man. Good old Chee-Chee! I wonder how he’s getting on!”
“If we only had Polynesia with us,” said the white mouse. “She would soon think of some way. Do you remember how she got us all out of prison—the second time? My, but she was a clever one!”
“I don’t think so much of those eagle-fellows,” said Jip. “They’re just conceited. They may have very good eyesight and all that; but when you ask them to find a man for you, they can’t do it—and they have the cheek to come back and say that nobody else could do it. They’re just conceited—like that collie in Puddleby. And I don’t think a whole lot of those gossipy old porpoises either. All they could tell us was that the man isn’t in the sea. We don’t want to know where he isn’t—we want to know where he is.”
“Oh, don’t talk so much,” said Gub-Gub. “It’s easy to talk; but it isn’t so easy to find a man when you have got the whole world to hunt him in. Maybe the fisherman’s hair has turned white, worrying about the boy; and that was why the eagles didn’t find him. You don’t know everything. You’re just talking. You are not doing anything to help. You couldn’t find the boy’s uncle any more than the eagles could—you couldn’t do as well.”
“Couldn’t I?” said the dog. “That’s all you know, you stupid piece of warm bacon! I haven’t begun to try yet, have I? You wait and see!”
Then Jip went to the Doctor and said,
“Ask the boy if he has anything in his pockets that belonged to his uncle, will you, please?”
So the Doctor asked him. And the boy showed them a gold ring which he wore on a piece of string around his neck because it was too big for his finger. He said his uncle gave it to him when they saw the pirates coming.
Jip smelt the ring and said,
“That’s no good. Ask him if he has anything else that belonged to his uncle.”
Then the boy took from his pocket a great, big red handkerchief and said, “This was my uncle’s too.”
As soon as the boy pulled it out, Jip shouted,
“Snuff, by Jingo!—Black Rappee snuff. Don’t you smell it? His uncle took snuff—Ask him, Doctor.”
The Doctor questioned the boy again; and he said, “Yes. My uncle took a lot of snuff.”
“Fine!” said Jip. “The man’s as good as found. ’Twill be as easy as stealing milk from a kitten. Tell the boy I’ll find his uncle for him in less than a week. Let us go upstairs and see which way the wind is blowing.”
“But it is dark now,” said the Doctor. “You can’t find him in the dark!”
“I don’t need any light to look for a man who smells of Black Rappee snuff,” said Jip as he climbed the stairs. “If the man had a hard smell, like string, now—or hot water, it would be different. But snuff!—Tut, tut!”
“Does hot water have a smell?” asked the Doctor.
“Certainly it has,” said Jip. “Hot water smells quite different from cold water. It is warm water—or ice—that has the really difficult smell. Why, I once followed a man for ten miles on a dark night by the smell of the hot water he had used to shave with—for the poor fellow had no soap.… Now then, let us see which way the wind is blowing. Wind is very important in long-distant smelling. It mustn’t be too fierce a wind—and of course it must blow the right way. A nice, steady, damp breeze is the best of all.… Ha!—This wind is from the North.”
Then Jip went up to the front of the ship and smelt the wind; and he started muttering to himself,
“Tar; Spanish onions; kerosene oil; wet raincoats; crushed laurel-leaves; rubber burning; lace-curtains being washed—No, my mistake, lace-curtains hanging out to dry; and foxes—hundreds of ’em—cubs; and—”
“Can you really smell all those different things in this one wind?” asked the Doctor.
“Why, of course!” said Jip. “And those are only a few of the easy smells—the strong ones. Any mongrel could smell those with a cold in the head. Wait now, and I’ll tell you some of the harder scents that are coming on this wind—a few of the dainty ones.”
Then the dog shut his eyes tight, poked his nose straight up in the air and sniffed hard with his mouth half-open.
For a long time he said nothing. He kept as still as a stone. He hardly seemed to be breathing at all. When at last he began to speak, it sounded almost as though he were singing, sadly, in a dream.
“Bricks,” he whispered, very low—“old yellow bricks, crumbling with age in a garden-wall; the sweet breath of young cows standing in a mountain-stream; the lead roof of a dove-cote—or perhaps a granary—with the mid-day sun on it; black kid gloves lying in a bureau-drawer of walnut-wood; a dusty road with a horses’ drinking-trough beneath the sycamores; little mushrooms bursting through the rotting leaves; and—and—and—”
“Any parsnips?” asked Gub-Gub.
“No,” said Jip. “You always think of things to eat. No parsnips whatever. And no snuff—plenty of pipes and cigarettes, and a few cigars. But no snuff. We must wait till the wind changes to the South.”
“Yes, it’s a poor wind, that,” said Gub-Gub. “I think you’re a fake, Jip. Who ever heard of finding a man in the middle of the ocean just by smell! I told you you couldn’t do it.”
“Look here,” said Jip, getting really angry. “You’re going to get a bite on the nose in a minute! You needn’t think that just because the Doctor won’t let us give you what you deserve, that you can be as cheeky as you like!”
“Stop quarreling!” said the Doctor—“Stop it! Life’s too short. Tell me, Jip, where do you think those smells are coming from?”
“From Devon and Wales—most of them,” said Jip—“The wind is coming that way.”
“Well, well!” said the Doctor. “You know that’s really quite remarkable—quite. I must make a note of that for my new book. I wonder if you could train me to smell as well as that.… But no—perhaps I’m better off the way I am. ‘Enough is as good as a feast,’ they say. Let’s go down to supper. I’m quite hungry.”
“So am I,” said Gub-G
ub.
THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER
THE ROCK
Up they got, early next morning, out of the silken beds; and they saw that the sun was shining brightly and that the wind was blowing from the South.
Jip smelt the South wind for half an hour. Then he came to the Doctor, shaking his head.
“I smell no snuff as yet,” he said. “We must wait till the wind changes to the East.”
But even when the East wind came, at three o’clock that afternoon, the dog could not catch the smell of snuff.
The little boy was terribly disappointed and began to cry again, saying that no one seemed to be able to find his uncle for him. But all Jip said to the Doctor was,
“Tell him that when the wind changes to the West, I’ll find his uncle even though he be in China—so long as he is still taking Black Rappee snuff.”
Three days they had to wait before the West wind came. This was on a Friday morning, early—just as it was getting light. A fine rainy mist lay on the sea like a thin fog. And the wind was soft and warm and wet.
As soon as Jip awoke he ran upstairs and poked his nose in the air. Then he got most frightfully excited and rushed down again to wake the Doctor up.
“Doctor!” he cried. “I’ve got it! Doctor! Doctor! Wake up! Listen! I’ve got it! The wind’s from the West and it smells of nothing but snuff. Come upstairs and start the ship—quick!”
So the Doctor tumbled out of bed and went to the rudder to steer the ship.
“Now I’ll go up to the front,” said Jip; “and you watch my nose—whichever way I point it, you turn the ship the same way. The man cannot be far off—with the smell as strong as this. And the wind’s all lovely and wet. Now watch me!”
So all that morning Jip stood in the front part of the ship, sniffing the wind and pointing the way for the Doctor to steer; while all the animals and the little boy stood round with their eyes wide open, watching the dog in wonder.
About lunch-time Jip asked Dab-Dab to tell the Doctor that he was getting worried and wanted to speak to him. So Dab-Dab went and fetched the Doctor from the other end of the ship and Jip said to him,
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