Read The Reverse of the Medal for Free Online

is anything urgent.' There was not. This was the third copy a letter sent to the ports where the Surprise might touch on her homeward voyage it spoke of the progress of Jack s plantations, the slow indeterminate stagnation of the legal proceedings, and the chickenpox, then at it's height, and at the bottom of the page a hurried postscript said that Sophie would entrust this to Mr Illegible, who was bound for the West Indies and who had been so kind as to call on her.
    He looked up, and again this uneasy sense of familiarity struck him; but he said, 'It was exceedingly kind of you to bring me this letter. I hope you left everyone at Ashgrove Cottage quite well?'
    'Mrs Aubrey told me the children were taken with the chickenpox, and she was concerned for them, sure; but a gentleman that was sitting by whose name I did not catch said there was no danger at all, at all.'
    'I do not believe my wife quite caught your name either, sir,' said Jack. 'At all events I cannot make out what she writes.'
    'My name is Panda, sir, Samuel Panda, and my mother was Sally Mputa. Since I was going to England with the Fathers she desired me to give you these,' - holding out a package - 'and that is how I came to go to Ashgrove Cottage, hoping to find you there.'
    'God's my life,' said Jack, and after a moment he slowly began to open the package. It contained a sperm-whale's tooth upon which he had laboriously engraved HMS Resolution under close-reefed topsails when he was a very young man, younger even than the tall youth facing him; it also contained a small bundle of feathers and elephant's hair bound together with a strip of leopard's skin.
    'That is a charm to keep you from drowning,' observed Samuel Panda.
    'Flow kind,' said Jack automatically. They looked at one another with a naked searching, eager on the one side, astonished on the other. There were few mirrors hanging in Jack's part of the ship - only a little shaving-glass in his sleeping-cabin - but the extraordinarily elaborate and ingenious piece of furniture that Stephen's wife Diana had given him and that was chiefly used as a music-stand had a large one inside the lid. Jack opened it and they stood there side by side, each comparing, each silently, intently, looking for himself in the other.
    'I am astonished,' said Jack at last. 'I had no idea, no idea in the world...' He sat down again. 'I hope your mother is well?'
    'Very well indeed, sir, I thank you. She prepares African medicines in the hospital at Lourenco Marques, which some patients prefer.'
    Neither spoke until Jack said 'God's my life' again, turning the whale tooth in his hand. Few things at sea could amaze him and he had suffered some shrewd blows without discomposure, but now his youth coming so vividly to life took him wholly aback.
    'Will I tell you how I come to be here, sir?' asked the young man out of the silence, in his deep, gentle voice.
    'Do, by all means. Yes, pray do,' said Jack.
    'We removed to Lourenco Marques about the time I was born - my mother came from Nwandwe, no great way off - and there it was that the Fathers took me in when I was a little small boy, and very sickly, it appears. My mother was married to an ancient Zulu witch-doctor at the time - a heathen, of course - so they brought me up and educated me.'
    'Bless them,' said Jack. 'But is not Lourenco Marques on Delagoa Bay - is it not Portuguese?'
    'It is Portuguese, sir, but Irish entirely. That is to say, the Mission came from the County Roscommon itself; and it was Father Power and Father Birmingham took me to England with them, where I hoped I should find you, and so on to the Indies.'
    'Well, Sam,' said Jack, 'You are very welcome, I am sure. And now you have found me, what can I do for you? Had it been earlier, as I could have wished, it would have been easier; but as I said, I had not the least notion... it is too late for the Navy, of course, and in any event... yet stay, have you ever thought of being a captain's clerk? It can lead to a