"If you don't pull it down, blow it up," I said, smiling. "You can tell
him it was an accident."
All sorts of plans ran through my head. I suggested this and
that--twenty different schemes--and rather swept Mr. Fisher off his feet
with suggestions. "The first thing to do?" he asked, passing his hand
nervously across his forehead, as if he only wanted to be told one thing
at a time.
"Blow up the Old Fort!" I told him, and he promised to start right away,
as soon as he could get hold of his people. He took me up on the roof
of the signal station, where the big telescope stood on its tripod, and
I had a grand view of the surroundings of Old Jask, eight miles away,
and the wriggling track which led to it round swampy inlets of the sea;
of the dreary wastes of sand stretching east and west as far as the eye
could see till they lost themselves in the mountains; of the
interminable telegraph-poles dwindling away in the distance along the
shore line to the east'ard and to the west'ard (to our left as we looked
down), of the little _Bunder Abbas_ under her now trim awnings, and of a
cluster of dhows moored close to the new sheikh's fort and the village
of New Jask.
From force of habit Mr. Fisher slued round the telescope and diligently
searched the plains at the foot of the mountains, in whose ravines and
valleys the wild tribesmen were concealed.
"Can't see a single band of them this morning," he said with much
relief. "The _Bunder Abbas_ is the cause of that."
Afterwards I returned aboard her and sent Hartley, the signal-man, to
the telegraph-station, so that I could communicate with Mr. Fisher and
he with me at any time. I also sent Jaffa to Old Jask to try to obtain
news in the bazaar there.
That done, I had a yarn with Mr. Scarlett. A great change had come over
him since he had got rid of his snake bracelet. I am sure he was
fatter; the lines in his face were certainly not so deep, nor his eyes
so sunken. He had lost that furtive look in them and that vulture
appearance. He received the news that I was going to stay here, and
that there would probably be some fighting, with positive pleasure.
"Anything we can do to help the poor little lass sir! Now, a Maxim,
that's what's wanted up there (pointing to a prominent corner on the
flat roof of the main building); from there it could sweep the whole
approach. We might lend 'em one of ours if it came to the pinch. Eh,
sir?"
"Right oh!" I told him. "Directly we get permission to stay, you can
mount one there."
Permission did come, Hartley semaphoring the telegram that very
afternoon, and Mr. Scarlett waking me to give the good news. I could
swear that he was as pleased as I was.
For the next few days I spent most of my time on shore, landing at
sunrise and supervising, in a sort of way, the destruction of the ruined
sheikh's house, and the strengthening of the breastwork and the wire
entanglements. I say "in a sort of way", because neither Mr. Fisher nor
I knew which of us should take entire charge of the defence
preparations, with the result that there was a lot of unnecessary work
done and some muddling. At any rate the one or two charges exploded in
the walls of the Old Fort did not do much damage, and I did not care to
interfere.
Meanwhile Mr. Scarlett busied himself preparing the corner of the roof
of the telegraph buildings and placing big balks of timber behind the
parapet to receive the mounting of a Maxim, if the occasion arose. In
spite of the desertion of most of the servants, labour was plentiful,
natives of all nationalities and shades of colour clamouring for a job.
Many of them were Afghans and Baluchis, and probably were spies; but the
only information they could give was that we were expecting an attack
and preparing for it, which it was good for them to know. We set these
people to work strengthening the barbed-wire fence and the
"vegetable-marrow" trench.
At first I had most of my meals with Mr. Fisher and his wife--Miss
Borsen never joined us. In fact, I never saw more of her than a flick
of a skirt as she fled round a corner one day when I had appeared
unexpectedly. She was so obviously avoiding me that it became most
unpleasant, and later on I never went to the house unless I was obliged
to do so.
This worried me a good deal--the fact of her refusing to forgive me, I
mean---and took away a great deal of my enjoyment.
In spite of this the days went past very quickly. Hartley occasionally
saw bands of mounted people wandering about the plains and the coast,
but the telegraph-wire was untouched. Jaffa could report nothing more
definite than a general feeling of uneasiness; trading dhows came and
went, and, day after day, trains of camels and donkeys shuffled
backwards and forwards through the eight miles of sand to Old Jask,
loading or unloading them.
Indeed, the only exciting incident was the sudden bursting of a strong
"shamel", which scattered the dhows and compelled me to raise steam and
take shelter from it round the other side of the peninsula.
A fortnight passed, and the mail-steamer had called and left again
without either of the two ladies. This time it was Mrs. Fisher who
would not leave her husband, and Miss Borsen who would not leave Mrs.
Fisher; so they both stayed--out of a mistaken and foolish sense of
duty--much to Mr. Fisher's secret grief.
Then the blow fell, the morning after the steamer sailed.
Of course I always slept on board, and just as daylight was dawning I
was awakened by hearing a tremendous fusillade. Mr. Scarlett and I
jumped up, peering ashore in the direction from which the noise came,
and saw a great number (a multitude they looked in the indistinct light)
of people on camels streaming right along the peninsula, firing rifles
as they rode, whilst a furious burst of firing farther away, in the
direction of the new village and the New Fort, told us that another band
must be attacking that.
The crew of the _Bunder Abbas_ were tumbling to their guns, and Mr.
Scarlett jumped down on deck to see that everything was ready.
Fascinated, I watched that mad rush of shrieking, firing natives.
Leaping off their camels, two or three hundred of them began advancing
up the slope towards the telegraph building, stopping to fire, moving
on, and stopping again.
"For God's sake get those guns going!" I yelled down.
"In a minute, sir, in a minute!" Mr. Scarlett's voice, calm and
collected, came back.
I clutched the railings and gasped as I thought of those two women up
there and wondered whether the door through the loopholed wall was
closed or not--it was not light enough for me to see. If it was
open--God help them!
By this time the leading Baluchis--or whatever they were--were almost up
to the line of the barbed-wire; but then I was intensely relieved to
hear a few shots popping off from the telegraph buildings, so knew that
some of the people had had time to seize their rifles.
"What the devil has gone wrong? Why don't you open fire?" I bawled, as
the first of the attacking party reached the barbed-wire. It stopped
them for a moment, but then they began throwing their loose cloaks
across it and scrambling over.
Now was our chance, and, mad with fury, I dashed down below, yelling to
the six-pounder and Maxims' crews to open fire. Mr. Scarlett was not
there, nor Moore. Someone told me they were below, aft, and I heard a
smashing of woodwork, jumped down, and found them smashing open the door
of the magazine. I seized a box of Maxim cartridge-belts and simply
heaved it up through the hatchway. In a mad rush of Mr. Scarlett,
myself, Moore, and two or three others we were on deck again with a box
of six-pounder ammunition between us. As we dragged it forward the
marines and Ellis, with his seamen, were pulling the Maxim belts through
the breech-blocks; and as we wrenched off the cover of the six-pounder
cartridge-box I saw that the crowd of Baluchis were already swarming
over the line of breastworks. The long cartridge was thrown into the
empty breech of the six-pounder, and as I darted up the ladder to the
upper deck it fired. A moment later both Maxims opened too.
*CHAPTER XVI*
*The Siege of Jask*
Fortunately the _Bunder Abbas_ was lying broadside on to the shore, so
that all three of her guns were able to bear on the ground leading up to
the telegraph-station--about fourteen hundred yards away. I reached the
upper deck and looked ashore just in time to see the first six-pounder
shell bursting on the open slope, close to a group of fifty or sixty of
the enemy, who had already reached the breastwork. Some had jumped down
into the little trench, others were still clambering over the earthwork.
Most of them were firing their rifles, though (as far as I could see
through my glasses) without taking the trouble to aim--in fact they were
practically firing in the air. As the shell burst among them they
swerved aside, just as minnows do when you drop a stone among them, but
still went on. Another shell made them swerve again and scatter a
little more widely, but did not stop them. A Maxim was wanted--not
shells.
Although both Maxims were firing very rapidly, Ellis and Webster did not
seem able to find the range. This may have been due to excitement or the
uncertain light. At any rate, from where I was I could see, quite
plainly, the bullets tearing up the ground near the end of the
barbed-wire fence, some two hundred yards this side of where the
Baluchis were crossing it.
I yelled down that they were going short, and actually watched the
furrows advancing until in another moment those streams of bullets had
reached the poor wretches and simply ploughed lanes through them. These
people made such a fine target that Ellis and Webster instinctively kept
firing at them, and more time was lost before I could make one of them
slue his gun round to support Moore's shells. When he did so, the
rushing, yelling crowd, who were scrambling across and beyond the
trench, seemed to melt away, and only a few were left alive--some to
fall back into the trench, where they lay comparatively safely, and
others to take refuge among the mat shed huts belonging to the telegraph
employees--the huts I had so often implored Mr. Fisher to burn.
Ellis--I think it was Ellis--was still "playing" the Maxim on the barbed
fence, and was not able to see, or too excited to realize, that he was
only firing on dead men lying heaped in masses, or sprawling singly over
the fence. I shouted down to tell him not to waste more ammunition.
At this time there were not more than perhaps twenty of the enemy to be
seen, and these were doing their best to escape, crawling and creeping,
dodging towards those confounded huts.
I stopped the Maxims and ordered Moore to fire a few shells among the
huts, hoping to set fire to them, or at any rate turn out the Baluchis
taking shelter there. Before he could do this my fellows began
shouting: "More are coming, sir; look, sir!" and I saw another horde of
chaps dash out from the Old Fort and the dip in the ground round it,
rushing up the slope as the others had done, but keeping away to their
left, to avoid the mangled heaps of their tribesmen huddled near the
barbed-wire fence.
They were already within fifty yards of the huts before we could swing
our guns round, only to discover that whilst they kept on the far side
of the slope the curvature of the ground protected them to a certain
extent, and we could not reach them easily. Only their heads could we
see, their heads and their arms brandishing rifles.
We let rip at them without doing much damage, if any, for I never saw
the rush waver. But then they came to the barbed fence, and climbing
over it they made a better target. They must have suffered horribly,
but at least a hundred passed it and disappeared among those huts to
join the remnant of the first rush.
I guessed what would happen. Directly they had regained breath the
whole crowd would dash for the loopholed wall.
I yelled for everybody to "stand by" and train their guns on the upper
slope.
"They'll be in the open in a minute!" I shouted, and glued my glasses to
my eyes. It was quite light now. Turning for a moment to the
telegraph-station, I saw Hartley trying to semaphore something from the
top corner. Rifles were poking out through the loopholes, and, thank
goodness, that door in the wall was shut.
Shooting was still going on everywhere--one could not distinguish
exactly from where.
"Drop a shell among the huts and turn 'em out," I called down. "Stand
by with the Maxims to follow them when they break cover."
Moore fired twice. Then, as I expected, a regular horde of Baluchis
rushed out from among the huts, yelling and firing their rifles, making
a most appalling din as they swarmed up the slope.
But they were in full view and entirely exposed. The Maxims swept
through them; the six-pounder scattered bits of iron and stones amongst
them and tumbled many over like rabbits. But we could not stop them
all, and before I realized it the wave of men--thinned, it is true, but
still numerous--had swept to the foot of the white, loopholed wall
itself. The desperate savages were leaping up to grab the top, climbing
on each other's backs, poking their rifles through the loopholes, and
hammering at the door with their rifle butts. And at this very time the
Maxims stopped firing; so did the six-pounder.