There were two things that troubled him: those confounded huts, which
rather interfered with his beloved Maxim, and that breastwork. He
pointed out that there were not nearly enough men to defend the
breastwork, and that it formed admirable cover for an attacking force.
"We ought to level it in, that we ought," he said, shaking his head.
Of course he was right. Hadn't we seen what had happened that very
morning?
"Mr. Fisher expects them to clear away back to the hills to-night," I
told him. "What do you think?"
He shook his head again. "They don't seem to be carrying out their
usual routine; not a bit of it. They ought to retire--that is, if
experience is anything to go by. I don't like the look of them
occupying the fort; it looks as if they meant to stay."
When I asked him whether he thought the Mir of Old Jask would attack
them, and endeavour to recapture his fort, he only made a grimace.
All that afternoon there was absolute quiet except for an occasional
shot from the New Fort and also a few shots fired on the slope itself,
where the telegraph coolies were busy dragging the dead into heaps and
burning them. These last shots told me that some of the wounded Afghans
had had to be dispatched.
Mr. Scarlett was so anxious for me to try to get a "move on" Mr. Fisher
about burning the huts and levelling the breastworks that I went ashore
later in the day and again urged him to do this.
Nothing I could say could make him realize the necessity. "I am certain
they'll all have cleared away home by to-morrow morning. We'll wait
till then. Besides, I dare not overwork the coolies. If I do they will
desert," was all I could get out of him.
I suggested that it might be advisable to send Mrs. Fisher and Miss
Borsen on board the _Bunder Abbas_ for the night; but he declined for
the same reason as he declined everything else--that he expected the
Afghans to disappear before morning.
"Do you know that you are responsible for much of this?" he said, as he
walked backwards and forwards with me outside the loopholed wall.
"Responsible! What do you mean?"
"Why," he said, "they all know of the loss of that huge caravan over on
the Muscat coast--the one you and the _Intrepid_ captured between you.
It they had got those rifles and all that ammunition through to the
Indian frontier there would have been another 'rising' there. They were
only waiting for them before giving the signal to the tribes along a
hundred miles of the frontier to pour down through the passes and lay
waste the valleys and murder the tribes living there under British
protection. They all know this, and to-day they have been trying to
revenge themselves for their lost opportunity. I've seen among the
killed several men I know: powerful sheikhs, Arabs from the other coast,
leading men from Afghan villages. It is a bigger business than I
thought at first.
"However, they will probably be gone by the morning, and you may pride
yourself that but for your capturing that big caravan the other day, the
Indian Government would have had another little war on its hands.
"Oh," he added, "I'd almost forgotten! I had a wire from Muscat. The
_Intrepid_ has gone off up the coast after some more arms."
I went back to the _Bunder Abbas_ rather elated at the idea that I had
helped to stop a little war, and remembered what Commander Duckworth had
said: "They ought to do something for you." It was rather early to
expect promotion, but it would be grand if it came.
"Can't budge him," I told Mr. Scarlett. "He still thinks they'll have
gone back home by the morning. The _Intrepid_ has gone after some more
arms so we shan't be disturbed till she gets back. That's one good bit
of news."
Just before sunset a small dhow came drifting slowly into the bay. She
was flying the Muscat red flag and did not seem to notice anything
unusual, or that the anchorage was deserted of shipping, so I sent Jaffa
across to warn her nakhoda of what was happening. Jaffa came back to say
that he was very grateful and would put to sea again, but had several
passengers for Old Jask who preferred to land and would take shelter at
the telegraph-station until things were quiet. I saw them later
on--three cloaked figures--land on the beach and make their way up
towards the loopholed wall.
We also saw numerous little spirals of blue smoke rising into the air
round the walls of the New Fort, so knew that the tribesmen were
preparing food; and Hartley, just about this time, signalled that he
could see a large mass of mounted people moving across the plains in our
direction. This did not worry us. We, Mr. Scarlett and I, were quite
happy. From what he told me it was out of the question that, even
though they did not retreat that night, they would attempt an attack.
Their ideas of war and sieges were to attack at dawn; it was a tradition
to attack at dawn, and seldom had they been known to attack at any other
time.
The sun was setting now in its usual magnificence; everything--the
rocks, the telegraph-station over them, the sandy shores, the walls of
the New Fort, were flooded with delicate rose tints. The mountains
behind and the few wisps of clouds overhanging them were suffused with
the same delicate colours, and out from behind them rose the
moon--nearly full--and we knew that directly the sun's light vanished
her light would take its place and enable us to defeat any attack
(almost inconceivable) that the Afghans might attempt.
We only had to keep vigilant watch, and if they tried to rush the slope
again we should see the white-cloaked figures as plainly as in daytime.
I kept the first watch that night, Griffiths with me. At about ten
o'clock flames burst out ashore, in the direction of the New Fort, and
soon it was evident that the whole of the village was on fire. It was a
grand spectacle as the flames spread from hut to hut, leaping high in
the air, lighting up the walls of the fort, even the white walls of the
telegraph buildings, and making the water of the bay and the brasswork
of the _Bunder Abbas_ glow red.
The flames and crackling were still fierce when Mr. Scarlett relieved me
at midnight. In his opinion the Afghans had set the huts on fire
purposely, and were probably retreating inland under cover of the heavy
cloud of smoke which lay above them.
I had four hours in which to sleep, so, stretching myself on my bed, I
lay down on that little upper deck outside our cabin, leaving him and
Gamble to keep the "middle" watch.
*CHAPTER XVII*
*Jassim Takes his Revenge*
At four o'clock in the morning Mr. Scarlett shook me and reported all
quiet and the fire on shore dying down. I scrambled to my feet to take
over the "morning" watch, feeling as fresh and wakeful as though I had
not been to sleep for a fortnight!
The moonlight was very brilliant, so brilliant, indeed, that the
telegraph buildings on the dark rocks and the New Fort on the white sand
stood out quite as boldly as in the daytime; and all that could be seen
of the remains of the fire was a glowing line of red-hot ashes extending
along the beach, where the village had been.
The slope leading up to the loopholed wall was so flooded with light
that I could distinguish even the barbed-wire fence and the shadows of
the wires and uprights.
Of the Afghans themselves nothing whatever could be made out; but this
did not imply that they had gone away, because most of them might be
sleeping inside the fort and the others behind it, and at the base of
the peninsula the fringe of date-palms threw such extremely dark,
puzzling shadows that the camels might have been concealed among these,
or even been driven farther along behind the sand-hills without our
having noticed any movement.
At any rate, whatever had or had not happened, I was not going to leave
anything to chance, or take any risks: so the rest of the hands were
called and stood to their guns; cocoa was served out; and to make sure
that Ellis and Hartley were on the alert I made a flashing signal to
them. As it was answered I knew that they, too, were "standing by"
their Maxim.
After this there was nothing to do but strain our eyes shorewards and
wait for daylight. In the half-hour when the increasing light of dawn
is absorbing the light of the moon and rendering the outlines of objects
uncertain and ill defined, this waiting for an attack is always most
scaring. It makes no difference how often one experiences this feeling
of acute tension, it always seems to occupy one so completely that not a
soul moves or speaks; even breathing is a difficult matter, and breaths
come in deep jerks, only when they can be held no longer.
But if the strain is great when the moon is there to help, it is ten
times as great when there is no moon and the first glimmer of daylight
distorts everything so strangely and forms such strange weird shapes.
How grateful we were to the moon that morning!
Daylight did come at last. The fading shadows under the fringe of
date-palm trees showed us hundreds of motionless lumps which gradually
outlined themselves into camels; figures began moving about among them,
and out from the door of the fort streamed many more to kneel on the
sand, facing the glory of the rising sun, throw their arms above their
heads, and bend at their devotions.
This might only be the preliminary to an attack; so still we remained at
our guns, until the sight of many little spirals of blue smoke rising in
the calm morning air, and the little groups of men seated round
them--evidently cooking--made it absolutely certain that they did not
intend any such thing--not that morning.
"That finishes the business," Mr. Scarlett said, drawing a deep breath,
and letting it out again with a jerk.
We had been so certain--Mr. Scarlett and I--that they would have done
the one thing or the other, and now they had done neither; they had
simply stayed where they were, in complete possession of the base of the
peninsula, and entirely cutting it off from any assistance from Old
Jask.
Mr. Scarlett shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. He could not
understand these tactics.
"It ain't like 'em, sir; it ain't like anything I've seen or heard of
before, and I don't care about it," he said, as I dismissed the men from
the guns to get their breakfasts and scrub decks.
Whilst they were doing this we were startled suddenly by the sound of
rifle firing, a long way off, in the direction of Old Jask, and drawing
rapidly nearer. Without waiting for the order, the crew tumbled up from
below to their guns, but no one could see anything happening. At first
we made sure that another band of Afghans were attacking the old town;
but this could not be so, because the people round the New Fort seemed
even more startled than we had been. They sprang to their feet, seized
their rifles, and whilst some began to "round up" the camels, driving
them close to the wall, others poured into the fort itself.
Whilst we were wondering what all this meant, the battlements of the
fort became alive with dark turbans; puffs of smoke darted out from
them, and the reports of their rifles came across to us. At what they
were firing we could neither see nor guess.
At last, after firing had been going on continuously for four or five
minutes, Mr. Scarlett saw a cloud of dust, and, looking in the direction
of his finger, I made out a number of mounted men--some on horses,
others on camels--advancing over the plain from Old Jask. Spurts of
light, showing in the cloud of sand dust over their heads, told us that
it was from them we had heard the first firing.
"It's the old Mir's border police coming to recapture the fort," Mr.
Scarlett sang out. "Now you'll see some pretty fighting. Just
remember, sir, that they are mostly Bedouins from the other coast, and
they and the Afghans hate each other like poison. Now watch what's going
to happen."