"Umph! silly young fools," and then he hunted through drawer after
drawer in his knee-hole table, we didn’t know in the least what was
going to happen—Jim told me afterwards that he thought he was hunting
for a cane—found a couple of sovereigns and gave us each one—I nearly
dropped mine, I was so surprised—and growled out, "Off you go; don’t do
it again."
We just had the presence of mind to say, "Thank you, sir," and streaked
out like lightning, feeling happier than I can tell you, for now we
hadn’t a worry in the world—well, hardly, for the Sub didn’t really
count, nor Dicky either—and we had nothing to spoil our thinking about
the pirates.
That very afternoon Mr. Hobbs and Miss Hobbs came on board to tea with
the Commander, and he presently sent down to tell the Sub to have the
place "tidied up", as she wanted to come down and see the gunroom. She
came, too, in a few minutes, and those of us who could not escape were
introduced to her, and then she sat down at our old "jingly" piano and
sang nigger songs to us, and we got over being shy, and the others
gradually came in, and we crowded round her, standing on the benches and
table, and joined in the choruses.
She was so absolutely "ripping", that when she went away we all sang
"For she’s a jolly good fellow", and did the hip! hip! hooray! part
jolly well—because we meant it. She got quite white, I don’t know why,
some tears actually ran all down her face, she put her hand on Mr.
Langham’s arm—he looked jolly uncomfortable, but couldn’t move away
because he kicked up against the gunroom stove—and said, "Guess you’re
all too sweet for words," and slipped away back to the Commander’s
cabin, where her father was. That made us quiet again—the tear part, I
mean—and she looked such a regular "brick", that we all would have done
anything for her, and it made it still more exciting to know that it was
her yacht which we were going to try and get back. Jim swore that he’d
"scupper" the brute who’d cut off her hair, if he could find him, and
I’m certain that we all wanted to have a jolly good try too.
Well, at last we did get away, one exciting morning, the _Ringdove_,
_Goldfinch_, and _Sparrow_ coming along with us, and the _Huan Min_
simply making the whole sky behind us as black as your hat. The smoke
she made was so thick, that it looked as if it didn’t like coming out of
her funnel.
For a week we wandered backwards and forwards to leeward of one of the
groups of islands, all of us in double watches at night, so as to keep a
better look-out, but nothing happened, and after that we chose another
group and waited outside while the gunboats searched it. Still nothing
happened, and I don’t mind telling you that this wasn’t our idea of
excitement and pirate chasing. A third week had nearly gone by when our
first news of the pirates came.
Very early one morning the _Ringdove_ was sighted coming towards us very
fast, and presently her Captain, Mr. Rashleigh, bounced on board. He
was quite purple in the face with excitement, and looked fatter than
ever. "The Skipper hasn’t turned out yet," the Commander told him, as
he took him down below. "You’d better be careful. He’s a bit ’livery’
in the morning." He hadn’t been below three minutes before he bounced
up on deck again, looking "down in the mouth", went back to his gunboat
without saying a word to anybody, and the _Ringdove_ steamed away.
The Commander had to go to the Captain immediately, and through the open
skylight I heard the Captain bellow, "that fat little blockhead has let
’em slip through his fingers. He drives the crew of a junk ashore, and
never stops to see what becomes of ’em. I’ve sent him back, and we’d
better follow him." Then I heard him give a terrific "Umph!"
Dicky found out all that had happened from the coxswain of the whaler
which had brought Mr. Rashleigh across. He had slipped down the ladder
directly, which was rather a smart thing to do. The coxswain had told
him that yesterday evening, just as it was getting dark, they had
sighted a junk becalmed under an island. Her crew could be seen getting
out their sweeps and working at them frantically to try and escape, but
Mr. Rashleigh had turned on the _Ringdove’s_ searchlight, and, so the
coxswain said, thrown a drum of oil on the fires. At any rate, he jolly
soon began to overhaul her rapidly, and as she came up, the junk’s crew
jumped overboard and swam for the shore. Mr. Rashleigh immediately sent
a cutter’s crew away to board her. Fortunately there had been some
little delay in shoving off, and before they could pull halfway the junk
blew up, which proves that she must have been a pirate. The cutter was
so close that pieces of burning wood actually fell into the boat, and it
was jolly lucky that they weren’t actually alongside.
Mr. Rashleigh had only waited to pick up the cutter, and had then
steamed back to us.
The _Vigilant_ didn’t wait long after the _Ringdove_ had gone back
again, and followed her to the island, but by the time we’d got there,
there wasn’t a trace of the junk. Then came more excitement, for "A"
small-arm company—that was my company, the left half of it at any
rate—was "piped" to fall in. I had to get my gaiters on, and a revolver
and a cutlass, and then superintend the serving out of ammunition. Mr.
Travers, a tall, very aristocratic Lieutenant, was in charge, and the
Commander came too—more excited than anyone—and we were all sent ashore.
The Commander sprang into the soft mud with a whoop, and more or less
waded ashore, and we all followed him. I got covered with mud up to my
knees, and that pair of trousers was never of any use afterwards except
for dirty work. It was only a bit of an island, with a small village on
the opposite side, so we spread out in skirmishing order and crept down
on it, expecting to have shots fired at us every second. There seemed
to be a lot of smoke about, and there was a burning smell in the air,
and when we’d got within three hundred yards the Commander gave another
whoop and sang out, "Rush ’em, boys!" and we all raced down as hard as
we could, but the only living things, there, were some pigs and dogs,
which ran away squealing and yapping. There was only one hut which
hadn’t been burnt to the ground—some were still smouldering—-and down on
the beach were two dead corpses—ugh! They were the first I had ever
seen, and though I didn’t really want to do so, I couldn’t help going
down to look at them closely. Some of my men turned them over with
their feet, to see how they’d been killed, and then I had to go away.
Presently some of the villagers began to creep back, and then we learnt
from them what had happened, through a Chinaman whom we had brought with
us as an interpreter. In the middle of last night a band of men had
swooped through the village and set fire to the huts. Whilst the
frightened people were trying to escape or put out the fires, they’d cut
the mooring ropes of a junk lying close inshore, and had sailed away.
It was their only junk, too, and the poor brutes were absolutely ruined.
Before we left the village they’d all come back, and were moaning and
wringing their hands, but doing nothing to help themselves. I shall
never forget one poor old woman, just a wrinkled bag of bones she was,
sitting on a stone in front of one of the half-burnt huts. They had
brought one of the corpses to her, and she was swaying from side to
side, making a funny noise, and looking past everything, as though she
was mad. One of the bluejackets gave her some tobacco as we went by.
"Here, mother!" he said, "here’s a bit of navy prick,"[#] and she
snatched it from him, stuffed some of it into her mouth, and went on
swaying and moaning.
[#] Navy Prick—Navy tobacco is served out in the raw leaf, and after
being rolled and squeezed together by the men, is known as Navy Prick.
When we got aboard again—I’d never been so dirty in my life—the Captain
was simply furious. I heard him say, "If that little fool had only
stayed where he was, he’d have caught ’em," and we steamed back to our
cruising ground.
That didn’t end the day’s excitement—not by a long chalk—for presently
we sighted a solitary junk, thought it might be the one in which the
pirates had escaped, and chased her. However, it turned out to be one
of the Tinghai war junks looking for us, and bringing letters from the
Taotai and Mr. Hobbs.
The news must have been very serious, for the Commander and the
Navigator and the Engineer Commander were all sent for, and we could
hear the Captain’s bellowing voice talking very fast.
We soon knew why; Willum and the sentry told us. The pirates had raided
the monastery of Tu Pu, cleared out all the monks’ hoards, and left them
hardly anything except what they stood up in. The Taotai had written
imploring us to go back to Tinghai.
We didn’t understand how important this was till the A.P. (Moore, the
Assistant Paymaster) heard of it, and then he whistled, "My aunt! you
chaps, it’s the richest monastery in North China, and you can see it
from the top of Joss House Hill—it’s not twenty miles away."
Well, that made it exciting enough for anyone, and showed how daring
these pirates were becoming; and we all expected to go back at once, but
someone heard the Captain growl, "I’ve made my plans, and I’m not going
to fly this way and that way, every other second, for all the blooming
Taotais and pirates in the world." So we didn’t go back till the
Saturday afternoon—as we had arranged. No sooner had we anchored under
Joss House Hill, than the Taotai and Mr. Hobbs came on board, the old
Chinaman in a great state of funk. They brought two other Chinamen with
them, and they turned out to be two of the servants at the monastery.
Six days ago the monks had given shelter to some seamen, who had knocked
at the great gates and told a yarn of having been shipwrecked. At night
these chaps had knocked the doorkeepers on the head, opened the gates,
and let in a whole crowd of Chinamen, and while some of them kept the
monks in their quarters, the others had looted the treasury and carted
away everything of value. One of these two men had been too frightened
to notice anything, but the other said that he had managed to escape,
had hidden in a swamp down by the sea, and had seen two steamers, one
large and the other small, close inshore, and that the robbers all went
away in them.
"That’s Hobbs’s yacht and the tramp steamer, I’ll bet you anything," the
Sub said.
The Captain came up to see the Taotai and Mr. Hobbs over the side, and
we heard him ask Mr. Hobbs: "What’s become of that great German chap
Hoffman, eh?"
"He streaked across to squint at that collection of old monks right
away. Says he’ll get information from them at first hand, and means to
find that yacht of his before he’s much older, I guess."
"Where’s Darter Sally?" asked the Captain.
"Staying up at the Mission House. Guess she’s gotten a shy fit and
wouldn’t come on board," and the little man smiled, whilst the Captain
snorted, as if that was the last thing in the world he could believe.
We had been away from Tinghai for nearly three weeks, and of course we
had run out of fresh grub down in the gunroom, so you can bet your boots
the very first thing that Mr. Langham did was to send Ah Man ashore to
buy some; and he came back with a sampan loaded down with things, mutton
and fowls and ducks and eggs, and any amount of green stuff. We had a
grand "blow out" at dinner that night, and afterwards the band played on
the quarterdeck, and the ward room officers sent down to ask us to join
forces in two double sets of "lancers".
Several officers from the gunboats, and that ripping Chinese friend of
Mr. Lawrence, had come on board too, and we had a great time. Jim
Rawlings was on watch, so he turned Dicky over to me as my partner, with
a handkerchief tied round his leg, below the knee, to show that he was a
lady; and though he spoilt the dance, because he didn’t much care for
the free fight part of it, that did not matter much, as we never
finished it. Just when we were in the middle of the "grand chain", down
came a signalman to report that there was a fire on shore, and everyone
stopped to look at it. Then another started some distance from the
first, and then a third, till soon flames were shooting up from several
parts of Tinghai, close down by the water’s edge, and we could hear a
great row going on. Somebody suddenly sang out, "There’s a rifle shot",
and we all listened, and in a moment or two could distinctly hear rifles
going off; and then tom-toms banged furiously all over the town, and one
of the junks fired three guns and burnt a red light.
We all stopped dancing and watched the flames. We could see them eating
their way along the water front, bending and curling as the breeze swept
them in front of it, and spreading up the sides of Joss Hill. Seen
through our telescopes, it was a very grand sight, for the native houses
burnt fiercely, and soon the whole of the harbour between us and the
town was glowing with the fire. We could see the trading junks
hurriedly trying to cast off from the shore before the flames reached
them, drifting across the reddened water, and disappearing like black
ghosts. We could also presently hear the actual crackle and splutter of
the fire, and even the shouts of the Chinese. The Commander had been
all this time fidgeting round the Captain, evidently wanting to suggest
something, but not quite liking to do so, and I heard him whisper to the
Gunnery Lieutenant to get everything ready to land the fire engines.
Mr. Whitmore went away with a grin on his face to do this, very quietly,
and we all watched the Captain to see if he was going to give the order,
and almost shivered with excitement at the prospect of being sent
ashore—at any rate, I know that I myself shivered. The Commander still
fidgeted round the Captain, when suddenly there was such a furious burst
of flames, that he plucked up courage, and we—we were all listening and
longing for him to speak—heard him say: "It’s getting pretty bad, sir.
It seems to be working its way uphill towards the Mission House, and
there seems to be a good deal of rioting going on, sir."
"Umph!" the Captain growled, sticking his cigar into the corner of his
mouth, so that he could use his night-glasses better. The Commander
knew that it was very inadvisable to actually suggest landing the fire
engines, because the Captain hated anything being suggested to him; but
we saw that he was getting more and more nervous, and at last he broke
out again: "It’s not more than half a mile from the Mission House now,
sir, and a native crowd is very apt to get out of hand. I hope the
mission people and those Americans can clear out in time."
"I suppose you want to land and put it out, do you?" grunted the
Captain. "All right, do what you like, umph! Teaching your grandmother
to—— Umph!"
You may be pretty certain that we all heard every word, and were off
that quarterdeck in a twinkling, rushing down below to change into our
oldest uniform, even before the bo’sn’s mate, who was standing by to
pipe it, yelled out: "Away fire engines for landing," and then "’A’ and
’B’ small-arm companies fall in," whilst the bugler sounded off the
marines’ call.
Dicky came down to help me find my things—he was not to land—and the
strange little beggar excitedly strapped on my gaiters, to save time.
As you know, I was one of the Mids of "A" company, and was on deck again
in a brace of shakes to see my half company of twenty-five men fall in,
my heart simply thumping with delight when I saw one of the gunner’s
mates passing round ball cartridge. I don’t know anything which gives
you more of a thrill than the feel of a handful of loose cartridges,
when you know that you may have to use them, in a few minutes, for the
real thing.
In twenty minutes we were halfway ashore, towed by the steam pinnace.
Looking back, we could see the sides of the _Vigilant_ and the gunboats,
simply looking as if they’d been painted red and glowing; and as we drew
nearer the shore, it seemed to us that the whole town was on fire, the
flames roaring and crackling in the most terrifying manner. Right up
above the flames and the smoke we saw the Joss House on top of the hill
all lighted up too, and perhaps what was the weirdest thing of all, was
that funny strange sound that a frightened mob always makes.
Mr. Travers, the lieutenant of "A" company, formed up directly we
landed, about fifty yards from the edge of the water, and we had to keep
back an excited crowd which began to gather, while "B" company and the
marines scrambled ashore and dragged the fire engines and hoses out of
the boats.
I don’t think that I had ever been so excited in my life. It was rather
nervous work too, for the Chinese began pressing against us—an
evil-looking crowd they were, come from the old town, we learnt
afterwards—but Mr. Travers was simply splendid. He is a tall, thin,
frightfully lackadaisical and aristocratic-looking man, and he stood
there, in front of "A" company, and never stirred a muscle, though the
natives thronged around him and hustled him. You would have thought
that he did not even see them. Presently some stones began flying
amongst us from somewhere at the back of the mob, and my men began to
get impatient—you could feel that, even without watching them shuffling
from one foot to the other, or jamming their caps down on their heads,
or pulling their chin stays down, as if they were getting ready for a
scrap. The crowd got bolder then, and began to press still more
closely. I was nearly separated from my half company, and was really
rather nervous, when Mr. Travers sang out: "’A’ company, at ’shun! Fix
swords!"[#] I repeated: "Left half company! Fix swords!" and was very
relieved to do so, I need hardly tell you, and drew my dirk. The men
all bent down to the left, and it was very comforting to hear the rattle
of their bayonets being snapped on the rifles. "’A’ company! Stand at
ease!" sang out Mr. Travers, and you could see the two lines of
bayonets, like streaks of light, looking jolly sharp and pointed.
[#] Bluejackets’ bayonets are always spoken of as "swords" in the navy,
and the order is always, "Fix swords". The Royal Marines give the order,
"Fix bayonets".
The Chinese didn’t stay too close after that, especially as the
remainder of the men had landed by this time, and we began to advance up
the beach and into the town. It was very unpleasant at first, because
the flames seemed so close and almost scorched us, roaring in places so
loudly that we could not hear any orders. We had to move aside, too,
every now and then, to avoid burning pieces of wood that fell, but we
gradually worked round in front of the fire, to make our way uphill
towards the Mission House, and pressed along through the streets which
had not yet been attacked. A Chinese street is bad enough in the
daytime, but it was perfectly horrid now, and we had to force our way
along, pressing a yelling "smelling" mob in front of us. These streets
were almost dark, too, which made it all the worse, and I don’t know how
we managed to get along as well as we did, stumbling at every other
step, and lurching into each other. I tried to keep as close to Mr.
Travers as possible, but it was almost like a free fight, and we shoved
and pushed for all we were worth, sometimes having even to use our fists
to clear a way. More often than not, I was simply carried forward by the
pressure of my men behind me, and all the time we could hear the fire
roaring and crackling only two or three streets off. We had first to
make a wide sweep round to the right, then go uphill to get round the
fire and above it, and then back again to the left in order to get
between it and the Mission, where, of course, we knew that the
missionary, his wife, Mr. Hobbs, and his daughter must be in great
danger. We fought our way along as fast as we could, and presently got
into a broader street, where the crowd did not bother us so much, and
where we made much better progress, but were right to leeward of the
burning town, and were smothered with smoke and sparks. Just then Jim
Rawlings rushed up—he was acting as "doggy" to the Commander—bringing
with him a native, covered with blood. "The Commander wants you to
hurry on as fast as you can," he told Mr. Travers; "they’re looting the
Mission. This man will show you the way; he’s one of the Mission
servants."
"My God, that’s what I feared!" groaned Mr. Travers, and shouted to the
men to "double". "Double, men! double!" and ’A’ company, spitting and
choking and coughing, because of the smoke, commenced running. From
somewhere in the rear the Commander joined us, Jim panting behind him.
He had his sword drawn, and looked terrible. "I’ve brought ten more
men, Travers," he gasped, and had enough breath to shout: "Keep it up!
Keep it up, men! There are women to be saved!" The men yelled, and
went even faster than before, panting and sweating. We’d got above the
town, well clear of the fire, but we could still feel its heat, and were
wet through with sweat. The Chinese servant couldn’t keep up with us,
but that did not matter, for we suddenly turned a corner and saw, three
hundred yards ahead of us, the white walls of the Mission House, and saw
that it was surrounded by a howling mob of natives.
I heard the Commander give a groan, a funny kind of sob it was, and he
and Mr. Travers and Jim and I simply tore along. We hadn’t more than
four men with us, because the others, with their rifles in their hands,
were not able to run so fast; but I don’t think anybody would have
stopped, even if he had been alone, and the mob had been twice as big.
You thought of nothing but pretty little Sally Hobbs with her great eyes
and her cropped hair. Suddenly, from a street on our left, darted a
tall figure, brandishing a sword and followed by twenty or thirty more.
They rushed out from the dark shadows of the houses, and we thought they
were going to attack us—at any rate, I did—and I don’t mind confessing
that I felt frightened, though chiefly, I think, because a scrap with
them would hinder us from rescuing Sally Hobbs. One of our men fired
his rifle, we heard a yell of pain, and then, before we could do
anything more, the leader came out into the firelight, and we saw that
it was Lieutenant Ching, of the _Huan Min_. "Come on, sir!" he shouted,
and we all mixed together in a crowd, and ran as fast as we could. Two
huge Tartar bluejackets panted beside me, their felt boots hardly making
the least noise, and I don’t think that I shall ever forget them, or
their white faces, or the sound of their breathing as they ran alongside
me, making not the least noise with their feet.
The mob was so busy, trying to fight a way for itself into the Mission,
that they didn’t see us till we were right among them. Mr. Ching got
there first, then the Commander and Mr. Travers, and I and the two
Tartars plunged in after them, and fought our way towards the little
gate. Just as we plunged in, the mob gave a great howl of delight, and
I saw flames shoot out from the downstairs windows. This took their
attention away from us, but it was awful, and we hit all the harder.
They didn’t oppose us much till we got to the gateway, and there we met
a stream of them coming back from the house, loaded with chairs and
clothes and all sorts of things. We had a fierce tussle for a minute or
two, knocked them over or brushed them aside, and rushed up the path to
a verandah. It was then that I missed Mr. Travers. I had simply been
following close behind, squeezing into the gap he made in front, but
now, all of a sudden, I missed him.
[Illustration: A FIERCE TUSSLE]
The remainder of "A" company had arrived by this time, and we could hear
them at the back of the mob, fighting their way through to us. Some of
them began shooting, so the Commander sent me back to steady them—a
jolly difficult job, too, and I didn’t like going through the crowd by
myself; but they seemed to clear aside, and I managed to get hold of one
or two of the petty officers, and gradually got the men into something
like order. There wasn’t any need to shoot, because the crowd had now
fallen back in alarm, and were only booing and yelling and throwing
stones.
Then I saw a commotion in the crowd, and suddenly that big German, who
had come on board once with Mr. Hobbs, and beaten the Captain at
weight-lifting, burst through and rushed past me, his face all drawn and
haggard. "She’s lost, mein Gott! She’s lost! Too late!" and he dashed
into the burning house, and I heard him roaring, "Sally!"
Jim Rawlings came up panting and asking for ten men, and disappeared
with them among the sparks and smoke, into the darkness behind the
house, which was now a mass of flames from top to bottom, with big
flames licking out from every window. The heat was intense. It was
really a most awful time, with the burning house behind me and that mob
of wild people below, all longing to cut our throats, only not daring to
rush us, because they had no one to lead them. I could still hear the
Commander’s voice bellowing inside the house and calling the missionary
and Mrs. Macpherson, and Mr. Hobbs and Sally, by name—but no one
answered, and there was no sign of any of them. For one moment Mr.
Ching appeared at an upper window, then the roof began to fall in, but
they both crawled out on to the verandah before it collapsed altogether
with a crash.
They would have been buried and burnt alive if they had stayed another
second.
"That German man has just gone in, sir."
"He’s dead by now," the Commander answered grimly, and my blood seemed
to go quite cold, as the flames rushed up into the sky, hundreds of feet
up, and I knew that Mr. Hoffman was being burnt to ashes.
The rest of our people—the marines and "B" company, with the fire
engines—came up now, and the crowd split in two to let them pass, and I
had an insane hope that even then they might be able to save that
German; but by the time they had dragged the hand pumps up the path, and
got their hoses led to a little stream at the back of the house, they
might just as well have tried to put the fire out by spitting at it.
Seeing that there was no chance of looting any more, the crowd seemed to
melt away. Probably they went off to loot elsewhere. They were more of
the old town mob, and weren’t going to waste time, I expect.
The Commander ordered the pumps to stop heaving—it was really silly to
go on with them—and then we scattered in little parties to search the
hill behind the house. The Commander was fearfully angry because Mr.
Travers was not there to take charge of his men. "He’s never where he’s
wanted," he said, and took most of "A" company away with him.
"Where can Mr. Travers have gone?" I kept on wondering, but hadn’t much
time for thinking, as I only had been left a very few men to guard the
burning house, and there were still a good many prowling Chinese
sneaking round, and I had to make my men keep them away. It seemed an
awfully long time before suddenly we heard a shout and a cheer from
somewhere up the hill. "Thank God, sir, they’ve found that pretty
little American lady!" one of my petty officers said. "It’s worth
spoiling our clothes for that;" and in a minute or two Mr. Ching came
out from the darkness into the glare, bearing in his arms a woman. It
wasn’t Sally Hobbs, however, but Mrs. Macpherson—I could see her black
hair. As he came into the light I saw him look down at her face with a
strange expression, and then he gave a groan—I was near enough to
hear—laid her on the ground somewhat roughly, and disappeared again.
Her husband came too—he was a "rotter".
"Where’s Sally Hobbs?" I asked, jumping across.
He shook his head, as he supported his wife. "Don’t know. She and her
father went out to see the fire directly it started, and we’ve not seen
them since."
That sent the blood to my feet again and I felt terrible, and almost
thought of taking my men down into the town to try and find her, though,
of course, that would have been idiotic; and, too, I had to stop where I
was till the Commander came back. However, I sent an able seaman to
find the Commander, and presently I heard the bugles sounding the
"retire" and the "fall in", and gradually the men came scrambling out of
the dark and formed up in the road in front of the ruins of the house.
Lieutenant Ching and his men came back too.
"What’s to be done now," the Commander asked, when he had heard the
missionary’s story. Mr. Ching turned a haggard face towards the town,
where the fire had nearly burnt itself out, and the greatest noise was
the noise of the mob, and I saw him shake his head in a terribly sad
way, "You no good there. I take my men down and try and find news." He
had no sword—he must have dropped it—but in his hand was a grey
tam-o’-shanter hat, and I recognized it as the one Sally Hobbs was
wearing that day she came down into the gunroom. He was clutching it
very tightly, and suddenly fell on the ground. Our Surgeon, Dr.
Barclay, was over him in a moment. He had only fainted, but then it
turned out that he had been struck by that bullet, which one of our men
had fired, just as he and his men had joined us on the road. It had
gone clean through his left shoulder, and he had lost a tremendous lot
of blood. How he had managed to keep "going" all this time, Dr. Barclay
couldn’t understand, and I wondered how he had managed to carry Mrs.
Macpherson, and then remembered that he had put her down rather
clumsily, and understood why. He called to one of his men, gave him
some hurried orders, and then they all disappeared towards the town.
"Sent them to try and find news," he told the Commander. It was
practically dark now because the fires had gone out, but presently the
_Vigilant’s_ searchlights were turned on to us and made it less horrid.
Some Chinese soldiers also came running up, followed a little later by
the Taotai himself from the old city, in his sedan chair, and surrounded
by more soldiers.
He was in a terrible fright when he found that he was too late, and that
Mr. Hobbs and his daughter had not been found. He did not stay long,
and took his men down to the town to keep order and find news of them.
As there was nothing more to do till daybreak, the Commander sent most
of the men back to the ship with the fire engines, and I had to go back
with "A" company, as Mr. Travers had not appeared. It was horrid work
finding our way back to the sea, but I hardly remember it, for I was
very sleepy and awfully miserable, and simply stumbled back, half
asleep, thinking of Sally and her father and that German, and of what
could have happened to Mr. Travers.
We got aboard about half-past three in the morning, and I turned into my
hammock, tired and miserable, and pretended that I was asleep when Dicky
tried to ask for news, although I wasn’t able to sleep for thinking, and
for being so miserable.
*CHAPTER IV*
*The Loss of Lieutenant Travers*
No News of Sally Hobbs—A Discovery—Those Villainous Pirates!—The
Skipper is Furious—Weary Waiting—The Skipper Rages—"I’ll do ’em
yet"
_Written by Commander Leonard Umfreville Truscott, R.N._
You have already heard of that disastrous fire at Tinghai, and of our
failure to rescue the American, Mr. Hobbs, and his daughter Sally, the
strange disappearance of Travers, and the death of that German fellow,
so that I will tell you of what happened afterwards.
After sending Whitmore, our Gunnery Lieutenant, back to the ship with
the fire engines, the marines, and "A" company, I waited for daylight,
guarding what was left of the Mission House with "B" company. Our
failure to save little Sally Hobbs and her father cast a great gloom
over my men, which was still further increased when it became evident
that something serious must have happened to account for the absence of
Travers. Young Ford was most positive that he had seen him enter the
Mission gate, but after that no one seems to have seen him. However, we
fully expected him to turn up at daybreak, and could do nothing to
assist him till then, if he had in some way or other lost his way in the
darkness.
But I don’t mind confessing that to protect Sally Hobbs was uppermost in
the minds of every officer and man who had landed that night, and the
thought of her, surrounded by a howling mob of maddened Chinamen, was
the spur which had urged everyone so wildly through the streets. Our
failure and her probable fate, down in the burning town, made us bite
our lips in great agony of mind. Fifty times during the night was I
implored by my men to take them down into the town itself; but I knew
that it would be useless, and that lost among those narrow, straggling
streets, and unable to keep in touch with one another, we should be
simply courting disaster. If I had been alone I suppose that I should
have gone, and it was a great strain not to go, and take my eager men
with me; but I had no right to risk their lives uselessly. It was quite
another pair of shoes for Ching and his men, because they were among
their own countrymen, and ran little risk by doing so. Ching, himself,
as soon as Barclay had dressed his shoulder—it was most unfortunate that
one of our people had wounded him—followed his men there and left us to
ourselves. I told him that we should remain near the Mission all night,
and resume our search in the morning. Poor fellow, I think he was as
distressed as any of us were at the fate of the little American girl,
for even his thin, usually expressionless face showed traces of the
anguish which we all felt. In the house he had found a grey
tam-o’-shanter cap which she had worn, and I saw him stuff it into his
tunic, and, you may be sure, was in no mood to chaff him about it.
Mrs. Macpherson told me, before her husband took her away to the house
of some native convert, that directly the fire had started down in the
town, Sally Hobbs, poor little girl, had made her father take her down
to see it, throwing a shawl over her head and hurrying away, just as she
would have done in America, in spite of the earnest entreaties of
Macpherson himself.
As day dawned, Ching brought his men back, their faces and uniforms
blackened and torn. "I have no news, sir. Not a trace of her to be
found;" and then he threw himself down on the ground, utterly exhausted.
His men—Tartars of splendid physique—were as worn out as he was.
As I expected, Captain Lester sent me a fresh lot of men, and food for
the few I had kept with me. I therefore started with them to make a
more systematic search than it had been possible to make in the
darkness, leaving my other fellows to share their food with their
Chinese comrades. We searched the ground behind the Mission, examining
every hut and outhouse as we went, and gradually spread out towards the
left and towards a little bay or sweep of the coast, which here ran into
the land. For an hour we searched without result, but then a seaman
came running back with a uniform glove which he had picked up by the
side of a small path running down towards the sea and that small cove.
The glove might or might not have belonged to Travers, but I knew that
he was probably the only one of us who would have worn gloves—he was
rather eccentric about dress—so hoped that this might be some clue to
his disappearance, and followed the path. Almost immediately another
man picked up a handkerchief. The initials in one corner were
H.C.L.—those of Lawrence, our navigator—but though he had not landed, I
knew that Travers had a weakness for borrowing other people’s things,
and my hopes were again raised. I am afraid that my brain wasn’t
working properly—the terrible night was responsible for that—and for the
life of me I could not imagine what reason could have brought Travers
along this path. We yelled his name, my bugler boy blew the "close",
but without result, except that all the mongrel curs in the
neighbourhood started yapping and howling.
I followed that path till it dipped over the crest of a ridge and then
led down to the little bay below us—a little bay with a curved mud
beach. My men were on the point of rushing down to it, when Trevelyan,
the Lieutenant who had brought them ashore and relieved Whitmore,
suggested that we might find traces of footmarks to help us. I
therefore sounded the "halt", and he and I went down alone. Trevelyan
was quite right, the muddy shore was covered with footmarks in one
place, and there were also three long furrows in the mud, evidently made
by the keels of boats. These furrows led right up to high-water mark,
and my brain was not too dense to appreciate the fact that three boats
had been there at high water. We could trace the furrows for fifteen
feet or more down the shore, and one went much farther than the others.
"They shoved them off and had to push hard, sir," cried Trevelyan,
bending down and showing me how deep some footmarks were, and how the
mud was piled up at the back of them. "It was at the last tide too,
sir, otherwise they would have been washed flat again." That was
evident enough, but I couldn’t think what he was driving at.
"When was Travers last seen, sir?"
"About one o’clock in the morning—there or thereabouts," I told him.
"Well, high tide was at about midnight, so these boats must have been
shoved off about an hour and a half afterwards, half an hour or so after
you lost Travers." He was getting quite excited, but, honestly, my
brain wouldn’t work.
"And this boat must have been later still, sir," and he pointed to the
longer furrow.
Then there was a yell above us from some of the men who had been
wandering about, and we saw several of them stooping over a clump of
scraggy bushes, and one came down to tell me that they had found some
dead Chinamen.
I went up and saw two—disgusting objects they were—with their noses and
lips cut off. I couldn’t stand the sight; I’d had no breakfast, and
walked away, feeling dazed and sick, and opened my mouth and drew in the
sea breeze to drive the smoke fumes away from my head.
Trevelyan joined me in a few minutes. "One of those fellows has been
shot at very close quarters, for his clothes are singed and blackened,
and the other has had his head battered in. Look, sir! they must have
been dragged along there," and he pointed to a broad mark, running along
the mud from the bushes to the furrows.
He ought to have been a detective, ought Trevelyan, and was off in a
"jiffy" to search for fresh traces. "Footmarks! bootmarks! plenty of
them, sir," he shouted presently, and I saw him bending down and
measuring them with his handkerchief. "Ours, I expect," I sang back;
but he shook his head, and presently came up to me in a great pitch of
excitement—he had taken his own boots off by this time to avoid making
any more marks—"There are at least three different sizes down there,
sir! European bootmarks too. One of them might belong to Travers, but
there are some very much larger ones than his, and I don’t think that
one man made them all. There must have been several Europeans down here
early this morning. This must be where the pirates landed and shoved
off again, sir—two of the boats more or less together, and the third
half an hour or so later—but I’m bothered if I can make out those two
corpses, and what they are doing here."
I dragged him away. He was very reluctant to go, and kept turning back
and scanning the shore with his glasses. Suddenly he took me by the
shoulder—I was so "jumpy" that his touch gave me quite a shock—"Look
there, sir! What’s that?" and before I could say anything he darted
back, began to undress, and then wading and swimming, and clinging to
some fishing stakes which jutted out from the shore, he made his way to
where something hung from the farthest fishing stake. I could see that
it was something coloured, and as he came back with it I recognized it
as a shawl belonging to Mrs. Macpherson, and remembered that she had
told us that Sally Hobbs had borrowed one before going down to the fire.
I knew what it all meant now—her disappearance—the bootmarks on the
shore—the furrows of those boat keels—and the shawl—and that the poor
little girl had again fallen into the hands of those fiends of pirates.
One cannot explain, or describe, how one feels on occasions like this,
though I do know that when Trevelyan rejoined me presently, blue in the
face with cold, and with his teeth chattering, but bringing the shawl,
and intensely eager to solve the mystery, I felt as though I wanted to
hit him, and hated to have to tell him all it meant.
"Give it to me," I said harshly.
"No, sir; I cannot. I found it, and if it turns out as you say, I’m
going to give it back to her."
We said not a word as we trudged back to the Mission House, neither of
us caring to speak of what we feared. Ten minutes ago I should have been
inexpressibly pleased to have found Travers, but now I eagerly hoped
that he had been kidnapped too, and that, in some way or other, he might
be able to protect her—for her father I cared not two straws, nor did I
place reliance on any effort of his to save either of them.
Fortunately Captain Lester was waiting for us near the ruins of the
Mission House, and it was a relief to find him in a bad temper. He
didn’t wait to hear what I had to tell him, but, shaking his fist at me,
bellowed out, "This is the work of those villainous pirates"—he was
hardly able to speak for rage. "Set fire to the town—right under my
nose—made a fool of Old Lest, and cleared out again without a scratch.
And that little lass too! What’s become of her and of that fool
Travers? I can’t trust a single one of my officers. Umph! Here you go
ashore to put out a fire, don’t save anyone, and shoot that chap Ching.
Umph! I’d like to—— Umph!"