*CHAPTER XII*
*Midshipman Ford on his Mettle*
Ford Sees Red—Close Fighting—"Where are we?"—Comparing Notes—A
Strange Reception—The Captain’s Letter—The Chinese
Doctor—Investigating—The Mob Attacks—To the Rescue
_Written by Midshipman Ford_
Directly they started firing we all ran back to the huts, because we
were in between the Chinese and the flames, and of course made splendid
targets.
Captain Marshall sang out, "Run, Ford, run!" and I did, and jolly fast
too; but he and the Commander and Wilkins, the bugler boy, only came
along at a jog trot, and "miles" behind me, and Captain Marshall was
"hee-hawing" as if he had never seen anything so funny before in his
life. He asked me whether I had done the hundred yards in ten seconds,
or some rot like that, and before all the men, too, which made me get
very red and simply furious. It was all his fault for shouting out
"run", and with those bullets kicking up the ground and flying past, I
jolly well couldn’t stop myself when once I had started. I don’t think
anyone could. Do you? I caught Wilkins grinning, and this made me more
angry still.
"Don’t you worry; it was only Marshall’s joke," the Commander said. He
meant to be nice, but I knew that he thought I ought not to have run,
and I simply hated myself.
I was so mad at being such a coward, that I think I would have run
straight at them if they had gone on shooting, just to show the men that
I could run just as fast that way; but they had left off, and were only
shouting at us from the darkness behind the huts. I felt most horrid,
and wondered what the Captain would think when Captain Marshall told
him. I knew that he would tell him—"hee-hawing" like a grampus, and
thinking it a tremendous joke.
"May I take six men out there, sir, out to the right, creep round in the
dark, and see if I can find them? Do let me, sir!" I blurted out,
almost before I thought of it.
He looked at me very grimly, and must have seen that there was something
the matter (there was, very much the matter—everything inside me was
working), thought a few moments, smiled at me, and said: "Right you are,
if you can get volunteers. Don’t go far, and come back when I sound the
’close’."
Get volunteers! Why, they all would have come, and I just took the six
nearest, I didn’t really care who they were, or if none of them came, I
was so mad, and we dropped over the battery wall, and then behind the
bank to the beach, and crept along in its shadows. I could just see the
water jacket of the Maxim in the bows of the barge lighted up by the
flames, and they must have seen our shadows and thought we were
Chinamen, because I heard Withers sing out some order, and if I hadn’t
given the gunroom "whistle", I do believe he might have tried to shoot
us. We crept along till we were clear of the firelight, and then I told
the marines what I was going to do, extended them to three paces, and
started to make inland. I knew pretty well where those rifles had
fired—I’d seen the flashes—and I didn’t think that there were more than
seven or eight altogether, and meant to get behind them, get the
Chinamen between me and the fire, and try and bag one or two.
I don’t believe anything would have frightened me. That silly "hee-haw"
of Captain Marshall, and thinking of running back so fast, simply shoved
me along. I wasn’t going to let that story get to the Captain and to
Mrs. Lester, and my mother and Nan, and all over Upton Overy, without
something else tacked on to it.
We crept up to a deserted hut, made a great noise breaking our way
through a fence behind it, and were bothered by a lot of beastly dogs
rushing at us, till I gave one of them a jolly good "welt" in the head
with my boot, and they all ran off yelping. We went scrambling over
rough ground, and stumbling over what seemed like heaps of broken
crockery, and then we came to a ditch. I was so "mad" angry, that I
simply slid straight down into it, and had to swim one or two strokes,
and nearly got my feet caught up by weeds; but I didn’t care in the
least, and only worried lest my revolver cartridges were not
water-tight.
Two of the men wouldn’t face it, and went along the side to find an
easier place, and I never saw them again. At the other side there was a
high mud wall, and we skirted along it till it came to an end, and then
we suddenly turned a corner and came upon four or five men standing
watching the flames. They yelled and fled, and we went after them as
hard as we could go; but they were running away from the flames, and
were not the men we wanted, so I pulled up, and waited till the marines
had got their breath. Right away inland we could hear a lot of
rifle-firing and then some volleys.
"That’s the Gunnery Lootenant an’ ’is little lot, sir," one of the men
whispered, and I recognized his voice. It was Martin, one of the
sentries in the gunroom "flat". We used to plague the life out of him.
We couldn’t see the flames now, only a few sparks rushing up, and
thought that the fires must be dying down; but I felt certain that we
were right behind them, and that those brutes who had made me run must
be close to us now.
[Illustration: CLOSE FIGHTING]
I don’t quite know why—it may have been because we couldn’t see the
flames, or because I was wet through and cold again, or because we could
hear people running about near us in the dark, without being able to see
them—but I forgot all about being so brave, and felt frightened, and was
jolly glad when I heard the bugle sound the "close". I wasn’t certain
which way to go, for I funked that ditch, and didn’t think we could have
found our way back there. Whatever it was, we found ourselves going
straight towards the sparks, came up against another wall, turned round
the end of it, and then found that that was what had prevented us seeing
the flames. They were still making a great light, and in between them
and us there was a crowd of Chinamen. We could see their heads showing
like black discs, and they were all jabbering together, with their backs
to us.
I don’t know who started—I didn’t—but we all began shouting and charging
down at them. They had just time to turn round before we were on top of
them. The men let off their rifles, and I pulled the trigger of my
revolver, and haven’t the least idea whether it went off or not. They
must have thought that all the demons in the world were after them, for
they opened out and let us through; but directly we had rushed past and
came into the light, they saw that we were only five, and came howling
after us. Right in front of me a man jumped up with a rifle and let it
off almost in my face. He didn’t touch me, but probably hit some of his
own people, and before he could fire again I had hold of the barrel with
one hand, and was banging him in the face with my revolver, though that
didn’t seem to hurt him. He was just going to pull the rifle out of my
hands, when I heard Martin curse and swing his rifle down on his head,
and he fell so suddenly that I fell on top of him.
Before I could get up again, someone had thrown himself on top of me,
and began clawing hold of my windpipe. I felt my ears beginning to sing;
but then he gave a gurgle and a squirm, and his fingers loosened, and as
I crawled out I saw Martin trying to pull his bayonet out of him,
holding him down with his foot whilst he tugged at the rifle. Before he
could get it out, a huge fellow sprang at him with his rifle clubbed. I
sang out, and he just managed to turn his head in time, but got an awful
blow on his shoulder which knocked him over. The man jumped at him
again, but one of the other three marines was on him in a moment, struck
at him with his bayonet, and caught him just under the armpit. There
was a frightful yell and he fell, and I seized his rifle, pointed it at
the crowd, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Hardly knowing
what I did, I shot the bolt backwards and forwards and pulled again.
The magazine must have been loaded, for it went off then and hit a brute
who was running at me, somewhere in the leg. I know that it hit him
there, because he stumbled, and sat holding on to it, and I quite well
remember thinking that it served him jolly well right. The other three
marines were close to me, and Martin scrambled to his feet, trying to
twist his bayonet off his rifle to use as a dagger, because one arm was
useless. The others were jabbing with their bayonets, springing out,
thrusting, and springing back again, and parrying and trying to keep a
circle clear. One of them (Tuck) threw up his arms and fell face
downwards. I saw his fingers dig into the earth. Then something struck
me on the left arm, just as if it had been struck by a wooden hammer,
and the Chinaman’s rifle fell out of my hands. I stooped down to pick
it up, but couldn’t—I remember that perfectly.
* * * * *
I don’t remember anything more till I woke with a splitting headache,
feeling as if I wanted to be sick and couldn’t be. It was almost dark.
I thought that I’d had a nightmare—I often did, after too much gunroom
tinned salmon—and wondered why the lanterns had gone out. You know how
you often wake up and think that you are in some strange place, and
gradually work things out till they come right again.
That’s what I tried to do, but I couldn’t fix things, and one eye didn’t
seem to work, and I wondered why I had my boots and my uniform on, and
why it was all so wet. I put out my arm to feel if Jim’s hammock was in
its place, and then I let out a yell and rolled back pretty quickly.
That yell seemed to blow away the cobwebs, and I lay back and began to
make out that I was lying on a funny kind of floor, in a small room with
whitewashed walls and a broken-down roof, with straw hanging through the
cracks. The walls seemed to be made of bricks and mud, and one had a
door in it and a small square opening above it, through which a little
light came. Someone close to me began to move, and then sat up, very
slowly. It was Martin, the gunroom "flat" sentry, and then I remembered
that he had saved me from being choked, and all the things that had
happened came back to me all at once.
"Where are we?" I asked.
He gave me a startled look. "Crickey, sir, beggin’ your pardon, you
does look a awful sight!"
"What’s the matter? What’s happened?" I felt that it was awkward to
talk, my lips felt uncomfortable, and I put my hand up to my face and it
felt all raw and swollen. I couldn’t see at all if I shut my right eye,
so knew that my left one was closed up.
"Kicked you in the face, sir, and dragged you away afore we could stop
’em."
"What!" I said, very alarmed. "The Commander not here? Where am I?"
"I don’t exactly know where we be, sir, but them pirate chaps ’ave got
’old of us, and Old Tinker Bill too; ’e was brought in ’ere after us."
Then I saw that there was a bluejacket lying asleep on the other side of
him, and he dug him in the ribs—"’Ere, wake up, Tinker!" and he sat up
growling.
I saw that it was Miller, one of the armourers, and I remembered that he
had gone with Mr. Whitmore’s party, and I forgot all about worrying
about where we were for a second.
"Did we smash that gun?" I cried, and tried to sit up in my excitement,
but fell back again pretty quickly—my left arm was so painful every time
I tried to move.
Miller yawned and shook his head dolefully: "We never got nowhere near
it, sir. Jerusalem!" he gasped, "you do look a fair ’knock-out’, sir,
that you does."
"Well, tell me. What happened? Did Mr. Rawlings get hurt?"
Then he told me that Mr. Hoffman had guided them all right, but they
made a goodish deal of noise themselves, and our party (the Commander’s
party) had given the alarm too soon, and they simply found themselves
running into hundreds of Chinese, and had to fall back again.
"You see, sir, it was like this. We went along all right till those
huts began a burnin’, but the light from ’em just gave the show away,
and let ’em see where to fire. Mr. Rawlings was knocked over, an’ a lot
more, sir, an’ the last as I seed of ’em was going back, very slow,
a-carryin’ some people, an’ stoppin’ and firin’ back—occasional."
And all the time we had thought how jolly comforting those flames were,
and that they might help them to find their way back. I tried to get
more from him about Jim, but he didn’t know any more, except that there
had been a lot of firing, and he had seen him fall, and two men lift him
up. But that was enough to make me feel frightfully sad, though I
didn’t really seem to imagine that it was all quite real; and the pain
in my head was so bad, and my arm was so painful, and I was so stiff and
cold and cramped all over, that nothing could make me much more
miserable, not even knowing that we had been captured by the pirates, or
Jim had been badly wounded.
"I fell into a ditch or something," Miller went on, "an lost my way and
got be’ind’and, and tried a-takin’ a short cut, and something ’it me on
the head and fair dazed me, and them ugly devils came up and collared
me—came up from be’ind, they did. I never got a chance.
"I’ve got a bit of a scratch ’ere, sir," and he crawled over to me, and
stooped to show me a groove across the top of his head. A bullet must
have done it, and the hair was all matted together with blood.
"How did they catch you?" I asked Martin.
"Well, it was like this, sir. I saw ’em a-picking of you up—that not
being so difficult, beggin’ your pardon—and, not thinking, I slipped
along arter you, forgettin’ that I’d only got one arm that ’ud work.
Well, sir, I got separated from them two others, and had ’em ’eathens
all round me, and they got the best of it, sir." He was very gloomy,
and lifted his left arm a little way from his side. "Ain’t no good, sir!
Somethink’s broke in my shoulder."
Miller had found a bowl full of water, and that made me remember how
thirsty I was, and he knelt down and gave me some too, holding my head
up. It was jolly difficult to drink, my lips were so swollen, and a
good deal of it ran down my neck, but it was jolly refreshing.
"What’s the matter with my arm?" I asked him. "I think it’s broken."
He took hold of it very gingerly, whilst I held on to the wrist and
jammed my teeth together, and then I saw by the funny way the sleeve
bent up halfway above the elbow that it must be broken. I felt the
broken ends grate together when he tried to move it. Oh! it was so
painful.
He knew something about bandaging and splints, and tore down some of the
thin rafters and lashed them on each side of it with his black silk
handkerchief, and that made it more comfortable, and I managed to get on
my feet. I felt an awful wreck, and was as weak as a mouse.
We were all plastered with mud and green slime, and were wet and horrid.
I had lost one of my gaiters and my cap, and my revolver, lanyard, and
cartridge belt were gone; but I didn’t really worry, because I felt too
ill, and my head throbbed so much that I had to lie down again, and it
was impossible to think properly, because everything was going round and
round inside it.
There was a noise on the outside of that door, and it opened very
slowly, whilst we all stared at it, and a Chinaman put his head very
slowly in, looked at us, saw me turn to look at him, drew it back again,
and shut the door. I suppose he must have heard us talking. I think
that I must have gone to sleep after this, because the next I remember
was a tall, gloomy-looking man standing over me. "You’re an officer,
aren’t you?" he asked me, and I told him that I was a midshipman.
"Come down with me," he said, and helped me to my feet, and supported me
down a spiral wooden staircase.
He got me into a room below, which was fitted up with European
furniture—a writing-table, some cane easy chairs, and a camp bed. He
made me sit down, and began pacing up and down the room. There was a
clock on the table, and I saw that it was nearly midday. He went on
pacing backwards and forwards, and I wondered whether he was the
Englishman who had stolen Mr. Hoffman’s yacht. I hadn’t the least idea
what was going to happen. Then he took down a shaving glass and held it
in front of me.
My aunt! I was a sight, if you like. All the left side of my forehead
and face was black and blue, and my left eye was quite shut up, and my
upper lip was tremendously swollen and cut. No wonder that Miller and
Martin had been surprised when they saw me.
He smiled grimly, put the glass down, and just then a Chinese servant
came in and spoke to him.
"I have some food ready for you; come and take some, it will do you
good," he said, and led me into the next room, where there was a big
bowl of hot soup. The sight of it made me feel ill; but I swallowed a
little, and found that it was doing me good, and managed to get through
it all. It was jolly painful to put the spoon in my mouth.
He told me that he had sent some food up to Martin and Miller, and that
an old native who "doctored" for him was coming soon.
He seemed strangely worried, and couldn’t sit still. I should think
that quite a dozen Chinamen must have come in whilst I was getting
through that soup and soaking bread in it. They all seemed very excited
when they saw me. Most of them scowled at me. Several of them were
plump, prosperous-looking men, jolly well dressed, but others looked
more like soldiers or sailors, great bony, leather-skinned,
fierce-looking fellows. He seemed to have trouble with them, and once
or twice spoke very angrily. I noticed, too, that whenever any of them
came in, he put his hand to his pocket. I think, from the bulge, that
he had a revolver there.
He didn’t look in the least fierce, except when he was angry—not at all
like a man who could have done all those wicked things—and I began
wondering whether he could really be the man everyone had been cursing.
I suddenly thought of Mr. Travers, and blurted out, "We’ve got Mr.
Travers back—that lieutenant you caught"—and, like the conceited ass I
am, said, "I found him."
"I know," he said bitterly; "I never wanted to take him along; it was
either killing him or taking him prisoner, just as it was with you and
those two men. He fought like a demon, simply threw himself on us, and
had a revolver, too. I had to knock him on the head and take him along.
You’d better not let those people you’ve just seen know that you were
the one who found him. They’ve vowed to torture every one of those
junks’ crews who fall into their hands."