Then I suddenly remembered that the Scotchman could guide us down to the
water, and ran off to find Mr. Ching, but couldn’t.
Miller appeared from somewhere.
"That old Scotchman could guide us back," I said. "Where’s Mr. Ching?"
"That ain’t no good, sir," he said. "They’re all round us now, ’undreds
and ’undreds of ’em, an’ ’e’s got only fifty men with ’im." Then I
noticed that bullets were coming from the back of the house as well, and
heard furious firing near the little gate by which we had entered.
"That Chinese Lootenant is over there now, sir."
I went across for him, but couldn’t find him. His people were outside
the little doorway, firing into the dark, and he must have been there
too, and I didn’t dare to go out. I couldn’t see a yard in front of me.
I think I must have been too absolutely "done up" then to do anything
more, and I really forget what I did and what happened. I know that I
sat down on a stone somewhere near that small doorway, and rested my
head on my knees, and squeezed my left arm to change the pain of it. I
know that rifles were going oft all round me, and people were shrieking
and yelling, and sometimes I heard Miller’s voice shouting; but
everything seemed to buzz round in my head, and nothing seemed to matter
in the least.
I rather fancy that my idea was to wait there till Mr. Ching came back,
and tell him about the Scotchman.
I was roused by hearing the door slammed and being nearly knocked over.
Mr. Ching saw me. "Get along back to the house," he gasped—his face was
streaming with blood—"I can’t hold the walls any longer. I have not
enough men;" and he more or less lifted me to my feet and gave me a
push, and I went staggering along with my legs giving way under me.
I remember seeing Mr. Hoffman lying flat on his back, with his face
turned up and his eyes looking at me, and remember speaking to him; but
he didn’t answer. Sally wasn’t there either, and I stepped across him,
and somehow or other found myself stumbling up the ladder into that
room, and heard Sally sobbing in a corner. I was shivering, and my
teeth were chattering, and that horrid sick feeling came on again.
Just as I got to the bottom of the ladder a stream of fire shot up
across one of the windows, and I heard a rushing noise, as if it were a
rocket; but I didn’t take any notice of it, for everything seemed to be
going round and round People crowded up after me, and pushed me aside,
and began firing out of the windows, and the room felt stuffy and full
of powder smoke. Sometimes someone would give a cry, and once someone
fell across my legs, and I tried to pull them from under him, but
couldn’t, and let them stop there, and remember that the weight was
pulled away presently, and I was pushed nearer the wall, and someone
gave me some water.
* * * * *
The next I remember was recognizing Miller’s voice; it sounded muffled
and cotton-woolly and very far away. He was saying: "The Chinese
Lootenant wants to know if you can take in Morse[#], sir. The
_Vigilant_ is signalling. We fired a rocket an hour ago to let ’em know
that the _Huan Min’s_ men were ’ere, an’ we’ve been tryin’ to take in
their signal."
[#] Morse code for signalling at night by means of long and short
flashes of a lamp.
"I can’t take in flashing lamp," I told him, trying to make my brain
work.
"It ain’t flashing lamp, sir; they’re adoin’ it with a searchlight, and
very very slow, sir, an’ the Chinee signalman what came along with ’im,
sir, is dead, sir. You’ll ’ave to come along pretty quick too, sir;
there’s a ’orrid fog been shuttin’ everythin’ out ever since, but it’s
just cleared off for a time. The wind’s gone round to the south, and it
’as been as thick as pea soup."
I told him that I would try, and got him to help me up. I knew that I
could read it if it was slow enough, and my brain would only remember
properly. We had to go to the other end of the house, and I don’t know
how Miller got me down that ladder. I know that I slipped and was
caught at the bottom, and my left arm was wrenched again. The pain
seemed to wake me up, but I had to grind my teeth and sing out.
Miller helped me along the passage and made me stoop down when we passed
a window, because the shutters had been thrown back and men were
standing at them firing out, and sometimes bullets were coming in.
"How are we getting on?" I asked him.
"Pretty middlin’, sir. We’ve only had about three killed and two or
three wounded, and we can keep the skunks out of it when we can see
them, which we can’t always do on account of this ’ere blessed fog."
He helped me up some steps, and then up a short ladder. Someone hauled
me out of a small square opening, and I saw that there was nothing but
fog all round drifting slowly past. I heard Mr. Ching’s voice: "Can you
take in Morse? I’ve forgotten it, and my signalman is dead—shot half an
hour ago;" and he pointed to a huddled-up figure beside him. "They’ve
been trying to signal through the fog ever since I fired that rocket,
and he got one or two words, but it’s been too thick till now. They’re
just starting again."
I did my best to pull myself together, and asked him where the
_Vigilant_ was, and followed his finger, pointing through the mist, and
suddenly saw a very faint searchlight beam sticking straight up.
"Don’t stand up; kneel down," he whispered. "They are firing at us."
So I knelt down very quickly. Just seeing that beam made me buck up,
and I watched it very steadily. I had only just knelt down in time, for
a bullet came flying past, and made me crouch still lower.
Then the beam began to wag very slowly—long sweeps down to the ground
for "longs", and short ones only half-way for "shorts".
"Get your knife and scratch ’longs’ and ’shorts’ on a tile as I sing
them out," I told Miller, and heard him do it.
This is what I took in: "... rst ... tenant to Lieutenant Ching (full
stop). Captain landed with one hundred and fifty men two hours ago
(full stop). Afraid dense fog has de——" Then the beam disappeared as a
thicker bank of fog rolled across; but it was grand news, and I wanted
to cheer for joy, and kept my eye fixed on the same spot, and presently
the beam showed again, and I spelt out: "rocket if Midshipman Ford,
Armourer’s Mate Miller, Private of Marines Martin is with you."
"They want another rocket fired, sir," I told him.
"I haven’t any more rockets," Mr. Ching said. "We only brought one; the
others were left in the boats by accident."
The beam started again. "First Lieutenant to Lieutenant Ching (full
stop). Captain has——" They were repeating the signal, but then the
beam disappeared entirely, and we could see a white wall of fog creeping
along the ground, and even swallowing up the trees underneath us.
"They ought to be here soon," Mr. Ching said, "if only they can find
their way."
He sent a man round with the news, and we could hear his bluejackets
making a funny cheering noise.
I felt ever so much better, and simply being able to take in that
signal, and be of a little use, cheered me up wonderfully. It was so
grand to know that the Captain had landed with so many men and was
coming to our rescue. I knew he would come just as quickly as he ever
could, and oh! I did so long to see him, whether he was angry or not,
and to tell him that it wasn’t the Commander’s fault—not in the least,
and to know that Sally and all of us should be safe.
"Does Mr. Hoffman know?" I asked Miller. Mr. Ching had sent me down
again, and had come down too, see how his men were going on.
"He’s been dead this last hour, sir." He was dead when we had to come
back to the house, and we dragged him in after us.
I did feel so sorry, because we should never have found where Sally was
but for him, and he had done so magnificently; and I knew that the
Captain would be so sorry too, especially as Mr. Hoffman had beaten him
at weight lifting.
"You go and get some more sleep," Mr. Ching told me; but I felt so much
better, that I implored him to let me stay with him, and he did.
"We are doing all right, aren’t we, sir?"
"So far; but this fog makes it difficult for us to see them, and I fear
they may try and rush us. We have not much ammunition left."
We went all round the house, and he spoke very cheerfully to all his
men. They were at all the windows with their rifles pointing out, and
peering into the fog. One or two men were wounded, and sitting with
their backs to the wall.
"I am going to tell the news to Hobbs and his daughter," Mr. Ching said,
when we had come to that end of the house. I had been going to ask him
if I could do this, but he said it so curtly, that I thought he wanted
to do it by himself, so didn’t go with him.
"You have a lot of blood on your face, sir," I told him. "I hope you
aren’t hurt much."
"Only a stone," he said; but he wiped it off, till I told him there was
no more showing—he wiped it off very carefully—and then went up the
ladder.
Miller hadn’t the faintest idea what time it was—somewhere about
midnight, he thought. We were standing near one of the open shutters,
and could just see the three or four bluejackets who were guarding it.
Outside there was simply a grey black wall of fog. It had settled down
so thickly, that you couldn’t see a yard from the house, and was
drifting in through the windows all damp and beastly. Everything was
pitch dark; I couldn’t see the flames at all (as a matter of fact, the
huts had burnt themselves out, but I didn’t know that); and Miller told
me that everything had been pretty quiet during the last half-hour,
nothing except an occasional shot, and that the Scotchman and Martin
were still in the upper room. "We had a stiffish bit of business
getting back to the house, sir. There seemed to be thousands of them on
top of us, but they seem to have cleared off—some of them—and I’m
thinkin’ they may be after going for the Captain’s party."
"Have you heard nothing of them—no firing or anything like that?" I
asked; and when he said "No", asked him if he thought they would be able
to find their way to us. He scratched his head and wouldn’t give an
answer.
"It’s lucky, sir, you picked up that bit of Morse, sir; it’s put new
life into all of us."
I was so proud and conceited of myself, that I told him to go and lie
down, and that I would look after the lower windows.
"No, I dars’n’t, sir; they’re keeping quiet now; but I’m dreadin’
they’ll be tryin’ to rush us. I durs’n’t, sir. We’ve only got about
ten rounds a man left, and it may come to bayonet work, sir, afore we
get through the night."
There really wasn’t a sound coming from outside, and it all seemed so
dark and moist and "creepy", that I really had a most horrid feeling
"inside".
Mr. Ching came down the ladder. "She’s asleep," he said, and I knew
that he was disappointed. He began going round the men at the windows,
seeing that the ammunition was distributed equally. Some men had only
two or three rounds left, and I knew by the sound of his voice that this
worried him very much.
One of his men brought round a huge bowl of boiled rice, and the
bluejackets scooped it out with their hands and stuffed it down. They
brought another one for Mr. Ching, and he shared it with Miller and me
and the Scotchman and Martin. It was jolly good and jolly warming, and
I have never forgotten it; and now, whenever the messman has a lot of
scraps left over, and gives us curry in the gunroom, I think of it and
of trying to save the bits of rice that wouldn’t go into my mouth, and
of that horrid fog.
Mr. Ching was talking of the possibility of getting some ammunition by
searching all the dead Chinamen between the house and the wall, but then
he remembered that the bluejackets’ rifles wouldn’t take the pirates’
cartridges. They were using Mauser, and his men had only a very old
pattern rifle.
"Why couldn’t we bring in rifles too, sir?" I said. "There must be heaps
of them lying out there;" and then, without thinking what I was going to
do, I sang out to Miller to give me a "leg up", and scrambled through
the window, and slid down on the ground underneath. Miller slipped down
alongside me.
"Come back," I heard Mr. Ching say, but not very determinedly, and I had
such a lot of "leeway" to make up for all the stupid things I had done,
that I would not have gone back for anybody. You see, I thought that I
might do something useful, and also I was rather ashamed that Mr. Ching
and his men should have done everything and we so little.
"Give me two bags," Miller whispered; and Mr. Ching handed out two
things like haversacks, and he slung one over my shoulder and one over
his.
"Tell your people, sir, that we’ve gone, in case they think we’re
pirates, please;" and then we crept along until we found the door in
front of the house.
"Most of them are in the path to the gate," Miller whispered, and we
groped along it.
We hadn’t gone five yards before my foot struck something soft, and it
was a body, and I felt it all over, but couldn’t feel any cartridges,
and there was nothing either on the ground all round. I found several
more without ammunition, and then, presently, a couple by themselves,
with two rifles lying on the ground close by. It was ripping to feel
their cold barrels, and the men had full bandoliers round their waists.
I couldn’t take them off by myself, so whistled for Miller very softly,
and he came over to me. He had found another rifle and a good number of
cartridges.
"Better take these back," he whispered; and we did, groping our way
through the fog, and handed them in at a window.
I knew that there ought to be a good many on that ledge under the wall,
where I had seen the Chinamen standing to fire over it, and told Miller.
"Right you are, sir! Let’s try;" and we shoved off into the fog again.
"Is that gateway still closed?" I asked him.
"Been smashed over an hour, an’ they’ve been swarming all over ’ere, up
to ’arf an ’our ago, sir, just where we are now, sir."
Phew! I’d never thought that the pirates had been right inside the wall
again, and I’m certain that I never should have come if I had—I’m
positive about that.
I was fearfully nervous, and I think Miller was too, and we stopped and
listened, and tried to peer through the fog.
We couldn’t hear a single thing, and started out again. Then I ran into
a tree, and the wet leaves and twigs scratched across the raw part of my
face, and I let out a little "yelp", and we stopped to listen once more.
"We’re too much to the right, sir," Miller whispered, and we both kept
close together and moved towards the left.
We came on the wall all of a sudden, and felt that ledge. There still
wasn’t the least sound of anyone moving.
"You go that way, sir, and I’ll go the other," Miller whispered, and
left me, and I felt my way along towards where I thought the gateway
must be. I felt any number of empty cartridge cases, and every now and
again my fingers clutched a loaded one, and I slipped it into the bag;
and I felt a rifle and was awfully pleased, and slung it round my
neck—it was jolly difficult to do it with only one hand, and jolly
uncomfortable too. Presently my foot hit up against some big wooden
thing, and I knelt down and felt it, and thought it must be a part of
the gateway, and that I must be right in the opening. That made me
frightened, and I crept across and bumped into the other side of the
door; it was simply swung back. I had kicked another rifle, but hadn’t
the pluck to go back and fetch it.
I just held on, trembling all over, and waited and listened, and then
started again, following the door round till I got to the wall, and
there, the first thing I felt, was a box on the ledge, right in the
corner between the door and the wall. I felt it all over; it had a
square hole in the top, and my hand went in and—oh! it was such a jolly
feeling—it was nearly full of paper packets of ammunition.
It was too heavy to lift with my one hand, so I began to whistle very
softly for Miller, and waited for him to come. I heard his whistle, but
almost at the same moment I heard someone moving on the outside of the
wall. I knew that it couldn’t be Miller, and I do really believe that
my hair stood on end with absolute funk. I couldn’t have whistled again
if I’d tried, and could not have run back to the house, however much I
wanted to, because my feet wouldn’t—absolutely wouldn’t—move an inch.
There were more than one coming. There seemed to be a long string of
them, and there was a funny rustling sound against the wall, as if they
were carrying something soft, and they began coming round the doorway,
some of them stepping on that rifle that I had kicked, but not picked
up. The gate door was pushed back on me, and I squeezed myself into the
corner against the ammunition box, and they began running past me, going
along inside the wall—away from where Miller was. I could hear them
breathing hard, and held my breath, till I thought I should burst, and
thought they must hear my heart thumping—it was thumping away like
anything. I’m not at all big, and I huddled down so close, that they
went by without finding me, though once or twice something brushed my
face, and knew by the touch and the smell of it that it was straw or
hay, and that that was what had made that rustling sound.
I guessed directly what they were going to try to do—pile it up against
the house and set fire to it.
I waited till the last one had gone, and then I managed to get to my
feet, and heard Miller’s whistle, very close, on the other side of that
door, and that started my legs working, and I ran, stumbling, back to
the house, with Miller after me. We bumped up against it; I don’t
remember getting inside, but only remember telling Mr. Ching everything,
and that the Chinese seemed to be following the wall in order to get to
the back of the house.
"The left side of the gate door doesn’t seem to be damaged, sir," I told
him; "they swung it back on me."
He made up his mind in no time. "They’ll try and burn down the door at
the back, there’s no window from which we can shoot them," and he gave
Miller ten men to go and close the left half of the gateway, whilst he
took another ten and slipped round to drive the Chinese across to him.
He wouldn’t let me go.
"Keep the rest of the men at the windows," he said, and disappeared in
the fog. I ran round the windows to see that the men were there
properly, and then went and stood behind the things piled behind the
door at the back and waited.
It seemed like twenty minutes—it probably was only about one—and I was
trembling with excitement, and when a little piece of mortar or
something fell down the wall, I nearly yelled with fright. Then I heard
the rustling noise again, and heard a bundle pushed against the bottom
of the door, and then another and another. All of a sudden Mr. Ching’s
voice shouted, and there were cheers and shrieks, someone fell against
the door with a soft noise, and there was the noise of people scampering
all over the ground outside. A volley sounded out from behind me—the
crash seemed to come through the windows—and more shouting and yelling,
and I couldn’t think what that meant, because the men with the straw
couldn’t possibly have got round there by that time.
I ran round to one of the windows at the front, and was just in time to
prevent some of the bluejackets jumping out. We couldn’t see anything,
not even the flashes of the rifles at the gate. But the firing died
down almost at once, and then people began running past the house, and
we could hear them panting, and heavy blows and shrieks, and knew that
Mr. Ching’s bluejackets were chasing them. It was awfully weird, knowing
all going on round us, and not being able to see anything.
Some of the bluejackets were so excited, that they did scramble out to
join in the killing, and Martin and the Scotchman called out, from the
top of the ladder, to know what was happening, and I heard Sally, very
scared, asking too.
The noises stopped, and we could hear our people calling to one another;
and we all shouted to let them know the way, and they gradually began to
come back, climbing through the windows and panting for breath, several
of them wiping their sword bayonets.
"Did you kill them all?" I asked Mr. Ching.
"Most of them, I think. You’ve done us a good turn—very lucky that you
saw them."
He had left half a dozen men at the gateway to give him warning if they
made another attempt, but Miller himself came back and brought that box
of ammunition and two more rifles with him.
Mr. Ching was very pleased with these, because we now had altogether
eleven Mauser rifles and seven or eight hundred cartridges.
It was grand, and I forgot all about the mistakes I had made, and my
arm, and only longed for the fog to clear away and to see the Captain
stalking through the gateway, and Blucher—I knew that Blucher would be
there—smelling the bodies and wagging his tail and looking up at him,
thinking he had shot them. It was splendid to know that it was partly
due to me that we had driven them off, this last time, and that I had
found all that ammunition.
"What were you firing at?" I asked Miller; and he told me that a lot of
Chinamen had tried to rush through the gate—not the men with the straw
bundles, but others from outside.
"We gave ’em ’gip’, sir." He was very happy.
Mr. Ching told me afterwards that they had some tins of paraffin to
throw over the straw. Wasn’t it lucky that I had spotted them?
Sally was awfully sweet to Mr. Ching, said that he had saved her life
twice, and was so nice that he ferreted round and got her something
hot—tea, I think.
The old American was still sticking to his corner; I don’t think that he
had moved all the night.
After we had spoiled their little game they let us alone, and all we had
to do was to take it in turns to lie down and sleep, and when we were on
watch, to listen for any sign of Captain Lester.
The ships hadn’t fired since the fog had come on. We had wondered what
they had been firing at all the time.
You can just imagine how we did long for daybreak, and for that beastly
fog to clear away.
A long time afterwards Miller came up to me; he was very excited.
"Listen, sir! Listen! The Cap’en’s a-comin’."
I jumped up; it was still pitch dark, and the fog just as thick as ever,
and then I heard far away the noise of Maxims—tut-tut-tut-tut,
tut-tut-tut-tut.
"Them’s Mary and Jane, sir, right enough." Those were the names the men
had given the two Maxims which we used to drill on field-gun carriages.
"They’ve been firin’ for the last twenty minutes, sir."
The Captain’s coming at last. Hurrah! I couldn’t help giving a shout
of joy, and ran off to tell Sally, but Mr. Ching had told her a quarter
of an hour ago.
"Guess I’m right tired," was all she said to me, and began crying again.
I know she had something she wanted to ask me, but didn’t like to.
She didn’t seem half as pleased as I thought she ought to be; but that
didn’t worry me at all, and I went round the men who were talking and
chattering, and I grinned at them in the dark, and I’m sure that they
grinned back. I could have hugged them, they were such fine great
fellows, and Mr. Ching squeezed my arm—not the bad one—and said, "We’ve
saved Sally Hobbs all right, Ford."