*CHAPTER XIV*
*"Old Lest" takes a Hand*
Holding on—"Old Lest’s" Sorry—The Marine Lands Again—"Old
Lest’s" going on—In the Fog—The Fog Lifts—After them!—The Maxim
Gun—Keeping ’em on the Run—Shelling the Town—Resting—"It’s Boss
Evans!"
_Written by Captain James A. Marshall,
Royal Marine Light Infantry_
Fancy me writing a book, or rather, helping to write one. I know a good
lot of people will think the world’s coming to an end, or that I’ve
turned over a new leaf, and am becoming really a credit to the family.
It’s about time I did become a credit to them, poor things! I should
imagine.
When I was asked to drive the giddy nib, I laughed. Laughed! why, I’ve
never laughed so much since father died, as a dear little girl from
Massachusetts told me once, when I tried to cheer her up, after that sad
event had happened to her family.
We tried to get old "B.-T."[#] to wield the flowing pen, and tell of all
his heroic deeds, but—well—he wasn’t taking any—thank you kindly—and
they got me to take on the job.
[#] Lieutenant Gore-Travers, known as Bored-Travers, or "B.-T."
You see, whilst old Truscott, the Commander, was lying on his downy
couch with a bullet in him somewhere, he couldn’t be expected to know
much of what happened outside him, could he? Old Mayhew, our boss
doctor man, wouldn’t say where the bullet really was. Why, bless your
soul, he wasn’t going to give himself away, not he, and hung round
Truscott’s cabin with a face as long as a jews’ harp whilst he was
outside it, and as round and smiling as a Dutch cheese with a slice out
of it when he went in.
It was all because that silly young ass Ford saw "red" that night we
landed with my chaps to have a bit of a plugging match, whilst Whitmore
went off with a No. 9 detonator and something in the gun-cotton "line"
to blow a gun of sorts.
He thought that he was half-back in a "footer" scrum, or something like
that, charged the whole blooming pack of Chinese, got "offside", and was
collared and carried off the ground before we could get the referee to
sound his whistle.
We argued it out with them for a while, but when old Truscott was
doubled up with a bullet in him (you’d better ask Mayhew where), and two
or three of my chaps had had holes made in them, we had to drop back to
the battery, and couldn’t even bring away Tuck, one of my men who’d been
killed. They were so jolly anxious to make our acquaintance, that it
was all we could do to hold on behind the wall, and the bank on the
beach, till Whitmore had said goodbye to his chums and got aboard the
cutter. Even then we couldn’t have got away, if young Withers in the
barge hadn’t dropped a few gentle hints with his Maxim and emptied a
couple of belts.
We pulled away back to Lawrence, who was waiting for us in the steam
pinnace, and I ought to have been standing up in the stern sheets,
waving my gory, glittering sword over my head and singing, "With a long,
long pull, and a strong, strong pull, cheerly! lads! pull away", to
encourage the sailor men. The only reason why I didn’t, was because in
the last rush to the boat I’d got a clap over the head which knocked me
silly, had been plumped down in the stern sheets, and didn’t know
anything about it till we’d got aboard the old _Vigilant_.
I opened my eyes to find myself in my own virtuous bunk, daylight
starting the flies skylarking, and Grainger, my servant, the trusty,
faithful and never-to-be-forgotten one, poking me to see if I was still
alive. I had the dickens of a headache, and at first thought it was due
to the usual cause; but Grainger held up the serge frock[#] which I had
worn the night before, and I remembered what had happened.
[#] Serge frock is a tunic made of serge, worn on undress occasions.
"That were your second best serge frock, sir," he said sadly, when he
had recovered from his surprise at finding me alive. "Cost you four
pun’, three-and-sixpence—with postage, sir."
It was soaked with mud, and had a bullet hole through one sleeve. There
was a dark patch of blood, too, just in the centre of my manly bosom,
which Grainger never could wash out. Whose blood it was I never knew,
and old Mayhew threw things at me when I afterwards asked him if he
could examine it, and see if it belonged to a Chinaman whom I had opened
up a little during the scrap.
"We ’aven’t paid for it, ’ave we, sir? We couldn’t send it back as a
misfit or some’ow, I s’pose? I knew you’d being doing som’ut like that,
sir, if I let you wear it, and your third best pair of trouses is all
split over one knee another three-pun’-ten gone slosh, sir—that is, if
they won’t take ’em back, and there’s another of our hye-glasses gone
too."
He shook his head reproachfully at me, and told me that I’d had a crack
on the "nut". When I pressed him as to who had been so kind as to see
me safely home, he wouldn’t answer, but went on brushing the mud still
more firmly in.
"Beggin’ your pardon, sir, I hauled on your legs—a little," he said at
last. "An’ I’m feared that ’twas I who split them trouses." He said it
as if he didn’t think he’d done a very praiseworthy thing in probably
saving my life; possibly he hadn’t.
"I’ll double your pay, Grainger; ’twas jolly good of you. Hope you came
out of it all right?"
"I came out of it all right. I don’t go ashore on one of these ’ere
shows with my second best things on. Thank you very much, sir, but
you’ve forgot to pay me anything for the last three months."
I knew that perfectly well, and it closed the discussion. Financial
matters are peculiarly distressing to me in the early morning.
He roused me presently with "’Ere’s your usual breakfast, sir," and put
down a tray with a bottle of soda water and a biscuit on it, and looked
amazed when I clambered out and demanded shaving water and a bath. It
was somewhat out of my ordinary routine to turn out much before 9.30,
and he, I saw, thought that that crack on my head had affected my brain.
The old Skipper came in whilst I was dressing. I had never seen the old
chap so gentle. "I’m all right, sir, thank you—right as a trivet—my
head’s the only part of me which would have stood it. Very sorry we
couldn’t do much for you last night. How’s the Commander?"
"Umph! Can’t say. Mayhew can’t say either. Pretty bad, I fear. The
others are doing all right. Ran you up against a bigger thing than I
thought. ’Old Lest’s’ sorry."
"Fortune of war, sir. I’m paid twelve-and-sevenpence a day for it by a
grateful country—less income tax."
The dear old chap grunted and went out again.
It wasn’t till I went into the ward room that I heard that, besides
young Ford and Tuck missing, Martin, one of my chaps, and Miller, an
armourer belonging to Whitmore’s party, had been left behind.
The Skipper sent a boat to try and communicate with the pirates, and
find out whether young Ford and these two men were alive and kicking.
The boss pirate man was most polite, wrote back that they were doing
well (we didn’t know whether that meant that they were wounded or not),
and implored the Skipper not to attack the island again, as he was
certain that it would provoke a massacre, or something equally
unpleasant, of all the Europeans there, including little Sally Hobbs
herself.
He added that he was keeping his prisoners, and as they would probably
be the first victims, he thought this knowledge might add force to his
entreaties to be let alone.
He didn’t know "Old Lest"—not by a long chalk.
The _Huan Min_ turned up during the morning, and that chap Ching (he was
a good enough chap to have been a marine, if they had luxuries like that
in the Chinese navy) and the skippers of the _Goldfinch_ and _Sparrow_
came across to the _Vigilant_, and had a regular pow-wow, talkee-talkee
in the Captain’s cabin.
Ching was to land at sunset with some fifty of his men, and Hoffman was
to go with him and guide him across country, straight to the walled
house on the hill. They were to get through at all costs. It was
Ching’s own suggestion; he and Hoffman thought they could do it, and I
knew they would, if it was possible. Whilst he made a dash for the
house, all the ships were to plug shell at two places in the island,
some distance from the town itself, in order to distract their
attention.
Hoffman wasn’t exactly dead, but that was about all you could say. He
must have had an enormous amount of vitality, or whatever you call it,
to keep "going". He looked most ghastly ill.
It was determined that every man we could fit out with a rifle and other
conveniences for hurrying his "dear brethren" into eternity was to land
from the _Vigilant_ and the four gunboats about an hour after Ching, and
the whole day was spent in communicating with the _Ringdove_ and the
_Omaha_ and completing these arrangements.
I’ve always longed to be a pirate myself, and the next best thing was to
have the job of collaring one. My detachment were just as keen as I
was, especially after last night’s shindy, and we fell in again and
prepared to land, and have another go at ’em, as cheerfully as ducks in
a thunderstorm.
"Ever shoved it into a ’uman afore, sir?" Grainger asked me, whilst he
was helping me on with my sword and leather gear. He’d been polishing
it outside my cabin, on and off, all day long.
"Never; nothing bigger than a cockroach."
"Well, sir, it ’ull be some’ut to ’ang up in the ’all at ’ome when we
draws our pension. Won’t it, sir?"
"If we don’t have to pawn it," I told him, and went off to look at
Truscott. Poor chap! he was worrying about what would happen to his
wife and kids if he "pegged out", so one couldn’t do much to cheer him.
He was very down on his luck.
We were a goodish bit behind time getting ashore, as the very dickens of
a fog came up from the south and wrapped us in its "blissful mantle of
white", as the young padré would have said if he’d been there. It was
beastly annoying, and took all the gloss out of my moustache; but old
Lawrence got us round to the back of the island somehow or other,
chiefly by the sound of the _Ringdove’s_ guns, I think. Of course, he
jolly well pretended that he did it with a boat’s compass and a pair of
parallel rulers on a chart he’d made. Bless me! I never could
understand why navigators make such a song about their job; it’s easy
enough—shove on till you hit up against the shore—push off again and go
on—that’s all that’s wanted. I bet I would navigate any ship you liked,
anywhere you liked, if she’d stand a bit of bumping sometimes. I’ve
often asked Lawrence to let me try, but, funnily enough, he won’t.
I’d had an awful job with Grainger to let me wear my other serge
tunic—my best one—and it was only by telling him that I wasn’t going to
bring discredit on "The Corps" by being found dead in the one I’d worn
last night, that he let me wear it.
"I make it a rule in life," I had told him, "never to wear any serge in
more than one battle," and he had gone away muttering that "he supposed
that they hadn’t either of ’em been paid for, and never would be, so it
didn’t hardly matter, though he was blowed if he knew what I was going
to wear to-morrow".
Some of his statements were remarkably accurate. We had brought along
one of Hoffman’s Chinamen to guide us, but, bless me! by the time we’d
got ashore, with wet feet, we couldn’t see two yards in front of us. The
fog was as thick as pea soup, and it was like trying to wade through
velvet.
I had a pocket compass—we all had—and Lawrence had given us the course
we were to steer, but I’m jiggered if I know how we got along at all. I
was supposed to be in front, with people thrown out on either flank, as
laid down in the "drill book", but it was all I could do to keep them
bunched up together, touching each other, and the section leaders
bawling out, every minute or two, to give the others a notion where they
were. My old sergeant-major nearly wept because he couldn’t know
whether they were "dressed" in proper line.
We stumbled through it somehow, going on for two minutes and halting for
five or ten, whilst they hauled one of our Maxims along on its carriage
behind us, and the shouting that went on to know who was there, and
where who was, was enough to wake the dead.
The Skipper landed with us, in an old pair of shooting-boots with huge
soles on them—the two-to-an-acre kind—and with a big oak stick in his
hands. Young Ponsonby came as his "doggy", and Whitmore had brought
Rawlings as his. My marines—Langham with the machine gun section, old
"B.-T." with "A" company, and Trevelyan with "B" company—brought our
"field state" up to a hundred and fifty-four, all of them _Vigilant’s_,
and Barclay came along with a dozen stokers as stretcher-bearers. About
two miles to our left, farther along the island, the other landing
party, which was supposed to make for the walled house, with Sally in
it, and join hands with us there, should have commenced their march
already, but we hadn’t the faintest notion whether they’d been able to
find the place to land. The skipper of the _Omaha_, Captain John A.
Parkinson, U.S.N.[#], was to have been in command, and to have had forty
men from his own gunboat and thirty each from our three with him,
bringing their brigade up to a strength of one hundred and
forty-two—that is, with a few details of stretcher parties.
[#] United States Navy.
We only hoped that they’d been able to find each other and get ashore.
"’Old Lest’ don’t care whether they come or not," the Skipper growled to
me, when we’d run up against each other in the fog. "’Old Lest’s’ going
on. Umph!"
Even Blucher was unhappy, and wagged his tail doubtfully. He had never
been on a shooting expedition like this before, and he didn’t know quite
what to make of it, or the fog, and stuck to the Skipper like a leech,
for fear of losing him.
We had heard a lot of desultory firing going on, even before we had
landed, and couldn’t quite understand it, as it came more from the
direction of the walled house than from where Ching should have been;
but we did not worry much about that.
We found ourselves running up against huts and bamboo fencing about two
hours after we’d landed; but there wasn’t a single soul there, and as we
were getting out of them I happened to bump into Trevelyan, who’d lost
himself. We were wondering what had become of the inhabitants.
"They’ve gone into town to the theatre, and supper afterwards at the
Savoy or the Carlton, I expect," he said jokingly.
"I jolly well wish I had," I said.
That set me thinking of the good times I’d had in London, and I forgot,
for a second, all about the beastly island and the beastly pirates, but
woke up again with the sound of heavy firing—volleys, too—from the same
place from where we’d heard the firing before.
"That’s Ching," I thought; "he’s got his hands full."
We ran into some people ourselves in front of us, heard them yelling,
and heard their footsteps, but never saw them. There must have been a
goodish lot of them, to judge by the noise they made, and sometimes they
fired rifles, and bullets went by, overhead, but they didn’t worry much,
and we pressed them before us. Eventually they got all round us,
yelling "blue murder", but daren’t come near enough to be "spitted",
which was a pity, as their noise was very irritating, and made the men
jumpy.
There was no sound of the other little brigade having landed, and in
about an hour after the heavy firing had started, it died down again.
We were rather worried lest this meant that Ching had failed, but an
occasional shot coming from the same direction told us that, at any
rate, he was still holding on. I don’t believe that we made half a mile
in the first three hours, the fog and darkness were so intense that one
actually couldn’t see one’s hand.
A halt was called—for the hundredth time, I should imagine—and presently
the Skipper came up, singing out for me, and being passed on from one
section to another. "The first bit of firm ground we come to I’m going
to stop there," he growled. "It’s no use going on like this. I haven’t
the shadowiest idea where I’m going."
"Not the foggiest, I imagine you mean, sir."
"Umph!" he grunted.
He rather liked my polished wit.
It really was the most extraordinary sensation you can imagine, to go
lumbering along at this snail’s pace, and to hear those fellows just
ahead booing and yelling, and to hear them running towards us, shouting
something rude and unladylike and running away, without ever seeing a
soul.
We ran up against a bank shortly afterwards, and stayed there for the
remainder of the night, the fog sometimes clearing away slightly, but
always shutting down, like a blanket, directly we thought of moving on.
We found a little gap in the bank for the Maxim, and formed more or less
of a hollow square all round it, with my chaps lining the bank.
We let rip a few rounds from it whenever we thought we could hear a lot
of those fellows close together, and thought we managed to wing one or
two. We certainly found two dead pigs in a sty alongside a hut, about
fifty yards away, when the fog did clear away next morning. Ask
Whitmore about his Maxim gun and the two pigs; but see that you’ve got a
clear start first!
We made ourselves as cosy as we could—from a "drill book" point of view,
I mean—and had to be on the alert all night.
The Skipper and Whitmore paced up and down behind the Maxim gun, the
Skipper smoking cigar after cigar, and worrying a good deal about not
being able to get on. Old "Blucher" came across to me presently, to
where I was sitting on the trail of the Maxim gun, eating some
sandwiches which Grainger had brought for me, and telling yarns to young
Rawlings and Ponsonby to pass away the time. He sat down between my
knees and finished off the gristly parts of the beef inside the
sandwiches, and wanted his ears played with. He wasn’t at all happy,
and the noises all round us and the yelping of dogs had got on his
nerves.
I had thrown out half a dozen marines as sentries—only ten yards in
front of our bank—and one or other of them kept on letting off their
rifles and scooting back. I had to lead them out again, firmly but
gently. It’s bad enough on an ordinary dark night to have to do sentry
business, but in this fog, when you couldn’t see anyone till he touched
you, it was only the steadiest old soldier who could "stick" it. I was
at last compelled to keep walking from one to another myself, and spent
most of the night doing this.
There were one or two, what you might call, "incidents".
One happened, once, when I’d brought Rawlings and Ponsonby with me, and
stumbled over a Chinaman, crawling along the ground. He fled like a
rabbit, but the two mids were on him like terriers, I shouting all the
time for them to come back. There were two or three revolver shots,
which started all my sentries easing "off", and then back they came,
bubbling over with excitement. It was lucky that my chaps hadn’t shot
them.
"Bagged him?" I asked.
"Rather! Got him with my second; he ran into a tree," Rawlings said,
but Ponsonby was much too excited to speak.
The other incident occurred just before we shoved on again.
I had put one of my "bad hats"—an old villain who spent most of his time
doing "cells" and 10A[#]—on the extreme left of the line of sentries,
and I thought I had heard a bit of a scuffle somewhere in his direction,
and presently managed to find him. He was standing over a Chinaman,
perfectly unconcerned. "Killed that ’ere little lot, sir; crawled up to
me and was going to knife me—the dirty thief; did it with this
bagonet—’arf an ’our ago, sir."
[#] 10A.—A particular scale of punishment.
"I wonder you didn’t shoot him," I said. And he snorted, "There’s
plenty as would ’ave," and gave the body a kick, "plenty as would ’ave,
and waked the ’ole blooming camp."
When he was eventually relieved, he dragged it back with him to show his
pals, and kept the knife as a trophy. The fog began to clear away about
six o’clock in the morning, and as it gradually became possible to see a
few yards ahead, we shoved again. We had just got up to the hut and
pigsty I told you about, and were chaffing Whitmore about the effect of
his Maxim, when we heard, about a mile off, the report of a gun. The
Skipper came swaggering up, his fierce old eyebrows covered with fog
(all of us were as wet as drowned rats with it)—"What’s that, Marshall?
What d’you make of that? Field gun, eh?"
"Sounds like it, sir;" and we heard it fire again, and it went on
regularly at about three or four minute intervals. We could hear
volleys, too, all from the same direction, and felt pretty certain that
good old Ching hadn’t let them have it all their own way.
"It means that they’re shelling that house. Umph! And that means that
Ching has got inside it," the Skipper growled, rubbing his great hands
in delight.
"Shove on! They’ve been waiting for us too long already;" and he came
along with me, Blucher yawning behind him, and wondering, I suppose,
when his job was coming on.
Directly we had moved forward we stirred up some Chinamen in front of
us; but they were not giving us much trouble, and we now felt a breeze
in our faces, and saw the fog streaming across our front. Almost
immediately afterwards we heard firing away to our left, where the other
"landing party" ought to be, and were jolly pleased, and knew that the
fog must have "lifted" over there as well.
"We shall have it clear in another quarter of an hour," the Skipper
growled, and went back to hurry everyone forward, for that gun ahead of
us was firing regularly, and made us all rather dread what was
happening.
We were getting on some high ground now, making fine progress, and
almost before you could tell when it happened, or how long it took to
clear, the fog had swept past us, and, quite suddenly, we saw frightened
Chinamen flying in front of us, to take cover behind a bank somewhere
about a quarter of a mile away. I couldn’t help laughing to see them
tumbling over each other in their hurry to escape, now that the fog had
uncovered them. We bagged a good many before they got over that bank.
"Don’t give ’em any time; after ’em, Marshall," I heard the Skipper
shouting, and we simply did a record sprint, "Blucher" going on ahead of
us, thinking that his show had come along at last, and barking loudly,
like the useless, untrained, old brute he was. We were over that bank
before they could fife half a dozen shots, and had bayoneted half a
dozen before you could say "Jack Robinson". My men were so glad to get
a sight of the fellows who’d been worrying them all night, and were so
keen to pay them "out", that there was no stopping them. Those few
shots, though, were quite enough for old "Blucher", who went yelping
back to the Skipper, with his tail between his legs, more mystified than
ever.
The ground sloped upwards behind the bank, and we were after them like
redshanks. I knew that Trevelyan with "B" company was somewhere on my
right, and that "B.-T." was coming along in reserve, and that the Maxim
kept chipping in occasionally; but I had all my work cut out to keep my
marines in hand, and did not pay much attention to anything else. One
or two of my chaps got bowled over before we got to the top of the
slope; but we were up it and over it in a "jiffy", and saw the cowardly
brutes running down the other side, dodging in between some native
graves and some big boulders, and shooting up at us.
I made my men halt and take cover to get their breath, and waited for
the Skipper. He came grunting and puffing after me.
After that beastly night, it was grand to be able to use one’s eyes
again, and see where we were and what we were doing. The ground sloped
down from our feet to a little shallow valley of paddy fields,
intersected by banks and small irrigation streams. It rose again on the
opposite side to form a ridge about eight hundred yards away, a little
tree-topped ridge, with the walled house, where Ching and Sally and all
the rest of them were, at its right end, and a few huts on its left end.
As the Skipper came up, I saw a cloud of white smoke burst out from
behind those huts, and heard that gun fire again. I pointed it out to
him.
"There’s someone showing on top of that house, sir," Trevelyan sang out.
"Where’s one of the signalmen?" the Skipper roared. "There you are—are
you—wave something; get on top of that hut and wave your flags." (We
were standing close to a small mud hut.)
"He’ll draw their fire all right," I chuckled to Trevelyan—there were a
good many bullets flying past us—and when he did scramble up to the top
and begin waving his semaphore flags, they left off firing at us, and
paid all their attention to him, bullets whistling round him and
smacking up against the side of the hut.
"A jolly good ’wheeze’ that," and Trevelyan winked at me. "You must put
that in your blessed drill book, eh, soldier?"
The signalman stood there with his telescope between his knees, calmly
trying to attract attention, whilst the Skipper stood below and cursed
him, and "Blucher" went smelling up every time a bullet splodged against
the mud wall, and then ran away, thinking people were throwing stones at
him. He didn’t know what to make of this picnic.
"There’s someone waving on top of that house," several sang out; and we
saw someone "wagging" a long stick.
"’E’s only got one arm, whoever ’e is," the signalman muttered, "an’ ’e
don’t know much about Morse."
"It’s Mr. Ford, sir," he sang out. "He says, ’All well so far—Mr. Ching
here—gun doing damage’."
"Splendid!" we all shouted; and just then the signalman came toppling
down with a bullet through his leg, and sat there holding it and looking
very white.
Old Barclay was on him in a moment—terrible keen chap he was.
When we looked again, young Ford had disappeared. I expect that he had
found it a pretty warm corner up there.
Old "B.-T.’s" little lot in the rear were having trouble now. They were
below us, at the foot of the slope we had just climbed, and were lying
down and shooting at a crowd of Chinese clustering round the huts near
that pigsty.
"We must have got round ’em in the fog," Trevelyan chuckled.
"Where’s that darned Maxim?" the Skipper roared. "Get it up here."
Young Rawlings rushed away to hurry it, and it came rattling up,
Langham, who was in charge of it, and his men panting and tugging for
all they were worth.
He was ordered to try and stop that gun firing, and then fat little
Ponsonby was sent flying downhill to tell Travers to leave the Chinamen
alone and come along after us.
The Maxim gun began its "tut-tut-tut-tut", "B.-T." and his chaps came
bounding up the hill, and we all roared with laughter as little Ponsonby
came running after them, his eyes and mouth wide open with fright at
being left behind. "B.-T." was sent down the slope in front of us, with
his company, to clear out the chaps who were sniping us; and very
prettily he and his two Mids, Jones and Withers, did the job, whilst
Trevelyan looked after the brutes in our rear.
They were simply swarming down there behind those huts, and there was
not the least doubt that we had got round their main body in the fog.
They did not dare to come out in the open, and were keeping up a very
wild fire at us.
Langham couldn’t get near that gun, and just as it fired again, and
someone had sung out that they could see stones and bits of wood flying
from a corner of the house, we saw Chinamen streaming across the paddy
fields on our left, running and turning, and firing backwards. We could
hear heavy firing from somewhere out of sight, and the noise of another
Maxim and the chip-chip of a Colt automatic gun.
We all knew that it was the gunboat’s brigade driving the Chinese in
front of them.
"The other chaps will be there before ’Old Lest’, if we don’t get a move
on. ’Old Lest’ ain’t going to be beaten by them," the Skipper grunted,
and sent me and my marines flying down into the paddy fields below us,
after Travers, who had halted and taken cover behind a bank on the other
side of them, just before the ground began to rise gently up towards the
walled house, and where the gun was a little farther to the left.
"Take ground to your left, and both of you ’go’ for that confounded
gun," the Skipper had roared after me. "I’m coming along after you."
It’s all jolly fine to tell one to charge along through paddy fields.
Grainger was just behind me, and I felt sorry for him, because I kept on
going in up to my knees in beautiful, rich, black mud, and knew that he
had his eye on me and my second best pair of trousers. But we got up to
old "B.-T." all right, and I shouted for him to come along and shove on
for the gun, got my men extended well to the left, gave them a
"breather" whilst he swung his men a little to the left as well (brought
his right shoulder up, as they say in the drill book), and then off we
went, howling and cheering, straight towards two little white huts
behind which the gun was still firing.
Whitmore appeared from somewhere and took charge (he was the senior),
Rawlings and a bugler boy legging it after him for all they were worth.
A good many bullets came whizzing past, and I saw chaps dodging about
round those huts and under some trees. My men were coming along well,
and old "B.-T." with his long legs was sprinting along in front of his
chaps like a camel.
Away to the left people began cheering—"Rah! Rah! Rah!"—and I knew that
came from the _Omaha’s_ crowd, and wasn’t going to be beaten by them.
Nor was more either; and though I knew that the "show" was not quite
according to the "drill book", I wasn’t going to let the "U.S.N." or our
gunboats get there first.
Young Wilkins, running just behind me, gave a cry and fell; I heard the
old sergeant-major cursing and hurrying on the men; we got in among the
trees, my chaps half a dozen paces behind me; a chap got in my way and
fell down—I suppose I did it; two or three fellows rushed out from the
side of a hut and came for me with swords; but the well-beloved Grainger
wasn’t going to let them damage my best "serge", if he could prevent it,
and we got rid of them between us. "B.-T.’s" chaps and mine were now
all mixed up. There were a few "bickerings" going on round the huts and
among the trees, and then we saw the gun standing by its "lonesome", and
went dashing across to it.
One of "B.-T.’s" able seamen was the first to get to it, Whitmore and
Rawlings close behind, and "B.-T." and I made a dead heat for fourth
place.
"Don’t ’hee-haw’ like a jackass," Whitmore said, when he’d got his
breath. "What’s to be done now?"
I’m hanged if I could help laughing at the sight of old "B.-T." legging
it, with little Withers, only about half his height, trying to keep up
with him.
"Give us a cigarette, and don’t be an ass, soldier!" "B.-T." sang out.
"Your legs are funnier looking than mine, any day."
"Drill book, Whitmore, old chap! Drill book! When you’ve got ’em on
the run, keep ’em on the run," I said, when I could stop laughing, and
he agreed, and "B.-T." agreed, and we got our people together and
followed them. As we left the gun we saw the _Omaha’s_ people "doubling"
up to it.
We must have followed them for the best part of a mile, I should
imagine, but they ran a jolly sight faster than we could. We were
pretty well "winded", and when we’d driven them back to the outskirts of
the town, they rallied there, and we had to pull up and go back again,
carrying along three fellows who’d been knocked over in the last hundred
yards. They began pressing along after us, and a lot of chaps—some of
those who had run away from the other brigade—began worrying our flank,
streaming across the paddy fields and firing at us. We managed to keep
them back, alternate sections lying down and firing whilst the others
ran back fifty yards and lay down in their turn, and covered the retreat
of the first little lot. A nice little show it was too—all done
according to the drill book—and when we’d got back to within a hundred
yards of the walled house, and were passing through the remains of a lot
of burnt huts, young Ponsonby came running up with orders from the
Skipper to halt there and take up a position.
"He’s pretty angry, sir," he told Whitmore; "he’s been sounding the
recall for the last half-hour."
The fact was that the Chinese hadn’t yet had a sufficient lesson, and
didn’t quite know what it was to run up against us in the daylight, and
were now coming for us "hammer and tongs".
Instead of going back to the walled house, and bending on one knee
before Princess Sally as her gallant knight, who had lost a couple of
eyeglasses, and spoiled serge frocks, two in number, and two pairs of
embroidered overalls—bills not yet paid—in her service, and receiving
her gracious thanks, I had jolly well to dodge beastly bullets for a
couple of hours.
The old Skipper often came round, with "Blucher", to see if things were
going all right, and generally stopped to have a yarn with me.
It was from him I learnt that poor old Hoffman had been killed.
"Jolly hard luck after all he’s done for us, sir," I had said; but the
Skipper only growled "Umph!" and for some reason or other didn’t seem so
sure.
He had managed to get a signal through to the _Vigilant_, and ordered
her and the gunboats to shell the town and that six-inch gun which
Whitmore had tried to destroy.
From my position, looking across the Chinese town and the little creek
crowded with junks, I could see them steaming slowly inshore, and
presently they began firing very deliberately. (Of course they had only
a few seaman ratings left on board to man the guns.)
Their shells burst all over the town; but it takes a lot of shells to
set fire to a house, and it was some time before they got a good fire
going. A few shells which didn’t burst ricochetted over our heads, and
one or two fell pretty close to the house; but the Skipper didn’t worry
about them now. He had lowered little Sally down a shallow well,
somewhere in the garden behind the house, and so long as she was safe,
he didn’t worry about anyone else.
His idea was that if we set fire to the town, most of the people would
go back there to try and extinguish the flames, and that then we would
tramp back across the island to where we had landed last night.
Certainly a good number of fellows did go back, and except from that
hill on the other side of the paddy fields, from where we had seen
Ford’s signal, we were not much bothered with rifle fire.
It was at the back of the house, where the ground fell steeply towards
the creek, and was covered with scrubby bushes, that the Chinese seemed
now to be trying to force their way in. The lower slopes were simply
swarming with them, and more kept moving up the creek in boats to assist
them.
The Skipper came across to me. "Umph!" he growled. "You’re a soldier,
aren’t you?" and when I had acknowledged the soft impeachment, "Umph!
What would you do? I’m not a soldier. ’Old Lest’s’ not much good
ashore except after ’birds’. How’d you get out of this mess! Ugh!" and
he growled at me as if he would have liked to eat me, and so fiercely
that old "Blucher" thought he was in for a row, and cleared off to have
a yarn with his chums, the marines. He took me across, behind the
house, to have a look at the state of affairs there.
Don’t think that he wanted advice. He only wanted someone to talk to,
and everyone else was too busy. I wouldn’t have suggested anything to
him for "worlds".
It was then that I saw Hobbs and Sally for the first time since they had
been "burgled". They had fished her up from the well, and she had come
across to the Skipper, looking like a ghost, her sad little face all
pinched and careworn, hardly the princess I’d all my life been longing
to rescue, and throw myself and all my unpaid bills at her feet. She
was a most distressful little object, and when the Skipper put his great
hand very gently on her shoulder, and told her we were going to start
off almost directly, she began crying, and said she didn’t want to go.
"She’s gone daft about that man Evans," Hobbs whispered to me. He
looked more like a monkey than ever.
So that was it, was it? And our little princess didn’t want to be
rescued! Poor little princess! I just noticed that the front of the
house had been pretty well battered in by the Chinese gun, and then
caught sight of Ford and Rawlings looking like long-lost brothers. Ford
was a pretty ludicrous spectacle, with one side of his face black and
blue, one eye closed, and his left arm slung up inside his monkey
jacket. This was the first time I had seen him since we had landed to
destroy that gun, and he got very red; I remembered that he hadn’t taken
my jokes in very good part, so went across to make my peace with him.
"We all saw you signalling to us this morning, Ford, on the top of that
roof. You must have been under a very hot fire, eh?"
He wasn’t quite certain whether he was going to make peace, but he
couldn’t stand out against a little delicate flattery, and we made
friends again, and he went off with Rawlings, looking very conceited and
happy.
Fat little Rashleigh was there, too, buzzing about like a bumble bee,
and offering everyone a drink from his flask, and patronizing Ching, and
talking about the gun he had captured. I never realized what he meant
till afterwards.
Old Ching was pretty well played out, but looked proud and happy, and I
gave him one of my last three cigarettes, and told him one or two yarns,
though he didn’t take much interest in them, and kept his eyes fixed on
little Sally.
The Skipper had given him the job of escorting her down to the coast,
and jolly well he had earned it too.
Parkinson, the _Omaha’s_ skipper, had a yarn with me. "Guess I shall be
a flag officer before I’m sixty. Reckon they’ll have my picture in all
the journals in the States, and maybe they’ll remember John A. Parkinson
is still alive and kicking, up at Washington. They seem to have
forgotten him awhile." He was "talking sarcastic". He was a fine
grim-looking chap, without an ounce of spare flesh on him, and as old as
most of the rear-admirals in our navy, though only in command of a small
gunboat.
There was an old Scotchman who had helped Ford and the two men escape
from the town to the walled house, and had been helping to defend it all
night. He was a funny old bird, and didn’t quite know where to "place"
himself, and wasn’t looking particularly happy. Old "B.-T." had
recognized him as the chap who’d run the show at the other island, when
"B.-T." was a prisoner, so he knew that we had sufficient evidence to
hang him, and was only too jolly anxious to escape being killed by
Chinamen in the meantime.
He thought that our best plan would be to go back the way we had come.
It was more open country, and, except for the first three-quarters of a
mile, better "going" and more open than if we attempted to work round
the outskirts of the town itself, where the ground was nothing but
swamps.
It was now about half-past one o’clock, and the Skipper thought that it
was about time to be starting back.
The great trouble was the number of wounded who would have to be
carried. Of Ching’s original fifty men only forty-two could walk, and
the two landing parties now had six men too badly wounded to walk.
Young Wilkins, my bugler, and a seaman belonging to the _Goldfinch_ were
the only two Englishmen killed so far.
These two, Hoffman, and five of Ching’s people had been buried during
the morning, under the trees in the garden, behind the house.
The Skipper also wanted to go back the way he had come. He told me that
I should have the first job—to seize the hill opposite us across the
paddy fields and hold it whilst he, Trevelyan, and "B" company and
Ching’s bluejackets brought along Sally, her father, and the wounded.
Parkinson, the _Omaha’s_ skipper, was to stay behind with the gunboat’s
brigade and act as rearguard till the Skipper had got safely across to
me, and then I was going to do "rearguard", whilst they all went on.
He hoped to get in touch with the _Ringdove_ and _Omaha_ a mile from the
shore and obtain some assistance from their guns, if he was much pressed
by the Chinese. He was just going to give the order to "carry on", when
we saw a little party of people approaching with a white flag waving
over their heads. It was headed by a most respectable-looking old
"josser" beautifully dressed in silks, with a mandarin button on his
cap, and a most benign, fatherly expression on his face. He was brought
along to the Skipper, and the old Scotchman acted as interpreter.
He had come to offer to let us go back to our ships without being
molested, if we would only leave off shelling the town, and was very
surprised when the Skipper refused to do so. Then he called up a man
who was standing behind him with a bundle in his hand, and made him
empty it on the ground, looking at us and expecting to see us beam with
delight. Ugh! I was nearly sick, for out rolled the head of a white
man.
"It’s Boss Evans!" I heard the Scotchman mutter under his breath.
We all involuntarily stepped back in disgust, and the old gentleman
opened his eyes in amazement when he saw that we were not pleased, and
explained that it was the Boss Pirate himself, the chap who’d done
everything he ought not to have done, and that now they had killed him,
and that we had seen that he was really dead, and had got Hobbs and the
girl, "it all makee end—all belong plenty too much bobberie—no can
do—vely good—vely good", and he rubbed his hands together, and bowed and
beamed at us again from behind his great horn-rimmed spectacles.
"Chuck him out!" the Skipper roared, and walked away.
The poor dear old Chinee chap was almost in tears when he was led home
again, and wasn’t allowed to take the head with him either.
We buried it alongside the other dead.
Someone must have told my poor little princess, because she was now only
too anxious to get away, and looked more mournful and heartbroken than
ever.
It was half-past two before this little business was concluded, and
Whitmore and I were jolly anxious to start.
"The old man’s wasting daylight with a vengeance," he said to me, but
had hardly spoken before young Ponsonby came running up—"From the
Captain, sir; you’re to carry on."
As I hurried past the Skipper, he sang out, "Drive those fellows off
that hill!"—pointing with his big stick. "Travers will go with you, and
I’ll send a Maxim along after you, and am coming on directly."
"Very good, sir," and I saluted and went off to tell my men what we had
to do, and sang out to Travers, "Come along, old ’B.-T.’, bring your
people along."
We started off.
[Illustration: U.S.S. Omaha and H.M.S. Ringdove shelling Hector Island.]
*CHAPTER XV*
*The Retreat*
Old B.-T. Wins—A Hard Retreat—A Case of Speed—A Race against the
Fog—Hand-to-hand Fighting—Captain Marshall is Wounded—The
Captain’s Life Attempted—Round the Fire—Ford is Indignant—On
Board Again
_Written by Captain Marshall, Royal Marine Light Infantry_
Old "B.-T." and I extended our people, ran down towards the paddy
fields, crawled and dodged across them, and prepared for the "do-or-die
business" up the farther slope.
It was a bit of a rush, and old "B.-T." looked "bored" when we met again
at the top. The blighters had never given us a show, but had cleared
out, pretty well most of them. A few had run into "B.-T.’s" little lot
by accident, and been polished off, that was all.