Captured
and
subse−
Slightly Severely Died of quently
Name of Ship. Landed. Wounded. Wounded. Killed. Wounds. rescued.
Offi− Offi− Offi− Offi− Offi− Offi−
cers Men cers Men cers Men cers Men cers Men cers Men
Vigilant, 15 145 8 75 4 27 1 9 ... 2 1 2
Ringdove, 3 34 2 23 ... 5 ... 2 ... ... ... ...
Sparrow, 2 39 2 20 ... 9 ... 6 ... 1 ... ...
Goldfinch, 2 32 1 16 ... 3 ... 3* ... ... ... ...
Omaha, 4 41 2 27 ... 8 1 2 ... ... ... ...
Huan Min. 1 56 1 29? ... 16 ... 8 ... 1? ... ...
Totals, 27 347 16 190 4 68 2 30 ... 4 1 2
* This includes the two men killed by the six−inch projectile
which struck the Goldfinch.
*CHAPTER XVI*
*Ford saves "Old Lest’s" Life*
The Vigilant to the Rescue—Rushing the Gun—Ford is Miserable—The
Ringdove Steals the Gun—Ford Bucks up Again—Mr. Rashleigh and
the Gun—The Burial at Sea—Letters from Home—A Letter from Nan
_Written by Midshipman Ford_
Before I tell you anything else, I must tell you this—it is the only
thing I can think about at present, and has wiped out all the silly, and
idiotic, and bad-tempered things I have ever done—I have saved Captain
Lester’s life.
But for me—Dick Ford, a midshipman only just out of the _Britannia_, a
worm, I suppose you would call me—he would be dead now, and Mrs. Lester
and Nan and his other girls, and all Upton Overy, would be awfully
miserable, and everybody else who had ever known him.
I just look at him when he’s striding up and down the quarterdeck, and
think that now, in a way, he belongs just a little bit to me. I know
that his coxswain, and the signalman, and any number of others who were
near him when the Chinese broke our square, saved his life a great
number of times; but you have read what Captain Marshall wrote, and know
what happened, and what, by good luck, I was able to do, so I don’t mind
in the least sharing him with all of them, so long as I know that a bit
of him does belong to me.
You see, I knew all the time that I’d really only made an ass of myself
when I was captured, and had my arm broken, and all that, and that
instead of helping him in any way, I really had only muddled up his
plans. Just before we began the march back to the coast, Jim and I had
a long yarn about what was best for me to do, and the only thing he
could suggest—you know, of course, that I only had one arm to use—was
for me to keep as close to the Captain as he would let me, and always
have my revolver handy, in case any Chinese did get near him. Jim said
that there was always the chance of some chaps trying to rush us, and it
was the only thing he could think of, and as the Captain only had his
big oak stick, and never thought of danger to himself in the least
little bit, I might make myself useful. Well, that is why I am so
absolutely happy—I feel now as though nothing can ever make me feel
really miserable again, for long—because if anything does begin to do
so, I just think about Captain Lester, and that stops it.
When I finished telling you about that awful night in the walled house,
we had heard the sound of the Maxim gun firing, and knew that the
Captain was coming along to rescue us. That made us all "buck up"
tremendously, and the fog lifted a little, and it began to grow lighter,
and we could just see the wall and the half-closed gateway, and some of
the dead people lying about, and presently we heard the sound of firing
coming nearer, and began to think that another half-hour would bring
them to us, and that Sally would then be absolutely safe.
The pirates were not worrying us at all—there had hardly been a shot for
the last two hours—and we guessed that most of them had gone away to try
and stop the Captain coming.
We even walked about the space inside the walls and counted the dead
bodies—there were forty-seven—and peeped through the two gateways, and
collected some more Mauser rifles and any amount more ammunition. We
made a fire too, and found some food in the house, and tried to make
Sally eat some breakfast, but she couldn’t touch anything, and went to
sleep again.
[Illustration: "We even walked about the space inside the walls and
counted the dead bodies."]
We thought that everything was going on jolly well. My arm was not
nearly so painful—I had had some sleep; Mr. Ching was very cheerful;
Sally and Mr. Hobbs were both sound asleep; and Miller and the old
Scotchman were coiled up asleep as well. Martin, the marine—well, I’m
not certain whether I cared much for him—kept on grumbling about his
arm, and reminding me that he wouldn’t have broken it or been taken
prisoner but for having tried to save me. That rather irritated me
after a time. Mr. Ching and I were listening to the sound of the
firing, and looking through a window in the direction from which it
came, watching the fog clearing away from the low land on that side,
when all of a sudden there came a roaring noise out of the fog, and
something struck the house close to us with a crash, and we heard stones
falling on to the ground below.
We ran to where it had struck, and found holes big enough for me to
climb through in both the front and back walls.
Mr. Ching gasped out, "They must have brought up a field gun;" and we
looked, but the fog wasn’t thin enough yet for us to see anything. He
was very frightened, and ran up to that little square room with the iron
shutters, and came down with Sally in his arms, took her out of the
house and laid her down behind the wall, where it was very thick. He
was only looking frightened because of her, I know that, and that he was
just like Captain Lester in never being frightened about himself.
Martin and Mr. Hobbs came scooting out too.
They kept on firing that gun, and sometimes they hit the wall and
sometimes the house; and presently Miller, who had woke up, peeped over
the wall, and said he could see the gun, and he lifted me up to look
over, and I saw it as well, under some trees, about five hundred yards
away, along the ridge on which the house was standing. He and Mr. Ching
and the bluejackets began firing at the men round it; but they couldn’t
see it clearly because of the smoke it made and the fog, and as they
didn’t really know how to sight the Mauser rifles properly, they didn’t
seem to be able to hit anybody.
At any rate, we couldn’t stop it firing, and it was knocking the house
to pieces.
Then a shot struck the top of the wall, and made a gap in it, and stones
went flying round, and one struck a bluejacket sitting down, not far
from where Sally was, still asleep, struck him on the head, and killed
him. Mr. Ching didn’t know what to do, because he was so worried lest
she should be hurt; and two or three more came along, all hitting the
wall, and it was jolly unsafe to stay anywhere near it, so we made her
go and lie down behind a very big stone or rock behind the house, and
leant some planks of wood against it to make a kind of roof to keep off
falling stones.
Her father crept under them too.
If the firing became more dangerous, Mr. Ching did think of lowering her
down a shallow well in the garden under the trees, but that was never
wanted.
The rifle and Maxim firing became very heavy, and we could hear it
coming rapidly nearer, and the fog, which was still lying very dense
below the house, now swept away, and we could see that there were flat
paddy fields there with a small hill on the other side. It was glorious
to be able to look all round again, and suddenly Chinamen went flying
down our side of that hill opposite, and we could hear cheering, and
then, in a minute or two, some dark figures, waving their arms over
their heads, came on to the sky line, and we knew that they were our
people, and we all cheered tremendously.
You can have no idea what we all felt like, because, although we were
expecting them, it was quite a different feeling when we actually saw
them.
"Look there, Miller!" I shouted. "There’s a dog there running backwards
and forwards;" and Miller spotted it too, and I knew that it must be
jolly old "Blucher", and that the Captain must be there.
Mr. Ching asked me if I could signal to them, and I managed to do so,
climbing up to the top of the square room, and getting out through a
hole which the field gun had made in the roof. I was so fearfully
excited and happy, that I forgot all about the danger from the gun, and
Mr. Ching helped me up and steadied my feet, and I waved a long bamboo,
and signalled in Morse that we were all well, but that the gun was doing
damage. I saw some tiny little flags waving to say that the signalman
with the Captain had read it, and then Mr. Ching pulled me down, and
only just in time, because the field gun made two more holes close by,
almost immediately afterwards.
I was too much excited to worry about the gun in the least—we all
were—and went and watched them over the wall at the side, and saw some
dark figures come racing down the hill, and presently others whom I knew
were marines came along after them and joined up in the paddy fields,
and I thought I could recognize Mr. Travers and Captain Marshall by
their long legs. It made me go just a little hot all over to see
Captain Marshall, because I hadn’t forgotten what he had said when I had
run away from the bullets, near those burning huts, and didn’t quite
want to see him.
There was a lot more rifle firing and machine-gun firing farther to the
right, and the field gun stopped shooting; but we couldn’t see the
marines and those others now, because they had got across the paddy
fields and were under the brow of our ridge. We could hear them
cheering, however, though they were out of sight, and the noise seemed
to be going towards the gun, and we knew that they were charging it, and
simply held our breath and watched Chinamen dodging about, round it, and
under the trees, and firing downhill.
Then they began bolting away out of sight—we knew what we should see in
a moment or two, and held our breath—and almost directly afterwards a
whole crowd of our people went dashing across the open space, and swept
round the gun.
We all jumped down, made a rush for the gateway, cheering like mad, and
waving, and then I saw someone jump on top of the field gun and wave his
cap, and knew that it was Jim Rawlings. I was certain of it, and Miller
said he thought it was too, and this simply added everything to the joy,
because I had been wondering and worrying whether he was killed or badly
wounded—ever since Miller had told me that he had seen him knocked down
two nights ago, when Mr. Whitmore’s party was retreating, and just
before he himself had been captured.
I felt all "bubbly" inside, and didn’t quite know what to do, and felt
very "sniffy", and ran towards the gun, with Miller and Mr. Ching and a
lot of his men. Before we could get to it, the first lot of our people
had gone off after the Chinese, who were running away; and the next lot
of people I saw was a company of American bluejackets, with their long
thin Captain in front of them. He gripped my hand and said he was
"right glad to find us alive", asked after Sally, and rushed on to the
house, his old-looking First Lieutenant shouting out, "Guess things are
real bully," as he followed him. Then Mr. Rashleigh and the "Ringdoves"
came running up, clustered round the gun, and began cheering. Dr.
Hibbert gave me a cheery wink, and Mr. Rashleigh patted me on the back
and hurt my arm, and I hadn’t forgiven him for that unfair report of
his, and hated him touching me.
I heard him tell his coxswain to take the gun back to the _Ringdove_,
and I thought that he couldn’t possibly have known that our people had
captured it first; so I told him about it, and that they had only gone
in pursuit of the Chinese, but he took no notice of me, and I forgot all
about it in the excitement of seeing Captain Lester coming striding
along, puffing and blowing, "Blucher" barking and prancing ahead of him,
running up and smelling the gun and one or two dead bodies very
gingerly. Then he spotted me, and came wriggling up to be patted.
The Captain looked very sourly at me and growled out, "Where’s that chap
Ching, and the little lass and Hobbs?" and wanted to know whether Martin
and Miller were with me. I must have looked a most awful sight, I know,
because I could still only just manage to see out of my left eye by
lifting up the lid with my fingers, and of course I was covered with
mud, and my left sleeve was dangling down, and my arm was inside my
monkey jacket, where the old Chinaman had bandaged it. But, for all
that, he didn’t even ask me how I was, and that made me miserable.
"Pongo" came panting along after him, and when he had recovered his
breath, I asked if the Commander had landed with them.
It was then that I heard that he had been shot through the body, and
that Dr. Mayhew didn’t know whether he would live or die. That made me
feel even more wretched, and the Captain, hearing me ask about him,
turned round and growled: "If you hadn’t been such a blamed little
idiot, he’d never have been shot. Umph! His little finger is worth
more than all you confounded young midshipmen—umph!—put together;" and
he stalked off to meet the American Captain.
"Pongo" told me that Dicky was going on all right, and then wanted to
know all about my arm, and my face, and everything that had happened;
but I wanted to be left alone and be miserable, and went away and hid
somewhere—I didn’t care what happened; and wanted to run away and get
killed, or something like that, till I heard Jim’s voice calling for me.
And he found me and comforted me a little, and said that Dr. Barclay did
not think that the Commander would die, but that Dr. Mayhew wouldn’t say
for certain till another day had gone by. But all the joy and the
excitement had gone out of me, and I felt wretched and ill, and had a
bit of a "weep", and didn’t mind Jim seeing me, not in the least, and he
cleared out and left me, and went away to Mr. Whitmore and presently
came back, and told me all about Mr. Whitmore’s party, and how they’d
had a pretty tough job getting back to the boat, and never got halfway
to the gun. He hadn’t been wounded at all—he didn’t even remember
falling down—so Miller must have made a mistake. He was awfully keen to
see over the house, and went everywhere, and before I could stop him he
poked his nose into the little room place where they had put Mr. Hoffman
and five dead bluejackets, and that made him feel rather ill.
Everybody seemed to come up after this. Dr. Barclay had a look at my
arm, and I saw the corners of his mouth go down. "’Twill be a long
job," he said, and did it up again as comfortably as he could. Miller
had coiled himself up behind the wall, and was fast asleep, and so were
Mr. Ching and most of his bluejackets—I would have done anything in the
world for them. Old Sharpe came up to have a yarn, and cheered me up a
little, and Captain Marshall caught sight of me, and came along and said
something nice, and I knew that he was sorry, and I was so longing for
someone to be pleasant that I made friends. He didn’t "hee-haw" either,
as I expected he would, when he first saw my face, and he told me that
the Commander knew that I had sent off that message in the letter which
the Englishman had written, and was pleased about it. This cheered me a
little.
But the Captain took no notice of me, and every time he passed, my heart
just felt like lead inside me, and everyone seemed to know that I was in
disgrace, even old "Blucher".
It seems silly to say so, but I did fancy that he was not so
affectionate as he usually was, and it hurt me.
Then they brought a dead man along with his face covered up, and someone
told me that it was Wilkins, the marine bugler, who had helped me to set
fire to one of those huts, and throw stones at the dogs, and that made
me sadder than ever again.
Both of the landing parties must have managed to slip through in the fog
without really running up against many of the Chinese; but now they were
swarming all round us, and there was so much to do to keep them off,
that I was left alone, and got into a safe corner, and watched the ships
firing at the town and the six-inch gun. Sally had been put in a safe
place, so the Captain didn’t care in the least where their shells went;
and a good many did come pretty close to us, and one of the _Vigilant’s_
eight-inch shells didn’t burst, and came roaring overhead, and fell into
the paddy fields below.
Presently a number of houses in the town caught fire, and a lot of the
Chinese ran away to try and put the fires out, so that we were not so
much worried with them.
I wasn’t there when the mandarin came to see the Captain, and didn’t
hear that he had brought the Englishman’s head with him till afterwards,
and by that time so many sad things had happened, that I did not feel so
very sorry for him.
Then we began our retreat, and it was just before we started that Jim
suggested that as I only had one arm, the best thing that I could do was
to stick quite close to the Captain. He offered me his revolver, but I
still had that one the Englishman had given me, and a good many
cartridges for it were still in my pocket, so I got him to load it for
me. He said a lot of things to buck me up before he went away, and I
tried to feel happier, but it wasn’t much of a success, at any rate
whilst I was near the Captain. You see, he didn’t even notice me. I
thought that perhaps he would send me away from him, but not noticing me
hurt me almost more, and I didn’t want to talk to "Pongo", because he
was nearly as much an idiot as "Dicky", and though he tried to buck me
"up", he only made me want to kick him. He would keep going at it, too,
and I was jolly glad whenever he had to run on a message for the
Captain, and left me alone.
I saw Captain Marshall and Mr. Travers rush the hill opposite us, and
then we had to follow them across the paddy fields, very slowly, because
we had eight wounded men to carry. Eight men from the _Ringdove_
dragged that Chinese gun along behind us, and Jim came up when we were
halfway across. He had caught sight of the gun, and was simply furious,
because it wasn’t their gun at all, and we both told Mr. Trevelyan so,
and he was just as angry.
"Have you said anything to the Gunnery Lieutenant?" he asked.
Jim had told him, but he wasn’t going to do anything. He thought that
the Captain had probably given Mr. Rashleigh permission, so wasn’t going
to be mixed up with it, and we couldn’t speak to the Captain himself.
We got across all right, but Captain Parkinson lost a lot of people in
the rearguard when he left the walled house, and that meant more wounded
for us to carry, and then we dragged on again, and Mr. Travers and
Captain Marshall had a fearful time when they tried to leave their hill.
They did it splendidly, and it was grand to see their men walking
backwards down the hill, with their bayonets all sticking out at the
brutes above them, and when they ran back, Mr. Travers and Captain
Marshall and two or three men had to stop and keep the Chinese from
killing a wounded man who had fallen almost in front of their feet—they
were so close behind them. We saw Mr. Langham rush back from the Maxim
gun and pick him up and carry him along, whilst the others kept the
Chinese off, and we all cheered. It was a grand sight, and it washed
out a lot of silly things Mr. Langham had done to us in the gunroom.
After that we had seventeen people to carry, which meant very slow work,
and then the Captain took charge of the rearguard, because it was the
most dangerous place, and I kept close to him and saw that my revolver
was all right; but nothing much happened, and we cleared out back to
within half a mile of the shore, where that beastly fog began.
I never even saw Sally all this time, because Mr. Ching’s bluejackets
stood in a ring all round her, touching shoulders, so that none of the
bullets that were always coming along should touch her. I did see her
skirt once when we were halted, and she was sitting on the ground in the
middle of them; but that was all.
We all joined up together then, and went as fast as we could, and the
fog rolled all over us and shut out everything. It was perfectly awful,
and we seemed to lose each other and then find each other again, time
after time, and there were all our people shouting, and trying to form a
square all round us, and farther away in the fog Chinamen were yelling
and gradually getting round our flanks, and at last they were even ahead
of us.
It was then, that the Captain spoke to me for the first time, and
ordered me to try and find Captain Parkinson, and tell him to close his
men on the centre, so as not to have too broad a front, and to go very
slowly. I did manage to find him, after stumbling into a ditch and
hurting my left arm, and very nearly losing my revolver, and was only
able to get back to the Captain because his bugler kept on sounding
"G’s".
Just being taken notice of bucked me up again very much, and when the
Chinese suddenly rushed against our square, making a most awful noise, I
wasn’t really frightened—I didn’t want to live unless I could do
something to wipe out everything that I had done wrong—and this was my
chance, I thought. I was shoved about from side to side, and jammed in
among a lot of our men, and was so small, that the brutes perhaps didn’t
see me, and somehow or other I managed to keep near the Captain, and his
coxswain, and the signalman, and I think I helped them keep the Chinese
off him. I know that my revolver was empty when the fighting left off,
and I had tried very carefully not to fire except when a Chinaman was
almost touching. I had been knocked over by our own men just before the
finish, and lost the Captain, but found him again, and got one of the
signalmen to reload the revolver.
I have often been asked whether I was frightened, and people think that
I am only putting on "side" when I tell them I was not. But I wasn’t,
not in the least, because, as you must understand by now, from all I
have written, I was too frightfully miserable and too ashamed of myself.
Well, you know what happened, and that I managed to kill a brute who
pretended to be dead and tried to kill the Captain, as he was carrying
Sally away from those dead bodies round the Chinese gun.
The Captain did not say anything about it at the time, but that didn’t
stop me being happy in the least. I didn’t want thanks, I was simply
satisfied to have done it—all by myself, too—with lots of people looking
on, so that there could not be any mistake about it. Jim soon heard
about it, and found me, and gave my good arm a squeeze and went off. I
had heard Captain Marshall "hee-hawing" about Ching looking as if he was
walking on "air", and I didn’t know what he meant at the time; but now I
knew, for I felt that I was walking on air too, and forgot my arm and my
face and of being so tired—forgot everything except having saved the
Captain—and I’m certain that Mr. Ching could not have felt more happy
than I did.
I still stuck to the Captain, although he didn’t say anything to me, and
even when I heard that Withers had been killed, I couldn’t feel as sad
as I ought, though he was really a chum of mine.
Presently, when all the terrible number of wounded had been patched up,
we brought them and the dead down to the sea, and when we got that
signal out of the fog from the _Omaha’s_ siren, we settled down to spend
the night on the shore, behind a damp bank, and made some fires, and
tried to make the wounded comfortable round them. When the Captain had
seen to everything, he went over to one of the fires and sat down to
light a cigar, as he had run out of matches. I think that he must have
been a little tired.
I sat down behind him, with "Pongo" and "Blucher", and presently he
turned round—he could see my face by the light of the fire, and I was
trembling all over for him to say something—and he growled out, "Haven’t
improved the look of your face, Dick!"
Well, I simply ran down towards the sea and hid in the fog, and sat down
in the mud and cried for joy. No one else could see me, and I didn’t
much care if they did, for I felt too happy to describe it to you. I
knew that everything was wiped out at last.
Of course he never cared a little bit about himself, so probably never
thought it was such a splendid thing to save his life, or worth the
trouble of thanking me for doing so. That is why he hadn’t done it, in
so many words; but just that "They haven’t improved the look of your
face, Dick!" was all I wanted, and I was too shy to go back for a long
time, till I got so cold that I had to, and found Jim there and told
him, and he squeezed my arm again, and I know that he was as happy as I
was. He hadn’t got hurt all day, not even in the fight in the square.
He’d been knocked under a Maxim carriage whilst he was trying to help
Mr. Whitmore get into some safe place, after his leg had been broken,
and had nothing but a few bruises to show. He really was rather worried
about having nothing else to show for it.
He was still bubbling over with anger about that gun. He disliked Mr.
Rashleigh even more than I did, and he hated him having it. We couldn’t
do anything, although Captain Marshall said that he had no right to it
whatsoever. Mr. Travers, with his leg jolly painful, didn’t want to be
worried about anything, and Captain Parkinson was too sad about his
First Lieutenant having been killed to think of anything else. He did
say, "Guess your marines had gone by when my boys came up, and that
little fat chap was behind me—some."
"I actually stood on it, sir! Didn’t you see me, Dick?" Jim told him,
and I told Captain Parkinson that I had seen him, too, from the gateway
with my own eyes, and that was a long time before anyone else came in
sight.
He wouldn’t say anything, so we went away and sat down close to the
Captain, and began talking about it—you know what I mean—talking just
loudly enough for him to hear, if he wanted to; but we were both too
frightened to talk too loudly, and I don’t think that he did hear.
It was grand to see the fog rolling away in the morning, and to see the
gunboats showing up, and when it cleared away altogether, it was grander
still to watch them peppering the Chinese with shells whenever they came
out in the open. Then the boats came along, and you should have seen
old "Blucher" scrambling into the first _Vigilant’s_ boat that ran up
the beach. It made everyone laugh.
I was sent back with the second batch of wounded, and Dicky met me at
the gang-way, looking awfully white and scared. He told me that the
Commander was doing all right; but I wasn’t allowed to see him, and Dr.
Mayhew was almost off his head with worry and work, and hadn’t time to
talk to me.
When I saw my face in the looking-glass I didn’t wonder why people had
smiled whenever they saw me. The left side was all purple and black,
and my forehead was raw, and my left eye and upper lip all swollen.
Old Ah Man burst into tears, when he saw me—he was a funny old chap—and
went away and kicked his Chinese stewards and "makee learn" boys, and
brought me some beef tea and custard, and cried again when he heard that
Withers had been killed.
Then I had a hot bath, Dicky helping me, and turned into my hammock, and
it wasn’t till next morning that my arm was properly dressed and put
into plaster of Paris.
I knew, even before I went on deck, by the noise of the bell being
struck every two minutes, that the fog had come on again. It was denser
than ever, if that was possible, and we had to switch on the lights all
over the ship to see our way about.
At midday we buried Withers and the five men belonging to the _Vigilant_
who had been killed—buried them overboard. Captain Lester had brought
them off from shore, because he feared that if he buried them there the
Chinese would dig them up and mutilate them.
It was most awfully solemn and depressing, in that damp, raw fog, with
our bells tolling and our colours half-masted and dripping down limply.
Out of the fog, on each side of us, the gunboats’ bells were tolling,
for they were burying their dead too, and the noise seemed to throb
right through you. The Chaplain read the funeral service over the six
bodies, covered with Union Jacks, and lying in a row on the quarterdeck,
Withers being the smallest and being placed farthest aft, because he was
an officer, and the Captain stood behind them, without moving a muscle,
and looking terribly stern.
The marines fired three volleys, and "A" and "B" companies fired another
three volleys, and then the two bluejacket buglers sounded the "Last
Post" six times, and each time, as the last note died away, there was a
splash, and I felt as if something icy cold had struck me right in the
middle of the back.
I did not dare to look at anyone except the Captain. Then the band
played a cheerful march, Mr. Lawrence sang out—"Ship’s company! Right
and left turn! Quick march!" and the men marched for’ard into the
battery, very silently, looking over the side at the water as they went
through the battery screen door.
"Hoist the colours!" the Captain said, and went below. His lips were
very tightly squeezed together. No one could eat any lunch, we were all
so miserable, and no one even heard Captain Marshall "hee-hawing" for a
long time—not for days and days.
But the Commander’s third day had gone by, and Dr. Mayhew and Dr.
Barclay, both of them, said that he would get well, and that cheered us
all; and in a couple of days or so the Captain began to get angry again,
and to grunt and growl at everybody, which was another good sign, and
cheered us up a great deal. He was fearfully angry about the fog; for
it settled down and never lifted for four days, and was so thick that we
could do nothing all that time, and of course the Captain had only half
finished his job, and wanted to burn the town and the junks and
recapture the yacht.
It did lift on the fifth day, and when the gunboats stood inshore and
the Captain landed, with everyone who was well enough to land, there was
no one there to oppose him, and only about twenty small junks still
remaining in the creek. The pirates had simply cleared out in all the
big junks and escaped in the fog, and before they left they had set fire
to the yacht and the tramp steamer, and these were simply complete
wrecks. Jim told me that they were nothing but bent and warped iron.
The Captain was in a terrible rage about it; but I don’t see how he
could blame himself, and it was only lucky that the fog had lifted
during the morning on which we had all got off.
He burnt the rest of the town and destroyed the six-inch gun; and the
Chaplain went ashore, with a firing party, and read the funeral service
over the graves of Mr. Hoffman and Wilkins, the marine bugler, and fired
three volleys, and the bluejacket drummer-boy used Wilkins’s own bugle
to sound the "Last Post". When this was done, and when the _Huan Min_
had towed away some of the junks and burnt the others, we all steamed
back to Tinghai.
The _Ringdove_ was sent up to Shanghai to communicate with the Admiral,
and took with her our mails. I wrote a most gorgeous letter to my
mother, and you can imagine what tremendously exciting letters we all
had to write home.
Jim was in charge of the boat that took the mail bags across to her, and
he came back red with anger. "They’ve got that gun all burnished and
polished, just abaft the mainmast—I saw it;" and that made us all,
everyone in the gunroom, angry again. We had almost forgotten about it
in the excitement of getting back to Tinghai and writing home.
Sally and Mr. Hobbs went in her, but before they went Mr. Langham coaxed
her down into the gunroom to cut those ribbons across the piano. She
was very nervous and uncomfortable, and just as she was going to do it
with Webster’s dirk, someone suggested that Withers’s ought to be used,
so we went away and fetched it from his chest. When she knew whose it
was she cried, and we all felt horribly "snuffy", and then she opened
the piano and sat down, but only touched one note and burst into tears
again. Mr. Langham pulled out his big handkerchief, shoved it into her
hands, and she ran away.
Directly she had disappeared Mr. Langham locked the piano and threw the
key through the scuttle into the sea.
When the _Ringdove_ came back she brought six weeks’ mails, and that was
the first thing that really cheered us up. We were quite happy.
I had six long letters from my mother, the first I had had since leaving
home, and I sat on my chest in a corner by myself and read them, and it
was very jolly to hear all that had happened at home; but they made me
miserable, for although she tried to write cheerfully, I knew that she
was really very worried. You see, my father would put all the little
money he had into silly swindly things which he saw advertised in the
papers, and my mother often told me that some of the religious papers
had more swindling advertisements in them than ordinary daily papers,
and of course my father, being a parson, often saw these. I don’t know
much about it, but she used to tell me that if he saw an advertisement
telling anyone to send, say, five pounds to a man and he would be sure
to make it into ten or twenty pounds in a week—by some certain plan he
had invented for dealing in stocks and shares—my father would nearly
always do it, if he could manage to scrape any money together.
I know that my mother often cried about it, and I’ve often heard him
say, "Well, my dear, they seem to know what they are talking about.
They can’t be all swindlers, or else the editors wouldn’t print their
advertisements, so I’ll just try, this once."
He always lost his money, and I know, for a fact, that my mother only
had one new dress all the time I was on the _Britannia_, so as to have
enough money to pay for me there.
I know that this is rather a "sniffy" chapter, but I can t help it, and
I’m telling you just what happened, and how I felt about everything.
The Captain sent for me before I had read my letters more than twice,
and I shoved them into my chest and ran aft to his cabin.
He was sitting at his knee-hole table in his shirt sleeves, smoking a
cigar, with heaps of letters all around him, and "Blucher’s" head close
to his elbow.
"Good news from home, I hope, Ford? Here’s something for you from my
girl Nan," and he gave me a folded-up piece of notepaper with "Dick"
scrawled across it.
I was running out again when he gurgled: "Arm all right? Let me see you
move your fingers. Umph. You’ll be all right. Umph! I wrote to the
missus to tell her you’d shot that chap who tried to cut me down; wrote
to your mother too, to tell her you were going on well—told her about it
as well. Umph!"
"Did you really, sir?" I gasped. "Thank you very much indeed, sir!"
"Umph! Do you know where we are going? Yokohama!—to-morrow; got orders
to-night; off you go."
I rushed off to tell everybody, and was awfully happy again—everyone
was; but what made me so happy was to know that Captain Lester himself
had written about me saving his life, and that everyone at Upton Overy
would know about it. I knew how my mother would love her letter, and
keep it, and read it over and over again. Nan wrote an awfully spidery
kind of a fist, and wanted me to bring her a whole lot of "curios" when
we came home. She said that I had promised to do so, and that this was
just a "reminder". It was jolly to hear from her, and she sent her love
to old "Blucher", and wanted to know whether he had had any of his
"fits" lately.
My face was nearly all right again by this time, but the forehead was
darker on the left side, and Dr. Barclay said that he thought it would
always be like that.
I didn’t really mind, because it would always be something to show, and
to remind me of everything.
As a matter of fact, I was rather pleased about it, but had to pretend I
wasn’t.
*CHAPTER XVII*
*Goodbye to the Huan Min*
Out of Danger—Goodbye to Ching—Mr. Rashleigh’s Report—at
Hong-Kong
_Written by Commander Truscott_
I thank God that I am not lying under the muddy water rolling round the
Hector Group, with Withers and those other poor fellows of ours.
It was to Marshall and his marines that I owe my life, and I wish that
it was in my power to repay them. In attempting to rescue young Ford
that night he was captured, I had been shot clean through the body,
below the left ribs, and two of the marines—I do not know which two, and
they have never come forward to tell me—carried me back to the walls of
that battery, whilst Marshall kept the Chinese at bay. It was Barclay
who told them to carry me as gently and smoothly as possible, as this
was my only chance, and they carried me as if I had been a baby asleep,
although the Chinese were closing all around them. They got me down the
mud shore, and into the barge, only just in time, and it was whilst I
was being lifted in that Marshall received the blow on the head which
knocked him over. There was a most desperate fight to save him, and
then poor young Withers managed to drive them off with his gun.
When they got me aboard the _Vigilant_, Mayhew would not give me any
opinion as to what my chances were. "Look here, Mayhew!" I told him,
"I’m not a baby; tell me;" but he only said, "Wait for three days, and
eat nothing till then. I cannot tell you before."
I had to be content with that, and to lie in my bunk, with the pictures
of my wife and my two boys smiling at me out of their frames, and watch
the hands of the little clock she had given me crawling round its face,
and wondering, whenever I had a twinge of pain inside me, whether the
trouble which Mayhew feared had commenced, and whether the end was near.
Mayhew used to come to my cabin half a dozen times a day, feel my pulse,
and take my temperature. "Hungry still, Commander?" he would say, and
smile and go away, and each time I would watch his face to see if the
smile was only there to cover his real feelings. No one who has not
been through a time like this can imagine how awful is the suspense.
On the morning after the Skipper had come back with the landing parties,
bringing Sally, her father, young Ford, and our missing men with him,
Mayhew found my temperature and pulse normal. He gave a whoop. "You’ll
live to enjoy your pension all right, Truscott," and told me that I was
practically out of danger. Barclay came in and confirmed his opinion.
I lay back, too filled with emotion to speak. Those photographs seemed
to smile even more at me—they represented all I had to live for—and life
seemed very good.
Neither of the doctors had had any sleep during the night, as they had
been busy with the wounded, and Barclay looked pretty ghastly. He had
had a blow on the head during the fight in that square, but fortunately
the sword edge had been turned by his cap.
The Captain came in almost immediately afterwards, growling very
fiercely to hide his feelings. "Umph! I’ve kept back the _Ringdove_
till I heard about you from Mayhew this morning. Going to send her up
to Shanghai at once. I’ll be off and write a letter to your missus.
Umph! You want shaving—badly;" and he gripped my hand and went out
again.
I finished my letter home—as you can imagine I finished it—the sentry
outside was waiting for it, I heard the boat shove off to take it to the
_Ringdove_, and I thanked God once more and felt inexpressibly at peace.
At the same time that she heard the news of my wound, my wife would hear
that I was out of danger, and this, too, caused me to be very thankful.
Some little time afterwards the curtain was pushed aside, and young
Ford’s extremely disfigured face peeped through. I smiled at him, and he
gave me a frightened cheerful smile and drew it back again.
Poor little chap! he’d been pretty badly knocked about. I ought never to
have let him go on that "fool" errand of his. But he was as happy as a
lord, because he had saved the Skipper’s life.
In a week’s time I was allowed to sit up for an hour or two a day, and
in ten days’ time to walk about a little.
Then the _Ringdove_ arrived with six weeks’ mails, and orders from the
Admiral to proceed at once to Yokohama with the gunboats, to land all
the wounded still requiring hospital treatment, and to join the flagship
somewhere off the coast of Corea. We were to proceed with "despatch",
as political complications in Europe threatened war with a country which
maintained a considerable fleet in Chinese waters.
The Captain of the _Huan Min_ had received orders by the _Ringdove_ as
well, and had to continue the search for the remainder of the
pirates—those who had escaped in the junks.
Ching and his Captain dined with our Skipper that night, and, for him,
"Old Lest" was extraordinarily gentle. He felt, I am sure, that he was
leaving them in the lurch, with all this work still in front of them,
and thought it was hardly "playing the game", after the magnificent way
in which they had helped us.
I heard him tell Ching: "Umph! But for you, Ching, we should never have
done it, never have rescued the little lass" (I saw Ching wince), "and
everyone would have called ’Old Lest’ a silly old fool. I only wish
that we could stay and help you; but we can’t. There’s trouble comin’
along, and the Admiral wants every ship he can get hold of, so we’ve got
to be off." He grunted and growled a few times, and then burst out
fiercely with, "’Old Lest’ will never forget you."
He gave Ching a photograph of himself, and a silver cup he had won years
ago as a midshipman. It was the Admiral’s cup for the Channel Fleet in
the old days, and he valued it more than anything else he had in his
cabin. I told Ching so afterwards, in order that he should appreciate
it all the more.
He had written to the Foreign Office as well, about Ching, and we all
hoped that eventually he would get his promotion.
To continue the search for the fugitive and scattered pirates was like
hunting for the button in a Christmas pudding after the thimble and
sixpence had been found—a good deal of trouble, and not worth the bother
when you did find it.
Little Sally was the thimble, and the yacht and the tramp steamer the
sixpence, and we all knew well enough that Ching wanted the thimble, and
didn’t care in the least for anything else.
He had told me that he was hoping to be sent back to Shanghai, and I
know that he wanted another chance of seeing Sally, and that the
prospect of cruising alone among those bleak, fog-bound islands, now
that she had been rescued and had gone out of his life, was very dreary
to him.
Before he went back to his antiquated old tub, he was taken into the
ward room, where they gave him a great "send-off". Everyone knew that
but for him Sally would not have been rescued, everyone on board admired
his pluck and gallantry, and everyone was extremely sorry to part with
him.
At daybreak next morning the _Huan Min_ got up her clumsy anchor and
steamed away, and we all manned ships and cheered her as she passed us,
and waited on deck till she had disappeared round the island, out of
sight, and nothing of her remained but a dense cloud of oily black
smoke.
"Umph! There goes a confounded fine chap", the Skipper growled, as he
went below. We ourselves, with our gunboats, left shortly afterwards
for Yokohama, and Parkinson in the _Omaha_ came along too. There are
small English and United States naval hospitals still kept up in this
Japanese town, and all the bad cases were sent ashore to them.
Parkinson, after having landed his, left for Chemulpo in Corea, and we
gave him and his officers a great farewell dinner to commemorate the
termination of the expedition.
I did not take part in this, however, because Mayhew forced me to go to
hospital with Whitmore, Ford, and seven others of our men.
I was very loath to go, because I felt as fit as a fiddle, and war
troubles were brewing, and my place ought to be on board. However much
I dreaded a big naval war, there was always the chance of some
promotion, and I hated to be left behind.
However, Mayhew wouldn’t hear of my coming, and we had to watch the old
_Vigilant_ steam away past the breakwater without us.
I rather fancy that the doctors were a little too careful about me, for,
as a matter of fact, I never felt better in my life.
Before the _Vigilant_ sailed, the Skipper brought "Blucher" up to the
hospital to say goodbye to us, and told me many things. One was that he
had allowed the old Scotch engineer, whom we had brought with us from
the island, to go ashore and disappear.
"Umph!" the Skipper growled. "Had enough evidence to hang him a dozen
times; but he helped our people in that house, and Ford and those two
fellows would have been scuppered but for him, so I sent him ashore at
night, gave him a ten-pound note, and told him to clear."
The ten-pound note was out of his own pocket, I knew well enough.
He was asking my opinion as to whom he should mention by name in his
despatches, and, just as he was going, said, "Umph! Truscott, I sent
that Report of Proceedings back to Rashleigh with a copy of Trevelyan’s
and young Ford’s. Told him to rewrite his. Told him that I wouldn’t
forward it to the Admiral till I was satisfied with it, and he’s written
quite a different yarn. Umph! I told him what I thought of him—pretty
plainly."
Young Ford had been bothering me, time after time, to do something about
that Chinese gun which Whitmore, Travers, and Marshall had captured, and
which Rashleigh had claimed and kept. From all that I had gathered,
especially from Whitmore, there was no doubt that Rashleigh had no
earthly right to it. I took this opportunity of mentioning the subject.
"Umph! I know the fat little beggar’s got no right to it. Thought he
had when he asked me for it, so gave it him, and let him take it away;
but when ’Old Lest’s’ given anything away—umph!—he don’t go back on his
word. It belongs to me, I suppose, and I can do what I like with it,
eh?"
After he had gone I let Ford know what he had said about that Report,
and he was extremely delighted; but the possession of that gun still
rankled very deeply, and I felt sure that he would not be content whilst
it remained aboard the _Ringdove_.
From a few things Ford said, more or less under his breath, I had a dim
suspicion that if it wasn’t handed over to the _Vigilant_, the gunroom
meant to do something or other.
"What’s the game?" I asked him; but he wasn’t going to give away any
secrets.
For four weeks we were left to ourselves, and young Ford and myself were
able to have many pleasant little excursions up country, and each day’s
excitement was the arrival of Reuter’s telegram at the English Club on
the Bund, with news of the gathering war clouds.
As war seemed to be becoming imminent, both of us felt our position very
keenly. Poor Whitmore with his smashed thigh was, of course, totally
helpless, but, as I said before, I was as strong as a horse again, and
Ford’s arm did not entirely incapacitate him.
Just, however, as we thought that war was only a question of hours, the
war clouds disappeared, to our intense relief, and presently the
_Vigilant_ came back to pick us all up again, the Skipper having orders
to proceed to Singapore, and to act as Senior Officer there till it was
time for us to go home and pay off.
I was fit for duty now, even Mayhew couldn’t deny that, and right glad I
was to get back to my work and to my own bunk.
We called in at Nagasaki for coal, took in four hundred tons, and then
left for Hong-Kong, where we arrived in the middle of June, just before
the hot weather had commenced, and made fast to one of the buoys off
Murray Pier.
It was very pleasant being back there, and we were obliged to remain for
a whole week, whilst the dockyard made a few slight repairs.
The only other man-of-war in the harbour besides the _Tamar_ and the old
_Wyvern_, moored off Kowloon, was the _Ringdove_, secured to another
buoy farther inshore.
Young Ford can tell you better what happened there during that week than
I can.
As a matter of fact, I am not supposed to know anything about it, and
don’t _officially_.
[Illustration: The ’Huan Min’ steaming eight knots]
*CHAPTER XVIII*
*A Midnight Adventure*
Sent to Hospital—The Subscription—The Sub’s Plan—An Exciting
Moment—Mr. Rashleigh Rages—Jim is Safe
_Written by Midshipman Ford_
I was very sorry indeed to say goodbye to Mr. Ching—we all were—and, of
course, I had had such a lot to do with him in that walled house, that I
ought to have been more sorry than anyone else.
The day before we separated from the _Huan Min_, Mr. Lawrence and I went
aboard her and had lunch with him. It was a funny kind of meal, and
with only one hand I couldn’t help myself very well, so Mr. Ching cut my
food up into little pieces, and sent for a pair of chopsticks. If you
have ever tried chopsticks, you will know that the first time you try
them you cannot do much, and I could hardly pick up anything at all, and
didn’t do more than taste anything before the others had finished
theirs, and my plate was taken away.
They thought it was jolly amusing to watch me, and though I was as
hungry as a hunter, I had to pretend that I wasn’t, and that I didn’t
mind. There were all sorts of curious things there, and I had so wanted
to eat them all.
Afterwards, Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Ching began yarning about old times
when they were midshipmen together in the _Inflexible_ years and years
ago, so they didn’t want me, and I slipped away and went round the ship,
and when I saw any man who had been in the walled house that awful
night, I shook him by the hand, because I was so glad to see him again.
I think they liked me doing it, and they all grinned and saluted very
smartly.
Mr. Ching gave me one of the gold-lace dragons from the sleeve of one of
his uniform coats. I wanted that more than anything, and still have it,
and I gave him my stamp album. It only had a few stamps stuck in here
and there, but there was a dark-red English penny stamp which, I
believe, was rather valuable, and I had nothing else worth giving away.
He seemed very pleased with it, and made me stick my name in it, so that
he could remember me. I did hope that he would.
Mr. Hobbs and Sally had not given him anything at all. Wasn’t that nasty
of them, after all he had done? But he still kept that tam-o’-shanter
she had worn; I saw it in his cabin.
Then the _Huan Min_ went off, to carry on hunting for pirates by
herself, and we went up to Yokohama, and when we arrived, the Commander,
Mr. Whitmore, myself, and seven of our men were sent to hospital.
I rather liked going, because it was so uncomfortable on board, with
only one useful arm; but then we heard that there might be a war, and it
was perfectly horrid to see the _Vigilant_ steaming away without us.
Still, I Was jolly happy, because, after she had gone, the Commander
told me all that the Captain had said about Mr. Rashleigh and his Report
of Proceedings. That didn’t square up everything, not by a long chalk.
We wanted that gun, and we were going to have it, too, and before I’d
been sent to hospital, Mr. Langham and everyone else in the gunroom had
sworn to get it back, and had begun inventing plans for doing so.
Then three weeks went by, my arm had been put in plaster again, and back
the _Vigilant_ came. There wasn’t to be any war, and she took us all
down to Hong-Kong, and we found the old _Tyne_ there, which made me
think of the first time I had seen her, and of how miserable and happy,
in turns, I had been on board her.
But just ahead of the _Tamar_ was the _Ringdove_, quite close to where
we made fast to one of the outer buoys, and when she was swung by the
tide in one position, we could see that Chinese gun just at the foot of
her main mast.
That made us all "bristle" up again and get most frightfully angry. We
had almost forgotten all about it in the excitement of knowing that we
were going south to Singapore, to wait for our relief ship to come out
from England, and then go home to pay off.
At dinner that night we were as hot about it as ever, and we made up our
minds again to get it, somehow or other. It was jolly difficult to know
how we could manage it, and nobody seemed to have any good schemes to
suggest. Webster’s idea was to run alongside during the dinner hour,
when probably only the quartermaster would be awake, but that was silly.
We couldn’t possibly do it in the daytime, and we couldn’t even think of
a plan for doing it at night without being discovered. We knew jolly
well that if we were found out, there would be a most awful fuss, and we
should get into hot water with the Captain.
We made such a jolly row, all shouting and suggesting things, and
calling each other silly idiots, that Mr. Langham stuck his fork into a
beam overhead.
That is a signal for all the midshipmen and cadets to clear out of the
gunroom, and as the last "out" always had his "extra" bill stopped for
three days, so could not get any sardines or pickles from Ah Man, we
were all out in a jiffy, and left Mr. Langham, Mr. Hamilton the big
Engineer Sub, and the "A.P." to work out a scheme between them.
They wouldn’t let us come back again, and I know that they didn’t decide
upon anything; but during the middle watch that night something happened
which showed us the way.
It was Mr. Langham’s "watch", and at about five bells there suddenly had
been a lot of shouting under the bows, and he, the quartermaster, and
the signalman had all run for’ard to see what was the matter, and found
that a junk had fouled the buoy, drifted down against our bows, and
carried away a mast.
They got her clear, but it took a quarter of an hour to do it, and, of
course, during that time there had been no one aft at all, and anything
might have happened there without anyone knowing of it.
Now, don’t you see what the idea was?
Mr. Langham didn’t tell us what he was going to do exactly, for fear
that we should be asses enough to talk about it to everyone, and that
the "Ringdoves" would hear about it as well; but he went aboard the
_Ringdove_ in the morning to see the navigator, who was a pal of his
(except for the "gun question"), and came back again very excitedly.
"I had a good look at that gun, you chaps, without pretending to do so.
The wheels are simply lashed down to some ring bolts, lashed down with
rope, and we could cut them adrift as easy as winking."
He and Mr. Hamilton went ashore together and came off late at night, and
we all waited for them, and knew that something was in the "wind", but
they wouldn’t say what, and only told us that they wanted twenty pounds.
Mr. Langham said that he would give ten (he was very well off) if we
would subscribe the rest, and you may bet your best waistcoat we got
that other ten pounds pretty quickly.
We hadn’t the faintest notion why he wanted it till two nights after,
and then, just before "lights out" in the gunroom, he sent for us all
and told us.
My aunt! it was jolly exciting.
He had bought a sampan—one of the Chinese sailing boats which used to
bring us off from the shore if we missed the ordinary ship’s boat—and
had had two large holes made in the bottom, with plugs fitted in them
and ropes made fast to each, so that a jolly good strong jerk would pull
them out. He had had her loaded with stones, so that she would sink
quickly after they’d been pulled out.
"I’m going to sail her across the _Ringdove’s_ bowsprit," he said, "and
shall get my rigging foul of her, if possible. If I can’t, I have a
grapnel, and shall catch hold of her cable, and when the sampan can’t
drift away, I shall pull out those plugs and begin "hullabalooing" like
a Chinaman. When she sinks I shall hold on to the buoy and go on
squealing till the quartermaster comes along, and when he hears where I
am he’ll probably get into the dinghy to pick me up.
"I sha’n’t be there when he comes," he added, grinning. Of course, in a
small gunboat the only man on watch at night is the quartermaster, and
if there wasn’t much of a row, he probably would not call anyone else.
"Now, what you have to do is this"—we all got fearfully excited—"I’ve
asked the Commander for his gig to-night, told him I wanted it for a
special purpose, and he played the game and didn’t ask for what, and
said she needn’t be hoisted out of the water. She’s quite big enough to
take the gun and carriage, and Hamilton and the ’A.P.’ and six of the
strongest of you mids have to go away in her at about half-past two in
the middle watch. You must be down astern of her, not close enough to
let her spot you, by a quarter to three, and then wait till you hear me
start squealing.
"The _Ringdove_ has her dinghy made fast to the starboard boom to-night,
so you’ll have to pull alongside her port gangway as ’gingerly’ as ever
you can, get aboard and bring back the gun, and the carriage too, if
you’ve got time. The trunnions of the gun are only secured in the
carriage by bands, and there are pins in them which can be pulled
out—well, a good many of you have seen them already. Don’t worry about
me; I’ll swim back."
That was the scheme which he and Mr. Hamilton had worked out between
them, and it was jolly exciting. Mr. Hamilton was to go in charge of the
gig, and as he was very strong—nearly as strong as the Sub himself—he
had to do the lifting with Mr. Moore (the A.P.). Webster, Jones, and Jim
Rawlings and three of the others were told off to pull the oars, because
they were the strongest of the mids.
"Dicky", who was quite all right now, wasn’t to go, because he was too
excitable, and "Pongo" was too fat and useless. I wasn’t going either
at first, but I implored them to let me steer. I could manage with one
hand, if they fixed up the wooden tiller the Commander used when he took
the gig away sailing, and I said that I had some right to go, because
the gun had fired at me so often. Jim backed me up, and Mr. Langham
agreed that I had some right, but told me that I should have to sit on
the gunwale, behind the stern sheets, so as not to crowd the boat too
much.
You may jolly well imagine that I didn’t care where I sat or what I did,
so long as I could take my share in the job.
Presently Mr. Langham compared his watch with Mr. Hamilton’s, and went
ashore in a very old flannel suit; and we had to turn in and pretend to
sleep, though that was impossible, and we kept on running up on deck to
see what kind of a night it was.
It turned out to be jolly dark, which was splendid; but there was only a
very little breeze, and that was blowing from Kowloon, on the mainland,
straight towards Hong-Kong. This was a nuisance, because it meant that
Mr. Langham would have to beat off shore in the sampan, and as there
would be a jolly strong tide running, it would be very difficult to just
hit off the buoy and the _Ringdove’s_ bows, especially as he was going
to do it single-handed.
Mr. Hamilton was rather worried about this, and just after midnight he
came along to Jim and told him he had better go ashore, find Mr.
Langham, and help him sail her. Jim was about the strongest swimmer of
all us mids; that was why he chose him. And Jim was jolly keen to go,
and Mr. Hamilton pulled him ashore in the skiff, told him where he would
find the sampan, and pulled back again.
Well, I never thought the time for starting would ever come; but at last
"four bells" struck, and we all dressed, Dicky helping me because of my
arm, and we sneaked on deck like mice, and there was the gig waiting for
us alongside.
Mr. Trevelyan was the officer of the watch, and I heard Mr. Hamilton say
to him, "Going for a little exercise, Trevelyan;" and heard him reply,
"Well, good luck! I’ve got everything ready to hoist it in." So of
course he must have known all about it.
We crept down into the boat; I squatted in the stern, jammed my feet
against the ribs there to prevent myself falling overboard, and we
shoved off without making a sound, and pulled away till we were some way
astern of the _Ringdove_, catching hold of the next buoy to hers and
hanging on to it.
Then we waited in the dark.
We couldn’t see a single light in her except her "riding" light for’ard,
and a very faint glimmer amidships, where the quartermaster ought to be.
Presently five bells were struck aboard the _Vigilant_ and aboard the
old _Tamar_ astern of us, and a few moments afterwards we saw a light
moving for’ard aboard the _Ringdove_, her funny, "tin-kettly" bell was
struck, the light came aft again, and we knew that the quartermaster, at
any rate, was awake.
"Old Langham ought to be shoving off now," Mr. Hamilton whispered. It
was so dark round us that we couldn’t see twenty yards; but the shore
lights lighted the water close in under Murray Pier, and we all kept our
eyes turned that way, and presently saw a sail show out for a moment,
and whispered, "There they come," and got terribly excited.
One always forgets how excited one has been before, when other things
happened, but really I do think that I was fearfully excited now—as much
as I have ever been.
We waited and waited, and got the oars ready, and then, all of a sudden,
we heard a sound from the dark, as if something was knocking up against
a buoy. I almost fell backwards overboard, but saved myself by
clutching the tiller, and then there were most piteous yells, two
different kinds, so that I knew Jim was there, and we shoved off and
pulled very quickly.
"Port gangway!" Mr. Hamilton whispered to me, and I steered for it; and
as we gradually crept under the stern, we saw the quartermaster’s
lantern moving for’ard and then saw it on the fo’c’stle.
Mr. Hamilton had to help me steer her, there was such a strong tide
running; but we were fearfully careful, and got the gig alongside, and
Jones held on in the bows, and Mr. Hamilton and the "A.P." and Webster
disappeared up the gangway in their bare feet, with a tackle the Bo’s’n
had given us. We could hear them very softly getting the gun out of the
carriage, and the Chinese kind of yells were still going on, only more
gently, and we heard the quartermaster sing out, "Who’s there?" and
presently he sung out, "Hold on, and I’ll fetch the dinghy!"—though how
he thought Chinamen could understand him I don’t know.
The lantern was thumped down on the fo’c’stle, and he climbed along the
starboard boom, and in a very little while there was a splash of oars,
and we knew that he was pulling to the buoy.
I knew that we were all grinning, although we couldn’t see each other,
and imagined Mr. Langham and Jim swimming away out of sight; and I was
rather nervous about Jim, because the tide was so strong, and it was
quite five hundred yards back to the _Vigilant_.
However, there wasn’t time to worry, as Mr. Hamilton and the "A.P." were
coming down the ladder with the gun in their arms, and the gangway
creaked at every step, and we were very frightened because the noise
seemed so loud. They slid it down into the stern sheets on to a
gymnasium mat we had put there to deaden the sound, and back they went.
We heard something drop on the deck, and it seemed to make an awful row,
and presently they came to the gangway again, and all of them were
lifting the gun carriage, and they began lowering it into the boat with
the tackle. You see, it was such an awfully awkward thing to handle,
though it wasn’t really very heavy.
Then we were absolutely petrified with fear, for suddenly we heard Mr.
Rashleigh’s voice bawling for the quartermaster, and could hear him
coming along from under the poop, cursing, and wanting to know where he
was, and what all the noise was about.
The gun carriage was only lowered halfway down, but Mr. Hamilton sang
out very softly, "Stand clear!" and dropped the whole thing into the
boat on top of the gun (I don’t know how it was that it didn’t break
anybody), and they all jumped down in a heap, making a most fearful row.
Jones slipped the boat rope for’ard, and we slid astern just as Mr.
Rashleigh ran up to the gangway and began singing out and cursing,
asking who it was, and what it was, and "Where’s that quartermaster?"
He was in a towering passion, and we could imagine what a jolly funny
sight he must be in his bulgy pyjamas, with his round red face and his
bald head, but were jolly glad that there wasn’t any light for us to see
him or he us. We hadn’t moved a muscle—not even those who had fallen in
a jumble on top of each other—and simply let the tide take us down right
under the stern, where it was tremendously dark, and he couldn’t
possibly see anything.
I don’t think that he had discovered at first what had really happened,
and kept cursing into the dark, but then must have found our tackle, for
he was absolutely silent, and we guessed that he must have found that
the gun wasn’t there.
By that time the quartermaster had come back, and the last we heard was
a glorious row going on. My aunt! you should have heard him storming.
We were well astern now, and Mr. Hamilton and the "A.P." and Webster
disentangled themselves, and we got out the oars and pulled a roundabout
way back to the _Vigilant_. She was pitch dark, even the quarterdeck
gangway lamps were turned off, and we had to feel our way very gingerly
to the side. This was so that we shouldn’t be seen getting the gun on
board. The rest of the gunroom and most of the ward-room officers were
up there, and had a tackle rigged, all ready, and got the gun and the
carriage on deck in no time.
They carried them for’ard to hide, and put the gun in the sand tank,
covering it up with sand, and the carriage was taken to pieces and
stowed away in one of the gunner’s storerooms.
We were all so excited, that I forgot all about Mr. Langham and Jim till
Mr. Langham came dripping up the gangway, asking if everything was all
right, and if Jim had turned up, as he had lost sight of him after
leaving the buoy.
"A jolly strong tide’s running, and it was about as much as I could do
to get here," he said, rather out of breath, and rather anxiously.
We all peered over the side, and tried to see his head coming along; but
it was too dark to see anything at all, although Dicky and I went down
to the foot of the accommodation ladder and looked along the surface of
the water. Poor Dicky was almost off his head with fright. He kept on
squeaking out: "Jim! Jim!" but daren’t do it too loudly. And we
listened, but there was no answer, and I, too, was quite frightened, and
wished that we could do something, only it was so jolly difficult to
know what to do, and no one dare make a great noise, or run a
searchlight, or anything like that, for fear of having to wake the
Captain or the Commander, and giving the whole show away.
But Mr. Langham—just as he was, wringing wet—the "A.P." and Mr. Hamilton
and four mids went away in the gig.
"He’ll probably have drifted down with the tide, and will try and get
hold of a buoy," Mr. Hamilton told me, and they disappeared in the
darkness.
I could not go down below, because I was so worried, and had the most
horrid feelings inside me, which Dicky made worse by asking such silly
questions. Everything was so horribly dark, and the tide was running so
strongly, and I knew that Jim must be in fearful danger, although Mr.
Trevelyan kept saying that he would turn up all right.
I had forgotten all about the wretched gun, till someone—"Pongo", I
think it was—said to Mr. Trevelyan, "Jolly to have the gun all right,
sir, and the carriage. Isn’t it, sir?" And Mr. Trevelyan answered, "What
gun? I don’t know anything about a gun. I’ve been forward with the
quartermaster for the last quarter of an hour, and haven’t seen
anything."
I believe that the silly ass would have begun telling him, if Mr.
Trevelyan hadn’t said, "What the dickens are you doing up here at this
time? Go and turn in at once!"