Presently--it seemed only ten minutes afterwards--I was roughly shaken
and, half dazed, ordered on deck to get the dinghy into the water. It
was very cold, quite dark, and a damp drizzle made everything
slippery--as cheerless an outlook as one could imagine.
We got the dinghy out, put a compass into her, and Jones, with the oars
wrapped round with cotton-waste to prevent them from making any noise in
the rowlocks, took his place in the boat.
Then up came the Commander in his overcoat, and he and I got into her,
somebody threw me an oil-skin, and we shoved off into the dark.
I had not the least idea what we were going to do, and, only half awake,
felt miserable to a degree.
"Just the morning for it," chuckled the Commander; "a damp mist and a
calm sea."
"What are we going to do, sir?" I asked, beginning to wake up, and
shivering.
"Right in under the forts, boy. Want you to tell me when we come to the
rocks which had those lights on, wait there till it's light enough to
see the guns, and slip away again. The tide is flowing strongly now,
and will carry us down to the entrance."
"Oh!" was all that I could answer, and felt anything but happy.
Jones was only paddling easily, but for all that we bumped into a rock.
"Get into the bows, Glover, and shove her off," the Commander told me,
and I scrambled for'ard. We went on again, keeping along towards the
entrance, and occasionally bumping. On the top of one of these rocks
was a great sea-bird. It flapped, screeching, into the darkness with a
shrill cry of alarm, which I thought would wake the whole island.
How my heart did beat!
It was chilling work, and my teeth were chattering as I leant over the
bows, shoving her off any rocks, and trying to find one with a lamp on
it. There was a good deal of danger, too, for though the sea was calm,
the swell was quite noticeable directly we got close in under the
cliffs, and though the boat was a strongly built old tub, her sides once
or twice creaked and groaned as they ground up against the rocks.
"Oars," whispered the Commander.
Jones stopped pulling, and I noticed that we did not seem to lose way;
in fact, we glided quite rapidly past a great dark mass of boulders.
"We must be near the entrance now; look how we are being set in with the
current," said the Commander softly.
"H'st!" he hissed, and we heard the regular noise of oar in rowlock. It
was coming towards us, coming from seaward, every moment louder and
clearer--ump-ump! ump-ump! backwards and forwards.
"It's a native boat," the Commander whispered; and then, "Back
starboard, Jones! Back for your life, man!"
Jones jerked his oar violently in the water, and, oh horrors! the rotten
wood cracked, gave way, and the blade fell into the sea as a dark shape
went splashing past us, with a little glow amidships as from a red-hot
charcoal brazier--enough to show the dim blotch of a man swaying to and
fro, grunting loudly at each ump-ump of a long sweep over the stern.
We thought that he must see us or hear the noise of the breaking oar,
and remained as still as death, whilst the native--a fisherman probably
coming back from raising his traps--disappeared into the darkness.
What were we to do?
We had no spare oar in the boat, and Jones vainly tried to scull with
the remaining oar over the stern. He could not even bring her bows
round against the current, which we could now hear bubbling and sluicing
past the rocks, and when at last we managed to get her round by paddling
with the bottom boards, our last oar broke off short, Jones nearly
tumbling overboard as it gave way.
In desperation he ripped up another bottom board, and we three paddled
as if for dear life. We could see nothing, not even each other's faces,
but a cold breeze coming from the island told us that we were already
inside the entrance channel, and were being sucked in between the two
forts which we had come to spy out. Work how we could--and how it did
tire my wrists! with a great deal of noise and splashing, which we
expected every moment to raise the alarm--we could not make the least
headway.
"Make for the side," came from the Commander.
But we could not even do that. The boat was out of our control, and,
spinning round and round in the eddies of the current, was drawn through
the dark channel towards the pirates' harbour.
I forgot that I was cold and wet and sleepy at the thought of our
horrible position, but do not think I was really frightened, for,
somehow or other, one never did feel frightened when the Commander was
near (people have often told me the same thing since), and Jones too; I
felt that he too would be able to find some way out.
Suddenly ahead of us we saw a ruddy glow outlining the sharp edges of
the rocks; we swung round a corner, and then in an instant shot into the
glare of a camp-fire on a rock twenty feet above us.
Two Chinamen, one of them leaning on a rifle, were standing by it,
warming themselves, and we could hear them talking sleepily to one
another.
We were in the shadow of the rocks and whirled past, not one of us
moving a muscle or making a sound whilst we watched those sentries and
expected to be seen.
It seemed ages as we were sucked in by the current.
At last we were past, and then the motions of the boat became more
gentle, and we found ourselves in a kind of back eddy, with all sorts of
timber and branches and floating leaves going gently round and round in
a circle.
"Now paddle, boys, and don't splash," the Commander whispered, steering
as best he could. The light of the fire suddenly disappeared.
"Give way, boys, we're round a corner--out of sight of the sentries."
We got the boat under some control and moved slowly towards the darkest
part we could see. We had not the least idea what it would be, but
pushed on, my heart going like a steam-hammer.
Presently something swept across my face, catching me a stinging blow.
In my excitement and nervousness I had to bite my lips to prevent myself
from yelling with fright, and clutched at it.
It was a branch of a tree.
I hauled on it, hand over hand, found my face wetted with damp leaves,
and, the others helping, we made out way right in among the branches.
The Commander plunged the boat-hook over the side. "Two feet deep," he
said, then knelt down, felt for the bottom plug and pulled it out, and
the water came gurgling rapidly through.
In a minute it was up to our ankles, and there we had to stand and weigh
the boat down as the water crept up, till gradually it was over our
knees. Ugh! How cold it was! But there was nothing else to do if we
wanted the boat to sink, and we had to do it.
"Crawl ashore," the Commander whispered, as water began to flow in over
the gunwale, and Jones and I climbed along the branches, half in and
half out of the water. Jones got to land first, stretched out his great
hand and hauled me ashore.
In a moment the Commander joined us.
"Push on inland, boys," he whispered, as calmly as anything, "the boat
is all right." And we forced and squeezed our way through the clinging
bushes and undergrowth, going in single file and keeping close together
so as not to lose one another in the darkness.
Presently we burst through to a clear space, and our feet trod on hard
ground.
"A path!" the Commander said, and struck softly across it.
Then we came to more thick bushes and briars, ran up against some stumpy
trees with rocks in between them, and found ourselves climbing upwards.
In a minute we had to climb hand over hand, very steep it was, and I
thought we should never stop, and the noise we made seemed prodigious.
The light of the camp-fire appeared once again. We halted, and could
see the two men still listlessly standing over it. They had not heard
us yet, and we scrambled upwards till the light was once more shut out
from us.
At last we clambered on to what seemed to be a little ledge among the
rocks. I could go no farther, and fell down in a heap.
We lay down on this ledge, huddled close together for warmth, till
gradually and slowly the darkness diminished.
First we could distinguish one another's faces and the long grass we
were lying in, the thick bushes in front of us, and rock and more bushes
behind and on each side.
Gradually we could make out the cold surface of the water below us, and
presently, right away over the harbour, some ship struck four bells (six
o'clock), another and another repeated, and we could hear the shrill
pipes as the hands were turned out,[#] probably on board the pirate
cruisers.
[#] Men turned out of their hammocks by the Bos'n's pipe.
From across the water came the throbbing sound of a native gong, one
solitary one at first, then two or three more, till it seemed as if
hundreds were being beaten, the noise rising and falling till the whole
harbour seemed to be filled with it.
Lights flared up as fires were lighted, and we knew that the pirate
village was bestirring itself.
As the dawn approached we could realize our position. We were perched on
a ledge some sixty feet up the steep face of a rocky uneven cliff,
covered with thickset, dwarfed trees and gorse-like bushes, growing
wherever they could find foothold.
Beneath us ran the path, along the water's edge, which we had crossed an
hour before, and the overhanging tree which concealed the water-logged
dinghy, and along whose branches we had scrambled ashore.
"If they don't spot the dinghy or the damage we did clambering up here,"
chuckled the Commander, "we shall be as safe as in a church, and simply
have to lie snug till nightfall."
Then happened what I have recalled since with even more horror than the
remainder of that day's dangers, and which absolutely seemed to freeze
up the whole of my inside.
It was my own fault, you see, and very nearly placed us all in the most
frightful danger.
By pushing aside a tussock of thick grass and looking down I could just
see that path, and as it grew light enough to distinguish objects I saw
something dark lying in the middle of it, right in the open. It seemed
strangely familiar, and involuntarily I put my hand to my head. My cap
was missing, and was lying there right in the path, a path well trodden
down and evidently much used.
I can never say how I felt then, or how I managed to make myself
understood by the Commander--even thinking of it makes me still shiver
now, and, scores of times a year, I see that cap in my dreams lying
there with its gilt badge just showing bright--but the Commander, with a
cheery smile, pressed me down as I tried to rise, wriggled himself over
the edge, and commenced climbing down, branches crackling and swaying,
and stones sliding down ahead of him.
I kept my eyes glued on that cap, and waited with the greatest anguish
to see his arm pushed out from the tall grass at the side of the road.
I expected that he would wriggle himself through that and reach across
with his arm, but though no arm appeared the cap disappeared, and in a
minute I heard him coming up again.
"How did you do it?" I asked him thankfully, as he sank down beside me.
"With a long briar, my son--a prickly creeper which came in very handy."
Even as he spoke a long string of natives (Koreans, the Commander told
me) laden with firewood passed in single file along the path. Fancy
what would have happened if they had been but five minutes sooner!
They had hardly disappeared from sight as they followed the path, when
suddenly a most tremendous banging of guns commenced from the direction
of the entrance to the harbour, and, craning our necks round a corner of
rook, we could see clouds of powder smoke floating up.
"'No. 3' come in to look for us," muttered the Commander. "I hope
Parker will clear out of it before he gets damaged."
We listened, and tried to hear whether any shots were coming from
seaward, but could hear none. The firing from the shore slackened,
burst out again with fury, died away, and all became quiet once more.
"Parker's got out of range safely," chuckled the Commander.
* * * * *
After that I must have gone to sleep, and I woke up in broad daylight to
find myself very hungry and very cold. Jones was lying coiled up in the
grass and sound asleep, the Commander was peering through the bushes
with his field-glasses and making little sketches in his note-book in
front of him. He heard me stir, smiled cheerfully as he broke off a
stalk of grass and began chewing it, and handed me his glasses.
"Start away from your right and tell me what you see."
Sliding into a better position, I had a splendid view of the whole
harbour. On the extreme right I could see the low ground from which the
black-bearded man had shaken his fist at us yesterday, and the narrow
channel of water marking the outlet. Sweeping the glasses towards the
left, I made out some torpedo-boats moored close together in a little
bay.
"How many can you count?" the Commander asked me.
I counted seven. Then came three old-fashioned craft, ship-rigged with
their to'-gallants and top-masts struck, whilst anchored all round them
was a crowd of junks without a sign of life among them. They all seemed
deserted.
"Those are the corvettes missing from the Yangtze Squadron," the
Commander explained, excitedly for him, and his enthusiasm made one feel
quite cheerful and frightfully excited too.
Still farther along to the left were twelve merchant steamers of all
sizes and in no regular order--some mere hulks with no masts or boats,
one without a funnel. Others, some four or five, had swarms of people on
board, and from the clattering and hammering that came from them they
seemed to be under repair. I told the Commander what I thought.
"Yes," he said, "they are altering them so that they can sell them
without their old owners being able to recognize them."
Inshore I could see quite a busy little town, with large sheds and
wooden warehouses, and hundreds of primitive bamboo-matting huts,--the
pirate town, I knew, and you can guess that I forgot all about being
hungry.
A rough pier jutted out from it, with a big steamer tied up to the end
of it, and even as I looked they were lowering a mast into her with the
aid of some tall sheer-legs.
Higher up behind the town were some bungalows--one of them was probably
Hopkins's house, I thought--and the whole side of the hill was green
with cultivation, the steep slopes terraced out in squares like a
chess-board. Above these the hill was too steep for even Chinese to
cultivate, and finished off in a flat peak much higher than any other
point in the island. We all had noticed this hill from the sea.
Still farther towards the left, and under rather high land, were four
cruisers moored head and stern. One I thought was very like the cruiser
that had driven off "No. 2" and "No. 3" when we sank the destroyer
outside the island.
"That is the _Hong Lu_," the Commander told me when I asked him.
"What guns can you make out?"
It was difficult to see accurately, for she was lying bows on towards
us, but she seemed to have a gun about the size of a 6-inch on her
fo'c'stle, and three on each side in small sponsons.
"Those other three are the _Yao Yuen_, _Mao Yuen_, and the _Tu Ping_,"
said the Commander, "and they seem to have all their guns aboard. But
what do you make of the funny-looking craft moored right inshore?"
"Why, she's an ironclad, sir," I whispered, "with two turrets!"
"Yes; but has she any guns?"
I looked very carefully but could not see any. From a port in one
turret something projected, but only a little way, and it looked ragged
at the end.
"No, I don't think so, sir."
"That ship is the old _Ting Yuen_, Glover. They must have raised her
from the bottom of Wei-hai-wei harbour, though why on earth they brought
her down here if she had no guns fairly beats me."
Close to her were two old friends--the remaining two of the three
Patagonians which had caused us so much bother all the way out from
Malta, and near them three more torpedo-boats. Huge stacks of coal
lined the shore behind them, several more warehouses, and another little
pier.
How I did wish that Mellins and Toddles had been with me to see all
this! and I forgot altogether that we were in such a helpless plight.
Steam-boats were darting about from one ship to another, and backwards
and forwards between the ships and the shore.
Over the little town was a thin cloud of blue smoke, and from what must
have been forges or workshops, darker columns of smoke curled upwards
into the still air, with here and there a white jet of steam.
They seemed tremendously busy, and the little town fairly hummed with
life.
"Carry on to your left and tell me what you see?" the Commander ordered.
First of all the high land, under which the cruisers lay moored, sloped
gradually towards the channel through which we had drifted, and then
ended abruptly in two terraces, one overlooking the other. A zigzag
path cut in the face of the cliff opposite us led up to these terraces,
starting from a little landing-place at the water's edge. A steam-boat
was lying alongside, having evidently towed a boat-load of stores there,
and a long line of coolies were trudging up in pairs with what looked
like ammunition boxes suspended between them from bamboo poles across
their shoulders. Others were trooping down empty-handed.
Following the zigzag path I made out a gun shield covered with a
tarpaulin. That was on the lower platform, and sticking out from the
rocks I could see the muzzle of a quick-firer on the upper platform.
"That's one of the forts, sir," I said excitedly.
Below the guns the rocks ran on for thirty or forty yards, and then were
hidden behind some higher rocks on our side of the entrance channel.
These shut out all view of the sea.
"Now come where I am and look round the corner to the left," said the
Commander, rolling out of the way and chuckling to himself with
amusement at my excitement. I did as I was told, and, pushing aside some
branches, peered down.
The path below us--the path on which my cap had fallen--ran along the
foot of the cliffs, along the water's edge, till it came to a little
landing-place made of strong balks of timber. Reckoning in cricket
pitches--a dodge the Commander had taught me--I thought that it was
almost sixty yards away from where our dinghy was sunk.
The landing-place, like the one opposite it, had a small derrick at one
corner, with tackle and blocks rigged for lifting weights out of a boat.
Broad irregular steps cut in the rock led up from it to a well-cut path
which, running sharply upwards, turned round a corner and was lost to
sight.
At this corner a little platform, with a parapet all round it, had been
levelled, and on it was a small shelter covered with matting.
In front of the shelter was an old oil-drum with its sides pierced with
holes, and a little smoke was even now rising gently from it. This was
the fire we had seen as we had drifted in.
Against the parapet two or three rifles were leaning.
Down below, with his legs dangling over the landing-place, a Chinaman,
in a sort of uniform, was fishing and keeping up a running conversation
with the sailors in the steam-boat alongside the opposite jetty.
Tied up to this landing-place were several small boats.
I told the Commander all I had seen, and then he ordered me to make
sketches, showed me how to make them fairly accurately, and lent me his
pencil.
I had a pocket-book of my own, and worked hard at it for two hours or
more, and I think that I was really too frightened of the Commander to
worry about our actual danger, for he was furiously angry at my first
few attempts.
"I've never done anything like this before, sir."
"What the dickens were you doing in the _Britannia_?" he muttered.
"I'll see that you get plenty of practice when we get back to the
_Laird_."
"But please, sir, how are we going to get back?" I ventured to ask him
presently. He would not answer me--only chuckled.
Every now and again the man who was fishing would be joined by some
comrades, who were apparently on duty as sentries, for presently another
steam-launch came swiftly from the town and ran alongside the
landing-stage. The fisherman dropped his line and stood to attention;
his chums ran up the steps, seized their rifles, and presented arms,
whilst two Europeans stepped ashore.
One was the man with the black beard, the second was none other than
Hopkins, and you can imagine how excited I was, for I could have hit
them with a stone, they were so near, and I could hear Hopkins laughing
merrily as he spun some yarn.
They climbed the steps, passed the sentries, and disappeared round the
corner.
In about half an hour they came back and crossed to the other jetty.
Here they were met by a third European, and all three walked up towards
the fort, the coolies making way for them.
They did not stay long there. Hopkins and the black-bearded man came
slowly down the zigzag path, jumped into the steam-boat, shoved off, and
steamed towards the _Hong Lu_.
We followed them intently, and I noticed that they both kept looking up
towards the top of the hill, behind the town, which I have told you was
the highest point on the island. They seemed extremely interested in
something there, and even stopped the boat and gazed steadily up at it
through field-glasses.
They were evidently satisfied, went on again, and we saw them run
alongside the _Hong Lu_ and climb up her accommodation-ladder.
The Commander had watched them carefully through his glasses, and now I
saw him earnestly searching the top of that hill.
"That explains it all," he muttered to himself, and passed them across
to me. "Look under those trees."
I could see nothing at first except a great broad track running up the
side as if some heavy weights had been roughly hauled up it, but looking
more closely under the trees I saw crowds of Chinese working like ants,
then I made out the bend of a derrick, like a single boat's davit,
showing up against the sky-line.
With this to guide me, and looking very carefully, I made out a great
tarpaulin or canvas, covering something. It was a huge gun.
"Now I know why they fished up the old _Ting Yuen_," said the Commander,
"and why she has no guns. They've managed to mount one of her 12-inch
guns on top of that hill, and there is another on the beach close
alongside her waiting to go up too, if I am not mistaken.
"My aunt," he chuckled, "how proud our sappers and gunners would be with
a job like that!"
He seemed perfectly cheerful, and chuckled merrily to himself, though,
for my part, I only thought that that big gun up there made it all the
more impossible to capture the island, and that lying, as we were, right
in the middle of the pirate harbour on a little ledge of rock not a
hundred yards away from the sentries, with no chance, as far as I could
see, of escaping, was not particularly funny.
I was simply frightfully hungry and fearfully thirsty. I had sucked
grass and licked wet leaves till I was nearly sick. My legs and body
were so stiff that it pained me even to roll over, ever so gently, and
the sun was not warm enough to dry me properly. Jones was still sound
asleep, and the Commander began making more sketches of the top of the
hill, peering hard through his glasses, then adding a little to the
drawing, and correcting the measurements by holding the pencil up
against his eyes and moving his thumb along it. He was strangely
elated.
A steam hooter sounded in the town, the clatter and hammering died away,
the coolies working in the ships were taken ashore, the sentries cooked
their dinner in the hot brazier, and everything became still and quiet
except the pain inside me.
I felt hungry and miserable and longed for the _Laird's_ gun-room fire,
and knew they were just beginning lunch aboard, and probably having a
good rough-and-tumble fight.
"Pull your belt in, youngster, and buck up," said the Commander
cheerily.
"Please, sir, I hav'n't got a belt."
"Well, get a big stone and lie on it."
That did relieve the pain a little.
"We've got eight or nine hours of it, youngster. Move your legs about
every now and again to keep them from getting cramp."
Presently he asked me what plans I had made, and really I got quite
excited in working out different schemes, and he was so jolly about it
and never snubbed me that I forgot to be miserable for quite a long
time.
Every now and again we stopped even whispering, whilst some Koreans
straggled along the path beneath us, going to or coming from the fort.
At first we were in a horrible funk lest they should see the broken-down
bushes and trampled grass, or even the sunken dinghy; but they were much
too self-absorbed to notice anything, and gradually we left off fearing
that they would discover us.
It seemed pretty evident that none of the Chinese lived anywhere near
us, for not one passed during the whole day.
Then we talked of England, and somehow or other I mentioned Fareham.
"That is where your cousin lives, is it not?" he asked.
"Milly? Why, do you know old Milly?" I said.
"Well, just slightly." (I had a faint suspicion that he looked a little
red in the face.) "I met her at a dance in Southsea. Don't go often to
that kind of thing--make an awful mess of dancing, Glover, so generally
stay away--but I had to go to this one, and met your cousin. Had one or
two dances with her."
"Isn't she a perfect ripper?"
"She was extremely forbearing with me," he smiled, "and when I trod on
her toes did not seem to mind a little bit."
"I should not be here if it had not been for her," I told the Commander.
"I rather think she got her father the Admiral to put in a good word for
me too," he replied.
"Do you really?" I said, and remembered that Mr. Pattison had told me
the same.
"She asked me to keep an eye on you and give you a leg up whenever I
could. That is why I got you off the sick-list yesterday."
"What did Dr. Fox say when you asked him, sir?"
"Curse the boy! take him away and drown him for all I care."
"What a brute he is!" I said, rather forgetting myself, and wanting to
bite my tongue off directly I had said it.
"He's the most kind-hearted man on board the _Laird_, Glover, and don't
you forget it," the Commander answered severely.