Certainly, whilst we were climbing up that hill through bushes and
trees, in the most absolute darkness, I should have been in an utter
funk if I had not been obliged to stick to the Commander and do my
utmost not to lose touch with him.
As far as I can remember I thought of little else but that, and to wish
that he would not go so fast. When at last we had found the
pathway--just as it was getting light--I was too excited to be really
frightened, and afterwards, when I had to follow the Commander about the
level space on the top of "One Gun Hill", as we called it, I was kept so
busy taking messages that I hardly thought of the bullets, or even the
shells, and was much more afraid lest the Commander should think that I
was funking.
At first it was simply horrid to have to walk across, for you could hear
bullets going by and making a noise just like a crack of a thin whip,
and sometimes would see one strike the ground or a sand-bag just in
front of you, where you would have to pass in a few seconds, and
then--well, it was jolly hard work to prevent your legs from going as
fast as they could go. I seemed to take up so much room, so much more
than anything else near, that it seemed actually impossible for the
bullets to miss my body. In fact, when they commenced shelling us, and
Mr. Saunderson, who is really an immense man, turned round and told me
chaffingly to stand in front of him, I thought that I actually should
shield him if I did so. That feeling explains what I mean rather better
than anything else I can say.
Later, however, I became so awfully tired and sleepy that things just
happened, and I did what I had to do quite mechanically. When the
Chinese made their first rush I was hardly even excited, and remember
that I thought it the most natural thing in the world to see Hopkins
fall down wounded. I was sorry for him, just as one is in a dream, and,
in fact, I kept on thinking that presently I should wake up and find
myself on board the _Laird_, with some silly idiot of a midshipman
playing a trick with my hammock. It never even occurred to me till long
afterwards that all that time the Commander had been standing in front
of me to protect me.
I was very cold and very wet, and stood shivering and watching Captain
Hunter trying to rescue the oil-drums, and afterwards found myself
hauling sand-bags and piling them round one of the Maxims, and getting
warmer every minute.
Then I remembered that the Commander had told me to do this.
When a little time afterwards he put his hand on my shoulder, with a
terribly sad expression on his face, and said in a strange voice,
"Glover, I am sorry," I had not the least idea what he meant, and
thought that it was because I was absolutely drenched to the skin.
Of course I know now what he meant, but at the time had not the faintest
notion that we were in so much danger.
What did at last really wake me was the firing of that big Krupp gun and
the noise of the shell bursting on the cliff on the opposite side of the
harbour, just above the cruiser which was preparing to shell us, and not
far from the ledge where the Commander, Jones, and I had been hidden.
Quite close to where it burst were several little groups of
Koreans--white patches against the green background. They had been
watching from daybreak the attempts to recapture One Gun Hill, but now
vanished out of sight, and we never saw them again.
Our second shot, five minutes later, was still nearer the cruiser, but
she made no attempt to move, and began firing single guns. They had
been obliged to give her a tremendous list to starboard, in order to
elevate their guns sufficiently, and as her gunners could not see our
Krupp gun from the decks, they had men stationed high up on the cliffs,
some distance away, who signalled with flags (I could see them quite
plainly) after each shot, whether it was right, left, short, or over.
Most of them went right over (they were firing shrapnel), some burst
very short, only the fragments of the shell coming crashing on the
ground round the gun, whilst the bullets plunged into the bushes below
us, beating them down.
Many actually struck the slope of the hill before bursting, and whether
it was these, or whether it was the burning cubes of gunpowder which
went flying down the hill each time we fired that gun, I do not know,
but presently the bushes and undergrowth began to smoulder, and the
smoke, all the denser because they were damp, was driven down towards
the town by the wind.
This in time increased the clear space below the breastworks, but the
smoke made our shooting all the less accurate, did not hide us at all,
either from the two field-guns or the cruiser, and unfortunately
concealed the movements of the Chinese behind it.
I suppose that Captain Hunter or the Commander never thought of that at
the time, otherwise they might have stamped the fire out when it first
began to burn.
"Go and get something to eat," the Commander had told me; "I sha'n't
want you for half an hour." So I had gone across to Sergeant Haig's
breast-work, and was lying down close to a fire his men had made, and
huddled up against the sand-bags to find some shelter from the wind and
rain.
I was feeling precious hungry again, so, unfastening my haversack, I
broke off a big hunk of that home-made cake. It was jolly good, and I
had a good pull at my water-bottle; old Mellins had filled it with weak
tea. It was jolly hard work pulling out the stopper, for my fingers were
so numb with the cold.
I broke off another piece of cake and gave it to the marine lying next
to me. It was Gunner Bolton, with his rifle pointing through a loophole
and his finger on the trigger. He turned round into an easier position,
and after a few bites said: "D'ye think, sir, as 'ow I shall get into
trouble about that 'ere gun?
"You see, sir, it was just like this. I'd been bringing up the rear and
got rather be'ind'and, what with one thing an' another, and in them
thick bushes, it being so dark an' all, I jest lost mysel' and couldn't
no'ow find the rest of 'em. So I thinks to mysel', 'Jest obey orders',
and when you're lost, as the Commander said, 'Jest climb and climb'.
"Well, that was what I did, sir," he continued, with a half-anxious,
half-humorous expression, "and I climbed and I climbed till, blow me! I
simply fell over them sandbags, and not a savidge anywhere could I see.
So I jest lights my pipe and stops there, knowing the Commander would be
along in no time. But you see, sir, I've rayther done 'im out of 'is
show, and my mates are rayther furious about it too.
"I wish I'd 'ung on to the party, an' then there wouldn't 'ave been none
of this 'ere trouble."
He munched his cake solemnly and then added slyly: "That 'sentry-go'
business, sir, that's what riled 'em. That was just for effect, I don't
mind telling you, sir."
"That's all right, Bolton," I told him. "You won't hear any more about
it from the Commander, I'm sure of that."
"Well, I 'opes you're right, sir; an' if you'll look arter this 'ere
rifle of mine I'll jest see if there ain't a little o' that 'ot cocoa
left."
He crawled away, scraped a little out of the big mess-tins, warmed it
over the fire in his own tin cup, and brought it back to me.
It was jolly refreshing, I can tell you, and warm and oily.
He took his rifle from me and watched me drink.
"You'll put in a good word for me, sir, when we gets aboard the _Laird_;
now, won't you, sir?"