*CHAPTER XI*
*The Landing Party*
Left Behind--"You'll Do--Some Day"--"Dicky"--Preparation to Land--"Good Luck, Men!"--In the Boats--Scrambling Ashore--Rushing the Battery--Setting Fire to the Huts--A Hot Corner
_Written by Midshipman Ford_
I have so very much to tell you, that I hardly know where to start; butI think that I had better begin where we met the old _Vigilant_ steamingaway from Tinghai. It was simply grand to take Mr. Travers back to her,and to go alongside her in the dark with everybody looking over the sideand cheering. There was a very nasty sea running, and they were a longtime getting the wounded across; but no one was hurt, and it wassplendid to know that Dicky would now be a jolly lot more comfortablethan he could be in the _Ringdove_.
They gave Jim and me a splendid "blow out" in the gunroom, and we simplyhad a grand time. There was only one thing which made us miserable--theCaptain didn't seem at all pleased. I had been so longing for him to bepleased--everything I had done I had done for him--and had been lookingforward to what he would say when I saw him, and when he knew that I hadrescued Mr. Travers.
It wasn't till after Mr. Rashleigh had gone away that he spotted me. Ihad been hanging about and getting in his way on purpose, and when hegrowled out in a surly manner, "Umph! Lost my junk, have you, and fourgood men--Umph!--and haven't got anything to show for 'em either?" andturned away, I almost felt inclined to blub, and Jim was just asmiserable.
Mr. Trevelyan had been snubbed nearly as much, and he was furious, andsaid, "That fat little beast Rashleigh has been spinning yarns, that'swhat it is." The Captain was certainly rather nicer when he came downinto the gunroom after dinner and made a speech; but no one ever saysnasty things in a speech at that time of night, so it didn't nearly"make up".
Still, everything else was so jolly, and it was so glorious to know thatMr. Hoffman had escaped from the fire after all, and that we had foundout where Sally and her father were, and that we were actually on ourway to rescue them, that we couldn't feel miserable for long.
Next morning Mr. Trevelyan sent for Jim and myself in his cabin.
"I told you what it was," he burst out, red with rage. "It was thatoverfed, bloated hog! Look at his report! The Commander has just givenit to me to read. I'm going off to tell him our side of the show," andhe rushed off, but came back again redder than ever. "I'm to wait tillI'm cooler, as if I wasn't as cool as a cucumber in an ice chest;" andhe stamped about his cabin.
Later on, however, we were all sent for, one after the other, and toldthe Commander our own accounts of what happened, and some timeafterwards were ordered to send in our own reports in writing.
Neither Jim nor I went ashore with the Captain that first night when heblew a hole in the tramp steamer, and we knew that it was because he wasstill angry with us. We would have given our skins to go; but we bothpretended that we didn't mind, and that as the night was so cold andawfully wet, it was jolly lucky that we hadn't gone. We determined tohave a jolly good feed, and then turn in early and get a jolly goodnight's rest, and we yarned with Dicky and tried to pretend that we werehaving a good time. It wasn't much of a success, however, and we soonfound ourselves on the fore bridge in the rain, looking at the flashesand then waiting for the "booms" from the guns with a beastly feelinginside, because we weren't there ourselves. We got just as wet and coldas they did, almost.
I was more lucky than Jim, because I did have something to do, and wentwith Mr. Trevelyan very early in the morning to bring off Mr. Hoffman'sChinaman. We had to hang about near a big rock at the back of theisland, and directly it was light "stand by" for a piece of red buntingto be waved from shore. We must have been there for more than an hour,and thought that he had either gone back to Mr. Whitmore in the steamcutter, or perhaps been collared by the pirates. When we did see itwave, we fetched him off pretty quickly, and shoved along back to the_Vig_ just as hard as we could go. You see, we were certain that he hadgood news, because Mr. Trevelyan drew pictures of a thin little man anda girl and showed them to him, and he seemed to understand, and noddedhis head and pointed to the island. He kept on saying "Vely good" allthe way off to the ship. I don't think he knew any more English words.
On our way back we watched the six-inch gun firing, and dropping hershells or shot all over the place. Some of them fell very close to the_Vigilant_, and we wondered why Captain Lester didn't reply.
"How would you like to be there?" Mr. Trevelyan asked.
"Ra--ther!" I told him, and he smiled. "It's all right if you're doingsomething yourself, but it's a jolly different thing when you're simplywaiting for them," and that made me think of my horrible funk when thosetwo shore guns had fired point blank at the _Sally_, and I was rathersorry I had spoken.
Mr. Trevelyan laughed when he saw them all falling in for "Divisions" onboard the _Vig_. "That's 'Old Lest' all over," he said. "I bet he's ina towering passion."
Jim told me afterwards that he didn't like the shooting a little bit,and if they all hadn't been so afraid of the Captain, they would havehated it all the more. That was the day we wrote our reports--the_Ringdove_ coming made the Commander remember about them--and I put itall down very clearly, how I had done my best to escape from the fourjunks, and why I had been obliged to run down through the middle ofthem. I told exactly how I and all those who were left of the _Sally's_crew had brought Mr. Travers off in the _Ringdove's_ cutter, and put ina lot about Scroggs and Sharpe and all of them. You see, I wantedCaptain Lester to get Scroggs's wife as big a pension as possible,because of all the children.
I didn't want to say much about Dicky, because--well, you know what Imean--I was only a very few places senior to him, although he was only acadet, and it seemed so cocky.
But Mr. Trevelyan made me do it, and I explained it all to Dicky.Afterwards Mr. Trevelyan wrote some pretty hot stuff too. This was partof it: "With regard to the alleged disobedience of the orders ofLieutenant and Commander Rashleigh to proceed to the given rendezvous, Iconsidered that the information obtained from Midshipman Ford of the_Sally_ made it imperative that further and more definite informationshould be obtained. Your" (that was Captain Lester's) "original ordersto me were to obtain such information at all costs, and I consideredthis the opportunity to act upon them. As a direct result, I discoveredthe whereabouts of one of the headquarters of the pirates, andindirectly was the means of the rescue of Mr. Travers."
We took them to the Commander, who made us rewrite them and "tone down"many things; but they were pretty good "snorters" for Mr. Rashleigh,even after that.
The Captain must have thought that he had been a little unjust, becauselater on in the day he saw me on the quarterdeck and stopped me. Heglared at me for a moment, and with his legs wide apart, growled out:"Seem to have shown more sense than I thought. Umph! You'll do--someday," and left me feeling jolly happy.
Of course when the _Goldfinch_ and _Sparrow_ arrived, Mr. Langham andMr. Forbes and the midshipmen of the other junks came back to the_Vigilant_. They hadn't any experience worth telling, compared to ours,except Webster, who had managed to run his junk ashore, and the_Goldfinch_ had spent all her time getting her off again.
Jim and I nudged each other; we didn't like Webster.
Dicky didn't come off badly either. You know that we all called him"Dear Little Dicky", all except Jim, who flatly refused to obey theSub's order, and had been caned twice by him for not doing so. He waslet alone afterwards.
Dicky hated it; it had made his life absolutely miserable; and now Mr.Langham, as soon as he got back, held a Court of Enquiry down in thegunroom about our losing the junks. I didn't care a snap what hethought or said about it, nor did Jim. The whole thing was only got upfor his amusement--his and Hamilton's (the big Engineer Sub) andWebster's; but one of their "findings" was this. I copied the "rot" offthe notice board in the gunroom:
COURT OF ENQUIRY,Held in the Gunr
oom, H.M.S. _Vigilant_,At Sea, _April_ 7th.
As a result of the Court of Enquiry held last night to enquire into theloss of H.M.S. _Sally_ and H.M.S. _Ferret_, Mr. Ford commanding the oneand Mr. Rawlings the second in command of the other, these officers havebeen adjudged to have borne themselves with credit to the gunroom, butare cautioned not to do so again. It has also been decided, affirmed,and we do hereby solemnly declare, that Mr. Morton, hitherto known asMr. Dear Little Dicky, worked a Maxim gun so accurately, and polishedoff so many niggers before he was knocked over, stunned, incapacitated,and otherwise by flow of his blood rendered _hors de combat_, that he isentitled to some signal reward.
We do therefore proclaim, announce, and order that from henceforth,evermore, and hereafter he shall be known as "Dicky".
For "Dear Little Dicky" in future read "Dicky". (This was in big print.)
Given under our hand and seal,
BENJAMIN LANGHAM, Sub-lieutenant.A. E. HAMILTON, Engineer Sub-lieut.HARRY G. WEBSTER, Senior Midshipman.
Of course it was silly rot. Still, so much silly rot goes on in agunroom, and a lot of it makes a difference--actually, and nothing theycould have done would have made Dicky more pleased. He still spent mostof the day in his hammock, but was allowed "up" for two hours everyafternoon in the gunroom.
He told Jim, on the quiet, that he quite liked going there now. He hadhated doing so before, and used to sit for hours on his chest outside,or wander about on deck, because he so dreaded having his leg pulled,and hearing himself called "Dear Little Dicky".
He could remember very little about the fight with the junks, andnothing at all after seeing all those Chinamen struggling in the waterwhen that first junk sank. He didn't even remember Sharpe and me givinghim that hot milk during the night, and nothing till he was carried upthe side of the _Ringdove_.
You may bet that Jim and I had plenty to tell him; and we brought Sharpealong to back us up, because I couldn't get him to believe, by myself,that it was his Maxim gun which had done the trick when the first of thefour junks came along.
"I didn't fire it myself, though, Sharpe, did I?" he asked; and Sharpesaid, "No, sir, you didn't hardly do that, but you was a-steadyin' ofthe cartridge belt, and seeing as how it was 'fed' properly, anda-knocking back the crank handle, and you was shoutin' and cheerin' likeBilly Loo, that you was, sir. You was about the only one of us whowasn't skeared, or--well--if you was, you didn't look skeared," he wenton, for he saw that Dicky wouldn't believe him.
"We was all a bit skeared, eh, sir?" and he winked his eye at me.
I knew jolly well that I had been.
The others all wanted to be very civil to him now, but Jim and I boomedthem off. He belonged more or less to us, and we weren't going to havethem shoving their oars in too quickly.
Jim and I were very excited when we heard that the Commander was goingto land with the marines and try and blow up the six-inch gun. We hungabout outside his cabin, and shoved ourselves under his nose up on deckall the afternoon, so that he shouldn't possibly forget us. We expectedthat he would take one, if not two midshipmen with him, and we didn'tsee why we should not go, and you can imagine how badly we wanted to go.Everyone wanted to land with him especially, for he was such a "ripper",and so jolly pleasant, and was always "smoothing over" things wheneveryone was cross and bad-tempered, and felt he wanted to bite everyoneelse's nose off. He was very strict "service", but he never did smallirritating things, and treated us Mids and Cadets as though we werehuman beings; several of the ward-room officers didn't seem to think so,quite. He had a great leathery face like the Captain's, and wastremendously popular with the men. We heard that he had nothing but hispay to live on, and had a wife and family to keep. That was quiteenough, the A.P. used to say, to make any man solemn at times. He didvery often look worried, but when anything was "doing", he was always as"buckish" as any of us.
Nobody had ever seen him in a bad temper, so no one ever minded havingto report things to him. If we had to report anything, a light or achange of course, or anything like that, we had often to screw up ourcourage before we tapped at the Captain's door, for often he wouldnearly bite our heads off. It was jolly different with the Commander,for time after time I have had to wake him, at night or during hisafternoon sleep, and he would say, "Right you are, boy", as cheerfullyas anything. I remember once he said, "No trouble to wake me, Ford,eh?" and I couldn't help smiling, and he asked me what the joke was, andI told him that I had just called the Captain, and--well--he hadn'tenquired very civilly whether I had had trouble in waking him.
He knew all the Captain's family. He used to go down there to shoot,and had met my father and mother there too, so that was probably thething that just made the difference when he had to choose a midshipman,because he did choose me.
Wasn't that absolutely splendid? And Jim was to go with Mr. Whitmore;so we were both simply wild with delight, and rushed down to telleveryone. He had sent for us in his cabin, and he looked very grim andsad when we went there, but he didn't look quite so serious when weleft. He was so amused at our being so jolly excited, I expect; but wecouldn't help that.
He had shown us the map thing which Mr. Hoffman had drawn, and explainedexactly what he was going to do; and told us to take revolvers, notdirks or cutlasses, as they would only get in the way, and to wear theboots with the broadest soles, as we should have to wade through mud;and as they would be slippery afterwards, to get big nails put in them,because we should probably have to do a lot of scrambling.
We were the only two midshipmen who were going to actually land; butWithers was going inshore in the barge, Jones in the first cutter, andWebster in the steam pinnace.
Webster was to tow us in as far as he could go, and the cutter and thebarge were to wait for us after we had landed, and in case they shouldbe wanted to cover our getting aboard again, a Maxim gun was mounted inthe bows of the barge, and another in the bows of the cutter. The otherswere rather jealous of Jim and myself, because, of course, we had onlyjust joined the ship. We didn't care a tuppenny "rap" about that,however.
We sent for our bandsman servant, and he took our boots away to one ofthe bluejackets who mended boots. He hadn't the proper kind ofnails--none left, at any rate--but the ones he did put in were a jollysight better than none at all.
As it got dark, and the rain stopped and some stars came out, andeverything seemed to be promising well, we were too excited to eat ourdinner, and as to sleeping, we couldn't possibly get a wink, and wereout of our hammocks directly it struck one bell (half-past twelve), longbefore the sentry came round to wake us. We had two bits of candle allready, and we dressed by their light, very quietly, not to wake anybody,and then slipped on deck. But of course we were much too early, and hadto wait a very long time. However, it made us hungry, and we ate awhole tin of gingerbread biscuits between us; and when the rest of thepeople began turning out, and they brought round hot cocoa, we had ajolly big whack of that.
Then they began "falling in", and the Commander came up with a sword andrevolver and haversack, yawning and looking tired, and Captain Marshall,with his eyeglass just showing in the lantern light, pulled on hisgloves and looked jolly much a soldier all over. He had his long swordhitched up to his waist, and his cap beautifully on the side of hishead, and his moustache all carefully trained, and he winked at us withthe eye that wasn't holding the eyeglass.
We heard him start a yarn to Mr. Whitmore and Dr. Barclay, who wascoming with us as well, "When I was the handsomest subaltern in theBritish army, my dear chaps----" and they both laughed and "hee-hawed"till the Sergeant-major came up, jerked his arm stiffly to the salute,and reported the marines ready for inspection. This was the time weoften waited to see, because he used to change from being a funny man toa soldier, and we always watched to see him snap his teeth together,shove out his under jaw, look very fierce, and walk round his men,looking as though he'd never had a funny thought all his life, and wassimply thinking of nothing but soldiering.
T
he Commander's grimness was gradually wearing off, and when CaptainMarshall had told him one or two funny stories, and he had laughedseveral times, he became quite cheerful. The Captain came up, too, wheneverything was ready, and he nodded at me, "Getting more experience,Ford?" and stood under the quarterdeck lantern, where everybody couldsee him, and growled out, "Good luck, men! Hope to see you all back bydaylight." The boats had dropped alongside by this time, and we allbegan to file down into them. Jim gave me a parting pinch, and wentdown the port side into the cutter, and I went down the starboard sideinto the barge, with the Commander and Dr. Barclay and the marines. Thesteam boat took us in tow, we picked up the cutter, and began to moveaway from the ship. I had just thought how jolly it would be to have asend-off "cheer", when we heard the Captain's voice roar, "Three cheersfor the Commander and the 'landing party'," and to judge by the noise, Ishould imagine that everyone on board had turned out and come on deck.Without waiting for orders, we started cheering in the boats, and as wepassed the _Sparrow_ her people cheered us too. It made my heart gothumping like mad, and just did the right thing for the Commander. Youknew, by the way he cheered, that he had forgotten all his worries.
The _Goldfinch_ was on the other side of the _Vigilant_, and I don'tknow whether they cheered us or not. She still had those two dead menon board, so probably didn't.
"They won't hear us ashore, I suppose, sir?" I asked the Commander.
"Too far for that, Ford," he said, and sang out for the men to carry onsmoking. The steam pinnace seemed to make a tremendous noise ahead ofus, but I expect that that was only "fancy". At any rate, we seemed tobubble along jolly fast in the dark. The stoker in her, like the ass hewas, must have been keeping up a very big head of steam, because once ortwice flames came out of the funnel. The Commander shouted for them toease down, and we had some difficulty in making them hear. I thoughtthat they never would, and the funnel was like a big torch, and couldhave been seen many miles away; but at last they heard and eased down.The Commander ordered them to disconnect her fan, and after that no moreflames showed. You see, the air is forced through the fires by means ofa little fan, worked by an endless belt from the main engines, and whenthey are going fast it blows the flames up the funnel.
If it had been the Captain, I know that he would have been frightfullyangry, and punished the stoker later on; but the Commander only said,"The poor idiot was doing his best", and was quite calm, although, ofcourse, it might have given the whole "show" away directly.
Although we went along much more slowly, the few lights on shore weregetting bigger and bigger. Presently the steam boat steamed veryslowly, indeed, and then stopped, and we ran alongside. It was lowtide, and we had begun to get into the narrow channel, running up thecreek into the town.
Mr. Lawrence was in the steam boat--I had not seen him before--and hadbeen navigating us. Then we heard Mr. Hoffman's voice.
"Good heavens! what are you doing here?" the Commander asked.
"I'm coming with you," he said. "I will show Whitmore the way up tothat gun."
The Commander told him that he was not well enough, and tried topersuade him to go back, but he absolutely refused, and crawled acrossus into the cutter. "I've taken half a bottle of quinine, and shall beall right. You could never find that gun by yourselves."
We could see, even in the dark, how "shaky" he was.
Then Lawrence shoved off back again to wait for us, the steam boatgiving a few swirls with her screws, and slipping away out of sight in amoment.
It was simply pitch dark, and when I tell you that though Withers wassitting behind me, and had his knees in my back, and yet I couldn't seehis face when I turned round, you will understand how dark it was.
We then started to pull inshore. The oars had been muffled by havingstrips of fearnought (thick flannel, almost like felt, which the stokersmake into trousers for stokehold work) bound round them where theyrubbed in the rowlocks, and the rowlocks themselves had more fearnoughtnailed all over them, so that they only made a soft noise, with a squeaknow and again.
We were quite close to the shore on our port side, and one or two littlestreaks of light--I suppose they came from the fishermen's huts--didn'tlook more than a hundred yards away.
I was very nervous and excited, and when a dog suddenly began to bark,and we could actually hear him rushing down a loose stone beach close tous, my heart seemed to stop beating with a jerk for a little time.
We lay on our oars, he gave one or two angry barks--they seemed to bejust outside the boat--and then we heard him give a whine as though hewas tired and yawning, he scampered up the beach, gave a low growl, andwas quiet.
We went on again, but it was so dark that the Commander crept for'ardinto the bows, and we felt our way very slowly along the edge of themud, shoving her off with boat hooks whenever we got too close.
We had passed some of those lights--they were right behind us now--sothat I knew we were well up the creek. We couldn't see where the waterended, but farther away it was blacker still, and I knew that this wasthe steep beach and the shore behind it. I tried to remember thatdrawing, and hung over the side and tried to make out those fishingstakes. We seemed to go on like this for a very long time--we werepulling very slowly against the last of the ebb tide--and then theblackness on our left seemed to get nearer and more upright, and I knewthat we must be almost abreast of the battery. I couldn't see Mr.Whitmore's cutter, and could very seldom hear it, although we knew thatit was very close behind us. A few dogs were barking somewhere inland.There was one, away on our right, howling every minute or two, a mostcreepy kind of howl, and there were two who answered him on our side ofthe town. Sometimes others would join in, and you would almostrecognize the different barks. I longed for them to leave off. Thatwas the only noise, except the slight splash as the oars dug into thewater, and the soft thump against the sides of the row-locks as theydragged them out; but now that we were listening so hard, and were soexcited, even this seemed to be very great.
Then something scraped against our bows and knocked the low oars, andthe noise seemed awfully loud and startling. A lot of the men let out"Oh!" under their breath; they were so excited and jumpy. I don'twonder either, because the marines were simply sitting on the thwarts,with their rifles between their knees, and they had nothing to do exceptto prevent them rattling against anything.
We hauled ourselves up, and the Commander came aft, leant over the sideand felt it, and the coxswain, who had been there before with theCaptain, felt it too, and he whispered to the Commander that it was oneof the fishing stakes.
We pulled to the side and came across some more, so felt sure.
The dark mass of the cutter came quite close to us.
"I've found the first line, the second is fifty yards farther on; you goback about thirty yards," the Commander whispered across to Mr.Whitmore. There were a few click, clicks, and the cutter disappearedagain. We started to pull out round that first line of stakes, but wehad made more noise with our oars, knocking against them--the mencouldn't help that--and suddenly, right over our heads, it seemed,someone yelled out.
I clutched hold of Captain Marshall's arm--it was the first thing myfingers touched--and I heard him give a gulp; but the Commander"hissed", and we lay on our oars and held our breath. It must have beena sentry or a watchman, and he sang out again, and I felt as if I wasthrobbing all over. Then we heard him muttering to himself. The tidehad taken us clear of the stakes, and the Commander whispered "to giveway", and we pulled round the end one without hitting it; but the sentrycould hear the oars, and sang out again. The men began to pull faster,and the oars made an awful noise. More Chinamen began shouting--onequite a long way in front, and then several more.
"Starboard!" I heard the Commander say; "starboard, hard!" and then knewthat in another half-minute we should be scrambling ashore. I creptalong to the bows with the Commander, to be ready to follow him. We hadhardly got there when the bows ran into the mud with a jerk, and I hadto h
ang on to the gun mounting to prevent being knocked over. "Keep on'giving way', Withers!" the Commander sang out, and slipped down intothe water without the least hesitation. It was up to his waist, and heheld out a hand for me. I fell in after him up to my armpits, with myfeet sinking in the beastly mud at the bottom. I was so excited, that Ididn't notice how cold it was; but it just flashed through me howCaptain Marshall could do it, with all his beautiful uniform on, andthen I found myself wading after the Commander, and pulling my feet outof the mud. There was enough noise now to wake anybody. No one couldhelp the rifles and everything else knocking against the side of theboat, and the splashing, and the men cursing under their breath. Therewere some frightened cries above us, and a rifle was let off (it soundedlike a six-pounder), and all the dogs in the town seemed to startbarking; but we were all too excited and busy getting through the waterand mud to notice much. In half a dozen steps the water was only up tomy knees, and in two or three more I dragged my feet out on to firm mud,and started to break into a kind of "splodgy" trot to keep up with theCommander--I could only just see his dark figure, and had to keep closefor fear of losing him.
Then the beach began to slope up, and was quite hard, and we ran over alot of shells and loose stones, the water running off me and squelchinginside my boots. I was out of breath and panting, and my clothes hadall stuck to me, especially my trousers over my knees, and the Commanderwouldn't stop, and never once looked back to find out how many men werefollowing. He seemed to disappear in a very black shadow; but it wasonly a bank about four feet high, with stiff grass on the top, and hehelped me, and someone shoved me, and I got a lot of sand or earth in mymouth, and spat it out. The Commander stopped for a moment, and I wasonly too glad to get back my breath. We could see some lights movingbackwards and forwards, and appearing and disappearing at regularintervals, and knew at once that men were running about inside thebattery, and that they shone out when they passed one of the gunembrasures. There was any amount of calling and shrieking going on.The Commander drew his sword, I saw Captain Marshall close to me withhis sword drawn, any number of dark figures kept scrambling over thebank; the Commander yelled, and we all yelled and rushed straight ahead.
Several people behind me fell--I heard them--and I heard CaptainMarshall cursing, and asking "Where the blooming buttercups his eyeglasswas?" and then there shot out from the dark wall a most tremendousflame, with an awful roar--they had fired one of the guns. It seemed asif it was almost in our faces, and I turned my head half round, and theflame lighted up the men's faces just for a moment. It showed us allthe outline of the battery as well, and, what was better, a little path,and we raced along it, cheering like mad. I think that they must havebeen firing at us with rifles as well, but I don't know, and the nextthing I remember was clambering up a stone parapet, with someone's feetin my face, which I hardly noticed at the time, digging my nails intosome cracks, and then getting my arms round something hard and round. I"muscled" up, and found it was one of the little guns, and knew I was inone of the embrasures. "Get along, curse you," someone yelled; "give mea hand with this rifle," and scrambled up after me. I couldn't get downfor a second, because there were so many in front, and the man simplytook a flying leap past me. He didn't know who I was in the dark.
I got down somehow or other, and then hunted for the Commander, heardhim shouting away to the left, and got close to him again. We wereright inside the battery, and we followed the wall--inside--all round,and not a Chinaman was there. We were all cheering like mad, or pantingfor breath, and then we saw some lights from huts fifty yards away, andcrowds of Chinamen running backwards and forwards in front of them, andheard more yelling. Without waiting for any orders, everybody rushedtowards them and carried me along too, doing my best to keep with theCommander.
There weren't any Chinamen there when we got to the huts, and the menwere for rushing on, but the Commander managed to halt them, and wecould hear the mob running away and making a squealing, frightenednoise, but couldn't see them. Three yards away from the lighted hutseverything was simply pitchy black.
"Get back to the battery, boys!" the Commander shouted; "they'll becoming back soon." The men had to fall "in" just inside the batterywall, behind the little guns, and we found that no one was missing.
I don't think that the Commander knew quite what to do then. I heardhim telling Captain Marshall and Dr. Barclay that he wished the Chinamenhad made a fight of it instead of running away, because he feared thatthey would simply bolt back to the six-inch gun, and that Mr. Whitmore'sparty would never get to it.
Whilst we were waiting like this, I had time to notice all the noises.Talk about dogs! I should have thought that all the dogs in the worldwouldn't have made so much noise. There must have been simply thousandsof them barking away all over the town; and some came running out of thedarkness into the light from those huts, and we could see their eyes.It was something for me to do to throw stones at them, and the buglerboy--Wilkins--helped me; they would howl if a stone went near them, andrush away yelping. It was jolly good fun doing this. All of a suddenthere was a dull crash behind us, as if a heavy weight was rolling downoutside the battery.
"What was that?" I heard the Commander shout, rather nervously, and hewent across, and I followed him.
"Very sorry, sir," the Sergeant-major said. "Some of the men chucked agun over the wall, sir. I've taken their names, sir."
"Let 'em chuck them all over, sir," Captain Marshall suggested; and wedid. We had them all--five there were--tumbled in the ditch in no time.Four men could lift a gun, and if they couldn't heave it out of itswooden carriage, another two would help them, and heave it over, gun andcarriage too. The men enjoyed it, and so did I, and we began pitchingover the little round shot which lay there in heaps, and some grape-shotdone up in basketwork.
There was another wait after that, and we all were bitterly cold. Mynose was running, and below the waist I felt like ice.
The Commander still didn't seem to know what to do. He had put a few menout past the huts to warn us in case any Chinese came along, but it wasso dark that he couldn't see how the ground lay, or the best position totake up, in case we were attacked.
Then Dr. Barclay had a brilliant idea, and suggested setting fire to thehuts. "They'll light the place up and dry our clothes, sir," he said.
"Right O!" the Commander chuckled, and it didn't take many minutesbefore they were all of them blazing away like fun.
The Commander said that I could help, so Wilkins and I ran over to thehuts, turned over a funny old lamp burning inside one of them, and setfire to a lot of shavings and straw. The smoke drove us out, but thenwe set fire to the outside in half a dozen places, and soon had a grandblaze going. It was jolly comforting to stand there and feel ourclothes drying, though the wind would puff the smoke back into our eyessometimes.
"Fifth of November, almost, ain't it, sir?" Wilkins said.
"And there go the fireworks, too," he shouted; and there was a bangingand spluttering in the hut next to ours, and little bits of it flewabout.
"Those are cartridges going off," the Commander shouted, running up."Clear out of it, men."
They had begun to move away, and, when he called, moved faster; we'dhardly got clear before there was a tremendous "hurroosh", and the wholehut seemed to go right up, and burning planks, strips of thatch andmatting, went flying along through the air, and began blazing awaywherever they fell. My aunt! it did make a smoke, though there wasn'tmuch noise, only a very loud "poof", and everyone went scampering backto the battery with his head down, trying to dodge the bits. We didlaugh.
"Funny place for their magazine, eh, Commander?" I heard CaptainMarshall chuckle; and we all kept pretty clear of the others. Theexplosion had made the dogs stop barking--just for a few seconds--justtime for us to hear noises as if the townspeople were waking up at last.
"They're getting 'busy' over there," Captain Marshall said. "Thatsounds as if our friends would be coming to call on us sho
rtly."
I think that the Commander and he wanted them to come very badly, and Ididn't mind either, because I wasn't so cold now, and the flames lightedthe place all round grandly.
They walked all round the lighted-up part, and decided that the bestposition for the men would be standing on the shore of the battery wall,firing over that, and for some men to stand on the beach, farther along,at each end, and fire over the bank which we all had to climb over. Wecouldn't hear a sound of Mr. Whitmore's party; but there was anotherstrange noise like the quacking of thousands of ducks--you could hear iteven with the flames roaring and crackling and the dogs barking.
"Whatever is it, sir?" Wilkins asked me; but I didn't know, and askedDr. Barclay.
"Bull frogs, down in the paddy fields below the six-inch gun," he toldme, and I didn't say any more, because I thought that he was pulling myleg.
A few minutes afterwards, the Commander and Captain Marshall and Dr.Barclay all went along past the huts--they were having a look round--andWilkins and myself followed behind them. The flames were between us andthe sea, and suddenly something whistled past me, and I jerked my headround, and then there was the noise of a rifle going off--andanother--and another, and flick--flick--flick--flick, the bullets wentwhizzing past us.
I put my hands up to keep them off.