*CHAPTER XIV*
*"Old Lest" takes a Hand*
Holding on--"Old Lest's" Sorry--The Marine Lands Again--"Old Lest's" going on--In the Fog--The Fog Lifts--After them!--The Maxim Gun--Keeping 'em on the Run--Shelling the Town--Resting--"It's Boss Evans!"
_Written by Captain James A. Marshall, Royal Marine Light Infantry_
Fancy me writing a book, or rather, helping to write one. I know a goodlot of people will think the world's coming to an end, or that I'veturned over a new leaf, and am becoming really a credit to the family.It's about time I did become a credit to them, poor things! I shouldimagine.
When I was asked to drive the giddy nib, I laughed. Laughed! why, I'venever laughed so much since father died, as a dear little girl fromMassachusetts told me once, when I tried to cheer her up, after that sadevent had happened to her family.
We tried to get old "B.-T."[#] to wield the flowing pen, and tell of allhis heroic deeds, but--well--he wasn't taking any--thank you kindly--andthey got me to take on the job.
[#] Lieutenant Gore-Travers, known as Bored-Travers, or "B.-T."
You see, whilst old Truscott, the Commander, was lying on his downycouch with a bullet in him somewhere, he couldn't be expected to knowmuch of what happened outside him, could he? Old Mayhew, our bossdoctor man, wouldn't say where the bullet really was. Why, bless yoursoul, he wasn't going to give himself away, not he, and hung roundTruscott's cabin with a face as long as a jews' harp whilst he wasoutside it, and as round and smiling as a Dutch cheese with a slice outof it when he went in.
It was all because that silly young ass Ford saw "red" that night welanded with my chaps to have a bit of a plugging match, whilst Whitmorewent off with a No. 9 detonator and something in the gun-cotton "line"to blow a gun of sorts.
He thought that he was half-back in a "footer" scrum, or something likethat, charged the whole blooming pack of Chinese, got "offside", and wascollared and carried off the ground before we could get the referee tosound his whistle.
We argued it out with them for a while, but when old Truscott wasdoubled up with a bullet in him (you'd better ask Mayhew where), and twoor three of my chaps had had holes made in them, we had to drop back tothe battery, and couldn't even bring away Tuck, one of my men who'd beenkilled. They were so jolly anxious to make our acquaintance, that itwas all we could do to hold on behind the wall, and the bank on thebeach, till Whitmore had said goodbye to his chums and got aboard thecutter. Even then we couldn't have got away, if young Withers in thebarge hadn't dropped a few gentle hints with his Maxim and emptied acouple of belts.
We pulled away back to Lawrence, who was waiting for us in the steampinnace, and I ought to have been standing up in the stern sheets,waving my gory, glittering sword over my head and singing, "With a long,long pull, and a strong, strong pull, cheerly! lads! pull away", toencourage the sailor men. The only reason why I didn't, was because inthe last rush to the boat I'd got a clap over the head which knocked mesilly, had been plumped down in the stern sheets, and didn't knowanything about it till we'd got aboard the old _Vigilant_.
I opened my eyes to find myself in my own virtuous bunk, daylightstarting the flies skylarking, and Grainger, my servant, the trusty,faithful and never-to-be-forgotten one, poking me to see if I was stillalive. I had the dickens of a headache, and at first thought it was dueto the usual cause; but Grainger held up the serge frock[#] which I hadworn the night before, and I remembered what had happened.
[#] Serge frock is a tunic made of serge, worn on undress occasions.
"That were your second best serge frock, sir," he said sadly, when hehad recovered from his surprise at finding me alive. "Cost you fourpun', three-and-sixpence--with postage, sir."
It was soaked with mud, and had a bullet hole through one sleeve. Therewas a dark patch of blood, too, just in the centre of my manly bosom,which Grainger never could wash out. Whose blood it was I never knew,and old Mayhew threw things at me when I afterwards asked him if hecould examine it, and see if it belonged to a Chinaman whom I had openedup a little during the scrap.
"We 'aven't paid for it, 'ave we, sir? We couldn't send it back as amisfit or some'ow, I s'pose? I knew you'd being doing som'ut like that,sir, if I let you wear it, and your third best pair of trouses is allsplit over one knee another three-pun'-ten gone slosh, sir--that is, ifthey won't take 'em back, and there's another of our hye-glasses gonetoo."
He shook his head reproachfully at me, and told me that I'd had a crackon the "nut". When I pressed him as to who had been so kind as to seeme safely home, he wouldn't answer, but went on brushing the mud stillmore firmly in.
"Beggin' your pardon, sir, I hauled on your legs--a little," he said atlast. "An' I'm feared that 'twas I who split them trouses." He said itas if he didn't think he'd done a very praiseworthy thing in probablysaving my life; possibly he hadn't.
"I'll double your pay, Grainger; 'twas jolly good of you. Hope you cameout of it all right?"
"I came out of it all right. I don't go ashore on one of these 'ereshows with my second best things on. Thank you very much, sir, butyou've forgot to pay me anything for the last three months."
I knew that perfectly well, and it closed the discussion. Financialmatters are peculiarly distressing to me in the early morning.
He roused me presently with "'Ere's your usual breakfast, sir," and putdown a tray with a bottle of soda water and a biscuit on it, and lookedamazed when I clambered out and demanded shaving water and a bath. Itwas somewhat out of my ordinary routine to turn out much before 9.30,and he, I saw, thought that that crack on my head had affected my brain.
The old Skipper came in whilst I was dressing. I had never seen the oldchap so gentle. "I'm all right, sir, thank you--right as a trivet--myhead's the only part of me which would have stood it. Very sorry wecouldn't do much for you last night. How's the Commander?"
"Umph! Can't say. Mayhew can't say either. Pretty bad, I fear. Theothers are doing all right. Ran you up against a bigger thing than Ithought. 'Old Lest's' sorry."
"Fortune of war, sir. I'm paid twelve-and-sevenpence a day for it by agrateful country--less income tax."
The dear old chap grunted and went out again.
It wasn't till I went into the ward room that I heard that, besidesyoung Ford and Tuck missing, Martin, one of my chaps, and Miller, anarmourer belonging to Whitmore's party, had been left behind.
The Skipper sent a boat to try and communicate with the pirates, andfind out whether young Ford and these two men were alive and kicking.The boss pirate man was most polite, wrote back that they were doingwell (we didn't know whether that meant that they were wounded or not),and implored the Skipper not to attack the island again, as he wascertain that it would provoke a massacre, or something equallyunpleasant, of all the Europeans there, including little Sally Hobbsherself.
He added that he was keeping his prisoners, and as they would probablybe the first victims, he thought this knowledge might add force to hisentreaties to be let alone.
He didn't know "Old Lest"--not by a long chalk.
The _Huan Min_ turned up during the morning, and that chap Ching (he wasa good enough chap to have been a marine, if they had luxuries like thatin the Chinese navy) and the skippers of the _Goldfinch_ and _Sparrow_came across to the _Vigilant_, and had a regular pow-wow, talkee-talkeein the Captain's cabin.
Ching was to land at sunset with some fifty of his men, and Hoffman wasto go with him and guide him across country, straight to the walledhouse on the hill. They were to get through at all costs. It wasChing's own suggestion; he and Hoffman thought they could do it, and Iknew they would, if it was possible. Whilst he made a dash for thehouse, all the ships were to plug shell at two places in the island,some distance from the town itself, in order to distract theirattention.
Hoffman wasn't exactly dead, but that was about all you could say. Hemust have had an e
normous amount of vitality, or whatever you call it,to keep "going". He looked most ghastly ill.
It was determined that every man we could fit out with a rifle and otherconveniences for hurrying his "dear brethren" into eternity was to landfrom the _Vigilant_ and the four gunboats about an hour after Ching, andthe whole day was spent in communicating with the _Ringdove_ and the_Omaha_ and completing these arrangements.
I've always longed to be a pirate myself, and the next best thing was tohave the job of collaring one. My detachment were just as keen as Iwas, especially after last night's shindy, and we fell in again andprepared to land, and have another go at 'em, as cheerfully as ducks ina thunderstorm.
"Ever shoved it into a 'uman afore, sir?" Grainger asked me, whilst hewas helping me on with my sword and leather gear. He'd been polishingit outside my cabin, on and off, all day long.
"Never; nothing bigger than a cockroach."
"Well, sir, it 'ull be some'ut to 'ang up in the 'all at 'ome when wedraws our pension. Won't it, sir?"
"If we don't have to pawn it," I told him, and went off to look atTruscott. Poor chap! he was worrying about what would happen to hiswife and kids if he "pegged out", so one couldn't do much to cheer him.He was very down on his luck.
We were a goodish bit behind time getting ashore, as the very dickens ofa fog came up from the south and wrapped us in its "blissful mantle ofwhite", as the young padre would have said if he'd been there. It wasbeastly annoying, and took all the gloss out of my moustache; but oldLawrence got us round to the back of the island somehow or other,chiefly by the sound of the _Ringdove's_ guns, I think. Of course, hejolly well pretended that he did it with a boat's compass and a pair ofparallel rulers on a chart he'd made. Bless me! I never couldunderstand why navigators make such a song about their job; it's easyenough--shove on till you hit up against the shore--push off again andgo on--that's all that's wanted. I bet I would navigate any ship youliked, anywhere you liked, if she'd stand a bit of bumping sometimes.I've often asked Lawrence to let me try, but, funnily enough, he won't.
I'd had an awful job with Grainger to let me wear my other sergetunic--my best one--and it was only by telling him that I wasn't goingto bring discredit on "The Corps" by being found dead in the one I'dworn last night, that he let me wear it.
"I make it a rule in life," I had told him, "never to wear any serge inmore than one battle," and he had gone away muttering that "he supposedthat they hadn't either of 'em been paid for, and never would be, so itdidn't hardly matter, though he was blowed if he knew what I was goingto wear to-morrow".
Some of his statements were remarkably accurate. We had brought alongone of Hoffman's Chinamen to guide us, but, bless me! by the time we'dgot ashore, with wet feet, we couldn't see two yards in front of us. Thefog was as thick as pea soup, and it was like trying to wade throughvelvet.
I had a pocket compass--we all had--and Lawrence had given us the coursewe were to steer, but I'm jiggered if I know how we got along at all. Iwas supposed to be in front, with people thrown out on either flank, aslaid down in the "drill book", but it was all I could do to keep thembunched up together, touching each other, and the section leadersbawling out, every minute or two, to give the others a notion where theywere. My old sergeant-major nearly wept because he couldn't knowwhether they were "dressed" in proper line.
We stumbled through it somehow, going on for two minutes and halting forfive or ten, whilst they hauled one of our Maxims along on its carriagebehind us, and the shouting that went on to know who was there, andwhere who was, was enough to wake the dead.
The Skipper landed with us, in an old pair of shooting-boots with hugesoles on them--the two-to-an-acre kind--and with a big oak stick in hishands. Young Ponsonby came as his "doggy", and Whitmore had broughtRawlings as his. My marines--Langham with the machine gun section, old"B.-T." with "A" company, and Trevelyan with "B" company--brought our"field state" up to a hundred and fifty-four, all of them _Vigilant's_,and Barclay came along with a dozen stokers as stretcher-bearers. Abouttwo miles to our left, farther along the island, the other landingparty, which was supposed to make for the walled house, with Sally init, and join hands with us there, should have commenced their marchalready, but we hadn't the faintest notion whether they'd been able tofind the place to land. The skipper of the _Omaha_, Captain John A.Parkinson, U.S.N.[#], was to have been in command, and to have had fortymen from his own gunboat and thirty each from our three with him,bringing their brigade up to a strength of one hundred andforty-two--that is, with a few details of stretcher parties.
[#] United States Navy.
We only hoped that they'd been able to find each other and get ashore.
"'Old Lest' don't care whether they come or not," the Skipper growled tome, when we'd run up against each other in the fog. "'Old Lest's' goingon. Umph!"
Even Blucher was unhappy, and wagged his tail doubtfully. He had neverbeen on a shooting expedition like this before, and he didn't know quitewhat to make of it, or the fog, and stuck to the Skipper like a leech,for fear of losing him.
We had heard a lot of desultory firing going on, even before we hadlanded, and couldn't quite understand it, as it came more from thedirection of the walled house than from where Ching should have been;but we did not worry much about that.
We found ourselves running up against huts and bamboo fencing about twohours after we'd landed; but there wasn't a single soul there, and as wewere getting out of them I happened to bump into Trevelyan, who'd losthimself. We were wondering what had become of the inhabitants.
"They've gone into town to the theatre, and supper afterwards at theSavoy or the Carlton, I expect," he said jokingly.
"I jolly well wish I had," I said.
That set me thinking of the good times I'd had in London, and I forgot,for a second, all about the beastly island and the beastly pirates, butwoke up again with the sound of heavy firing--volleys, too--from thesame place from where we'd heard the firing before.
"That's Ching," I thought; "he's got his hands full."
We ran into some people ourselves in front of us, heard them yelling,and heard their footsteps, but never saw them. There must have been agoodish lot of them, to judge by the noise they made, and sometimes theyfired rifles, and bullets went by, overhead, but they didn't worry much,and we pressed them before us. Eventually they got all round us,yelling "blue murder", but daren't come near enough to be "spitted",which was a pity, as their noise was very irritating, and made the menjumpy.
There was no sound of the other little brigade having landed, and inabout an hour after the heavy firing had started, it died down again.We were rather worried lest this meant that Ching had failed, but anoccasional shot coming from the same direction told us that, at anyrate, he was still holding on. I don't believe that we made half a milein the first three hours, the fog and darkness were so intense that oneactually couldn't see one's hand.
A halt was called--for the hundredth time, I should imagine--andpresently the Skipper came up, singing out for me, and being passed onfrom one section to another. "The first bit of firm ground we come toI'm going to stop there," he growled. "It's no use going on like this.I haven't the shadowiest idea where I'm going."
"Not the foggiest, I imagine you mean, sir."
"Umph!" he grunted.
He rather liked my polished wit.
It really was the most extraordinary sensation you can imagine, to golumbering along at this snail's pace, and to hear those fellows justahead booing and yelling, and to hear them running towards us, shoutingsomething rude and unladylike and running away, without ever seeing asoul.
We ran up against a bank shortly afterwards, and stayed there for theremainder of the night, the fog sometimes clearing away slightly, butalways shutting down, like a blanket, directly we thought of moving on.We found a little gap in the bank for the Maxim, and formed more or lessof a hollow square all round it, with my chaps lining the bank.
We let rip a few rounds from it whenever
we thought we could hear a lotof those fellows close together, and thought we managed to wing one ortwo. We certainly found two dead pigs in a sty alongside a hut, aboutfifty yards away, when the fog did clear away next morning. AskWhitmore about his Maxim gun and the two pigs; but see that you've got aclear start first!
We made ourselves as cosy as we could--from a "drill book" point ofview, I mean--and had to be on the alert all night.
The Skipper and Whitmore paced up and down behind the Maxim gun, theSkipper smoking cigar after cigar, and worrying a good deal about notbeing able to get on. Old "Blucher" came across to me presently, towhere I was sitting on the trail of the Maxim gun, eating somesandwiches which Grainger had brought for me, and telling yarns to youngRawlings and Ponsonby to pass away the time. He sat down between myknees and finished off the gristly parts of the beef inside thesandwiches, and wanted his ears played with. He wasn't at all happy,and the noises all round us and the yelping of dogs had got on hisnerves.
I had thrown out half a dozen marines as sentries--only ten yards infront of our bank--and one or other of them kept on letting off theirrifles and scooting back. I had to lead them out again, firmly butgently. It's bad enough on an ordinary dark night to have to do sentrybusiness, but in this fog, when you couldn't see anyone till he touchedyou, it was only the steadiest old soldier who could "stick" it. I wasat last compelled to keep walking from one to another myself, and spentmost of the night doing this.
There were one or two, what you might call, "incidents".
One happened, once, when I'd brought Rawlings and Ponsonby with me, andstumbled over a Chinaman, crawling along the ground. He fled like arabbit, but the two mids were on him like terriers, I shouting all thetime for them to come back. There were two or three revolver shots,which started all my sentries easing "off", and then back they came,bubbling over with excitement. It was lucky that my chaps hadn't shotthem.
"Bagged him?" I asked.
"Rather! Got him with my second; he ran into a tree," Rawlings said,but Ponsonby was much too excited to speak.
The other incident occurred just before we shoved on again.
I had put one of my "bad hats"--an old villain who spent most of histime doing "cells" and 10A[#]--on the extreme left of the line ofsentries, and I thought I had heard a bit of a scuffle somewhere in hisdirection, and presently managed to find him. He was standing over aChinaman, perfectly unconcerned. "Killed that 'ere little lot, sir;crawled up to me and was going to knife me--the dirty thief; did it withthis bagonet--'arf an 'our ago, sir."
[#] 10A.--A particular scale of punishment.
"I wonder you didn't shoot him," I said. And he snorted, "There'splenty as would 'ave," and gave the body a kick, "plenty as would 'ave,and waked the 'ole blooming camp."
When he was eventually relieved, he dragged it back with him to show hispals, and kept the knife as a trophy. The fog began to clear away aboutsix o'clock in the morning, and as it gradually became possible to see afew yards ahead, we shoved again. We had just got up to the hut andpigsty I told you about, and were chaffing Whitmore about the effect ofhis Maxim, when we heard, about a mile off, the report of a gun. TheSkipper came swaggering up, his fierce old eyebrows covered with fog(all of us were as wet as drowned rats with it)--"What's that, Marshall?What d'you make of that? Field gun, eh?"
"Sounds like it, sir;" and we heard it fire again, and it went onregularly at about three or four minute intervals. We could hearvolleys, too, all from the same direction, and felt pretty certain thatgood old Ching hadn't let them have it all their own way.
"It means that they're shelling that house. Umph! And that means thatChing has got inside it," the Skipper growled, rubbing his great handsin delight.
"Shove on! They've been waiting for us too long already;" and he camealong with me, Blucher yawning behind him, and wondering, I suppose,when his job was coming on.
Directly we had moved forward we stirred up some Chinamen in front ofus; but they were not giving us much trouble, and we now felt a breezein our faces, and saw the fog streaming across our front. Almostimmediately afterwards we heard firing away to our left, where the other"landing party" ought to be, and were jolly pleased, and knew that thefog must have "lifted" over there as well.
"We shall have it clear in another quarter of an hour," the Skippergrowled, and went back to hurry everyone forward, for that gun ahead ofus was firing regularly, and made us all rather dread what washappening.
We were getting on some high ground now, making fine progress, andalmost before you could tell when it happened, or how long it took toclear, the fog had swept past us, and, quite suddenly, we saw frightenedChinamen flying in front of us, to take cover behind a bank somewhereabout a quarter of a mile away. I couldn't help laughing to see themtumbling over each other in their hurry to escape, now that the fog haduncovered them. We bagged a good many before they got over that bank.
"Don't give 'em any time; after 'em, Marshall," I heard the Skippershouting, and we simply did a record sprint, "Blucher" going on ahead ofus, thinking that his show had come along at last, and barking loudly,like the useless, untrained, old brute he was. We were over that bankbefore they could fife half a dozen shots, and had bayoneted half adozen before you could say "Jack Robinson". My men were so glad to geta sight of the fellows who'd been worrying them all night, and were sokeen to pay them "out", that there was no stopping them. Those fewshots, though, were quite enough for old "Blucher", who went yelpingback to the Skipper, with his tail between his legs, more mystified thanever.
The ground sloped upwards behind the bank, and we were after them likeredshanks. I knew that Trevelyan with "B" company was somewhere on myright, and that "B.-T." was coming along in reserve, and that the Maximkept chipping in occasionally; but I had all my work cut out to keep mymarines in hand, and did not pay much attention to anything else. Oneor two of my chaps got bowled over before we got to the top of theslope; but we were up it and over it in a "jiffy", and saw the cowardlybrutes running down the other side, dodging in between some nativegraves and some big boulders, and shooting up at us.
I made my men halt and take cover to get their breath, and waited forthe Skipper. He came grunting and puffing after me.
After that beastly night, it was grand to be able to use one's eyesagain, and see where we were and what we were doing. The ground slopeddown from our feet to a little shallow valley of paddy fields,intersected by banks and small irrigation streams. It rose again on theopposite side to form a ridge about eight hundred yards away, a littletree-topped ridge, with the walled house, where Ching and Sally and allthe rest of them were, at its right end, and a few huts on its left end.
As the Skipper came up, I saw a cloud of white smoke burst out frombehind those huts, and heard that gun fire again. I pointed it out tohim.
"There's someone showing on top of that house, sir," Trevelyan sang out.
"Where's one of the signalmen?" the Skipper roared. "There you are--areyou--wave something; get on top of that hut and wave your flags." (Wewere standing close to a small mud hut.)
"He'll draw their fire all right," I chuckled to Trevelyan--there were agood many bullets flying past us--and when he did scramble up to the topand begin waving his semaphore flags, they left off firing at us, andpaid all their attention to him, bullets whistling round him andsmacking up against the side of the hut.
"A jolly good 'wheeze' that," and Trevelyan winked at me. "You must putthat in your blessed drill book, eh, soldier?"
The signalman stood there with his telescope between his knees, calmlytrying to attract attention, whilst the Skipper stood below and cursedhim, and "Blucher" went smelling up every time a bullet splodged againstthe mud wall, and then ran away, thinking people were throwing stones athim. He didn't know what to make of this picnic.
"There's someone waving on top of that house," several sang out; and wesaw someone "wagging" a long stick.
"'E's only got one arm, whoever 'e is," the signalman mu
ttered, "an' 'edon't know much about Morse."
"It's Mr. Ford, sir," he sang out. "He says, 'All well so far--Mr.Ching here--gun doing damage'."
"Splendid!" we all shouted; and just then the signalman came topplingdown with a bullet through his leg, and sat there holding it and lookingvery white.
Old Barclay was on him in a moment--terrible keen chap he was.
When we looked again, young Ford had disappeared. I expect that he hadfound it a pretty warm corner up there.
Old "B.-T.'s" little lot in the rear were having trouble now. They werebelow us, at the foot of the slope we had just climbed, and were lyingdown and shooting at a crowd of Chinese clustering round the huts nearthat pigsty.
"We must have got round 'em in the fog," Trevelyan chuckled.
"Where's that darned Maxim?" the Skipper roared. "Get it up here."
Young Rawlings rushed away to hurry it, and it came rattling up,Langham, who was in charge of it, and his men panting and tugging forall they were worth.
He was ordered to try and stop that gun firing, and then fat littlePonsonby was sent flying downhill to tell Travers to leave the Chinamenalone and come along after us.
The Maxim gun began its "tut-tut-tut-tut", "B.-T." and his chaps camebounding up the hill, and we all roared with laughter as little Ponsonbycame running after them, his eyes and mouth wide open with fright atbeing left behind. "B.-T." was sent down the slope in front of us, withhis company, to clear out the chaps who were sniping us; and veryprettily he and his two Mids, Jones and Withers, did the job, whilstTrevelyan looked after the brutes in our rear.
They were simply swarming down there behind those huts, and there wasnot the least doubt that we had got round their main body in the fog.They did not dare to come out in the open, and were keeping up a verywild fire at us.
Langham couldn't get near that gun, and just as it fired again, andsomeone had sung out that they could see stones and bits of wood flyingfrom a corner of the house, we saw Chinamen streaming across the paddyfields on our left, running and turning, and firing backwards. We couldhear heavy firing from somewhere out of sight, and the noise of anotherMaxim and the chip-chip of a Colt automatic gun.
We all knew that it was the gunboat's brigade driving the Chinese infront of them.
"The other chaps will be there before 'Old Lest', if we don't get a moveon. 'Old Lest' ain't going to be beaten by them," the Skipper grunted,and sent me and my marines flying down into the paddy fields below us,after Travers, who had halted and taken cover behind a bank on the otherside of them, just before the ground began to rise gently up towards thewalled house, and where the gun was a little farther to the left.
"Take ground to your left, and both of you 'go' for that confoundedgun," the Skipper had roared after me. "I'm coming along after you."
It's all jolly fine to tell one to charge along through paddy fields.Grainger was just behind me, and I felt sorry for him, because I kept ongoing in up to my knees in beautiful, rich, black mud, and knew that hehad his eye on me and my second best pair of trousers. But we got up toold "B.-T." all right, and I shouted for him to come along and shove onfor the gun, got my men extended well to the left, gave them a"breather" whilst he swung his men a little to the left as well (broughthis right shoulder up, as they say in the drill book), and then off wewent, howling and cheering, straight towards two little white hutsbehind which the gun was still firing.
Whitmore appeared from somewhere and took charge (he was the senior),Rawlings and a bugler boy legging it after him for all they were worth.
A good many bullets came whizzing past, and I saw chaps dodging aboutround those huts and under some trees. My men were coming along well,and old "B.-T." with his long legs was sprinting along in front of hischaps like a camel.
Away to the left people began cheering--"Rah! Rah! Rah!"--and I knewthat came from the _Omaha's_ crowd, and wasn't going to be beaten bythem. Nor was more either; and though I knew that the "show" was notquite according to the "drill book", I wasn't going to let the "U.S.N."or our gunboats get there first.
Young Wilkins, running just behind me, gave a cry and fell; I heard theold sergeant-major cursing and hurrying on the men; we got in among thetrees, my chaps half a dozen paces behind me; a chap got in my way andfell down--I suppose I did it; two or three fellows rushed out from theside of a hut and came for me with swords; but the well-beloved Graingerwasn't going to let them damage my best "serge", if he could prevent it,and we got rid of them between us. "B.-T.'s" chaps and mine were nowall mixed up. There were a few "bickerings" going on round the huts andamong the trees, and then we saw the gun standing by its "lonesome", andwent dashing across to it.
One of "B.-T.'s" able seamen was the first to get to it, Whitmore andRawlings close behind, and "B.-T." and I made a dead heat for fourthplace.
"Don't 'hee-haw' like a jackass," Whitmore said, when he'd got hisbreath. "What's to be done now?"
I'm hanged if I could help laughing at the sight of old "B.-T." leggingit, with little Withers, only about half his height, trying to keep upwith him.
"Give us a cigarette, and don't be an ass, soldier!" "B.-T." sang out."Your legs are funnier looking than mine, any day."
"Drill book, Whitmore, old chap! Drill book! When you've got 'em onthe run, keep 'em on the run," I said, when I could stop laughing, andhe agreed, and "B.-T." agreed, and we got our people together andfollowed them. As we left the gun we saw the _Omaha's_ people "doubling"up to it.
We must have followed them for the best part of a mile, I shouldimagine, but they ran a jolly sight faster than we could. We werepretty well "winded", and when we'd driven them back to the outskirts ofthe town, they rallied there, and we had to pull up and go back again,carrying along three fellows who'd been knocked over in the last hundredyards. They began pressing along after us, and a lot of chaps--some ofthose who had run away from the other brigade--began worrying our flank,streaming across the paddy fields and firing at us. We managed to keepthem back, alternate sections lying down and firing whilst the othersran back fifty yards and lay down in their turn, and covered the retreatof the first little lot. A nice little show it was too--all doneaccording to the drill book--and when we'd got back to within a hundredyards of the walled house, and were passing through the remains of a lotof burnt huts, young Ponsonby came running up with orders from theSkipper to halt there and take up a position.
"He's pretty angry, sir," he told Whitmore; "he's been sounding therecall for the last half-hour."
The fact was that the Chinese hadn't yet had a sufficient lesson, anddidn't quite know what it was to run up against us in the daylight, andwere now coming for us "hammer and tongs".
Instead of going back to the walled house, and bending on one kneebefore Princess Sally as her gallant knight, who had lost a couple ofeyeglasses, and spoiled serge frocks, two in number, and two pairs ofembroidered overalls--bills not yet paid--in her service, and receivingher gracious thanks, I had jolly well to dodge beastly bullets for acouple of hours.
The old Skipper often came round, with "Blucher", to see if things weregoing all right, and generally stopped to have a yarn with me.
It was from him I learnt that poor old Hoffman had been killed.
"Jolly hard luck after all he's done for us, sir," I had said; but theSkipper only growled "Umph!" and for some reason or other didn't seem sosure.
He had managed to get a signal through to the _Vigilant_, and orderedher and the gunboats to shell the town and that six-inch gun whichWhitmore had tried to destroy.
From my position, looking across the Chinese town and the little creekcrowded with junks, I could see them steaming slowly inshore, andpresently they began firing very deliberately. (Of course they had onlya few seaman ratings left on board to man the guns.)
Their shells burst all over the town; but it takes a lot of shells toset fire to a house, and it was some time before they got a good firegoing. A few shells which didn't burst ricochetted over our heads, andone or
two fell pretty close to the house; but the Skipper didn't worryabout them now. He had lowered little Sally down a shallow well,somewhere in the garden behind the house, and so long as she was safe,he didn't worry about anyone else.
His idea was that if we set fire to the town, most of the people wouldgo back there to try and extinguish the flames, and that then we wouldtramp back across the island to where we had landed last night.
Certainly a good number of fellows did go back, and except from thathill on the other side of the paddy fields, from where we had seenFord's signal, we were not much bothered with rifle fire.
It was at the back of the house, where the ground fell steeply towardsthe creek, and was covered with scrubby bushes, that the Chinese seemednow to be trying to force their way in. The lower slopes were simplyswarming with them, and more kept moving up the creek in boats to assistthem.
The Skipper came across to me. "Umph!" he growled. "You're a soldier,aren't you?" and when I had acknowledged the soft impeachment, "Umph!What would you do? I'm not a soldier. 'Old Lest's' not much goodashore except after 'birds'. How'd you get out of this mess! Ugh!" andhe growled at me as if he would have liked to eat me, and so fiercelythat old "Blucher" thought he was in for a row, and cleared off to havea yarn with his chums, the marines. He took me across, behind thehouse, to have a look at the state of affairs there.
Don't think that he wanted advice. He only wanted someone to talk to,and everyone else was too busy. I wouldn't have suggested anything tohim for "worlds".
It was then that I saw Hobbs and Sally for the first time since they hadbeen "burgled". They had fished her up from the well, and she had comeacross to the Skipper, looking like a ghost, her sad little face allpinched and careworn, hardly the princess I'd all my life been longingto rescue, and throw myself and all my unpaid bills at her feet. Shewas a most distressful little object, and when the Skipper put his greathand very gently on her shoulder, and told her we were going to startoff almost directly, she began crying, and said she didn't want to go.
"She's gone daft about that man Evans," Hobbs whispered to me. Helooked more like a monkey than ever.
So that was it, was it? And our little princess didn't want to berescued! Poor little princess! I just noticed that the front of thehouse had been pretty well battered in by the Chinese gun, and thencaught sight of Ford and Rawlings looking like long-lost brothers. Fordwas a pretty ludicrous spectacle, with one side of his face black andblue, one eye closed, and his left arm slung up inside his monkeyjacket. This was the first time I had seen him since we had landed todestroy that gun, and he got very red; I remembered that he hadn't takenmy jokes in very good part, so went across to make my peace with him.
"We all saw you signalling to us this morning, Ford, on the top of thatroof. You must have been under a very hot fire, eh?"
He wasn't quite certain whether he was going to make peace, but hecouldn't stand out against a little delicate flattery, and we madefriends again, and he went off with Rawlings, looking very conceited andhappy.
Fat little Rashleigh was there, too, buzzing about like a bumble bee,and offering everyone a drink from his flask, and patronizing Ching, andtalking about the gun he had captured. I never realized what he meanttill afterwards.
Old Ching was pretty well played out, but looked proud and happy, and Igave him one of my last three cigarettes, and told him one or two yarns,though he didn't take much interest in them, and kept his eyes fixed onlittle Sally.
The Skipper had given him the job of escorting her down to the coast,and jolly well he had earned it too.
Parkinson, the _Omaha's_ skipper, had a yarn with me. "Guess I shall bea flag officer before I'm sixty. Reckon they'll have my picture in allthe journals in the States, and maybe they'll remember John A. Parkinsonis still alive and kicking, up at Washington. They seem to haveforgotten him awhile." He was "talking sarcastic". He was a finegrim-looking chap, without an ounce of spare flesh on him, and as old asmost of the rear-admirals in our navy, though only in command of a smallgunboat.
There was an old Scotchman who had helped Ford and the two men escapefrom the town to the walled house, and had been helping to defend it allnight. He was a funny old bird, and didn't quite know where to "place"himself, and wasn't looking particularly happy. Old "B.-T." hadrecognized him as the chap who'd run the show at the other island, when"B.-T." was a prisoner, so he knew that we had sufficient evidence tohang him, and was only too jolly anxious to escape being killed byChinamen in the meantime.
He thought that our best plan would be to go back the way we had come.It was more open country, and, except for the first three-quarters of amile, better "going" and more open than if we attempted to work roundthe outskirts of the town itself, where the ground was nothing butswamps.
It was now about half-past one o'clock, and the Skipper thought that itwas about time to be starting back.
The great trouble was the number of wounded who would have to becarried. Of Ching's original fifty men only forty-two could walk, andthe two landing parties now had six men too badly wounded to walk.Young Wilkins, my bugler, and a seaman belonging to the _Goldfinch_ werethe only two Englishmen killed so far.
These two, Hoffman, and five of Ching's people had been buried duringthe morning, under the trees in the garden, behind the house.
The Skipper also wanted to go back the way he had come. He told me thatI should have the first job--to seize the hill opposite us across thepaddy fields and hold it whilst he, Trevelyan, and "B" company andChing's bluejackets brought along Sally, her father, and the wounded.
Parkinson, the _Omaha's_ skipper, was to stay behind with the gunboat'sbrigade and act as rearguard till the Skipper had got safely across tome, and then I was going to do "rearguard", whilst they all went on.
He hoped to get in touch with the _Ringdove_ and _Omaha_ a mile from theshore and obtain some assistance from their guns, if he was much pressedby the Chinese. He was just going to give the order to "carry on", whenwe saw a little party of people approaching with a white flag wavingover their heads. It was headed by a most respectable-looking old"josser" beautifully dressed in silks, with a mandarin button on hiscap, and a most benign, fatherly expression on his face. He was broughtalong to the Skipper, and the old Scotchman acted as interpreter.
He had come to offer to let us go back to our ships without beingmolested, if we would only leave off shelling the town, and was verysurprised when the Skipper refused to do so. Then he called up a manwho was standing behind him with a bundle in his hand, and made himempty it on the ground, looking at us and expecting to see us beam withdelight. Ugh! I was nearly sick, for out rolled the head of a whiteman.
"It's Boss Evans!" I heard the Scotchman mutter under his breath.
We all involuntarily stepped back in disgust, and the old gentlemanopened his eyes in amazement when he saw that we were not pleased, andexplained that it was the Boss Pirate himself, the chap who'd doneeverything he ought not to have done, and that now they had killed him,and that we had seen that he was really dead, and had got Hobbs and thegirl, "it all makee end--all belong plenty too much bobberie--no cando--vely good--vely good", and he rubbed his hands together, and bowedand beamed at us again from behind his great horn-rimmed spectacles.
"Chuck him out!" the Skipper roared, and walked away.
The poor dear old Chinee chap was almost in tears when he was led homeagain, and wasn't allowed to take the head with him either.
We buried it alongside the other dead.
Someone must have told my poor little princess, because she was now onlytoo anxious to get away, and looked more mournful and heartbroken thanever.
It was half-past two before this little business was concluded, andWhitmore and I were jolly anxious to start.
"The old man's wasting daylight with a vengeance," he said to me, buthad hardly spoken before young Ponsonby came running up--"From theCaptain, sir; you're to carry on."
As I hurried past the Skipper, h
e sang out, "Drive those fellows offthat hill!"--pointing with his big stick. "Travers will go with you, andI'll send a Maxim along after you, and am coming on directly."
"Very good, sir," and I saluted and went off to tell my men what we hadto do, and sang out to Travers, "Come along, old 'B.-T.', bring yourpeople along."
We started off.
U.S.S. Omaha and H.M.S. Ringdove shelling Hector Island.]