Part 14

"I didn’t fire it myself, though, Sharpe, did I?" he asked; and Sharpe said, "No, sir, you didn’t hardly do that, but you was a-steadyin’ of the cartridge belt, and seeing as how it was ’fed’ properly, and a-knocking back the crank handle, and you was shoutin’ and cheerin’ like Billy Loo, that you was, sir. You was about the only one of us who wasn’t skeared, or—well—if you was, you didn’t look skeared," he went on, 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 boomed them off. He belonged more or less to us, and we weren’t going to have them shoving their oars in too quickly.

Jim and I were very excited when we heard that the Commander was going to land with the marines and try and blow up the six-inch gun. We hung about outside his cabin, and shoved ourselves under his nose up on deck all the afternoon, so that he shouldn’t possibly forget us. We expected that he would take one, if not two midshipmen with him, and we didn’t see 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 when everyone was cross and bad-tempered, and felt he wanted to bite everyone else’s nose off. He was very strict "service", but he never did small irritating things, and treated us Mids and Cadets as though we were human 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 was tremendously popular with the men. We heard that he had nothing but his pay to live on, and had a wife and family to keep. That was quite enough, the A.P. used to say, to make any man solemn at times. He did very 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 having to report things to him. If we had to report anything, a light or a change of course, or anything like that, we had often to screw up our courage before we tapped at the Captain’s door, for often he would nearly 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 his afternoon sleep, and he would say, "Right you are, boy", as cheerfully as 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, and I told him that I had just called the Captain, and—well—he hadn’t enquired 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 the thing 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 tell everyone. He had sent for us in his cabin, and he looked very grim and sad when we went there, but he didn’t look quite so serious when we left. He was so amused at our being so jolly excited, I expect; but we couldn’t help that.

He had shown us the map thing which Mr. Hoffman had drawn, and explained exactly what he was going to do; and told us to take revolvers, not dirks or cutlasses, as they would only get in the way, and to wear the boots 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; but Withers was going inshore in the barge, Jones in the first cutter, and Webster in the steam pinnace.

Webster was to tow us in as far as he could go, and the cutter and the barge were to wait for us after we had landed, and in case they should be wanted to cover our getting aboard again, a Maxim gun was mounted in the bows of the barge, and another in the bows of the cutter. The others were rather jealous of Jim and myself, because, of course, we had only just 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 of the bluejackets who mended boots. He hadn’t the proper kind of nails—none left, at any rate—but the ones he did put in were a jolly sight better than none at all.

As it got dark, and the rain stopped and some stars came out, and everything seemed to be promising well, we were too excited to eat our dinner, and as to sleeping, we couldn’t possibly get a wink, and were out of our hammocks directly it struck one bell (half-past twelve), long before the sentry came round to wake us. We had two bits of candle all ready, 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 had to wait a very long time. However, it made us hungry, and we ate a whole tin of gingerbread biscuits between us; and when the rest of the people began turning out, and they brought round hot cocoa, we had a jolly big whack of that.

Then they began "falling in", and the Commander came up with a sword and revolver and haversack, yawning and looking tired, and Captain Marshall, with his eyeglass just showing in the lantern light, pulled on his gloves and looked jolly much a soldier all over. He had his long sword hitched up to his waist, and his cap beautifully on the side of his head, and his moustache all carefully trained, and he winked at us with the eye that wasn’t holding the eyeglass.

We heard him start a yarn to Mr. Whitmore and Dr. Barclay, who was coming with us as well, "When I was the handsomest subaltern in the British 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 we often waited to see, because he used to change from being a funny man to a 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 was simply thinking of nothing but soldiering.

The Commander’s grimness was gradually wearing off, and when Captain Marshall had told him one or two funny stories, and he had laughed several times, he became quite cheerful. The Captain came up, too, when everything was ready, and he nodded at me, "Getting more experience, Ford?" and stood under the quarterdeck lantern, where everybody could see him, and growled out, "Good luck, men! Hope to see you all back by daylight." The boats had dropped alongside by this time, and we all began to file down into them. Jim gave me a parting pinch, and went down the port side into the cutter, and I went down the starboard side into the barge, with the Commander and Dr. Barclay and the marines. The steam boat took us in tow, we picked up the cutter, and began to move away from the ship. I had just thought how jolly it would be to have a send-off "cheer", when we heard the Captain’s voice roar, "Three cheers for the Commander and the ’landing party’," and to judge by the noise, I should imagine that everyone on board had turned out and come on deck. Without waiting for orders, we started cheering in the boats, and as we passed the _Sparrow_ her people cheered us too. It made my heart go thumping like mad, and just did the right thing for the Commander. You knew, 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’t know whether they cheered us or not. She still had those two dead men on 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 on smoking. The steam pinnace seemed to make a tremendous noise ahead of us, but I expect that that was only "fancy". At any rate, we seemed to bubble along jolly fast in the dark. The stoker in her, like the ass he was, must have been keeping up a very big head of steam, because once or twice flames came out of the funnel. The Commander shouted for them to ease down, and we had some difficulty in making them hear. I thought that they never would, and the funnel was like a big torch, and could have 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 more flames showed. You see, the air is forced through the fires by means of a little fan, worked by an endless belt from the main engines, and when they are going fast it blows the flames up the funnel.

If it had been the Captain, I know that he would have been frightfully angry, and punished the stoker later on; but the Commander only said, "The poor idiot was doing his best", and was quite calm, although, of course, it might have given the whole "show" away directly.

Although we went along much more slowly, the few lights on shore were getting bigger and bigger. Presently the steam boat steamed very slowly, indeed, and then stopped, and we ran alongside. It was low tide, and we had begun to get into the narrow channel, running up the creek into the town.

Mr. Lawrence was in the steam boat—I had not seen him before—and had been 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 to that gun."

The Commander told him that he was not well enough, and tried to persuade him to go back, but he absolutely refused, and crawled across us into the cutter. "I’ve taken half a bottle of quinine, and shall be all 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 boat giving a few swirls with her screws, and slipping away out of sight in a moment.

It was simply pitch dark, and when I tell you that though Withers was sitting behind me, and had his knees in my back, and yet I couldn’t see his face when I turned round, you will understand how dark it was.

We then started to pull inshore. The oars had been muffled by having strips of fearnought (thick flannel, almost like felt, which the stokers make into trousers for stokehold work) bound round them where they rubbed in the rowlocks, and the rowlocks themselves had more fearnought nailed all over them, so that they only made a soft noise, with a squeak now and again.

We were quite close to the shore on our port side, and one or two little streaks of light—I suppose they came from the fishermen’s huts—didn’t look 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 to us, 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 be just outside the boat—and then we heard him give a whine as though he was tired and yawning, he scampered up the beach, gave a low growl, and was quiet.

We went on again, but it was so dark that the Commander crept for’ard into the bows, and we felt our way very slowly along the edge of the mud, shoving her off with boat hooks whenever we got too close.

We had passed some of those lights—they were right behind us now—so that I knew we were well up the creek. We couldn’t see where the water ended, but farther away it was blacker still, and I knew that this was the steep beach and the shore behind it. I tried to remember that drawing, and hung over the side and tried to make out those fishing stakes. We seemed to go on like this for a very long time—we were pulling very slowly against the last of the ebb tide—and then the blackness on our left seemed to get nearer and more upright, and I knew that 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 that it 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 most creepy kind of howl, and there were two who answered him on our side of the town. Sometimes others would join in, and you would almost recognize the different barks. I longed for them to leave off. That was the only noise, except the slight splash as the oars dug into the water, and the soft thump against the sides of the row-locks as they dragged them out; but now that we were listening so hard, and were so excited, even this seemed to be very great.

Then something scraped against our bows and knocked the low oars, and the 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’t wonder either, because the marines were simply sitting on the thwarts, with their rifles between their knees, and they had nothing to do except to prevent them rattling against anything.

We hauled ourselves up, and the Commander came aft, leant over the side and felt it, and the coxswain, who had been there before with the Captain, felt it too, and he whispered to the Commander that it was one of 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 go back about thirty yards," the Commander whispered across to Mr. Whitmore. There were a few click, clicks, and the cutter disappeared again. We started to pull out round that first line of stakes, but we had made more noise with our oars, knocking against them—the men couldn’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 my fingers 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 been a sentry or a watchman, and he sang out again, and I felt as if I was throbbing all over. Then we heard him muttering to himself. The tide had taken us clear of the stakes, and the Commander whispered "to give way", and we pulled round the end one without hitting it; but the sentry could hear the oars, and sang out again. The men began to pull faster, and the oars made an awful noise. More Chinamen began shouting—one quite a long way in front, and then several more.

"Starboard!" I heard the Commander say; "starboard, hard!" and then knew that in another half-minute we should be scrambling ashore. I crept along to the bows with the Commander, to be ready to follow him. We had hardly got there when the bows ran into the mud with a jerk, and I had to hang on to the gun mounting to prevent being knocked over. "Keep on ’giving way’, Withers!" the Commander sang out, and slipped down into the water without the least hesitation. It was up to his waist, and he held out a hand for me. I fell in after him up to my armpits, with my feet sinking in the beastly mud at the bottom. I was so excited, that I didn’t notice how cold it was; but it just flashed through me how Captain Marshall could do it, with all his beautiful uniform on, and then I found myself wading after the Commander, and pulling my feet out of the mud. There was enough noise now to wake anybody. No one could help the rifles and everything else knocking against the side of the boat, and the splashing, and the men cursing under their breath. There were some frightened cries above us, and a rifle was let off (it sounded like a six-pounder), and all the dogs in the town seemed to start barking; but we were all too excited and busy getting through the water and mud to notice much. In half a dozen steps the water was only up to my 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 the Commander—I could only just see his dark figure, and had to keep close for fear of losing him.

Then the beach began to slope up, and was quite hard, and we ran over a lot of shells and loose stones, the water running off me and squelching inside my boots. I was out of breath and panting, and my clothes had all stuck to me, especially my trousers over my knees, and the Commander wouldn’t stop, and never once looked back to find out how many men were following. He seemed to disappear in a very black shadow; but it was only a bank about four feet high, with stiff grass on the top, and he helped me, and someone shoved me, and I got a lot of sand or earth in my mouth, and spat it out. The Commander stopped for a moment, and I was only too glad to get back my breath. We could see some lights moving backwards and forwards, and appearing and disappearing at regular intervals, and knew at once that men were running about inside the battery, and that they shone out when they passed one of the gun embrasures. There was any amount of calling and shrieking going on. The Commander drew his sword, I saw Captain Marshall close to me with his sword drawn, any number of dark figures kept scrambling over the bank; the Commander yelled, and we all yelled and rushed straight ahead.

Several people behind me fell—I heard them—and I heard Captain Marshall cursing, and asking "Where the blooming buttercups his eyeglass was?" and then there shot out from the dark wall a most tremendous flame, with an awful roar—they had fired one of the guns. It seemed as if it was almost in our faces, and I turned my head half round, and the flame lighted up the men’s faces just for a moment. It showed us all the 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 have been firing at us with rifles as well, but I don’t know, and the next thing I remember was clambering up a stone parapet, with someone’s feet in my face, which I hardly noticed at the time, digging my nails into some 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 in one of the embrasures. "Get along, curse you," someone yelled; "give me a hand with this rifle," and scrambled up after me. I couldn’t get down for a second, because there were so many in front, and the man simply took 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, heard him shouting away to the left, and got close to him again. We were right inside the battery, and we followed the wall—inside—all round, and not a Chinaman was there. We were all cheering like mad, or panting for breath, and then we saw some lights from huts fifty yards away, and crowds of Chinamen running backwards and forwards in front of them, and heard more yelling. Without waiting for any orders, everybody rushed towards them and carried me along too, doing my best to keep with the Commander.

There weren’t any Chinamen there when we got to the huts, and the men were for rushing on, but the Commander managed to halt them, and we could hear the mob running away and making a squealing, frightened noise, but couldn’t see them. Three yards away from the lighted huts everything was simply pitchy black.

"Get back to the battery, boys!" the Commander shouted; "they’ll be coming back soon." The men had to fall "in" just inside the battery wall, 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 heard him telling Captain Marshall and Dr. Barclay that he wished the Chinamen had made a fight of it instead of running away, because he feared that they would simply bolt back to the six-inch gun, and that Mr. Whitmore’s party 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 world wouldn’t have made so much noise. There must have been simply thousands of them barking away all over the town; and some came running out of the darkness 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 bugler boy—Wilkins—helped me; they would howl if a stone went near them, and rush away yelping. It was jolly good fun doing this. All of a sudden there was a dull crash behind us, as if a heavy weight was rolling down outside the battery.

"What was that?" I heard the Commander shout, rather nervously, and he went across, and I followed him.

"Very sorry, sir," the Sergeant-major said. "Some of the men chucked a gun over the wall, sir. I’ve taken their names, sir."

"Let ’em chuck them all over, sir," Captain Marshall suggested; and we did. 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 its wooden carriage, another two would help them, and heave it over, gun and carriage too. The men enjoyed it, and so did I, and we began pitching over the little round shot which lay there in heaps, and some grape-shot done up in basketwork.

There was another wait after that, and we all were bitterly cold. My nose 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 men out past the huts to warn us in case any Chinese came along, but it was so dark that he couldn’t see how the ground lay, or the best position to take up, in case we were attacked.

Then Dr. Barclay had a brilliant idea, and suggested setting fire to the huts. "They’ll light the place up and dry our clothes, sir," he said.

"Right O!" the Commander chuckled, and it didn’t take many minutes before they were all of them blazing away like fun.

The Commander said that I could help, so Wilkins and I ran over to the huts, turned over a funny old lamp burning inside one of them, and set fire to a lot of shavings and straw. The smoke drove us out, but then we set fire to the outside in half a dozen places, and soon had a grand blaze going. It was jolly comforting to stand there and feel our clothes drying, though the wind would puff the smoke back into our eyes sometimes.

"Fifth of November, almost, ain’t it, sir?" Wilkins said.

"And there go the fireworks, too," he shouted; and there was a banging and spluttering in the hut next to ours, and little bits of it flew about.

"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’d hardly got clear before there was a tremendous "hurroosh", and the whole hut seemed to go right up, and burning planks, strips of thatch and matting, went flying along through the air, and began blazing away wherever they fell. My aunt! it did make a smoke, though there wasn’t much noise, only a very loud "poof", and everyone went scampering back to the battery with his head down, trying to dodge the bits. We did laugh.

"Funny place for their magazine, eh, Commander?" I heard Captain Marshall chuckle; and we all kept pretty clear of the others. The explosion had made the dogs stop barking—just for a few seconds—just time for us to hear noises as if the townspeople were waking up at last.

"They’re getting ’busy’ over there," Captain Marshall said. "That sounds as if our friends would be coming to call on us shortly."