Part 21

Gradually all the officers commanding companies came up, except "B.-T.", who had a bayonet wound through his thigh and couldn’t walk, and the _Omaha’s_ First Lieutenant, who had been killed just after I had seen him charging with his men.

Young Jones reported "A" company, and that Withers was missing; but then someone came up to say that he’d been found with his head cut open, and quite dead. Poor little chap! he was one of the brightest and most gentlemanly youngsters on board, and I and my marines owed him a great deal for the way in which he covered our retreat to the barge two nights ago.

The doctors were singing out to let people know where they were, and I ran up against old Barclay. He seemed to have had a bad time of it himself, but was busy dressing people and fixing them up. Old "B.-T." was sitting with his back to a Maxim carriage wheel, waiting his turn and holding on to his leg. He wanted to borrow another cigarette, but he’d had my last half an hour ago. I managed to get one for him, however, and then found Whitmore. He’d had one of his thigh bones smashed by a bullet, and was in great pain. The whole place was nothing but a shambles. The _Sparrow’s_ people, who had borne the brunt of the first attack, had come off worst, and after them Ching’s bluejackets; but you will see by the list at the end what the actual casualties were.

Ching himself had a slash over the head, but looked as though he was treading on air, he was so proud and happy, and I knew that there was a good deal more than the love of fighting to account for that.

"How’s the little lass?" the Skipper said, and I followed him across to the Chinese gun, and found my poor little princess bending over it with her head buried in her hands, and Hobbs sitting on the ground beside her.

The Skipper took her up in his arms and carried her off to a place where there were not so many dead bodies. Then happened something which, though disgraceful, is true. He was stalking along with her in his arms, and had just made a long step across a body, when we were horrified to see the apparently dead Chinaman spring up and raise a sword above his head to strike the Skipper. He would have been killed for a certainty, because the sword was a very heavy one—an executioner’s sword—had not young Ford, who luckily had his revolver in his hand, placed it against the man’s back and shot him.

The Captain turned round and growled out "Umph!" but took no further notice. However, the word was passed round that a wounded Chinaman had attempted to kill him, and the men were so enraged that they made certain that there were no more wounded pirates left inside the square.

This is a fact, whatever you may say about the rights and wrongs of it.

The Chinese had had enough fighting to last them for a "month of Sundays", and let us alone after that, and gave us time to look after the wounded. The men, of course, all had their little packets of field dressings with them, and did a good deal of amateur doctoring, whilst Barclay, Hibbert of the _Ringdove_, the doctor of the _Omaha_, and their stretcher parties looked after the more seriously wounded.

Then we staggered down to the beach, wading through the fog with our wounded.

When I say staggered, I mean staggered. Our people had been fighting for practically twenty-four hours with no rest, and they were done to a "turn". After that strenuous sixty or seventy seconds’ struggle, and the square had been re-formed, and the wounds had begun to pain, and arms and legs and bodies to feel stiff, reaction set in, and if you had seen them walking that last three hundred yards, you would have thought that most of them were drunk.

Lucky indeed it was that the Chinese let us alone till we could get the wounded down on the beach behind a bank, light several fires to comfort them, and gradually warmed our fellows up again.

I suppose that if they had charged out of the fog again, our men would have roused themselves and put up just as good a fight; but I must say that I felt most extremely anxious till we had the sea at our backs, and that bank at the top of the beach with a deep ditch below it in front of us.

We had hoped to find our boats lying off waiting for us, and tried to attract attention by shouting and firing rifles. Eventually we heard one of the gunboats begin firing a gun every half-minute. It turned out to be the _Omaha_, and presently she began to make a signal with her fog siren. We knew that she was feeling her way in towards us, by the sound of the blasts coming nearer; but of course we could see nothing whatsoever through that maddening nightmare of dirty fog, and out of it came the moaning blasts of the _Omaha’s_ siren with the message: "Have seen nothing of your boats since this morning. _Omaha’s_ boats have been sent down the coast to where gunboats’ brigade originally landed, and have not come back."

We well knew that that meant a night to be spent on the bleak shore till the fog should clear away and allow the boats to find their way to us.

It was then that the tired men were set to work collecting drift wood and making fires under the bank, whilst Rashleigh and Trevelyan had to line the bank itself, and guard our two flanks across the beach.

Although the fires were fairly large ones, they could not be seen fifteen paces from the far side of the bank. That will give you some idea how dense was the fog, so that we were quite safe in making them, and we brought the wounded across and settled them as comfortably as possible. When I talk about the wounded, I mean, of course, the badly wounded, men who were obliged to lie or sit perfectly still; but besides these, nearly everyone was slightly wounded, but could still handle a rifle.

Trevelyan had brought a tin of tea tabloids—he always had some dodge up his sleeve—and with the water in our bottles, we made enough tea to give the wounded and my poor little princess a hot drink.

Old Grainger "managed" to find another packet of sandwiches for me, and was very disgusted when I gave them to Sally. A strange old chap he was. I suppose that I owed my useless life to him half a dozen times that day, but he would have been offended if I’d even suggested thanking him. He had been my servant for nine solid years, and treated me as if I were a helpless idiot, and that his whole business in life was to turn me out on parade a credit to "The Corps". (I don’t mean to infer that he was the only one who treated me as an idiot.)

Even during the night, when after a couple of hours’ sleep the marines had to take their turn on top of that bank, he began bothering me about my clothes.

I had noticed him looking at me as I stood warming myself in front of a fire, and he began: "Them clothes won’t be no blooming good again, sir, I’m thinkin’. Two serges and two pairs of trouses in three blessed nights! We ain’t got enough gear to turn you out proper now, sir."

"That’s all right, Grainger; we’ll be at Hong-Kong in a fortnight," I said to cheer him.

"’Ong-Kong!" he sniffed. "They knows us too well there, sir. They wants ready money from us there, sir, and we ain’t got none. ’Ow’s your arm, sir? You never showed it to the Doctor."

I hadn’t, I know; but he wouldn’t be satisfied till I had pulled up my sleeve, and he had found a bandage and stuck round it, to cover up the two little marks where a bullet had gone in and out.

It really didn’t trouble me much, except to make my arm stiff.

Then Ford and Rawlings came up to me. They ought to have been asleep. They were like two little cock sparrows with all their feathers ruffled.

"Would you mind telling us, sir, who captured that gun?" Rawlings burst out very angrily.

"As far as I remember," I told them, "one of ’B.-T.’s’ people was first; beat you and Whitmore by a short head."

"There!" they both burst out, looking at each other joyously. "Do you know, sir, that Mr. Rashleigh says it’s his, and that he captured it?"

"Stuff and nonsense! That’s all my eye! His people were nowhere in sight!"

"Well, he’s got it, sir, and the _Ringdoves_ dragged it back, and they say they’ve got it, and are going to keep it."

"Come and ask Mr. Whitmore," young Ford said; but I told them that they were not to wake him, and not to be blithering idiots waking the whole camp.

"Wait till the morning; no one can take it away to-night."

I knew that if it belonged to anyone it belonged to our Skipper, and that it didn’t matter a tuppenny biscuit who claimed it now, for "Old Lest" would have it in the long run.

Our two hours’ watch passed without any serious trouble, a few shots occasionally whizzed overhead, that was all, and before daylight the fog lifted a little, as it had done the previous day.

As soon as they could see us, the Chinese made a very half-hearted attack, and the whole brigade had to stand to arms and line the bank; but we had no difficulty in driving them off and keeping them at a respectable distance.

As the sun rose the hateful fog swept away altogether, and it was a most blessed sight to see the sun glittering on the muddy water, and the _Omaha_ and _Ringdove_ close to one another, and only about half a mile from the shore.

Little Sally looked such a forlorn, draggled little woman in the damp daylight, that I thought she’d be only too glad for anyone to say something kind to her, so old "B.-T.", moving in a very "dot-and-go-one" manner, and I went over to say "how d’ye do" to her and give her a treat. We were the best-looking fellows in the _Vigilant_, but old "B.-T.", what with his limp and a forty-eight hours’ beard round his aristocratic chin, wasn’t looking his best, I thought, however, that the bandage round my noble forehead (to cover up a cut someone had given me) would just about "fetch" her, and that she would be interested in about a dozen different specimens of paddy-field mud which were plastered over me.

However, she "bristled" up when we came along to pay her homage, and "guessed she didn’t want anyone fooling round her—just yet awhile". Poor little princess! She was so miserable, sitting on the beach behind that bank, with the Skipper’s overcoat buttoned round her.

About an hour after daylight, and the fog had swept away, our boats managed to find us.

Old "Blucher" had had enough shooting expeditions to last him till he got home, and jumped into the very first _Vigilant’s_ boat that had run up the beach, got under the thwart in the stern sheets, and never moved till she got alongside the ship.

The Skipper gave me the job of covering the embarkation, and it wasn’t all "beer and skittles" either, for the Chinese kept up such a persistent and annoying rifle fire, that we had to get the _Omaha_ and _Ringdove_ to shell them out of some paddy fields and clumps of bamboo trees. They tried to steal round the beach and cut a few of us off, and just as we were getting "busy" with them, young Ford and Rawlings came rushing up again, right in the middle of everything, and squeaked out that fat little Rashleigh was taking that wretched Chinese gun aboard the _Ringdove_, that he had actually got it aboard one of his boats, and was just going to shove off, and that as Whitmore was on the sick list, and "B.-T." had gone off to the _Vigilant_, couldn’t I do something? They wanted me to go to the Skipper, or something like that, and tell him that it really belonged to the _Vigilant_.

"My dear young gentlemen," I told them, when we’d stopped a bit of a rush, "if you’ll be so obliging as to go out there and ask about five hundred Chinamen, who are very anxious to obtain specimens of our livers, to cease firing and stop where they are till we’ve decided who shall own their toy cannon, I’ll do the best I can to help you. Tell them that the matter won’t admit of delay, and no doubt they will oblige you."

They looked angry, and rushed away to try and interest someone else in the important question.

Gradually everyone was withdrawn from the shore, till there was no one except the Skipper, myself, and my marines remaining. We kept the fellows at bay till the barge came along for us, and then we bolted down to her and scrambled in, the Skipper being actually the last to embark. We had hardly begun to shove off, before the Chinese had lined the other side of that bank and began firing at us; but two can play at that game, and we had another boat and the steam pinnace lying off, to cover our retreat, and they peppered them pretty severely.

The _Vigilant_ had come round to meet us, and we got away out of range all right and alongside her by seven bells in the afternoon, just in time for afternoon tea.

As soon as I could manage to do so, I slipped away to Truscott’s cabin, and found him much more cheerful.

Old Mayhew had said that he couldn’t tell what would happen till the end of the third day, and this was the third day since he was wounded, and he had no bad symptoms.

"To tell the truth, soldier," he whispered, "I’m as hungry as a hunter; tinned milk and soda water ain’t very filling, and Mayhew won’t let me have anything else, and precious little of that."

I felt pretty well "done up", now that everything was finished, so Grainger got me a steaming hot bath, and I turned in and slept till next morning.

Before I went to sleep, Grainger came back looking very cheerful. He held up my two damaged pairs of trousers. "We can do ’em all right, sir; one pair ’as a slit in the right leg, and the other a split over the left knee. We’ll ’ave a try at taking ’em to pieces, and makin’ one good pair out the two of ’em, sir."

"All right, Grainger; it will be better than having nothing to wear at all, won’t it?" I told him, and went to sleep.

I copied this list of casualties from somewhere or other, and think that it is pretty accurate as far as our own ships and the _Omaha_ are concerned, though I cannot guarantee the figures given for the _Huan Min_.

The "slightly wounded" were those requiring some treatment, and most of those who were on the sick list only a few days.

CASUALTIES DURING OPERATIONS ROUND HECTOR ISLAND.

Captured and subse− Slightly Severely Died of quently Name of Ship. Landed. Wounded. Wounded. Killed. Wounds. rescued.

Offi− Offi− Offi− Offi− Offi− Offi− cers Men cers Men cers Men cers Men cers Men cers Men

Vigilant, 15 145 8 75 4 27 1 9 ... 2 1 2 Ringdove, 3 34 2 23 ... 5 ... 2 ... ... ... ... Sparrow, 2 39 2 20 ... 9 ... 6 ... 1 ... ... Goldfinch, 2 32 1 16 ... 3 ... 3* ... ... ... ... Omaha, 4 41 2 27 ... 8 1 2 ... ... ... ... Huan Min. 1 56 1 29? ... 16 ... 8 ... 1? ... ...

Totals, 27 347 16 190 4 68 2 30 ... 4 1 2

* This includes the two men killed by the six−inch projectile which struck the Goldfinch.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*Ford saves "Old Lest’s" Life*

The Vigilant to the Rescue—Rushing the Gun—Ford is Miserable—The Ringdove Steals the Gun—Ford Bucks up Again—Mr. Rashleigh and the Gun—The Burial at Sea—Letters from Home—A Letter from Nan

_Written by Midshipman Ford_

Before I tell you anything else, I must tell you this—it is the only thing I can think about at present, and has wiped out all the silly, and idiotic, and bad-tempered things I have ever done—I have saved Captain Lester’s life.

But for me—Dick Ford, a midshipman only just out of the _Britannia_, a worm, I suppose you would call me—he would be dead now, and Mrs. Lester and Nan and his other girls, and all Upton Overy, would be awfully miserable, and everybody else who had ever known him.

I just look at him when he’s striding up and down the quarterdeck, and think that now, in a way, he belongs just a little bit to me. I know that his coxswain, and the signalman, and any number of others who were near him when the Chinese broke our square, saved his life a great number of times; but you have read what Captain Marshall wrote, and know what happened, and what, by good luck, I was able to do, so I don’t mind in the least sharing him with all of them, so long as I know that a bit of him does belong to me.

You see, I knew all the time that I’d really only made an ass of myself when I was captured, and had my arm broken, and all that, and that instead of helping him in any way, I really had only muddled up his plans. Just before we began the march back to the coast, Jim and I had a long yarn about what was best for me to do, and the only thing he could suggest—you know, of course, that I only had one arm to use—was for me to keep as close to the Captain as he would let me, and always have my revolver handy, in case any Chinese did get near him. Jim said that there was always the chance of some chaps trying to rush us, and it was the only thing he could think of, and as the Captain only had his big oak stick, and never thought of danger to himself in the least little bit, I might make myself useful. Well, that is why I am so absolutely happy—I feel now as though nothing can ever make me feel really miserable again, for long—because if anything does begin to do so, I just think about Captain Lester, and that stops it.

When I finished telling you about that awful night in the walled house, we had heard the sound of the Maxim gun firing, and knew that the Captain was coming along to rescue us. That made us all "buck up" tremendously, and the fog lifted a little, and it began to grow lighter, and we could just see the wall and the half-closed gateway, and some of the dead people lying about, and presently we heard the sound of firing coming nearer, and began to think that another half-hour would bring them to us, and that Sally would then be absolutely safe.

The pirates were not worrying us at all—there had hardly been a shot for the last two hours—and we guessed that most of them had gone away to try and stop the Captain coming.

We even walked about the space inside the walls and counted the dead bodies—there were forty-seven—and peeped through the two gateways, and collected some more Mauser rifles and any amount more ammunition. We made a fire too, and found some food in the house, and tried to make Sally eat some breakfast, but she couldn’t touch anything, and went to sleep again.

We thought that everything was going on jolly well. My arm was not nearly so painful—I had had some sleep; Mr. Ching was very cheerful; Sally and Mr. Hobbs were both sound asleep; and Miller and the old Scotchman were coiled up asleep as well. Martin, the marine—well, I’m not certain whether I cared much for him—kept on grumbling about his arm, and reminding me that he wouldn’t have broken it or been taken prisoner but for having tried to save me. That rather irritated me after a time. Mr. Ching and I were listening to the sound of the firing, and looking through a window in the direction from which it came, watching the fog clearing away from the low land on that side, when all of a sudden there came a roaring noise out of the fog, and something struck the house close to us with a crash, and we heard stones falling on to the ground below.

We ran to where it had struck, and found holes big enough for me to climb through in both the front and back walls.

Mr. Ching gasped out, "They must have brought up a field gun;" and we looked, but the fog wasn’t thin enough yet for us to see anything. He was very frightened, and ran up to that little square room with the iron shutters, and came down with Sally in his arms, took her out of the house and laid her down behind the wall, where it was very thick. He was only looking frightened because of her, I know that, and that he was just like Captain Lester in never being frightened about himself. Martin and Mr. Hobbs came scooting out too.

They kept on firing that gun, and sometimes they hit the wall and sometimes the house; and presently Miller, who had woke up, peeped over the wall, and said he could see the gun, and he lifted me up to look over, and I saw it as well, under some trees, about five hundred yards away, along the ridge on which the house was standing. He and Mr. Ching and the bluejackets began firing at the men round it; but they couldn’t see it clearly because of the smoke it made and the fog, and as they didn’t really know how to sight the Mauser rifles properly, they didn’t seem to be able to hit anybody.

At any rate, we couldn’t stop it firing, and it was knocking the house to pieces.

Then a shot struck the top of the wall, and made a gap in it, and stones went flying round, and one struck a bluejacket sitting down, not far from where Sally was, still asleep, struck him on the head, and killed him. Mr. Ching didn’t know what to do, because he was so worried lest she should be hurt; and two or three more came along, all hitting the wall, and it was jolly unsafe to stay anywhere near it, so we made her go and lie down behind a very big stone or rock behind the house, and leant some planks of wood against it to make a kind of roof to keep off falling stones.

Her father crept under them too.

If the firing became more dangerous, Mr. Ching did think of lowering her down a shallow well in the garden under the trees, but that was never wanted.

The rifle and Maxim firing became very heavy, and we could hear it coming rapidly nearer, and the fog, which was still lying very dense below the house, now swept away, and we could see that there were flat paddy fields there with a small hill on the other side. It was glorious to be able to look all round again, and suddenly Chinamen went flying down our side of that hill opposite, and we could hear cheering, and then, in a minute or two, some dark figures, waving their arms over their heads, came on to the sky line, and we knew that they were our people, and we all cheered tremendously.

You can have no idea what we all felt like, because, although we were expecting them, it was quite a different feeling when we actually saw them.

"Look there, Miller!" I shouted. "There’s a dog there running backwards and forwards;" and Miller spotted it too, and I knew that it must be jolly old "Blucher", and that the Captain must be there.

Mr. Ching asked me if I could signal to them, and I managed to do so, climbing up to the top of the square room, and getting out through a hole which the field gun had made in the roof. I was so fearfully excited and happy, that I forgot all about the danger from the gun, and Mr. Ching helped me up and steadied my feet, and I waved a long bamboo, and signalled in Morse that we were all well, but that the gun was doing damage. I saw some tiny little flags waving to say that the signalman with the Captain had read it, and then Mr. Ching pulled me down, and only just in time, because the field gun made two more holes close by, almost immediately afterwards.

I was too much excited to worry about the gun in the least—we all were—and went and watched them over the wall at the side, and saw some dark figures come racing down the hill, and presently others whom I knew were marines came along after them and joined up in the paddy fields, and I thought I could recognize Mr. Travers and Captain Marshall by their long legs. It made me go just a little hot all over to see Captain Marshall, because I hadn’t forgotten what he had said when I had run away from the bullets, near those burning huts, and didn’t quite want to see him.