Part 4

Dicky came down to help me find my things—he was not to land—and the strange little beggar excitedly strapped on my gaiters, to save time. As you know, I was one of the Mids of "A" company, and was on deck again in a brace of shakes to see my half company of twenty-five men fall in, my heart simply thumping with delight when I saw one of the gunner’s mates passing round ball cartridge. I don’t know anything which gives you more of a thrill than the feel of a handful of loose cartridges, when you know that you may have to use them, in a few minutes, for the real thing.

In twenty minutes we were halfway ashore, towed by the steam pinnace. Looking back, we could see the sides of the _Vigilant_ and the gunboats, simply looking as if they’d been painted red and glowing; and as we drew nearer the shore, it seemed to us that the whole town was on fire, the flames roaring and crackling in the most terrifying manner. Right up above the flames and the smoke we saw the Joss House on top of the hill all lighted up too, and perhaps what was the weirdest thing of all, was that funny strange sound that a frightened mob always makes.

Mr. Travers, the lieutenant of "A" company, formed up directly we landed, about fifty yards from the edge of the water, and we had to keep back an excited crowd which began to gather, while "B" company and the marines scrambled ashore and dragged the fire engines and hoses out of the boats.

I don’t think that I had ever been so excited in my life. It was rather nervous work too, for the Chinese began pressing against us—an evil-looking crowd they were, come from the old town, we learnt afterwards—but Mr. Travers was simply splendid. He is a tall, thin, frightfully lackadaisical and aristocratic-looking man, and he stood there, in front of "A" company, and never stirred a muscle, though the natives thronged around him and hustled him. You would have thought that he did not even see them. Presently some stones began flying amongst us from somewhere at the back of the mob, and my men began to get impatient—you could feel that, even without watching them shuffling from one foot to the other, or jamming their caps down on their heads, or pulling their chin stays down, as if they were getting ready for a scrap. The crowd got bolder then, and began to press still more closely. I was nearly separated from my half company, and was really rather nervous, when Mr. Travers sang out: "’A’ company, at ’shun! Fix swords!"[#] I repeated: "Left half company! Fix swords!" and was very relieved to do so, I need hardly tell you, and drew my dirk. The men all bent down to the left, and it was very comforting to hear the rattle of their bayonets being snapped on the rifles. "’A’ company! Stand at ease!" sang out Mr. Travers, and you could see the two lines of bayonets, like streaks of light, looking jolly sharp and pointed.

[#] Bluejackets’ bayonets are always spoken of as "swords" in the navy, and the order is always, "Fix swords". The Royal Marines give the order, "Fix bayonets".

The Chinese didn’t stay too close after that, especially as the remainder of the men had landed by this time, and we began to advance up the beach and into the town. It was very unpleasant at first, because the flames seemed so close and almost scorched us, roaring in places so loudly that we could not hear any orders. We had to move aside, too, every now and then, to avoid burning pieces of wood that fell, but we gradually worked round in front of the fire, to make our way uphill towards the Mission House, and pressed along through the streets which had not yet been attacked. A Chinese street is bad enough in the daytime, but it was perfectly horrid now, and we had to force our way along, pressing a yelling "smelling" mob in front of us. These streets were almost dark, too, which made it all the worse, and I don’t know how we managed to get along as well as we did, stumbling at every other step, and lurching into each other. I tried to keep as close to Mr. Travers as possible, but it was almost like a free fight, and we shoved and pushed for all we were worth, sometimes having even to use our fists to clear a way. More often than not, I was simply carried forward by the pressure of my men behind me, and all the time we could hear the fire roaring and crackling only two or three streets off. We had first to make a wide sweep round to the right, then go uphill to get round the fire and above it, and then back again to the left in order to get between it and the Mission, where, of course, we knew that the missionary, his wife, Mr. Hobbs, and his daughter must be in great danger. We fought our way along as fast as we could, and presently got into a broader street, where the crowd did not bother us so much, and where we made much better progress, but were right to leeward of the burning town, and were smothered with smoke and sparks. Just then Jim Rawlings rushed up—he was acting as "doggy" to the Commander—bringing with him a native, covered with blood. "The Commander wants you to hurry on as fast as you can," he told Mr. Travers; "they’re looting the Mission. This man will show you the way; he’s one of the Mission servants."

"My God, that’s what I feared!" groaned Mr. Travers, and shouted to the men to "double". "Double, men! double!" and ’A’ company, spitting and choking and coughing, because of the smoke, commenced running. From somewhere in the rear the Commander joined us, Jim panting behind him. He had his sword drawn, and looked terrible. "I’ve brought ten more men, Travers," he gasped, and had enough breath to shout: "Keep it up! Keep it up, men! There are women to be saved!" The men yelled, and went even faster than before, panting and sweating. We’d got above the town, well clear of the fire, but we could still feel its heat, and were wet through with sweat. The Chinese servant couldn’t keep up with us, but that did not matter, for we suddenly turned a corner and saw, three hundred yards ahead of us, the white walls of the Mission House, and saw that it was surrounded by a howling mob of natives.

I heard the Commander give a groan, a funny kind of sob it was, and he and Mr. Travers and Jim and I simply tore along. We hadn’t more than four men with us, because the others, with their rifles in their hands, were not able to run so fast; but I don’t think anybody would have stopped, even if he had been alone, and the mob had been twice as big. You thought of nothing but pretty little Sally Hobbs with her great eyes and her cropped hair. Suddenly, from a street on our left, darted a tall figure, brandishing a sword and followed by twenty or thirty more. They rushed out from the dark shadows of the houses, and we thought they were going to attack us—at any rate, I did—and I don’t mind confessing that I felt frightened, though chiefly, I think, because a scrap with them would hinder us from rescuing Sally Hobbs. One of our men fired his rifle, we heard a yell of pain, and then, before we could do anything more, the leader came out into the firelight, and we saw that it was Lieutenant Ching, of the _Huan Min_. "Come on, sir!" he shouted, and we all mixed together in a crowd, and ran as fast as we could. Two huge Tartar bluejackets panted beside me, their felt boots hardly making the least noise, and I don’t think that I shall ever forget them, or their white faces, or the sound of their breathing as they ran alongside me, making not the least noise with their feet.

The mob was so busy, trying to fight a way for itself into the Mission, that they didn’t see us till we were right among them. Mr. Ching got there first, then the Commander and Mr. Travers, and I and the two Tartars plunged in after them, and fought our way towards the little gate. Just as we plunged in, the mob gave a great howl of delight, and I saw flames shoot out from the downstairs windows. This took their attention away from us, but it was awful, and we hit all the harder. They didn’t oppose us much till we got to the gateway, and there we met a stream of them coming back from the house, loaded with chairs and clothes and all sorts of things. We had a fierce tussle for a minute or two, knocked them over or brushed them aside, and rushed up the path to a verandah. It was then that I missed Mr. Travers. I had simply been following close behind, squeezing into the gap he made in front, but now, all of a sudden, I missed him.

The remainder of "A" company had arrived by this time, and we could hear them at the back of the mob, fighting their way through to us. Some of them began shooting, so the Commander sent me back to steady them—a jolly difficult job, too, and I didn’t like going through the crowd by myself; but they seemed to clear aside, and I managed to get hold of one or two of the petty officers, and gradually got the men into something like order. There wasn’t any need to shoot, because the crowd had now fallen back in alarm, and were only booing and yelling and throwing stones.

Then I saw a commotion in the crowd, and suddenly that big German, who had come on board once with Mr. Hobbs, and beaten the Captain at weight-lifting, burst through and rushed past me, his face all drawn and haggard. "She’s lost, mein Gott! She’s lost! Too late!" and he dashed into the burning house, and I heard him roaring, "Sally!"

Jim Rawlings came up panting and asking for ten men, and disappeared with them among the sparks and smoke, into the darkness behind the house, which was now a mass of flames from top to bottom, with big flames licking out from every window. The heat was intense. It was really a most awful time, with the burning house behind me and that mob of wild people below, all longing to cut our throats, only not daring to rush us, because they had no one to lead them. I could still hear the Commander’s voice bellowing inside the house and calling the missionary and Mrs. Macpherson, and Mr. Hobbs and Sally, by name—but no one answered, and there was no sign of any of them. For one moment Mr. Ching appeared at an upper window, then the roof began to fall in, but they both crawled out on to the verandah before it collapsed altogether with a crash.

They would have been buried and burnt alive if they had stayed another second.

"That German man has just gone in, sir."

"He’s dead by now," the Commander answered grimly, and my blood seemed to go quite cold, as the flames rushed up into the sky, hundreds of feet up, and I knew that Mr. Hoffman was being burnt to ashes.

The rest of our people—the marines and "B" company, with the fire engines—came up now, and the crowd split in two to let them pass, and I had an insane hope that even then they might be able to save that German; but by the time they had dragged the hand pumps up the path, and got their hoses led to a little stream at the back of the house, they might just as well have tried to put the fire out by spitting at it.

Seeing that there was no chance of looting any more, the crowd seemed to melt away. Probably they went off to loot elsewhere. They were more of the old town mob, and weren’t going to waste time, I expect.

The Commander ordered the pumps to stop heaving—it was really silly to go on with them—and then we scattered in little parties to search the hill behind the house. The Commander was fearfully angry because Mr. Travers was not there to take charge of his men. "He’s never where he’s wanted," he said, and took most of "A" company away with him.

"Where can Mr. Travers have gone?" I kept on wondering, but hadn’t much time for thinking, as I only had been left a very few men to guard the burning house, and there were still a good many prowling Chinese sneaking round, and I had to make my men keep them away. It seemed an awfully long time before suddenly we heard a shout and a cheer from somewhere up the hill. "Thank God, sir, they’ve found that pretty little American lady!" one of my petty officers said. "It’s worth spoiling our clothes for that;" and in a minute or two Mr. Ching came out from the darkness into the glare, bearing in his arms a woman. It wasn’t Sally Hobbs, however, but Mrs. Macpherson—I could see her black hair. As he came into the light I saw him look down at her face with a strange expression, and then he gave a groan—I was near enough to hear—laid her on the ground somewhat roughly, and disappeared again. Her husband came too—he was a "rotter".

"Where’s Sally Hobbs?" I asked, jumping across.

He shook his head, as he supported his wife. "Don’t know. She and her father went out to see the fire directly it started, and we’ve not seen them since."

That sent the blood to my feet again and I felt terrible, and almost thought of taking my men down into the town to try and find her, though, of course, that would have been idiotic; and, too, I had to stop where I was till the Commander came back. However, I sent an able seaman to find the Commander, and presently I heard the bugles sounding the "retire" and the "fall in", and gradually the men came scrambling out of the dark and formed up in the road in front of the ruins of the house. Lieutenant Ching and his men came back too.

"What’s to be done now," the Commander asked, when he had heard the missionary’s story. Mr. Ching turned a haggard face towards the town, where the fire had nearly burnt itself out, and the greatest noise was the noise of the mob, and I saw him shake his head in a terribly sad way, "You no good there. I take my men down and try and find news." He had no sword—he must have dropped it—but in his hand was a grey tam-o’-shanter hat, and I recognized it as the one Sally Hobbs was wearing that day she came down into the gunroom. He was clutching it very tightly, and suddenly fell on the ground. Our Surgeon, Dr. Barclay, was over him in a moment. He had only fainted, but then it turned out that he had been struck by that bullet, which one of our men had fired, just as he and his men had joined us on the road. It had gone clean through his left shoulder, and he had lost a tremendous lot of blood. How he had managed to keep "going" all this time, Dr. Barclay couldn’t understand, and I wondered how he had managed to carry Mrs. Macpherson, and then remembered that he had put her down rather clumsily, and understood why. He called to one of his men, gave him some hurried orders, and then they all disappeared towards the town. "Sent them to try and find news," he told the Commander. It was practically dark now because the fires had gone out, but presently the _Vigilant’s_ searchlights were turned on to us and made it less horrid. Some Chinese soldiers also came running up, followed a little later by the Taotai himself from the old city, in his sedan chair, and surrounded by more soldiers.

He was in a terrible fright when he found that he was too late, and that Mr. Hobbs and his daughter had not been found. He did not stay long, and took his men down to the town to keep order and find news of them.

As there was nothing more to do till daybreak, the Commander sent most of the men back to the ship with the fire engines, and I had to go back with "A" company, as Mr. Travers had not appeared. It was horrid work finding our way back to the sea, but I hardly remember it, for I was very sleepy and awfully miserable, and simply stumbled back, half asleep, thinking of Sally and her father and that German, and of what could have happened to Mr. Travers.

We got aboard about half-past three in the morning, and I turned into my hammock, tired and miserable, and pretended that I was asleep when Dicky tried to ask for news, although I wasn’t able to sleep for thinking, and for being so miserable.

*CHAPTER IV*

*The Loss of Lieutenant Travers*

No News of Sally Hobbs—A Discovery—Those Villainous Pirates!—The Skipper is Furious—Weary Waiting—The Skipper Rages—"I’ll do ’em yet"

_Written by Commander Leonard Umfreville Truscott, R.N._

You have already heard of that disastrous fire at Tinghai, and of our failure to rescue the American, Mr. Hobbs, and his daughter Sally, the strange disappearance of Travers, and the death of that German fellow, so that I will tell you of what happened afterwards.

After sending Whitmore, our Gunnery Lieutenant, back to the ship with the fire engines, the marines, and "A" company, I waited for daylight, guarding what was left of the Mission House with "B" company. Our failure to save little Sally Hobbs and her father cast a great gloom over my men, which was still further increased when it became evident that something serious must have happened to account for the absence of Travers. Young Ford was most positive that he had seen him enter the Mission gate, but after that no one seems to have seen him. However, we fully expected him to turn up at daybreak, and could do nothing to assist him till then, if he had in some way or other lost his way in the darkness.

But I don’t mind confessing that to protect Sally Hobbs was uppermost in the minds of every officer and man who had landed that night, and the thought of her, surrounded by a howling mob of maddened Chinamen, was the spur which had urged everyone so wildly through the streets. Our failure and her probable fate, down in the burning town, made us bite our lips in great agony of mind. Fifty times during the night was I implored by my men to take them down into the town itself; but I knew that it would be useless, and that lost among those narrow, straggling streets, and unable to keep in touch with one another, we should be simply courting disaster. If I had been alone I suppose that I should have gone, and it was a great strain not to go, and take my eager men with me; but I had no right to risk their lives uselessly. It was quite another pair of shoes for Ching and his men, because they were among their own countrymen, and ran little risk by doing so. Ching, himself, as soon as Barclay had dressed his shoulder—it was most unfortunate that one of our people had wounded him—followed his men there and left us to ourselves. I told him that we should remain near the Mission all night, and resume our search in the morning. Poor fellow, I think he was as distressed as any of us were at the fate of the little American girl, for even his thin, usually expressionless face showed traces of the anguish which we all felt. In the house he had found a grey tam-o’-shanter cap which she had worn, and I saw him stuff it into his tunic, and, you may be sure, was in no mood to chaff him about it.

Mrs. Macpherson told me, before her husband took her away to the house of some native convert, that directly the fire had started down in the town, Sally Hobbs, poor little girl, had made her father take her down to see it, throwing a shawl over her head and hurrying away, just as she would have done in America, in spite of the earnest entreaties of Macpherson himself.

As day dawned, Ching brought his men back, their faces and uniforms blackened and torn. "I have no news, sir. Not a trace of her to be found;" and then he threw himself down on the ground, utterly exhausted. His men—Tartars of splendid physique—were as worn out as he was.

As I expected, Captain Lester sent me a fresh lot of men, and food for the few I had kept with me. I therefore started with them to make a more systematic search than it had been possible to make in the darkness, leaving my other fellows to share their food with their Chinese comrades. We searched the ground behind the Mission, examining every hut and outhouse as we went, and gradually spread out towards the left and towards a little bay or sweep of the coast, which here ran into the land. For an hour we searched without result, but then a seaman came running back with a uniform glove which he had picked up by the side of a small path running down towards the sea and that small cove. The glove might or might not have belonged to Travers, but I knew that he was probably the only one of us who would have worn gloves—he was rather eccentric about dress—so hoped that this might be some clue to his disappearance, and followed the path. Almost immediately another man picked up a handkerchief. The initials in one corner were H.C.L.—those of Lawrence, our navigator—but though he had not landed, I knew that Travers had a weakness for borrowing other people’s things, and my hopes were again raised. I am afraid that my brain wasn’t working properly—the terrible night was responsible for that—and for the life of me I could not imagine what reason could have brought Travers along this path. We yelled his name, my bugler boy blew the "close", but without result, except that all the mongrel curs in the neighbourhood started yapping and howling.

I followed that path till it dipped over the crest of a ridge and then led down to the little bay below us—a little bay with a curved mud beach. My men were on the point of rushing down to it, when Trevelyan, the Lieutenant who had brought them ashore and relieved Whitmore, suggested that we might find traces of footmarks to help us. I therefore sounded the "halt", and he and I went down alone. Trevelyan was quite right, the muddy shore was covered with footmarks in one place, and there were also three long furrows in the mud, evidently made by the keels of boats. These furrows led right up to high-water mark, and my brain was not too dense to appreciate the fact that three boats had been there at high water. We could trace the furrows for fifteen feet or more down the shore, and one went much farther than the others. "They shoved them off and had to push hard, sir," cried Trevelyan, bending down and showing me how deep some footmarks were, and how the mud was piled up at the back of them. "It was at the last tide too, sir, otherwise they would have been washed flat again." That was evident enough, but I couldn’t think what he was driving at.

"When was Travers last seen, sir?"

"About one o’clock in the morning—there or thereabouts," I told him.

"Well, high tide was at about midnight, so these boats must have been shoved off about an hour and a half afterwards, half an hour or so after you lost Travers." He was getting quite excited, but, honestly, my brain wouldn’t work.

"And this boat must have been later still, sir," and he pointed to the longer furrow.

Then there was a yell above us from some of the men who had been wandering about, and we saw several of them stooping over a clump of scraggy bushes, and one came down to tell me that they had found some dead Chinamen.

I went up and saw two—disgusting objects they were—with their noses and lips cut off. I couldn’t stand the sight; I’d had no breakfast, and walked away, feeling dazed and sick, and opened my mouth and drew in the sea breeze to drive the smoke fumes away from my head.

Trevelyan joined me in a few minutes. "One of those fellows has been shot at very close quarters, for his clothes are singed and blackened, and the other has had his head battered in. Look, sir! they must have been dragged along there," and he pointed to a broad mark, running along the mud from the bushes to the furrows.