Part 7

"That’s all right, sir, never mind about the island; you’ll be getting her out in the open, and she’ll think you’re just trying to give her a wide berth." Then I remembered Dicky, and shouted through the little sliding door for him to come and see the fun. He scrambled up on the poop, rubbing his eyes, and we both stood looking at her, feeling frightened because she looked so big and came on so like a ghost, and didn’t notice that we were getting wet through. I did wish then that the _Ringdove_ was in sight.

"How about letting the hands have food, sir? Maybe, if we’ve luck, we’re like to be busy later on, sir!"

Of course Scroggs was right, and Dicky said that Nelson always gave his men food before going into action—he squeaked again, he was so nervous—and that settled it; and the men were turned out, and were almost too excited to eat anything. Ah Chee was quite stupid and silly when we tried to wake him—he must have been smoking opium during the night—and the men had to make their own cocoa. Dicky and I managed to gulp some down, and had a couple of gingerbread biscuits each. We didn’t like looking at each other for fear of giving away our—well—funk, though it wasn’t exactly funk.

By this time it was quite light, and the island was about three miles away, right under our port bow, and the huge Chinaman was about half a mile astern, and still a little to leeward.

We dragged Ah Chee out of his hole again, but he hadn’t recovered, and staggered about, shaking all over; and when he’d steadied himself, got both eyes to focus properly, and seen the junk, he simply let out a howl and crawled back, yelling "Pilons! Pilons!" which made me feel creepy, although I had to pretend it didn’t. I had to pretend jolly hard.

"He’ll kill himself with that pipe, sir, and we’ll want him later on," Scroggs said, but I didn’t know what to do. "You leave ’im to me, sir," and Scroggs dragged him out again, took away his pipe and tobacco and opium, and then shut him down in the forehold and jammed the hatch cover over it. Glad enough too he was to crawl into it.

The strange junk was coming up finely, heeling over and splashing through the water. We could only see one man on board, standing on the poop watching us, and he looked peaceable enough.

"She’s got guns—I can see them sticking out!" Dicky squealed; but that didn’t make it certain that she was a pirate, because all merchant junks carry guns too. "Couldn’t we go for her now, Scroggs, don’t you think? She isn’t half a mile off."

Dicky and I were so excited and "quivery", we could hardly breathe, and this waiting for her to catch up with us was the worst part. But Scroggs wouldn’t alter course, and said: "Just you ’oist the mains’l, sir, and get them tarpaulins off the guns, and stand by. When she sees that ’ere mains’l creaking up, she’ll guess we’re frightened, and maybe she’ll let fly at us."

We got the tarpaulins off, and the men began working the clumsy windlass which hoisted the mainsail, and the great "clammy" thing went squeaking up the mast. That made us go faster and heel over more.

The guns were all painted a dirty grey, so didn’t show up at all, but just what Scroggs had expected happened. The junk all at once luffed up, shot up into the wind, came on to an even keel, her great sails began flapping, we could see men pouring up from below, and four white clouds of smoke shot out from her port side, and before we could say "knife", there were four splashes in the water behind us, and one shot came ricochetting over us, humming like a top, and fell into the sea ahead of us.

Dicky and I ducked, and then we looked up to see if the ricochet had done any damage, and Scroggs pointed out a hole in the mainsail, close to the mast, where it must have gone through, and a piece of sail flapping down.

I’m certain that I wasn’t frightened then, for I thought more of the mast than myself, and knew what a bad "egg" it would have been if the shot hadn’t missed it.

I looked at Scroggs.

"Give ’em one, sir! Give ’em one!" he was beaming all over his face; "we can ’ardly miss ’er, sir."

I shouted for the six-pounder to open fire, but the mainsail was in the way, and they couldn’t get the sights on.

"Gun won’t bear, sir," the captain of the gun shouted, and I jumped for’ard to see for myself that he was right.

"What shall I do now?" I asked Scroggs, and felt stupid, and could just see the pirate junk paying off again to give us her other broadside.

She seemed so close that there wasn’t time to think.

"Put your helm down and come into the wind yourself, sir."

I shouted to Dicky to do so, and the _Sally_ came up all shaking.

"Now you’ve got her," Scroggs said, and as he spoke the junk shot off her starboard guns, and we could hear them yelling and beating tom-toms. There was too much to do this time to "duck", and besides, they had fallen astern by luffing and then paying off again, so their shots didn’t come so close.

Then Fergusson, the captain of the six-pounder, fired. The little shell burst as it touched the water halfway across, and we heard the pirates yell again. Scroggs let out a dozen oaths, and told him to steady himself; and his next went nearer, and the next burst close alongside, and they didn’t cheer that—they’d never seen shell burst before, I expect, and wondered what it was, and how we could fire so fast.

"Take your time," I shouted, and was so excited that I bit a great piece out of my lip. We fired again, and must have hit her, for a cloud of smoke came out of her bows, and a very different kind of yell came back, and we yelled too; but she’d loaded again by this time, luffed up, and gave us her port guns. There was a crash and a whistling sound, and out through the poop bounded a round shot, struck against a big chock of wood at the foot of the mainmast, and bounced overboard. It only missed one of the men at the tiller by a hair’s breadth, and he let out a squeal, he was so surprised, and then got red and tried to pretend that it wasn’t him. "They’re only smooth bores," Scroggs shouted. "Who’s squealing like a furry rabbit?" and Fergusson fired again—she wasn’t four hundred yards away—and missed her. They started easing off rifles at us too, and the bullets went splattering through the sails and splashing into the water.

The _Sally_ had been jumping about up to now—that was why Fergusson had kept on missing—but for just about two minutes she was quite steady. She almost seemed to know things were not quite all right, and Fergusson must have got off a dozen rounds, and nearly all of them hit. I was so excited, I yelled every time, and we could see smoke coming out and pieces of wood flying, and though she turned to give us her starboard broadside, she didn’t fire them, and fell right off the wind, with her stern facing us. She wasn’t three hundred yards off, and suddenly remembering the Maxim gun, I rushed aft; but before I could climb up the poop, Dicky turned out "trumps" and began firing. "Tut tut—tut tut," it went, and you could see a lane of bullet splashes; and as we lifted our stern they must have poured into her, and we heard shrieking, and could see the Chinamen throwing up their arms and falling, till the roll of the _Sally_ took the sights off again.[#]

[#] A Maxim gun is an extremely difficult weapon to use, unless the gun platform is absolutely steady.

Then the signalman shouted, "They’ve had enough, sir!" and we saw that they daren’t turn round again, and were easing off their sheets to run down wind.

You should have heard us cheer; and there wasn’t any need to tell the men at the helm to "hard a-starboard", for they did it of their own accord, and we eased away our sheets and ran after her.

"I thought he’d be sorry for it, sir," said Scroggs coming up. "Look up there, sir; that does one real good."

I looked, and saw that we had the White Ensign flying from the mizzen peak. Dicky and I grinned with delight. We’d been told not to hoist it—they’d not even given us one—but there it was—grand!

"I did that, sir," the signalman said bashfully. "Stole it aboard the _Vig._, sir," and he grinned, and everybody grinned at everybody else, and looked to see what damage that round shot had done, just for curiosity.

My aunt! we did just bubble through the water, half burying our bows; the breeze must have freshened up without our noticing it. The pirate was digging out too, and had got a good start, and it wasn’t any use firing at her, because we had a funny corkscrew rolling motion, and couldn’t be certain of hitting anything. We only had two hundred rounds of shell to begin with, so I didn’t dare to waste them, and waited till we could draw up closer and make certain of hitting. She was making straight for the island, and at one time we thought that we must try and disable her before she ran herself ashore. Dicky and I began to talk about capturing her. We were little fools, as it turned out.

Presently we saw that a channel opened out, right in the middle of the island, and she was making straight for it. I got out our chart, but couldn’t find the island—not to make sure of it—so hauled Ah Chee out from the forehold. He was plucky enough now the pirate was running away, and nodded his head and said, "Vely good—vely good—plenty good," and pointed to the channel, so I knew we were all right to follow her.

She was almost in it before we began firing at her, and we hit her big square poop time after time, and saw pieces of wood flying in the air; but it didn’t seem to make any difference to her, and she still kept on steadily.

In another three minutes we shot into the channel ourselves—between high cliffs—and as the tide was running with us and the strong wind behind us, we scooted along at a tremendous pace. We were catching her up fast, too, and had got to within two hundred yards, and Fergusson began pouring in six-pounder shells. I really wanted to frighten her so much that she would surrender, and I would be able to tow her back to the _Vigilant_, and give her up to Captain Lester. And I wanted to take back some of the crew as well, for Captain Lester had told me, "Don’t want dead ’uns; dead ’uns don’t tell things".

The noise our little gun made was tremendous, now that we were in between high rocks. You could hear a crash! crash! and then a rolling sound and another crash after every shot. It must have frightened the pirates, if it did nothing else; and whatever happened I don’t know, but we suddenly saw her main shrouds on one side give way, her fore mainmast bent over like a whip, and before they could do anything, down it came with a snap, and the great sail with it, and the foremast and foresail went too a moment later, and she simply seemed to stop dead, turning her broadside to us and unable to move—just like a huge bird with one wing broken.

I had an insane idea of running alongside, but Scroggs put our helm hard down, and we swung round like a top, not fifty yards from her, and slid up into the wind. I rushed aft, furious with him.

"You’d have been atop of her in another second, sir."

"That’s what I wanted," I said angrily. "What d’you mean by touching the helm?"

"Begging your pardon, sir, if you once got alongside, we’d be done for! She’s got a hundred men aboard, and we twelve wouldn’t ’ave stood a chance."

But I was so excited, that I never thought of that, and was just going to give him a piece of my mind about his cheek, when the pirate let off his broadside right in our faces. We were so close that the noise seemed to knock our ears in. I was half stunned and dazed, felt something hot all over me, and was thrown against the mast. I picked myself up, and found my hands and my clothes covered with blood. Scroggs was nowhere to be seen, two of the Hotchkiss gun’s crew were lying near the gun groaning, and the dinghy had been smashed to pieces.

Sharpe, the second petty officer, was bringing the _Sally_ round into the wind again, and Dicky was busy with the Maxim gun, but the six-pounder wouldn’t bear—the mainsail was in the way.

"Heaps of time, sir," Sharpe said, looking at me in a funny way. "They daren’t go near their guns to reload ’em. I thought you’d been killed, sir!"

"What happened?" I asked him, trying to shake the blood from my face and eyes; I felt quite stupid. "Where’s Scroggs?"

"Scroggs is gone, sir. One o’ them round shot took him in the middle, just as you were standing by, and carried what was left of him overboard, and another struck some of the six-pounder cartridges, and they blew up and knocked over Adams and Cooke, and threw you up ag’in that mast, sir."

Poor old Scroggs! and I’d been beastly to him too. I have always been sorry for that.

Dicky gave a yell when he saw me. He looked funny about the eyes—rather mad—and burst out crying, just for a second. "I thought you’d been killed," he stuttered, "and I’ve killed dozens of those brutes to revenge you."

I shouted something, and a funny hot kind of feeling came up inside me, and the only thing I thought of was to go on killing; and we edged up, just to leeward of the junk, and fired at her with the six-pounder as fast as Fergusson could load—Sharpe had sent him two more hands, and had hauled Adams and Cooke aft, out of the way.

Not a single live Chinaman could we see on deck—they’d all gone down below out of sight—but every now and again we could hear shrieks coming from inside her, and knew that our shells were finding them out. I felt mad, and Dicky was mad, and only Sharpe kept his head. We must have made some holes in her below the waterline, because she was now much lower in the water, and I simply longed to see her sink and drown all the crew—I’d forgotten all about trying to capture her.

Then suddenly, as we were expecting her to go under, someone pointed down to leeward, down the channel, and, looking there, I saw four great junks beating up towards us. They were about a mile away, and had covered themselves with pendants and streamers—all the colours of the rainbow—and began firing guns to frighten us, I suppose.

I went cold all over, for I knew we couldn’t manage four more, and I saw that Sharpe thought so too. Dicky didn’t seem to be quite right in his head, for he shook his fist at them, and yelled to me that there were more for him to kill. "Off out of it, sir; we can’t tackle that lot. We’re only nine all told, not counting orficers, sir. Back again, sir; beat up to wind’ard, sir; and get away into the open sea."

We hadn’t a moment to lose, either, and I knew he was right, and stood away from the sinking junk, and started to beat up the channel, through which we had just entered. The entrance was about half a mile to wind’ard of us, the tide was against us, and jolly slow progress we made, though I knew it was the same for those who were chasing us. We’d sailed so much more quickly than that sinking junk, when we ran before the wind, that I hoped we should be as good when we were beating; but I soon had a most horrible feeling that we were not pointing so high as they were, and not going so fast through the water, either.

We had time to look after Adams and Cooke now—Adams had one thigh broken, and I knew that that wasn’t so bad; but Cooke had his hands and face and legs all badly burnt with the explosion, and was in awful pain. We made them as comfortable as we could down below under the poop, but it was horrid to hear Cooke moaning and shrieking sometimes.

We soon got so close inshore that we had to go about on the starboard tack, and we swung round and plugged away for the entrance, which never seemed to get any nearer. The junks behind us were still gaining, two of them very quickly. These two were leaving the others a long way astern, and just to show you what asinine ideas come to one, I thought for a moment that we might draw them on and on, till they were so separated that we could tackle them one at a time.

The breeze had been gradually freshening, and was now blowing down the channel quite hard, and as we went off on the starboard tack, we heeled over till the deck seemed almost upright (we were heeling over to port—the left side).

But then an awful thing happened. Suddenly, above my head, there was a noise like a pistol shot, and, looking up, I saw that one of the starboard main shrouds had parted, and that the mainmast was beginning to bend over. If I held on for another minute, the other two would be certain to go—the strain on them was awful—and the mast would have gone too. There was only one thing to be done, and I shrieked to "Hard a-port!" She heeled over, another shroud uncurled and parted, but before the last could go she staggered round into the wind, the strain was taken off, and the mast straightened again.

Sharpe came running aft; he was as white as a sheet. "It will take us an hour to repair, sir! What can we do?"

It was plain as a pikestaff that we couldn’t beat out. Everyone on board knew that at once, and they all looked to me, but knew what would have to be done just as well as I did, and I could see them watching the pirates out of the corners of their eyes.

The current was taking us down towards them, and they were all coming along at a tremendous rate. It was no use drifting among them helplessly; we couldn’t beat out with only the mizzen and foresail, so the only thing to do was to get before the wind again, with our sails out to starboard, so that most of the strain came on our port rigging, and try to run past them. Clarke and another man sprang up the mainmast, going up the big bamboo hoops which kept the sail close to the mast, and began reeving a temporary rope to act as a backstay, and we swung round, gybed very carefully, and the little _Sally_ went bounding back to them.

The only one on board who wasn’t—well—frightened was Dicky. He’d have charged an express train; he was so mad with fighting and killing people with that Maxim. We moved Cooke and Adams from under the poop, and put them down below in the big hold, out of danger, and by that time we were abreast the sinking junk; and as we went rushing by she gave a lurch, we saw her guns slide overboard, she went under, and we could see at least fifty Chinamen struggling in the water. Dicky yelled and shook his fist at them, and called them all the names he could lay his tongue to.

I had tried to keep my eye on those four junks all the time, and though I was still feeling "silly" after being "bashed" against the mast, I could see that they didn’t seem to know quite what to make of us. The leading ones were half a mile ahead of the others, and we were coming down so fast towards them that we didn’t give them much time to make up their minds. We saw them run into the wind for a second or two, and then they came along, on the other tack, straight for us, the leading one about two hundred yards in front of the second. They were almost as big as the one we had sunk, but only had three masts, so didn’t look quite so ferocious.

I thought that we could slip by and pass the first two to port (our left-hand side), but as we got closer it seemed to me that the first one was trying to ram us, and I had sense enough to know that if she did, our masts would probably go overboard, and that all would be U P with us. Sharpe was still up aloft, reeving that temporary shroud, so I couldn’t ask him what to do, and began to feel very frightened. Fergusson kept on firing the six-pounder very fast, and kept on hitting her, but that didn’t seem to have any effect, and she didn’t alter course. We were hardly fifty yards away now, and Fergusson let off that gun faster than ever, and we could actually hear the shells bursting and see the pieces of wood flying out of her bows, and gashes opening out in her foresail. Her crew were yelling most awfully, and making such a banging noise with tom-toms and brass clappers, that that frightened me all the more. We were simply tearing along, with the water bubbling along the sides like a mill stream. We should be into her, or she into us, in a moment, and I held my breath and clutched hold of something, not knowing what to do. The men at the helm were looking at me for orders—they looked scared, too—and I was just going to tell them to "starboard", when I saw her begin to luff up. I yelled to them to "steady", and before you could say "knife", she slid along our port side, with her huge sails leaning right over us. The horrid brutes were all hanging on and glaring at us, and they shrieked and yelled, and I saw some of them throw things at us, and some of them fire off rifles. She couldn’t fire her guns, because she was heeling over so much; but I knew she would let them off directly she was on a level keel, and I saw a lot of them scrambling over each other to get at them, and knew they would fire almost directly—right in our faces. But as they slid past, like an express train, Dicky began firing the Maxim right down in the middle of them.

I shall never forget how they screamed and fell down in heaps; and then, whether I gave the order or not (Clarke said I did, but I think that the men who were steering did it of their own accord), we put our helm "hard a-starboard", and flew round under her stern. Fergusson fired two shells straight into her poop, and in their fright they let off their guns—right away from us.

We put up our helm and flew away down wind, and left her standing still, all her sails shaking, and in any amount of confusion.

"Well done, sir!" Sharpe shouted from aloft, and that seemed to wake me again, and Dicky and his Maxim gun’s crew were yelling with delight, and then everybody cheered because the second junk wouldn’t face us, but luffed up and popped off her guns. She was too unsteady, or too much in a hurry, and we were going too fast, to give her a chance of hitting us. "Passed two of ’em, sir," Sharpe sang out cheerily; "get those stink things overboard, sir." That was the first thing which made me notice that I’d been coughing, and choking, and running at the eyes, and that there was a horrid smell.

There was a round basketwork thing spluttering and fizzing, and the beastly stinking smoke coming out of it, lying jammed in a corner close to me. I got it overboard somehow, and heard it fizzle as it fell in the water—ugh! the stink was awful. The others which had come on board were got rid of somehow or other—the men had thrown them or they had rolled overboard—but everyone was coughing and wiping their eyes, especially the six-pounder gun’s crew, who were to leeward, and so had got most of the smoke.

When I could see out of my eyes properly, there was Dicky grinning at me from the poop, and I did really think, at the time, too, that he must have either gone off his head or was actually enjoying himself. The two junks which we had passed were coming along after us now; the first one was a long way astern, and the second broad on our port quarter. Fergusson had got the smoke out of his eyes too, and began banging at this cowardly second one; and we could see that she was trying to edge away out of range of his shells.

But now we were rushing down towards the last two junks. They were lashing along on the port tack, heeling over till we could almost see their keels, and were coming straight towards us on the other side—to starboard (our right-hand side). I couldn’t see them at all from the high poop because our sails were in the way, so went down close to the men steering, and could then see them by looking under the foot of the mainsail. Sharpe came and stood by me, and I didn’t feel so nervous.

The nearer one was about a hundred yards off.

"Wait a little, sir! Wait a little!" Sharpe said. We were both peering under the sail, and Dicky had gone for’ard to see if he could get the six-pounder to fire. "When she’s a leetil bit closer, turn away from her, sir."