Part 8

There was only fifty yards between us now, and we were rushing to meet at a point.

Thirty yards! Twenty yards! I couldn’t breathe. They yelled and shook their arms about; we could see them all clinging to the weather gunwale.

I looked at Sharpe. "Now, sir!" he cried, and I sang out, "Starboard!" and our bows slewed away from her.

"Haul in the sheet, sir! Quick, sir! or she’ll be on to us and carry away the sails," and everyone jumped to the sheets and began hauling in the huge booms of the foresail and mainsail. The _Sally_ heeled over, with the wind on her beam, and seemed almost to give a leap through the water. We thought that we should just shoot past the third junk, and were going to cheer, but the next thing I knew (the sails hid her now) there was a bump, and the junk suddenly appeared right on top of us. I was flung down—we all were—the _Sally_ seemed to rebound, and there was another crash under her poop. I bent my head down, expecting the masts and sails to come toppling on top of me; but she must have only struck us grazing blows, because they didn’t, and when I looked up again we had cleared her. "For God’s sake, ease off those sheets!" Sharpe yelled, "or we’ll gybe," and I had enough sense left to know that if we did gybe we should either capsize or carry away all our damaged starboard main rigging and lose our masts. The men at the helm scrambled to their feet, and had enough wit left to "starboard" a little. The sails were just shaking, uncertain whether they would swing right across to port, but that extra bit of starboard helm just did the trick and saved her. They were all too busy with the sheets to fire the Maxim or the six-pounder, and the next I knew was a roaring hot noise right in our faces—she had fired her broadside at us. My head and ears seemed banged in, and I shut my eyes, wondering where I should be hit. Then I heard Sharpe yell, "Mr. Morton’s down, sir!" and I opened them to see Dicky lying on the deck where the dinghy had been, with his face and head covered with blood. I forgot about everything else, and jumped across to him, and tried to stop the blood with my dirty handkerchief, and make him say something; but Sharpe sang out, "For God’s sake, sir, look where you’re going!" and I heard the most awful noise of yelling under our port bow, and there was the fourth junk, towering above us and rasping along our side. I was knocked over again. I saw some iron things, like grapnels, thrown on board, with ropes fastened to them. One near me caught in the starboard gunwale, but jerked itself free; another missed the main rigging, but two caught somewhere on the poop, and I could see the lines on them tautening and the pirate junk turning after us, to ease the strain.

There was a horrid feeling that the _Sally_ wasn’t going so fast. Sharpe rushed past me with an axe in his hand, and I found myself on the poop next to him. He was hacking away with all his might, and cut through one rope; but there was the other grappling iron, caught in the damaged woodwork, and it had about six feet of chain secured to it, and he couldn’t break that. He hacked and hacked, and we all tried to pull the grappling iron itself free, but couldn’t move it, because the crew of the junk were hauling on the rope at the other end of the chain, and there was a tremendous strain on it; the rope and chain were as taut as a bar.

I can’t quite tell you what happened for the next few seconds; they seemed like years.

The third junk was firing her broadside guns, and the one that had got hold of us was firing rifles; and we were covered with smoke, and could hear woodwork smashing somewhere all round us, and how it was we were not all killed I don’t know to this day.

"I can’t do it; God help us, sir!" Sharpe groaned, and left off hacking at the chain, and began to try and cut away the side of the poop where the grappling iron had fixed itself; but the edge of the axe was all blunted, and would hardly even cut wood. It was perfectly awful, and you could see the cruel brutes in the bows of the fourth junk hauling in the rope, hand over hand. They thought that they had caught us, and were making the most tremendous noise, shouting and yelling.

They had hauled themselves to within twenty feet of us, and would be alongside in another few seconds. We could see them crowding for’ard, waving swords, and getting ready to pour on board. They began throwing stink balls, too, but these fell into the water, or, at any rate, we were too terrified to notice them.

I suddenly wondered why the Maxim wasn’t working—I’d not thought of it—and looked round and saw why. It was all battered in a heap, and two of its crew were lying underneath it.

I don’t know what I did, or quite what happened then, but I found myself under the poop, hunting among all the wreckage for my revolver.

I didn’t find it, but got hold of a cutlass and was rushing up again, when I heard Sharpe give a yell of joy, and was just in time to see that awful rope "part", and the people in the bows of the pirate junk fall on their backs in a heap.

"We’re away, sir!" Sharpe shouted, and, darting for’ard to the six-pounder, sang out to the men steering to turn her round a little, and fired four times right into the pirate’s bows.

They came round, too, and fired their guns at us; but we were beyond worrying about gunshots now, after all we’d been through, and paid off again before the wind, the third and the fourth junks following us close behind, and the first two a long way behind.

My head was simply going round and round, and my ears were ringing and buzzing. We were still in a cloud of powder smoke from the junks, and our poop was a perfect wreck.

I had time to look round now—the Maxim gun was lying there, knocked to pieces, the two men near it were quite dead, horribly smashed up one was, and there was hardly an undamaged plank to be seen. The native boat hanging over our stern had been smashed to pieces, and the wreckage of it was trailing in the water. We cut it adrift. Bits of wood and sail and rope were lying all over the decks, and up above our sails were full of holes. The main gaff was hanging down and beating against the sail, and tearing long strips out of it; but the mast still stood, and the rudder wasn’t damaged, and we were simply roaring through the water again.

Then the third junk began creeping up on our starboard quarter, not overhauling us very fast, which showed that our speed wasn’t much decreased; and directly the six-pounder would bear, Sharpe, who had taken charge of it, began firing into her, and hit her several times. We could see her trying to edge away.

Right astern was the fourth junk, and half a mile astern the first and second. The third and the fourth kept on yawing, so that they could bring their guns to bear and fire at us, but lost ground doing this, and only made a few more holes in our sails.

My people began to cheer—the seven who were left—because the open sea showed right in front of us; and then they cheered more loudly, because the first junk, which seemed to be very low in the water, suddenly shot up into the wind, the second junk, which had always given us a wide berth, followed her, and both of them began tacking over to the island.

That left us only two to tackle—the fourth, which was about three hundred yards astern, and the third, which was broad on our starboard quarter, but was edging away to try and get out of range of Sharpe’s little shells, and was quite out of it, as far as her own guns were concerned.

But before she could get out of range, something happened which made her gybe badly—we were all running before the wind, you must remember. Whether Sharpe had smashed her steering gear or not, I don’t know, but, at any rate, she lowered her foresail and hauled into the wind as if to repair something, and lost a great deal of ground before she paid off, and came after us again.

Something, whatever it was, must have been very badly damaged, for she hauled her wind again; and the fourth did so too, sailing close up to her, and then—hurrah! how we cheered!—they both began beating to wind’ard towards the island, and we were left alone.

I don’t know how the men felt, but I felt giddy and weak and horribly sick, and had to hold myself up against the mizzen mast, because my knees trembled so much, and my head was splitting, and my mouth felt absolutely dry, and my ears were all buzzing and humming, and very painful.

I jumped down to Dicky; he was lying just where he’d fallen, and he was quite unconscious, and had an awful gash across the side of his head. Some splinter must have struck him.

The signalman said he knew something about "first aid", and brought the "first aid" bag, and bandaged him up, and wiped the blood off his face, and we brought him aft.

Please don’t think that I was cool enough to have written this down right on the spot. I couldn’t possibly have done it. Everything went so fast, that you had no time for thinking, and really, after being thrown against the mainmast, when Adams and Cooke had been injured, I wasn’t any use at all.

I was shaky and "jumpy" for days afterwards, and it wasn’t till I got back to the _Vigilant_ that I could write this down, and then I had to get everyone who was on board the _Sally_ to help me.

It was Scroggs, and after he was killed, Sharpe, who had done it all, and but for them—well—I shouldn’t have been able to write about it, or any of us either, for the matter of that.

And if, after Scroggs and Sharpe, you asked me to tell you who did next best of the men, I should say the two able seamen who stood to the tiller ropes and steered for that horribly long hour, and did things—right things—at the proper time, even without orders. They hadn’t had the excitement of firing back, either, to keep them keen and from getting in a funk. One was John Corder, and the other William Young, and they both got their ratings as leading seamen some time afterwards, and I only wish that my father were a rich man, and could do more for them.

*CHAPTER VII*

*Mr. Rashleigh takes Command*

Tired Out—Mr. Trevelyan Assists—A Trying Night—On Board the Ringdove—The Sally in Danger—The Sally Disabled—Dicky is Better—Open Fire!—A Surprise—The Sally is Done For

_Written by Midshipman Ford_

It must have been some time between seven bells and noon when we found ourselves clear of that hateful channel and the smoke that seemed almost to fill it, and the last of the pirates had given up the chase. We hadn’t even enough energy to cheer, but we all wanted to lie down. Not a single one of us had escaped bruises or cuts from bits of splinters, and I know that I felt almost dead, as if I’d been bruised all over—being thrown against the mast, when poor old Scroggs was killed, did that.

I would have let the men sleep, but Sharpe shook his head and said that there was too much work to be done, and of course he was right. All the wounded had to be looked after, and the rigging and sails to repair temporarily. When we’d got well away from the island, we found that the wind had begun to go round to the west, and what bothered us most was a plank, under the starboard side of the poop, which had been smashed in when the third junk collided with us. The breeze going round to the west was good, because it brought all the strain on our port rigging, and the fore and main rigging on that side hadn’t been injured; but it was bad for us, because it made us heel over to starboard, and this smashed plank kept on going under water and letting a lot in.

We had to turn the Sally round into the wind and lower her sails, and stayed like that for nearly an hour, all the time looking to see whether any junks were coming after us, and standing by to scoot off again if they did. But none tried to follow us, and when Sharpe had nailed some canvas and some of the dinghy’s broken planks over the hole, we hoisted our sails again and sailed away for the island where we had to meet the _Ringdove_.

Ah Chee was plucky enough now, and began to cook something hot for us all over the big brazier. It had been knocked over and emptied, but there were so many bits of wood lying about, that he made a fire out of them. He kept pointing to himself and jabbering, "Ah Chee belong plenty blave fightee man," and then to the island, shaking his fist, "Pilons all same pig."

I had crawled under the poop to look at Dicky. I was almost afraid to go there, because I thought I should find that he had stopped breathing; but I watched him very carefully, and could just see his chest moving, and his lips too sometimes, when he breathed in and out. I crept back again, feeling very funny and glad. Adams and Cooke were moaning and groaning, and it was awful not to know the proper thing to do for them. Sharpe had wrapped the two dead men in their blankets and put them down below out of sight, and we had put Adams and Cooke and Dicky in the men’s part of the poop, because all the upper part, where Dicky and I and Scroggs and Sharpe had lived, was simply a wreck. My hammock and bedding had been carried halfway through the bulkhead by a shot, which was still fixed in it, and my uniform tin case was almost doubled in half, and I couldn’t open it. I know that you will think me an ass, but when I found Ah Man’s cake, with only a gash across the icing, I could have whooped with joy, and divided it among the men, leaving a bit for Dicky, if he ever got well—I knew he wouldn’t mind. That was the first thing we had to eat after the pirates left off chasing us. You should have seen us drink. I had never been so thirsty in my life, nor the men in theirs either, I should fancy.

Our compass had been smashed, but we could guess our course roughly, and Ah Chee knew his way pretty well among the islands, so we didn’t worry much about that.

We were really too "played out" to worry about anything. By the middle of the afternoon it was blowing very hard, and we were plunging, and shaking, and heeling over so much, that we had to lower the mainsail altogether, and could only carry the foresail hoisted halfway up, and the little mizzen sail. That eased her, and made her much more comfortable, and I should have let the men go to sleep, but Sharpe wouldn’t hear of it. "No, sir. It’s going to be a dirty night, and we’d best set up that damaged rigging tempor—arily." So he and the four hands—all that were left, if you don’t count the two men at the tiller—worked wearily away till it was nearly dark.

But long before that I’d gone to sleep myself. I was very ashamed then, and am still ashamed of myself; but I had got into a corner, more or less out of the wind and the spray, propped up between the poop and the side of the junk, close to the men at the helm, and must have simply gone to sleep standing up, and slipped down without knowing it.

"The _Ferret_ is in sight, sir!" I suddenly heard, and there was Sharpe standing over me, and trying to shake some life into me. "She’s asking for news."

I hardly dared look at him, because I felt such a "worm", and got on my feet again. At first I thought he meant the _Vigilant_, but it was only Mr. Trevelyan and Jim in their junk. Oh! I felt so stiff and sore, and had to rub my eyes to get properly awake; but then I was frightfully glad, for I thought that Mr. Trevelyan might know something about doctoring. She was slanting down towards us, with only a bit of her mainsail hoisted, and flying some signal.

"We’ve given her our name, sir," the signalman said, "and now Mr. Trevelyan wants to know what news you have, sir."

I told the signalman what to say, and he semaphored, "Captain to Captain" (that didn’t even make me smile, or feel proud, so proves how tired I must have been). "We have sunk one pirate junk, and escaped from four more in the channel between East and West Nam Chau Islands" (we had found the name on the chart, after all). "Petty officer Scroggs killed, two able seamen, Midshipman Morton and able seaman Cooke badly wounded, and able seaman Adams has leg broken."

We saw them take it in, and I knew how unhappy Jim would be about Dicky. Then they hoisted a signal which meant "heave to", and we lowered the bit of foresail and swung round, with our mizzen to keep us in the wind, whilst Mr. Trevelyan came lurching down, swung up into the wind just ahead of us, lowered his mainsail, and hoisted a tiny bit of mizzen. I could see them all looking at us, and Jim was standing on the poop waving to me, and I waved back to him. They got out their dinghy and two men, and Mr. Trevelyan began dropping down towards us. We threw them a rope and they caught it, swung in under our stern, and Mr. Trevelyan clambered up over our poor old wrecked poop. It was a jolly tricky thing to do, because a big sea was running. I was so awfully "done up", that I could almost have burst into tears when I saw him. I was never so thankful to see anyone in my life before.

"Holy Moses! Ford, you’ve been and smashed up the Skipper’s junk, and no mistake! My jumping Jupiter! you must have had a warm time, and you look like a blooming butcher yourself."

"It’s not mine, sir," I told him; "it’s Scroggs’s." I had been too tired to wash my face and hands and my clothes, and the spray hadn’t done it either; it was all caked and brown by now. I implored him to come and see Dicky and Adams. "I don’t know a blooming thing about doctoring," he said, scratching his head, and looking awfully serious; but he picked his way across the smashed-up poop, and where the Maxim gun had been, and we crawled in to see Dicky. He was still unconscious; he wouldn’t even look at me, though his eyes were open, and we shouted his name, and every time the junk flopped about, both Adams and Cooke moaned terribly. Mr. Trevelyan did make it more comfortable for them all, because he made us roll Cooke in blankets, so that his legs did not stick together, and he made us tie Adams’s legs together to keep the broken one steady; and then we put them in their hammocks and slung them, somehow or other, and after that it didn’t hurt them so much when the junk rolled and pitched.

All this time I had told Mr. Trevelyan everything, just as I have told you, and he was fearfully excited, and made us show him on the chart exactly where we had been, as far as I could make out. "You have had luck," he kept on saying; "and I’m going to have a go at them." You see, I hadn’t really got any information—none worth having—and no prisoners. I had been much too excited to notice anything on the islands themselves, and, as Mr. Trevelyan said, "They might have their whole bally ’fit out’ there."

"Don’t bother about that, you lucky little beggar" (I suppose I looked miserable); "you can’t do every blessed thing! Now you shove along to the _Ringdove_, and I’ll beat up to your pirates, if my crazy old ’ditcher will face it—she won’t sail for nuts, Ford—and just ’makee look see’ first thing in the morning. Give old Rashleigh my love, and if I’m not back again by to-morrow night, or the morning after, get him to come along and pick up the scraps."

He was just as excited as you can imagine. I wanted him to take back all the Maxim ammunition I had left—of course it was no use to me now—and he jumped at the idea, and we hauled the dinghy under the stern and passed the boxes, with the unused cartridge belts, into her.

The _Ferret_ had dropped down to leeward of us, so that he would not have to pull back to wind’ard; I don’t think he could have done so even if he had tried. "Goodbye, my sucking Nelson; keep your pecker up, and I’ll give ’em ’beans’ in the morning," he said as he slid down into the dinghy. He was always so awfully cheerful and "buckish". "What d’you think of Dicky?" I asked him before he let go. "I’m jiggered if I know!" he shouted. "Get him to the _Ringdove_ and Hibbert as quickly as you can."

He was just casting off, when he happened to look up, and sang out to the bow man to hold on. He had seen our white ensign, and shouted out to me: "I say, Ford, let me have that, there’s a good chap; you’ll have no more fighting, and I’d like it so much." I had it hauled down and passed it into the dinghy, though the signalman wasn’t half pleased.

Back he went, alongside the _Ferret_. I saw the flag and ammunition boxes and then the dinghy hoisted on board, a man hauled himself up the mizzen and made the flag fast there, and then she hoisted part of the mainsail again and began to pound away back to our islands. We cheered her and she cheered us, and the last shout I heard was a "tiger" from Jim.

Then I hoisted the foresail halfway up, and off we went again; and by this time it was nearly dark, and we soon could only make out where the _Ferret_ was by the white splash when she flopped down on top of a sea, and in a very few minutes we couldn’t even see that, and felt awfully lonely.

I should never have found the way back, and I don’t think that Sharpe would have done so either, but for Ah Chee. He was a grand chap, when there wasn’t any fighting to be done, and seemed to know every island we passed that night, and just where we could trust ourselves.

Sharpe and I had to be on deck nearly all night, it was blowing so hard, and of course there were those islands to avoid. Sharpe wouldn’t leave off talking about Scroggs and the family he had left behind him, and that made it more miserable still, that and hearing Adams and Cooke groaning, and knowing that Barton and Hicks, the two men who were killed, were lying down in the hold. We got a little lee from one of the islands some time during the middle watch, so then we made better weather of it. It must have been soon after that when Sharpe woke me—I had fallen asleep again.

"Who’s that?" he cried, his voice all of a shake, and I listened, and all of a sudden could hear someone singing out "Dick" from under the dark poop. All the blood rushed to my head, and I could have blubbed with delight, for it was Dicky’s poor little bleating voice; and I crept in with a lantern, picked my way over the men asleep, held up the lantern, and there he was looking at me and asking for a drink. Well, I did blub then—just for a second—and don’t mind saying so, I was so happy, and went and found a little water and gave it to him; and Sharpe stirred up the hot bits of wood in Ah Chee’s brazier, which the wind had kept glowing, and we warmed some tinned milk and gave that to him. When he’d drunk it he turned over and went to sleep, without asking anything, only just saying, "Thank you".

Still, that was enough, and I do believe that Sharpe was a little bit husky too; and I wanted him to let me shove on a little more sail, so that we could get back to the _Ringdove_ all the more quickly, but he wouldn’t let me do it. "She’s carrying all she can do with, sir, and the men are asleep." He was right, too, because we should have had to turn them out to hoist more sail.

Ah Chee knew all right where he was going, and at daybreak we sighted the island at which we had to meet the _Ringdove_, and two hours later saw her three masts and her funny little funnel sticking up.

I had signalled across all my news, and you can imagine how thankful I was to run the Sally alongside her, and to see Dr. Hibbert clambering on board us over her "nettings", smoking his pipe and looking jolly.

"Find my medicine stuff any use?" he asked me.

"Both bottles were broken, sir," I told him, "so I hadn’t the chance," and took him under the poop, and a lot of men came and hoisted all three of the wounded on board the _Ringdove_.

Dicky woke up and managed a bit of a smile as they took him away, but he was still dazed and half silly. They took Hicks’s and Barton’s bodies on board too, and before we went off again buried them overboard.