Part 23

"Do you know that we've only got enough ammunition for one more show like this morning? That's a fact," Mr. Scarlett growled, turning furiously on him. "This is going to be a regular siege; none of your rushing and firing, packing up and going home again. Them Afghans mean to get inside here, and if we can't stop them you can't. The sooner everyone comes aboard the '_B.A._' safe and sound, and waits there for the _Intrepid_--well--the sooner the better. This isn't any darned tomfoolery business, I tell you--twenty times I'll tell you. If your chaps can't stand a few bullets smacking among 'em down by that trench," he went on savagely, "they'd better get along ramming sand into more sacks, bags, anything they can get hold of, and make this house shipshape."

I don't think that Mr. Fisher much cared about being spoken to like that.

"If you can get any work out of them you're welcome to try; I can't," he said sharply. "They've been awake and working, off and on, for the last thirty hours."

"Right you are, sir; you bet I will. If I can't do a bit of slave-driving there is no one in the British Navy who can," and, taking him at his word, Mr. Scarlett darted off.

He had hardly gone when Hartley ran in to say that a hundred or more Afghans had rushed up the slope from the Old Fort, and behind the sand-hills there.

"They've gone and 'idden among those blessed huts, sir."

Firing broke out again almost immediately, and bullets came thudding against the wall outside my room. Mr. Fisher darted away to line the loopholed wall with his men, and Hartley, singing out: "They're trying to knock out the Maxim; Ellis and me must get more sand-bags round it," disappeared too.

I knew that if one lucky bullet pierced the water-jacket the gun would be useless, and I lay there listening to Ellis and Hartley cursing, as they dragged heavy weights across the roof over my head, and to the patter-patter of bullets thudding against the outer wall and parapet.

Those chaps must not be allowed to stay down by the huts--that was imperative. If they got a firm footing there the others would join them during the night, and they would be within a stone's throw of the loopholed wall. Others could creep round at the foot of the rocks on the east of the building and attack the wall on that side; we could not stop them. Mr. Scarlett and Mr. Fisher both came to my room, and both were of the same opinion.

"I'll signal to the '_B.A._' to plug in a few shells till they see us come out of the door, and Ellis and Hartley can work the Maxim, whilst we rush down and drive 'em out," Mr. Scarlett said, his eyes glowing with excitement. What a change had come over him!

"And we'll burn the huts whilst we're about it," Mr. Fisher added in a crest-fallen, disappointed, rather shamefaced manner.

The two of them went away to collect some men, and I heard either Ellis or Hartley running down the stairs from the roof to join them. Firing went on vigorously from the direction of those huts. I heard the buzz of excited voices as people collected under the windows, somewhere near the door in the wall, and waited to hear it opened and the sortie commence. Presently "boom" came the report of the six-pounder from the "_B.A._", and the Maxim overhead began rattling. Then the bolts of the door were thrown back, and I heard Mr. Scarlett's voice yelling hoarsely, "Come along," and the crush of people pressing out through the door-way after him with rather half-hearted cheers.

Miss Borsen entered the room and stood listening. "They've left me all alone," she said; "I am frightened," and the next moment, with a scared face, was at a window looking down the slope.

"They are rushing down," she cried. "Mr. Fisher and your gunner and the man ahead of the others. A shell has just burst in the huts. I can't see anyone firing at them. Oh, Mr. Fisher has tumbled down! He's up again. He's catching up your gunner." The Maxim overhead ceased firing. "Now they're right among the huts. The telegraph people are nearly there--yes, they've got there too. Some of them have cans with them--paraffin cans. There they go! there they go! The Afghans are bolting down the slope! Smoke's coming out of the huts. Why don't they come back?

"Now they're coming. Your gunner is helping Mr. Fisher. He's hurt; I know he is. I must go and see" and she ran away again.

The "_B.A._" fired a few rounds of precious Maxim ammunition, and by the time all was quiet Mr. Scarlett had come to tell me, with a chuckle, that "That little business is all done correct, sir. Mr. Fisher got a bullet through his left shoulder, but it ain't done much damage."

Soon I heard the crackle of the flames and smelt the smoke from those huts, so knew they would not bother us any more.

That bullet through his shoulder muscles (I think it broke off a bit of bone there) seemed to alter Mr. Fisher completely. When I saw him next--rather pale, and with his arm in a sling--he had given up all pretence of imagining that the Afghans would retire. In fact it was he now who suggested, feverishly, doing things to make the house ready to stand an assault. "But for goodness' sake," he told me, "don't let anyone suggest abandoning the telegraph buildings or going aboard the _Bunder Abbas_. I won't do so until the very last moment--I can't--I daren't. If the Afghans got inside for even half an hour they'd wreck the whole of the transmitting instruments, and it would be six months before the cable would work again."

With Mr. Scarlett, Ellis, and Hartley to help him, the four of them began to get things into order, divide the people into parties--those they could trust with rifles into batches, under Eurasians, to man the wall whilst the others rested; those for whom there were no rifles, or who couldn't be trusted with them, being set to work to complete the defence and provision the house.

All the rest of that day they laboured; the house was turned upside down and a litter of sand-bags filled up every aperture in the walls and along the verandas and balconies. Pillow-covers, blankets, sheets, everything that could be made to hold sand was requisitioned--and I could not help smiling when finally two burly nigger Zanzibaris dragged through my room one of Mrs. Fisher's dresses bulged out with sand and threw it on top of a wall of other sand-bags blocking a window. It was a jolly good thing that she was safely out of the way, and I wished most earnestly that Miss Borsen could be induced to go as well.

After the Afghans had been driven from the huts, and these had been burnt to the ground, they remained quiet for the rest of the day. Mr. Scarlett returned to the "_B.A._", the sun set, there was a very unpleasant half-hour before the moon rose sufficiently to give light, and almost as soon as it did so distant firing began--a scattered occasional shot every now and again, quite sufficient, however, to keep everyone on the alert and nervous. The old head boy brought me some food and fed me. He also brought me a lamp, for which I was very grateful, as on account of the sand-bags in the windows the moonlight could not enter, and it was almost completely dark.

This was, I think, the worst night since my wound; for the atmosphere of the room was stuffy and smelly, hardly a breath of air came through the blocked windows, rifle bullets occasionally thudded up against the sand-bags, and with Mr. Fisher wounded I did not know who was carrying on in command in case the Afghans attacked during the night. Why they didn't Heaven knows. If they had done so there was nothing to keep them out; but I suppose that they would not depart from their usual habits. At any rate they waited till dawn, when just the same awful din broke out, and they made just such another rush up the slope. The "_B.A._" chipped in as she had done before, and eventually the attack recoiled; but I had counted twenty-three rounds of six-pounder, so knew that for all practical purposes she had none left--not half a dozen, anyway.

Mr. Scarlett almost immediately reported by signal--ammunition remaining--four six-pounder, twelve hundred Maxim and rifle. At the same time Mr. Fisher, haggard and drawn, staggered in to tell me that although the main body had been repulsed a large number had succeeded in reaching the fifteen-foot wall on the east side and could not be dislodged.

"They're there now," he said hopelessly. "We can't touch them; they're firing up through the loopholes. They tried to climb the wall, but I got some of my men and your man Ellis to fire from the roof of an outbuilding close there, and they've cleared them off. What shall we do? Could the _Bunder Abbas_ steam round and drive them away?" As this seemed reasonable I wrote out a signal telling Mr. Scarlett to raise steam at once and come round to the east bay. But the "_B.A._" could not move for at least two hours, and meanwhile Ellis and his few natives remained on top of that outbuilding, lying down behind the parapet ready to pick off any Afghan who attempted to climb the wall. More ammunition and some sand-bags were sent across to him to make his position more secure. However, the Afghans were quite content to wait where they were--under the foot of the wall--and made no offensive movement.

If they had done so the time might have gone by more quickly. As it was, it seemed an eternity before Hartley reported that the _Bunder Abbas_ was under way.

Perhaps half an hour afterwards I heard her Maxim firing--at a great distance seemingly--firing only a few of her precious rounds and then ceasing.

It turned out that she had driven the Afghans away from the rocks near the cable house, but owing to the contour of the ground she could not reach the fellows under the wall itself. She stayed there to prevent any reinforcements joining them, and then had to come back hastily again because more parties of enemy were taking advantage of her absence from the west bay to creep along the beach there--the beach where we always landed in the dinghy--to try to find a lodgment under the opposite wall of the telegraph-station.

However, the Maxim on the roof kept those in check, and directly the "_B.A._" appeared round the end of the peninsula they all fled back to the New Fort.

One thing gave me much relief: we had not expended many rounds of ammunition.

The situation was now alarming, to say the least of it. If those fellows stayed where they were there was nothing to prevent them climbing the wall during the night, and Mr. Fisher explained (and I was perfectly convinced) that if they did this most of our natives would simply bolt. The Eurasians might put up some sort of a fight, but there were only eight of them now unwounded and they were almost exhausted.

We both realized that there were only two courses open: the first, to abandon the telegraph-station and take refuge aboard the _Bunder Abbas_; the second, practically to abandon the _Bunder Abbas_ and bring her white crew on shore with their rifles and the few remaining rounds of ammunition.

As Mr. Fisher absolutely refused to consent to the first, the second plan was the only alternative. I decided to do this. First of all I took the block of note-paper and wrote: "Miss Borsen must be sent to _Bunder Abbas_"; but she, coming into the room at this moment, read what I had written and shook her head. She said there was work for her to do here and she wouldn't leave it; she stamped her foot angrily when Mr. Fisher implored her to go.

So I sent for Mr. Scarlett, and with my scribbled notes and Mr. Fisher's explanations we made him understand.

He was very furious, and "swung off" at Mr. Fisher for exposing everyone to such risks, doing his utmost to point out the horrible consequences which might happen if once the _Bunder Abbas_ was abandoned and escape cut off, looking at me to back him up.

He felt that this second plan was more a disgrace to us than the abandoning of the station would be to Mr. Fisher; instead, he offered to bring ashore all the men he could spare, make a sortie, and drive the Afghans away from that side wall just as he and Mr. Fisher had driven them from the huts yesterday. He would bring his men ashore during the few minutes of dark after sunset (when they might hope to escape observation), lead them round the west wall and the wall towards the end of the peninsula, and then swoop along the eastern fifteen-foot wall from the top end. The Afghans would never expect an attack from that quarter, and whilst he was doing this he wanted Mr. Fisher (if his damaged shoulder let him), Ellis, and Hartley, with as many men as possible, to make a sortie through the door in the wall facing the slope, to creep along the face of that wall to the corner, and thus catch the enemy between two fires.

I, too, hated so much the idea of abandoning the "_B.A._" that I nodded my head in consent, and, having made all the arrangements with Mr. Fisher, he went back to the dinghy, though not before Mr. Fisher had implored Miss Borsen again, unavailingly, to accompany him. Not long afterwards he made a signal that he had determined to bring all hands with him, and that until they returned the "_B.A._" would be quite safe at her anchor.

I only hoped that she would, and I lay there dejected in the extreme, to think that now, of all times, I was helpless. It was no use pretending that I was not. Even without Miss Borsen to assure me that my only chance lay in remaining absolutely still, there was a funny feeling in my chest that the least exertion would finish me altogether. One or two drops of blood had come into my mouth during the day, and I instinctively knew that more was only waiting its chance. It was an extremely unhappy position to be in.

The remainder of the afternoon passed fairly quietly, and the dread of the coming night seemed to make the hours of daylight fly very quickly. Miss Borsen brought me some tea, and whilst she was in the room I remembered some signal I wanted to make to Mr. Scarlett. But the pencil had dropped off the bed and broken its point, so that it would not write, and I motioned to her that there was a knife in my dispatch-box. Whilst she was looking for it, jumbling among my letters and other papers, out slipped that little velvet bow, the one which had stuck to my button the night I had carried her over the swamp and made her so angry.

She picked it up, grew red, and I thought she was very angry at being reminded of the quarrel; because she shut up the box, said: "Bother the knife; it isn't here," and went away, sending in Hartley to help me with the signal.

This added to my worries.

As dark came on--very completely in the room, because of the sand-bags--I pictured the dinghy pulling to and fro to land Mr. Scarlett and the rest of the crew, and had a horrid feeling that they ought never to have left her. I feared, too, that they had not done this unobserved, because a good deal of firing broke out from the direction of the beach. However, there was no one to tell me what was happening, so I had to guess, listening anxiously to the murmur of voices outside, below the balcony, as Mr. Fisher and the others gathered near the door in the wall and prepared for their sortie.

I could hear them filling the magazines of their rifles, occasionally dropping a cartridge on the ground, and my ears were straining to hear the bolts fly back and to hear them rushing out; but instead of this a tremendous fusillade broke out down the slope, and the same yelling which had always accompanied the previous attacks broke the silence. So fearfully excited was I that more blood came into my mouth, and thoroughly frightened I lay flat, hardly able to breathe. The noises seemed to grow until they became one awful roar, dinning into my ear-drums till they seemed to overpower my brain altogether, and I must have lost consciousness.

I had a dim recollection of men running through my room, of rifles going off, and then woke to the fact that rifles were being fired quite close to me, outside on the balcony, their flashes lighting up the room, and that from every quarter came the most fearful uproar. People were running backwards and forwards, up and down the stairs; Zanzibari niggers came dragging sand-bags back through my room; the old butler, without his turban, came and went without giving a glance at me; no one seemed to take the least notice of me, and for some time I thought it must be another of those nightmares and I should presently waken.

Then the uproar seemed to grow more distant; a red glow filled the room with weird shadows, and what finally brought me to a realization that I was actually awake was Miss Borsen's hand sliding down to my wrist to feel my pulse.

"Hush!" she whispered; "keep still; you're all right now. They've got inside the walls and have gone off to burn down the other buildings. Mr. Fisher is down below--most of the others too; we are safe for some time."

I remembered that Mr. Scarlett and all the rest of my men ought to be on the outside of the wall, and wondered what had become of them.

"Mr. Scarlett?" I muttered, but she put a finger on my lips. "Be quiet; be still."

The niggers and servants must have torn away some of the sand-bags to make better openings to fire through or to take them somewhere else, for the room now was filled with a red glare. The crackling noise of flames seemed to grow more furious and closer; but above everything I heard Hartley's voice down below shouting orders.

It was a comfort even to know that he was there.

Then men began to climb the stairs outside the room, panting heavily and running down again. Miss Borsen went out to see what they were doing. She crept back, terrified.

"They're carrying water up to the roof--the flames are so close. It's awful--awful!" and she crouched on the floor with her hands over her eyes. She pulled herself together when Hartley--bleeding from a wound on his head--rushed in to tell me that we were fairly safe for the present, but that Ellis and a few natives on the top of that outbuilding, where they had been all day, were cut off, and that no one knew what had become of Mr. Scarlett and his party. "What with the moonlight and these 'ere flames from the mess buildings," he said, "it's as light as day now, and the Afghans won't come out in the open. They're skulking in the shadows under the walls, and daren't run across the open spaces."

After this--for a time--there was but little rifle firing near us, and the glare from the burning building died down somewhat. Outside on the balcony I could see the Zanzibaris there moving about in the shadow behind the sand-bags and peering over them to look below. Presently one of them saw something to fire at, for he let off his rifle and called to the others. A regular fusillade broke out, and in the midst of it I heard, to my intense relief, Mr. Scarlett's stentorian voice roaring out: "Stop that firing," and then shouting something in Hindustani.

Before I realized what was the meaning of this Miss Borsen sprang to her feet and was out on the balcony in a moment, pulling the wretched servants and Zanzibaris away from the sand-bags and calling out: "Stop! stop!

"It's Mr. Scarlett and your men climbing over the loopholed wall," she cried. "They are crawling over the corner just below us."

In a very few minutes Mr. Scarlett was standing in the room.

"We got caught on the 'hop' that time, sir; they saw us coming ashore and we had a fight for it. Managed to get up the slope near the wall, but then had to fall back again. Couldn't make headway against them. Jones was wounded again--badly this time. Most of the chaps were knocked about, so we dragged him back among the rocks and kept the Afghans off till they cleared out up here to join in the loot. We found the dinghy on the rocks with her bottom stove in, so couldn't send Jones on board, and we've brought him along with us--dodged the Afghans and hoisted him in over the wall. He's down below--pretty comfortable; but Moore's missing. No one's seen him since we had the first 'scrap', poor devil. I hope he's killed outright.

"Don't you go fussing," he went on. "There's five of us, besides Hartley and me, and we'll pull you through--and the little lass too. We're just off to line the veranda and the sand-bags there till those devils come at us again at daybreak. They'll come sure enough then. I'm off now, sir."

He left me alone again, for Miss Borsen had slipped away directly she had heard that there was another wounded man below, and she did not come back.

To know that Mr. Scarlett and his men were safe and were on the veranda below put heart into me; but the position seemed so desperate that I wonder my brain didn't throb itself out of my skull that night. It seemed to be trying to do so. The noise of the flames had died down; but scattered rifle shots rang out in the compound below every few minutes hour after hour, and the room seemed to be so full of smoke that I could hardly breathe. The old butler, going out to the balcony with food for the people there, gave me some water once, and I was very grateful.

Towards dawn there was an almost complete lull, as if everyone was too tired to go on shooting. Mr. Scarlett took this opportunity to come in and tell me that, so far, the Afghans had not broken into the building where the transmitting instruments were. They had to cross the concrete tennis-court to get to it, and Ellis and his people had kept them out so far. "We've done our little bit too, sir," he added, quite pleased with himself.

As dawn broke the Afghans first turned their attention to that outbuilding from the roof of which Ellis had punished them so heavily during the night. Of course I could not see this, but heard the uproar and the shooting, and in the middle of it Mr. Scarlett and Mr. Fisher came in (his left arm bound to his side) looking very anxious.

"We'll have to go along and bring Ellis out of it," the gunner said; "he and his chaps can't hold out much longer. Don't you worry, sir; we'll be back in a 'brace of shakes'." Stooping, before he left me, he placed a revolver on the chair at the head of the bed. "If you want it, sir," he said, and I understood.

They both went away, and I knew that they were going to lead another sortie across the compound and that open tennis-court. I heard them run down the stairs, heard the burst of cheering as they and others dropped down from the veranda, whilst the natives still on my balcony crowded away to the right of it and opened fire.

Almost immediately the noise of fierce hand-to-hand fighting came through the windows, and I waited, tremblingly, to hear the cheers which would tell me that Mr. Scarlett's people were coming back with Ellis; but, instead, the Afghans began yelling triumphantly, as if they were getting the upper hand. I turned my head and saw Miss Borsen stagger into the room, her face whiter than the dress she wore.

She stood still for a moment, listening, then saw the revolver, glided across and steadied herself to pick it up and to open it. She made sure it was loaded, and then, in a broken voice, told me that Mr. Fisher, Mr. Scarlett, and the rest had been cut off and forced back against the telegraph building.

"The Afghans are flocking down here now, and there is no one left in the house--only a few of the telegraph people down below, and they can't do it," she moaned. Then she stood at the side of my bed and handed me the revolver, saying, in a very low voice: "If the Afghans break in I want you to kill me."