CHAPTER XXVIII

THE ATTACK ON THE FORT

When Peter Gross failed to return by noon that day Captain Carver, becoming alarmed, began making inquiries. Hughes supplied the first clue.

"I saw him go into the bush with the heathen woman while we was buzzin' Paddy," he informed his commander. "I ain't seen him since."

A scouting party was instantly organized. It searched the banyan grove, but found nothing. One, of the members, an old plainsman, reported heel-marks on the trail, but as this was a common walk of the troops at the fort the discovery had no significance.

"Where is Inchi?" Captain Carver inquired. Search also failed to reveal the Dyak lad. As this disquieting news was reported, Lieutenant Banning was announced.

The lieutenant, a smooth-faced, clean-cut young officer who had had his commission only a few years, explained the object of his visit without indulging in preliminaries.

"One of my Java boys tells me the report is current in Bulungan that we are to be attacked to-morrow," he announced. "A holy war has been preached, and all the sea Dyaks and Malays in the residency are now marching this way, he says. The pirate fleet is expected here to-night. I haven't seen or heard of Captain Van Slyck since he left for Padang."

He was plainly worried, and Carver correctly construed his warning as an appeal for advice and assistance. The captain took from his wallet the commission that Peter Gross had given him some time before.

"Since Captain Van Slyck is absent, I may as well inform you that I take command of the fort by order of the resident," he said, giving the document to Banning. The lieutenant scanned it quickly.

"Very good, captain," he remarked with a relieved air. His tone plainly indicated that he was glad to place responsibility in the crisis upon an older and more experienced commander. "I suppose you will enter the fort with your men?"

"We shall move our stores and all our effects at once," Carver declared. "Are your dispositions made?"

"We are always ready, captain," was the lieutenant's reply.

From the roof of the residency Carver studied Bulungan town through field-glasses. There was an unwonted activity in the village, he noticed. Scanning the streets, he saw the unusual number of armed men hurrying about and grouped at street corners and in the market-place. At the water-front several small proas were hastily putting out to sea.

"It looks as if Banning was right," he muttered.

By sundown Carver's irregulars were stationed at the fort. Courtesy denominated it a fort, but in reality it was little more than a stockade made permanent by small towers of crude masonry, filled between with logs set on end. The elevation, however, gave it a commanding advantage in such an attack as they might expect. Peter Gross had been careful to supply machine-guns, and these were placed where they would do the most efficient service. Putting the Javanese at work, Carver hastily threw up around the fort a series of barbed-wire entanglements and dug trench-shelters inside. These operations were watched by an ever-increasing mob of armed natives, who kept a respectful distance away, however. Banning suggested a sortie in force to intimidate the Dyaks.

"It would be time wasted," Carver declared. "We don't have to be afraid of this mob. They won't show teeth until the he-bear comes. We'll confine ourselves to getting ready--every second is precious."

A searchlight was one of Carver's contributions to the defenses. Double sentries were posted and the light played the country about all night, but there was no alarm. When dawn broke Carver and Banning, up with the sun, uttered an almost simultaneous exclamation. A fleet of nearly thirty proas, laden down with fighting men, lay in the harbor.

"Ah Sing has arrived," Banning remarked. Absent-mindedly he mused: "I wonder if Captain Van Slyck is there?"

Carver had by this time mastered just enough Dutch to catch the lieutenant's meaning.

"What do you know about Captain Van Slyck's dealings with this gang?" he demanded, looking at the young man fixedly.

"I can't say--that is--" Banning took refuge in an embarrassed silence.

"Never mind," Carver answered curtly. "I don't want you to inform against a superior officer. But when we get back to Batavia you'll be called upon to testify to what you know."

Banning made no reply.

Carver was at breakfast when word was brought him that Mynheer Muller, the _controlleur_, was at the gate and desired to see him. He had left orders that none should be permitted to enter or leave without special permission from the officer of the day. The immediate thought that Muller was come to propose terms of surrender occurred to him, and he flushed darkly. He directed that the _controlleur_ be admitted.

"_Goeden-morgen, mynheer kapitein_," Muller greeted as he entered. His face was very pale, but he seemed to carry himself with more dignity than customarily, Carver noticed.

"State your mission, _mynheer_," Carver directed bluntly, transfixing the _controlleur_ with his stern gaze.

"_Mynheer kapitein_, you must fight for your lives to-day," Muller said. "Ah Sing is here, there are three thousand Dyaks and Malays below." His voice quavered, but he pulled himself together quickly. "I see you are prepared. Therefore what I have told you is no news to you." He paused.

"Proceed," Carver directed curtly.

"_Mynheer kapitein_, I am here to fight and die with you," the _controlleur_ announced.

A momentary flash of astonishment crossed Carver's face. Then his suspicions were redoubled.

"I hadn't expected this," he said, without mincing words. "I thought you would be on the other side."

Muller's face reddened, but he instantly recovered. "There was a time when I thought so, too, _kapitein_," he admitted candidly. "But I now see I was in the wrong. What has been done, I cannot undo. But I can die with you. There is no escape for you to-day, they are too many, and too well armed. I have lived a Celebes islander, a robber, and a friend of robbers. I can at least die a white man and a Hollander."

Carver looked at him fixedly.

"Where is the resident?" he demanded.

"In a hut, in the jungle."

"In Ah Sing's hands?"

"He is Koyala's prisoner. Ah Sing does not know he is there."

"Um!" Carver grunted. The exclamation hid a world of meaning. It took little thought on his part to vision what had occurred.

"Why aren't you with Koyala?" he asked crisply.

Muller looked away. "She does not want me," he said in a low voice.

For the first time since coming to Bulungan, Carver felt a trace of sympathy for Muller. He, too, had been disappointed in love. His tone was a trifle less gruff as he asked: "Can you handle a gun?"

"_Ja, mynheer._"

"You understand you'll get a bullet through the head at the first sign of treachery?"

Muller flushed darkly. "_Ja, mynheer_," he affirmed with quiet dignity. It was the flush that decided Carver.

"Report to Lieutenant Banning," he said. "He'll give you a rifle."

It was less than an hour later that the investment of the fort began. The Dyaks, scurrying through the banyan groves and bamboo thickets, enclosed it on the rear and landward sides. Ah Sing's pirates and the Malays crawled up the rise to attack it from the front. Two of Ah Sing's proas moved up the bay to shut off escape from the sea.

An insolent demand from Ah Sing and Wobanguli that they surrender prefaced the hostilities.

"Tell the Rajah and his Chinese cut-throat that we'll have the pleasure of hanging them," was Carver's reply.

To meet the attack, Carver entrusted the defense of the rear and landward walls to the Dutch and Javanese under Banning, while he looked after the frontal attack, which he shrewdly guessed would be the most severe. Taking advantage of every bush and tree, and particularly the hedges that lined the lane leading down to Bulungan, the Malays and pirates got within six hundred yards of the fort. A desultory rifle-fire was opened. It increased rapidly, and soon a hail of bullets began sweeping over the enclosure.

"They've got magazine-rifles," Carver muttered to himself. "Latest pattern, too. That's what comes of letting traders sell promiscuously to natives."

The defenders made a vigorous reply. The magazine-rifles were used with telling effect. Banning had little difficulty keeping the Dyaks back, but the pirates and Malays were a different race of fighters, and gradually crept closer in, taking advantage of every bit of cover that the heavily grown country afforded.

As new levies of natives arrived, the fire increased in intensity. There were at least a thousand rifles in the attacking force, Carver judged, and some of the pirates soon demonstrated that they were able marksmen. An old plainsman was the first casualty. He was sighting along his rifle at a daring Manchu who had advanced within three hundred yards of the enclosure when a bullet struck him in the forehead and passed through his skull. He fell where he stood.

Shortly thereafter Gibson, an ex-sailor, uttered an exclamation, and clapped his right hand to his left shoulder.

"Are ye hit?" Larry Malone asked.

"They winged me, I guess," Gibson said.

The Dutch medical officer hastened forward. "The bone's broken," he pronounced. "We'll have to amputate."

"Then let me finish this fight first," Gibson retorted, picking up his rifle. The doctor was a soldier, too. He tied the useless arm in a sling, filled Gibson's magazine, and jogged away to other duties with a parting witticism about Americans who didn't know when to quit. There was plenty of work for him to do. Within the next half hour ten men were brought into the improvised hospital, and Carver, on the walls, was tugging his chin, wondering whether he would be able to hold the day out.

The firing began to diminish. Scanning the underbrush to see what significance this might have, Carver saw heavy columns of natives forming. The first test was upon them. At his sharp command the reply fire from the fort ceased and every man filled his magazine.

With a wild whoop the Malays and Chinese rose from the bush and raced toward the stockade. There was an answering yell from the other side as the Dyaks, spears and krisses waving, sprang from the jungle. On the walls, silence. The brown wave swept like an avalanche to within three hundred yards. The Javanese looked anxiously at their white leader, standing like a statue, watching the human tide roll toward him. Two hundred yards--a hundred and fifty yards. The Dutch riflemen began to fidget. A hundred yards. An uneasy murmur ran down the whole line. Fifty yards.

Carver gave the signal. Banning instantly repeated it. A sheet of flame leaped from the walls as rifles and machine-guns poured their deadly torrents of lead into the advancing horde. The first line melted away like butter before a fire. Their wild yells of triumph changed to frantic shrieks of panic, the Dyaks broke and fled for the protecting cover of the jungle while the guns behind them decimated their ranks. The Malays and Chinese got within ten yards of the fort before they succumbed to the awful fusillade, and fled and crawled back to shelter. A mustached Manchu alone reached the gate. He waved his huge kris, but at that moment one of Carver's company emptied a rifle into his chest and he fell at the very base of the wall.

The attack was begun, checked, and ended within four minutes. Over two hundred dead and wounded natives and Chinese lay scattered about the plain. The loss within the fort had been four killed and five wounded. Two of the dead were from Carver's command, John Vander Esse and a Californian. As he counted his casualties, Carver's lips tightened. His thoughts were remarkably similar to that of the great Epirot: "Another such victory and I am undone."

Lieutenant Banning, mopping his brow, stepped forward to felicitate his commanding officer.

"They'll leave us alone for to-day, anyway," he predicted.

Carver stroked his chin in silence a moment.

"I don't think Ah Sing's licked so soon," he replied.

For the next three hours there was only desultory firing. The great body of natives seemed to have departed, leaving only a sufficient force behind to hold the defenders in check in case they attempted to leave the fort. Speculation on the next step of the natives was soon answered. Scanning the harbor with his glasses, Carver detected an unwonted activity on the deck of one of the proas. He watched it closely for a few moments, then he uttered an exclamation.

"They're unloading artillery," he told Lieutenant Banning.

The lieutenant's lips tightened.

"We have nothing except these old guns," he replied.

"They're junk," Carver observed succinctly. "These proas carry Krupps, I'm told."

"What are you going to do?"

"We'll see whether they can handle it first. If they make it too hot for us--well, we'll die fighting."

The first shell broke over the fort an hour later and exploded in the jungle on the other side. Twenty or thirty shells were wasted in this way before the gunner secured the range. His next effort landed against one of the masonry towers on the side defended by the Dutch. When the smoke had cleared away the tower lay leveled. Nine dead and wounded men were scattered among the ruins. A yell rose from the natives, which the remaining Dutch promptly answered with a stinging volley.

"Hold your fire," Carver directed Banning. "We'd better take to the trenches." These had been dug the day before and deepened during the past hour. Carver issued the necessary commands and the defenders, except ten pickets, concealed themselves in their earthen shelters.

The gunnery of the Chinese artilleryman improved, and gaunt breaches were formed in the walls. One by one the towers crumbled. Each well-placed shell was signalized by cheers from the Dyaks and Malays. The shelling finally ceased abruptly. Carver and Banning surveyed the scene. A ruin of fallen stones and splintered logs was all that lay between them and the horde of over three thousand pirates and Malay and Dyak rebels. The natives were forming for a charge.

Carver took the lieutenant's hand in his own firm grip.

"This is probably the end," he said. "I'm glad to die fighting in such good company."