"I am going to attack those forts at once. Signal to theStrong Armto support me, and to Parker and Lang to close and await orders.""Very good, sir," said the First Lieutenant and vanished with a joyful smile.Picking up his telescope, the Captain went on deck, and Dr. Fox began taking off what was left of my monkey-jacket and examining my body. I heard the buglers sounding out for General Quarters, and heard the stamping of the men as they rushed cheering to their stations."Look at yourself, boy," said Dr. Fox, standing me on a chair, and I saw myself in the sideboard glass. I had no cap, my face was scratched all over, my flannel shirt was all covered with blood and was almost torn in half, one trouser leg had a great tear in it, and there was more blood on that, but the sea on board the destroyer had washed most of it away. I was sopping wet, and one boot had gone too."You don't look worth much; hardly worth sending you back, was it?"I snatched at my torn monkey-jacket and pulled out the package."Mr. Hopkins is dying, sir. That is his will, and he wanted to know it was safe aboard here. He has left everything to Milly.""To Milly!" said Dr. Fox, astounded. "I knew that he did meet her two or three times. Was he too in love with her?""Yes, sir; I think she half promised to marry him. Aren't you awfully sorry for him, sir?"Dr. Fox smiled that cynical smile that made you want to kick him."I can't stop here all day," he growled. "I'm short-handed with Richardson away, and must look after my job. You have had enough fighting to last you till doomsday, so just you go down to the ammunition passages and wait there till I come.""Can't I stay on deck, sir?""Do what I tell you!" he snarled, and, to see that I obeyed him, he took me down below himself.CHAPTER XXIIIThe Attack on the FortsBelow the Armoured Deck—We Engage the Forts—We Silence the Forts—My Wounds are DressedMr. Midshipman Glover's Narrative continuedThe men were hurriedly closing water-tight doors and lowering the water-tight hatchway covers. Dr. Fox and I must have been nearly the last to go below, for the men had to stop lowering the big armoured hatchway cover aft, in order that we might scramble through it and climb down the steep iron ladder to the magazine flats.The heavy iron armour fell into place with a thud. I heard the men above screwing down the clamps which secured it, and for the first time in my life realized that we were shut in below the armoured deck, and wondered how we were going to escape if anything happened.Of course I had often been there before during drills, but this was the real thing, and I felt like a rat in a trap.The big space we were now in was called the "cross passage", and ran right across the ship, with the sloping dome of the armoured deck above it. The magazines opened into it at the after end, and on each side the ammunition passages ran for'ard. These were two tunnels just broad enough for two men to squeeze past, and just high enough for them to stand erect. They ran along each side of the ship, under the curved edge of the armoured deck, to open into another cross passage for'ard, where were more magazines, and from the top of them rose the ammunition hoists—great armoured tubes, five on each side—leading up to the main and upper deck 6-inch guns.From the for'ard cross passage a huge armoured tube ran up to the fo'c'stle to feed the fo'c'stle 8-inch gun, and there was a similar one running up from the after cross passage to the quarter-deck gun.Standing underneath and looking up through this one, I could just catch a glimpse of the sky; but of course no daylight came down, and though there were electric lights here and there on the bulk-heads, it was very gloomy.Men were in the whitewashed magazines, with felt slippers on their feet, handing out 6-inch shell and cartridge-cases. Others, rushing out from the darker ammunition passages, seized them, shoved them into little canvas bags bound with rope, and dashed back again to feed their own especial ammunition hoist. Hooking the bags to a rope which ran up the tube, passed over a pulley-wheel at the top and led down again, they hauled the shell and cartridges up to the 6-inch gun above them.I crouched in a corner to be out of the way, and as it grew hotter and hotter, and the stifling air became full of dust, the electric lights themselves began to blur indistinctly; and the men, leaping along the passages, jostling each other as they passed, muttering as they barked their shins or dropped a projectile, clothed in nothing but boots, duck trousers and flannels, their faces and necks streaming with perspiration, looked like demons.A stoker near me, one of two who stood by with a fire-hose, muttered to his mate, "Blow me, Bill, if it ain't as 'ot as 'ot.""You've 'it it to a shovelful; it's wurs'n what them stoke'olds are," I heard Bill reply, as he cut off some tobacco and stuffed it into his cheek."So long as we don't get no blooming fire down 'ere, I'm a-comfortable enough a-standin' 'ere a-watching of them others a-workin'. But what breaks me 'eart every time," he continued, "we don't seem to never get no 'ead o' water through this 'ere hose-pipe. I don't 'old with them new-fangled pumps they've got aboard this 'ere junk.""The same 'ere," answered his mate, and they settled themselves comfortably on the coiled-up fire-hose to enjoy their quids of tobacco.Dr. Fox, the three Paymasters, the Chaplain, and the sick-bay people were trying to get a clear corner, and were laying out bandages, tourniquets, and surgical dressings, the mere sight of which made me feel horribly uncomfortable, and more like a rat in a trap than ever.It was bad enough whilst the men were rushing to and fro, and in that thick, stuffy atmosphere you could smell nothing but sweating men; but presently they had brought out as much ammunition as they could heap round the bottom of the hoists, and there was nothing more for them to do yet. The ammunition parties grouped silently below their own special hoists, and the magazine parties had time to pass their arms across their eyes and wipe the stinging sweat away.It was a time of terrible suspense, for not a sound could be heard from above, where we knew the guns' crews were standing round their guns, and from below nothing but the regular rhythm of the big engines, the rapid throbbing of the dynamo-engines and the pumps behind the bulk-heads, and every now and again the harsh rumbling of the steering-engine aft.Added to all this we were rolling very heavily.Presently a man came scrambling down one of the hoists—sliding down the rope—and there was a sudden stir as men eagerly questioned him."Are we getting close inshore?" "Have the forts opened fire yet?" "Is that big gun still firing?" "Where's theStrong Arm?"Then there was silence again—all but the noises of the engines drumming and thudding on the other side of the white bulk-heads.The First Lieutenant, trying to appear calm, walked round and round, first along the port side, then down the starboard passage, seeing that everything was ready and everybody in his place, speaking a word here and there to a petty officer, and followed closely by his midshipman messenger, a very junior chap we called "Daisy".Then the little bell at our end of the conning-tower voice-pipe tinkled loudly. The man stationed there sang out for the First Lieutenant, and he came running up. Captain Helston was giving him an order from the conning tower."Very good, sir," he shouted back."Stand by on the port side, men; we are just going to commence."Oh, wasn't it exciting! and didn't I wish that I was up above that armoured deck with the sky overhead, instead of lying down there so stiff and sore that I could barely move!The men were fidgeting nervously from one foot to the other, and then the silence was broken by the banging of the guns in the port battery overhead. A second later the quarter-deck 8-inch went off, and we could feel the ship quiver; another quiver came from the fo'c'stle big gun for'ard. Two minutes of this and then men shouted hoarsely down the hoists for more ammunition, the voice-pipe bells tinkled, and the order came down to pass up only common shell (shell with thin walls and a large bursting charge).Men flew backwards and forwards, the dust thickened again, the heat and the mugginess were horrid, and every now and again some of the powder smoke would be blown down the hoists and make those stifling ammunition passages darker still.The First Lieutenant walked steadily backwards and forwards along the port side, singing out, "Steady, men; don't hurry—don't crowd," and the two stokers near me tucked their feet out of the way and went on chewing their quids of tobacco.Then a man slid down one of the starboard hoists and crawled aft to Dr. Fox. He had a great gash in one leg, with some spun yarn tied tightly about it."They're firing furious," he gasped, "and a splinter from the first cutter caught me."Then the port guns ceased firing, and we heard the steering-engine rumbling "hard over"."We are turning now, boys, and going past again. Stand by for the starboard guns," sang out the First Lieutenant.The quarter-deck gun ceased firing. Now we were almost round again, and could faintly hear the boom of theStrong Arm'sguns coming down the hoists.There was a crash and a roar above us, something came clattering down one of the port upper-deck hoists, a man jumped and picked it up—a fragment of shell—and he dropped it again precious quickly with burnt fingers. I remember that the men all laughed at him."Want the doctor!" someone shouted down.In a moment Dr. Fox was there with a bag over his shoulder. They made a bight in the rope hoist, he placed his foot in it, and grasped the rope over his head."Haul handsomely, men," he growled, and they hauled him up the hoist. He was down again in a minute or two, sliding down the rope."Too late!" I heard him mutter as he landed, his hands and sleeves covered with blood."Who was it, sir?" somebody asked him, but he took no notice.Then the starboard guns and the quarter-deck 8-inch commenced, and we had begun to go past those two forts for the second run.I pictured our shells bursting against the rocks and among the guns I had seen there, and wondered whether the European in charge was sober or not, and whether the Commander was still holding out round his Krupp gun. If only I hadn't been such a fool as to jump down off that parapet of sand-bags, I might have been with him still.We were coming to the end of the second run now, and the First Lieutenant had just said as he wiped his forehead: "They can't stand much more of this if we're making anything like decent shooting," when they commenced cheering on deck, and somebody shouted down that the forts had hoisted a white flag. The men below cheered from one end of the passages to the other, and the guns above ceased firing.Dr. Fox and a sick-berth steward climbed up a hoist to look after some more wounded on deck, and in a few minutes the main engines began to slow down and presently stopped altogether.On deck we heard the bos'n's mate pipe, "Away, second cutter!" a voice yelled down the hoist, "Any second cutters down below there?" A couple of men belonging to that boat scrambled hastily up, there was silence again, and we could do nothing but wait and wonder what was happening."If we sit here much longer I'm blowed if we sha'n't miss our first dog-watch," said one of the stokers cheerfully, and unbending his cramped legs."'Tis a hill wind that don't blow nobody no good," added the other reflectively, and they both spat into a dark corner behind the fire-hose."Put those two men in the Commander's report," said the First Lieutenant, who had just come over from the opposite side and saw them spit.Daisy, his midshipman, got out his pocket-book and took their names."What about yer hill wind now?" said the first one who had spoken, as Daisy went away, and they sat down again. "That will blooming well stop yer chawnce of going ashore and picking up a bit o' loot."Old Mellins scrambled down to see me, and jolly glad I was. He is such a thoughtful chap, and had brought me some grub—a pot of pâté de foie gras and some bread and butter. Till I saw it I never realized how terribly hungry I was; and you should have seen me eating it, with Mellins standing over me, spreading great chunks of the pâté on thick slices of bread and butter, and telling me all that had happened."Our first run past those forts simply knocked the stuffing out of them. You couldn't see them for dust and the smoke of the shells, and when we turned round and went for them again they hardly fired a gun. We could see them tumbling over each other in their hurry to scramble out of the forts, and after we'd ceased firing someone hauled down their colours and hoisted a white flag as big as a sheet. It was simply ripping.""How about the Commander?" I asked."He's going strong, and firing that big gun into the harbour every four or five minutes. 'No. 2' and 'No. 3' are right in under the forts, and Toddles has taken the Captain inshore to take possession of them, or what is left of them.""Anybody killed?" I asked."We have one, poor Joe Connolly, the coxswain of my picket-boat," said Mellins sadly, "and theStrong Armhas three killed and nearly twenty pretty badly wounded. A 6-inch shell burst on her upper deck—in the battery."Dr. Fox and his sick-berth steward came along then, and Mellins was sent away to get me some more clothes, as the ones I had on were torn and blood-stained. It wasn't all my blood, I think, for when Dr. Fox had ripped off my shirt he only found a clean cut along my ribs, and the wound in my leg was a nasty stab made, I expect, by one of those horrid boarding-pikes the Chinese were prodding me with.This wound was much the more uncomfortable, and Dr. Fox took quite a long time probing and syringing it till it was quite clean.It was very painful and smarted a good deal; and wasn't I jolly glad when he had finished and left me alone again, and Mellins had helped me into my clean things!CHAPTER XXIVThe Capture of the IslandA Crisis—Inside the Pirate Island—A Feeble Resistance—Doctors Wanted—An Awful Night—Schmidt EscapesWhilst theLairdand theStrong Armsteamed past the forts for the first time, at a range of between four and five thousand yards, the forts had replied furiously and struck theLairdrepeatedly.Hardly had she fired the first gun before a shell passed through her foremost funnel, making a large rent in it, but, fortunately, not bursting. A second struck the first cutter, completely wrecking it and wounding one or two men with the splinters which flew in all directions. Another shell struck the armoured belt at the water-line and burst, doing no damage, and leaving only a dent in the hard steel. A fourth had passed through the ward-room and burst in the Gunnery Lieutenant's cabin, setting it on fire, whilst the last struck one of the upper-deck 6-inch gun-shields, forced it back on top of the gun and burst, killing Connolly, the captain of the gun, and wounding three of his men badly.TheStrong Armhad not been struck till the ships began to turn, but then she was hit by several shells in quick succession, and lost three killed and seventeen wounded.But the fire of the two ships had been so terrific, that even as they steadied on their course, and edged in to within three thousand yards for their second run, the signalman up aloft in the fore-top saw the Chinamen already leaving their guns, and before they had completed this second run the enemy had hauled down their flag and presently hoisted a white one.Captain Helston immediately ceased fire, and ordered Lang and Parker to go close inshore with their destroyers and reconnoitre.Mr. Lang signalled from "No. 2" that the forts had been evacuated, and Helston called away the second cutter and went himself to make certain that such was the case.There was no doubt about it—the forts were completely deserted—and he signalled to theLairdand ordered her to land fifty men and occupy them at once, pushing on himself through the entrance-channel till he came abreast of the deserted landing-stages. Not a Chinaman could be seen.Here he made the men lie on their oars, and now he could see the whole of the harbour, the smoking wreck of the cruiser at the foot of the cliffs on his right, the little town on the other side of the harbour, and the cruisers beyond it, hugging the shore and mixed up in confusion with the anchored merchant ships.The cruisers were evidently not showing fight, that was as plain as a "pike-staff", but the sharp bursts of rifle firing that the wind brought down from One Gun Hill told him that Cummins was still being severely pressed.He knew from Midshipman Glover's hurried report that the little party was much reduced in numbers and must be running short of ammunition, and, as far as he could judge, the attack on the forts had not reduced the danger of the Commander's position. In fact, the inference was that he might have driven out the garrison of those forts only to reinforce the crowds of infuriated Chinese, who would now make one more determined effort to overwhelm the gallant little cluster of men who had so desperately held on to that hilltop since daylight.Fortunately the sudden necessity for immediate action, the prompt resolve to bombard the forts as the only means of relieving the pressure on the Commander's party, and the celerity with which the reduction of those forts had been carried out, bore him along on a wave of fortune which seemed to sweep away his recent indecision and vacillation.He abruptly determined to take a step still more decisive.The risks of the project almost appalled him; but the necessity for instant action was so vividly apparent, that though he momentarily hesitated before irrevocably committing his little squadron, the continuous rattle of musketry from the hill above decided him upon one final resolution.There might be more guns hidden on the high land all round him. The cruisers might still oppose him valiantly, and there was but one hour of daylight remaining, yet he determined to make this last effort for entire success."Get back to theLairdas fast as you can," he said to Toddles, the midshipman of the boat, who had been looking with wonder at the change which had come over him."Back starboard; give way port. Pull, men, for your lives;" and with bending oars they drove the boat out to sea again, out between the destroyers, and splashed through the heavy seas.With their boat half-full of water, they pulled under the lee of theLaird, hooked on their boat's falls, and were hoisted up with a run."Belay those fifty men," Captain Helston told the First Lieutenant, who hurried up to receive him as he scrambled down on deck, "and go to quarters again. I'm going to take the whole squadron inside.""Oh!" whistled the First Lieutenant, and rushed off.The bugles blared; signals flew to theStrong Arm; men passed the word to the guns' crews that they were going right inside; men bellowed the news down the ammunition hoists, down the engine-room and stokehold gratings, and on deck and down below from the bowels of the ship cheer after cheer burst forth.Now theStrong Armhad the news, and her men too began to cheer as the two ships gathered way and made straight for the entrance.As they passed between the two weather-beaten little destroyers, rolling gunwale under, with their funnels white with salt, the crews of the destroyers sprang to "attention" and then broke into cheers. TheLairdwas right in the entrance now, her boats, swung out at the davits, almost grazed, to port and starboard, the rocky ledges in which the abandoned guns were mounted.Grandly she answered her helm, swung round the bend in the channel, and steadied as she majestically moved past the deserted landing-stages. TheStrong Arm, carefully handled by the First Lieutenant, followed her. "No. 2" and "No. 3" dashed in after them, and the whole of the squadron except theSylviawas inside the island harbour.* * * * *The sudden approach of these two ships to the attack had found the forts totally unprepared to make any effective resistance.For the last three weeks the squadron had shown such an evident disinclination to come to close quarters, that Hopkins, Hamilton, and Schmidt had been lulled into a sense of false security, and, imagining that no attack would be made from that quarter, had withdrawn a considerable number of the artillerymen from the forts, all trained and disciplined men, to strengthen the attack on One Gun Hill.The seizure of the Krupp gun had taken them completely by surprise, and the necessity for its recapture was imperative.Unable to rely upon their coolies, they had hastily denuded the ships and gathered sufficient blue-jackets to make the first rush. Though nearly successful it had ended disastrously, Hopkins being mortally wounded and such a number of men being killed, that the remainder could only with difficulty be again induced to advance from cover.The unsuccessful attempt to cut off the small party with the oil-drums, the destruction of the cruiser, and the death of Hamilton, the lame Englishman on board her, made it evident to Schmidt that he must, once for all, overwhelm Cummins and his men before the weather abated and allowed further reinforcements to land. He had, therefore, brought up every coolie he could find, armed them with every weapon he could lay his hands on, and stiffened their wavering ranks with the disciplined men from the forts and what blue-jackets he could muster.Inciting them to fury with tales of what their fate would be if they were captured, he had plied them with drink, and gathering them behind the smoke from the burning bushes, had hurled them at the top of the hill.It was with this wild, fanatical mob, mad with unaccustomed drink, that Hopkins had sent the small body of blue-jackets to endeavour to rescue Glover, and though in this he had been successful, the assault itself had been finally repulsed.Only a few men were left in the forts themselves, and the European in charge, who had been drinking heavily during the last ten days, was in no fit state to utilize even those that remained to him, and when Schmidt first awoke to the fact that the squadron had at last ventured to attack, he left his beaten men to continue to harass the top of the hill with rifle fire, and rushed down towards the forts.Before he could reach them he met the terror-stricken mob of men flying from them, and almost immediately afterwards saw the top-masts of theLairdand theStrong Armappearing behind the harbour entrance.These frightened fugitives, scared out of their very lives, had splashed hurriedly past the destroyers lying huddled inshore, and spread the panic among their crews, who, not even waiting till theLairdappeared inside the harbour, took to their boats or jumped overboard and made for the shore.Schmidt knew well enough that there was nothing now to stop Helston's squadron, knew that the greater part of his blue-jackets were already on top of the hill—many of them dead—knew that one of his partners had been blown to pieces on the opposite side of the harbour, and that the other lay dying; but with a gambler's trust in the last throw of the dice, he jumped into a dinghy, pulled himself across to theHong Lu, and tried to rally his cowed and dispirited men.* * * * *It was from the sides of theHong Luthat suddenly, as theLairdand theStrong Armsteered into the harbour, flames shot out and shells came wildly past them. The two remaining cruisers joined in, and for perhaps five minutes the water round the two ships was lashed into foam, and the cliffs behind them were struck time after time by the Chinese shells.But every gun that could bear upon the unhappy cruisers crowded under the land poured in a fire so concentrated, so coolly aimed, and so accurate, that their already demoralized crews could not stand to their guns, and running their ships ashore, swarmed over the bows and left them to their fate.TheHong Ludid indeed make one desperate and gallant attempt. Extricating herself from the other ships, she commenced steaming towards theLairdand theStrong Arm, and came down at great speed with the intention of either ramming one or other of them, or of forcing her way past and escaping to sea.TheLairdand theStrong Arm, opening out a little in the broader part of the harbour, poured in a very hail of 6-inch shells. TheHong Lu'sthin, low plates were rent open in a dozen places, water poured in, and she began visibly to sink by the head. An 8-inch shell burst at the foot of her foremast under the bridge, her bows were smothered in flame and smoke, she fell off to port, and then she too ran with a crash up the shore, and her crew began jumping overboard.TheStrong Armsteamed towards her to complete the destruction, if necessary, and saw one huge solitary figure on her quarter-deck. This was Schmidt, who quickly dived into the sea, swam with powerful strokes to the land, and disappeared in the dense cover.With theHong Luabandoned all opposition ceased, and from the top of One Gun Hill the faint sound of cheering could be heard. Looking through their telescopes they could see the gallant little party clustered behind the breast-works they had defended so long, standing up on the sand-bags and waving their helmets as they cheered.They, too, were safe.The light was already beginning to fade, and heavy squalls of rain made signalling difficult, but Cummins managed to get one semaphore signal through to theLaird: "Enemy disappearing; am short of ammunition, and require medical assistance. Richardson is killed."Helston sent for Dr. Fox and handed him the signal."I'll go myself," said the Doctor."I thought you would," replied Helston. "I'll give you fifty men, and you must get up there as fast as you can, and I'll turn my search-lights on the top of the hill as soon as it is dark. I don't expect that you'll find the Chinese have any more fight left in them, but if you do I will help you.""No. 3" was sent out to bring theSylviainto the harbour, parties of men were sent aboard the ships, destroyers, and torpedo-boats to remove the breech-blocks of their guns, and a strong body of men was sent down to the forts to do the same there. They found five bodies in the batteries, but very little material damage done—very little compared to the apparent destruction as seen from the ships. Two of the smaller guns had been dismounted and one of the 6-inch had been disabled, but nothing more, though masses of the rock behind them had been blasted with the shells and lay between the guns in heaps.Another party tried unsuccessfully to extinguish the fire aboard theHong Lu, but had to leave her to her fate, for the flames had taken firm hold of her and were spreading rapidly towards the magazines.It was quite dark before these precautions were complete, and meanwhile Dr. Fox, with his escort of fifty men, was hurrying to the top of the hill, bearing more ammunition and the urgently-needed surgical dressings.He had landed far from the town, and, giving it a wide berth—for already the sounds of rioting and tumult rose from it—had struck the zigzag path just as daylight failed.But few natives had been met, and these had fled precipitately.Dr. Fox pressed on up the hill, aided by theLaird'ssearch-light, which lighted up the path ahead of him, made still more slippery and treacherous by the heavy rain now falling. Urged to his utmost exertions by the knowledge that he and his men were urgently wanted, he scrambled on, stumbling every now and then over the bodies of dead Chinamen and over rifles which had been thrown away in their flight, and now lay scattered in great numbers on the path.At last he came out into the open in front of the breastworks, and feeble cheers greeted him from the remnants of the defenders. The search-lights of the ships lighted up the whole of that charred open space below the crest, and hundreds of prostrate bodies dotted it, thickly piled, literally in heaps, where the Maxims had swept them down in their last mad rush, their yellow faces horrible in the beams of the light. Right up to the sand-bags they lay, giving proof of the fierceness of their charge, whilst the dark eyes and haggard, drawn faces of the marines and bluejackets behind the breast-work showed only too plainly the terrible struggle they had made to defend it.Cummins came forward with blanched, anxious face, his left arm bound across his chest."Thank God! you're come. Poor Richardson was killed three hours ago, and we have thirty men wanting you."The worn-out defenders had roused themselves for a minute or two to welcome their comrades, but then lay down exhausted, and, with all danger past, fell asleep immediately, drenched though they were by the bitter cold rain which swept moaning across the plateau.Nobody on that bleak hilltop will ever forget the night which followed.The men were too utterly wearied to carry down the wounded, even if this had been possible. No one thought of leaving the dead unguarded, so the fifty men whom Dr. Fox had brought hastily pulled down the Log Redoubt which Captain Williams had maintained so stoutly, and with the timber made two bonfires under the lee of the gun-pit parapet. By their light and that of the search-light Dr. Fox dressed the wounded who hobbled stiffly over from where they had fallen, or were carried to him.The dead, too, were collected, reverently laid together, and covered with the big tarpaulin from the Krupp gun—Captain Hunter, Dr. Richardson, eleven marines, the signalman who had been the first to fall, the sick-berth steward who had been killed with Dr. Richardson during that fight round the gun, whilst trying to protect the wounded, and five blue-jackets.The Commander resolutely refused aid till the last, and when his turn came Dr. Fox found that he had a terrible gash on the left shoulder—from a cutlass—cutting clean down to the collar-bone and shoulder-blade, and his arm was quite helpless. "Another inch, and you would have bled to death," said Dr. Fox grimly. "The bones saved you.""I dodged my head in time, or it would have caught me there," said Cummins, raising a feeble chuckle; but then he fainted through loss of blood and sheer exhaustion.Saunderson had a bullet through his chest, and lay very still, wrapped tightly round with a bandage, and too worn-out and numbed with cold to worry about his condition."You'll be all right," Dr. Fox told him, and covered him with a blanket; "only don't move till morning."* * * * *Down below every corner of the harbour was being searched by the lights of the ships, for Schmidt was still at large, and there was no knowing what devilry he might devise.TheHong Lu, burning fiercely, threw a red glare over the hills and turned the harbour to a blood colour, and from time to time tremendous explosions on board her quenched the flames momentarily, but they leapt out again more furiously than ever.From the town itself came the angry buzz of shouting and yelling; rifle shots rang out in a jerky, spasmodic crackling, and it was evident that the natives, emboldened by hunger, by the desire to save their own possessions, or by the lust of looting, had gradually crept back and were now fighting among themselves.Presently the horrors of the night were intensified by flames springing from the go-downs and warehouses near the water's edge. In half an hour they were well alight, burning fiercely, and, fanned by the wind, the flames spread to the bamboo-matting huts, leaping from one to another with their fiery tongues till the whole lower part of the town was one roaring furnace. The flames and the black smoke blowing across the lurid harbour almost hid the search-lights of the ships.It was a weird and frightful spectacle, fit end to an awful day.* * * * *Far from exulting in its success, Helston's squadron that night was sunk in gloom darker than the acrid clouds of black smoke sweeping through its rigging, for the names of the killed and wounded had been signalled with flash-lamps from the hill, and posted up on each lower deck was the grim list, the roll of killed beginning with Captain Hunter, idolized by officers and men alike, and ending with Gunner Bolton, the corner man in theLaird'sNigger Minstrel Troupe. His mess-mates would chaff him no more "that he had done them out of a show".Even Ping Sang was not happy, and wrung his hands as he saw the flames devour the warehouses, crammed, as he guessed only too accurately, with his own merchandise, and implored—at times almost commanded—Helston to endeavour to save them.But Helston was obdurate—not another man would he risk; and though he did send two steam-boats to haul off a big steamer lying alongside the pier under the town, and they succeeded in towing her away before the flames reached her, he resolutely refused to land another man either to quell the riot or subdue the fire.Even now he was anxious about Cummins and Dr. Fox, and "stood by" all night with a couple of hundred men, to go himself to their assistance if the hill were again assailed.In the intervals of smoke he could see the flickering bonfires they had lighted on top of the hill, and round which they were huddled waiting for the morning. One incident broke the strain of that terrible night. It was when the clouds of smoke were densest that suddenly a man aboard "No. 2", which was lying farthest out from shore, sang out that he had seen a sail show black above the low land near the narrow outlet.He lost sight of it behind the driving smoke, and when the view had cleared again and a search-light had swept towards it, a junk could plainly be seen bending and staggering under the fierce gusts of wind which whirled down on her as she cleared the island. A rain squall shut her out, and when it had passed no further trace of her could be seen.Mr. Lang thought rightly that Schmidt himself was aboard her, and made a signal asking permission to endeavour to cut her off to leeward of the island, but Helston refused to allow him to venture out—the risks were too great—and doubted not that the helpless, clumsy junk could well be left to the short shrift of that howling gale outside.Even his own ships must have been dispersed that night, and he gave fervent thanks, where thanks were due, that success had been granted him, and that his squadron lay in safety inside the harbour.Schmidt it indeed was who, with some of his boldest men, had seized the junk under cover of the smoke, cut her grass hawser, towed her silently with a dinghy till she had reached the outlet, hoisted her bamboo-matting sails till he had cleared the land, and then let her run before the raging gale under bare poles.How he at last reached land, gathered more men round him, and spread terror through the island waters of the Chusan Archipelago, must be told another day.CHAPTER XXVThe Fruits of VictoryOh, the Pity of It!—We Find Hopkins—Helston has Suspicions—Helston's Speech—A "Stand Easy"—Ping Sang Departs—We Hand Over our Ships—Homeward Bound—The Admiral Speaks his MindDr. Fox concludes his experiencesIf I had only known that I should have to spend the whole night on top of that hill, I should never have been such a fool as to volunteer.The young Surgeon of theStrong Armwas every whit as capable of doing the work as I was, and his youth would have carried him through the night's exposure without harm. As it was, I always date the commencement of my rheumatism from that horrible night, and never cease regretting that at the moment when Helston showed me the signal from One Gun Hill, and I read of the death of my Surgeon, Richardson, and of the wounded lying there without anyone to look after them for the last three hours, my common sense should have failed me momentarily.Ugh! How it rained and blew! That zigzag path was a miniature torrent, and my feet slipped backwards in the squelching mud at every pace. The idiot, too, who was training theLaird'ssearch-light thought, I have no doubt, he was lighting my way; but he kept his beam fixed on me and the men who went with me, with the result that I was nearly blinded. The shadows were made still more intense, and it was more difficult than ever to avoid stumbling over the bodies of the dead Chinamen which littered the path.Two hours' hard work it was before the wounded were patched up and made fairly ship-shape.The Mauser bullet wounds did not bother me much, but quite a number of men had deep flesh wounds inflicted by cutlasses, swords, or bayonets during the hand-to-hand fighting, and it does not require much imagination to understand the difficulty—the impossibility, in fact—of making a good job of these, dressing them by the unsteady light of theLaird'ssearch-light, with the rain pouring in torrents and driving almost horizontally across the top of the hill before the gale.As each case was finished, and the poor fellow, blue with cold (the skin of their hands and faces was wrinkled like a washerwoman's hands), was laid down somewhere in the lee of the dripping sand-bags, I injected morphia to ease his pain, and could only hope that he would be sufficiently alive in the morning for us to get him safely down to the ships, where he might have a chance of being properly looked after.Little Cummins had about the worst wound of the lot, and even if he managed to pull through, I had little hope that his left arm would be of much use to him.However, he tried to be cheery, especially when I told him that young Glover was safe and sound aboard theLaird, and gave one or two of his irritating chuckles before he fainted. He then lay quiet for the rest of the night. There was no need to give him any morphia, for he was absolutely "played out".Saunderson, with a bullet through his right lung, did not worry me much, because so long as he kept still and was tightly bandaged, nothing more could be done for him, and his grand physique would carry him safely through the night's exposure.Things were made more comfortable when the men who had come with me pulled some logs across from one of the breast-works and made a fire close to the Krupp gun parapet, and probably more lives were saved by this means than by anything I did.The men who had defended the hill all day were now fast asleep, most of them absolutely unprotected from the cold rain, so I made my fellows bring them nearer to the fire. Many were so exhausted that they were carried across without being awakened. In fact, it was so difficult to distinguish the dead from the living, that they actually carried over two dead men and laid them down round the fire, nor was their mistake discovered till morning.At last I finished, and had time to crouch down behind some sand-bags and managed to light a pipe, shivering with cold and cursing myself for a fool for ever having been induced to join Helston in his mad enterprise.The gale shrieked and howled; the rain stung my face. Seawards, out of the pitchy blackness of the night, the waves bellowed as they pounded the foot of the hill in one incessant roar; the burning ships and warehouses, the crackling of musketry in the town below, the constant explosions from the doomed ships, all made of the harbour a very inferno, from out of which the cold, clear search-light flashed pitilessly on the slaughter-house round me.Twenty English and two hundred or more Chinamen lay there sleeping their last long sleep.Oh, the pity of it all!My worst enemy could not accuse me of being sentimental, and that night all feeling whatever seemed numbed; but as I recognized the dead faces of Hunter, Richardson, and a dozen men whom I knew, the only thought was one of bitterness that men should throw away their lives so comparatively uselessly, and the selfishness of it all made me feel almost angry with them.Hunter's family I knew. He left a wife and two children. Richardson had only recently married; and little did they reckon, they and the other poor fellows, when they volunteered for this expedition in their lust for change, for excitement, for self-glorification or chance of promotion, the misery they were to inflict.Who bears the bigger share when the man goes out to war?Is it the man, with his cares forgotten as the shores of England slip down below the horizon, with the hot blood coursing through his body and the fighting instinct of the male animal to bear him along, or is it the woman he leaves behind him—the mother, wife, or sweetheart—who is left to her humdrum daily duties, with her heart full of empty pains and aching fears, to hope and long and dread for news, day after day, week after week?It seems foolish to write this, but all through that ghastly night, turn my thoughts how I would, they ever came back to the bitterness, the selfishness, the pity of it all.Every now and again some wounded man wanted attention—one man became delirious, and at intervals uttered horrible shrieks. Pattison also became delirious, and I had to keep a man watching lest he should tear off his bandages.About three in the morning one of my men thought he heard a cry for help down the sea slope of the hill, and we searched by the light of the signal lantern for nearly an hour, but found no one.No longer, no more terrible night, have I ever spent; but at last it did end—the darkness lessened, the uncanny search-light was switched off, and daybreak gradually revealed the gruesome sights which had been but half seen and only partially conjectured before.Fortunately both the doctors of theStrong Armcame up to relieve me an hour after daylight, and I quickly scrambled down the hill, slipping and sliding in the mud.I met Helston on the way down, and his face lighted up with relief when he saw me, and I was able to give him a fairly cheerful account of the wounded. He had landed with a couple of hundred men and driven the mob of Chinamen out of what was left of the town, and was now on his way to Hopkins's bungalow, guided by Hi Ling, the head boy."Come along with us, Doc, old chap. I want you to see Hopkins before you go off to the ship, if it is not too late."We were close to the European bungalows, and Hi Ling led us straight to the one Hopkins inhabited, going on ahead of us.As we approached we saw that everything was in disorder. Furniture, clothes, books, and papers were strewn all over the verandah, and a dead Chinaman lay sprawling half in, half out of a window."Looted during the night," I thought, and saw that Helston also thought so, and neither of us expected to find the American alive.Hi Ling met us on the verandah, wringing his hands and moaning. We pushed aside a bamboo curtain and followed him into a room where everything was in still greater confusion, a trestle-bed overturned, drawers ransacked and their contents scattered, and lying on the floor was Hopkins himself, with a dead Chinaman beside him. The one we had seen from outside had probably been killed as he tried to escape.Both had bullet wounds, and had evidently been killed by the revolver Hopkins still held in his clenched hand.He was quite dead, and I must confess that I felt much relieved, because nothing could have saved him, and also I did not want him to speak to Helston of Milly, as I feared he might have done, for Helston was of such a peculiar disposition, that I was very anxious that he should know nothing about the photograph or the will which Hopkins had made in her favour—nothing, at any rate, till I had got him safely home.I hurriedly examined Hopkins, and whilst doing this tried to find the photograph of which Glover had told me; but it was not near him, only the crumpled-up piece of paper which Helston had signed on young Glover's safe return.Poor fellow! the knowledge that his will was safe may have cheered his last moments.We prepared to lift the body and place it decently on the bed, but, unfortunately, whilst we were righting the trestle-bed the photograph fell on the floor, and though I hastily tried to seize it, Helston stooped before I did and picked it up.His face became rigid as he recognized it, and I saw his hand shaking as if he had an attack of ague, but in a few moments he recovered himself and gently laid it on the table."Help me to lift him, Fox," he said in a husky voice, looking at me suspiciously, and we laid Hopkins on his bed and left Hi Ling to prepare his master for burial.The faithful Chinaman was actually crying. I had never seen a Chinaman cry before.Hardly had we gained the verandah before Helston stopped, turned abruptly, and went back again. Through the open window I saw him place the photograph in Hopkins's breast, inside his pyjamas.He rejoined me immediately, and said in a strained, hard voice: "What is the meaning of it all, Fox? You seem to know something about it. Tell me, for God's sake!"I thought it best to tell him all I knew, and did so.As I feared, he magnified the very little that I could tell him, and would not believe that I knew no more.Poor chap! his face was drawn and haggard as he rapidly questioned me in a jerky, constrained manner, trying vainly to conceal his agitation, and darting suspicious glances at me."Did you know anything of this before we left England?""Nothing. I knew that they had met. Nothing else.""But had you no suspicions?"That made me angry. I hate being badgered."Look here, Helston, all I know I have told you. That he should fall in love with Milly is nothing remarkable. A dozen men, to my knowledge, are, or pretend they are, in love with her, and as to the photograph, why, every girl thinks the gift of a picture of herself quite sufficient a reward for that.""Yes, perhaps; but there must have been something in it if he has left her all his money.""Oh, confound you, don't be such a fool!" And, thoroughly irritated, I left him to climb his way wearily to the top of the hill, whilst I went off to theLairdto get something to eat, a bath, and an hour's sleep. But for that nine stone, more or less, of frilled and furbelowed Milly, Hunter would not be lying dead on the hill above, nor Richardson either, and without Richardson I was left single-handed, just when I wanted him most. I wished most devoutly that Helston and I had never saved the life of that avaricious old Chinaman, Ping Sang, ten years ago.The first thing I did when I went aboard theLairdwas to get the First Lieutenant to send half a dozen men ashore to bury Hopkins behind his bungalow, and then I had a hot bath and turned in, and slept like a log till I was called an hour later.I felt better after that, and was hard at work for the rest of the day preparing one of the cleanest of the merchant ships—theHoi Feng—for the wounded, and by night we had brought them all down from the hill and safely aboard her, sending to her the wounded still on board theStrong Armand our own ship as well.But for half an hour for dinner I did not stop working all day, and what with our own people and the wounded Chinamen, who began creeping back to the town in great numbers, we had enough to do and to spare.It was nearly midnight before I finally turned in, and at two o'clock Jeffreys, the Sub-lieutenant, woke me up and told me that the Captain was walking up and down the quarter-deck in the rain, and would I speak to him and try to make him go below, as no one else dare approach him.He was walking up and down with long strides, his hands clasped behind his back, his head drooped between his shoulders, and his eyes vacantly staring ahead of him.He seemed to wake, as if from sleep, when I put my hand on his shoulder (his monkey-jacket was wet through)."And this is the moment Bannerman chooses to ask me for theStrong Arm," he said fiercely, "and poor Hunter not even buried yet. How I do despise that man, and wish, with all my heart, that I could give her to Cummins; but he won't be fit for duty for weeks, and is junior to Bannerman, so I suppose Bannerman must have her. It makes me boil over with anger to think of him stepping into Hunter's shoes."This was not, I knew well enough, the real cause of his discomposure, but I was only too glad that his thoughts should be turned into another channel."He'll be stepping into yours if you don't take more care of yourself and get below out of this rain," I told him.Ultimately I managed to induce him to undress and go to bed; but his mental condition seemed very unstable, and I much feared that the strain of the whole expedition would result in his complete break-down.However, he slept soundly enough after that, and was much more composed in the morning.That day every man who could be spared from the squadron was marched to the top of One Gun Hill, and there Hunter, Richardson, and their men were buried, and their graves marked by rough wooden crosses, with their names carved on them.Three volleys were fired. The buglers of the squadron sounded a melancholy Last Post, and they were left there with that grim bullet-splashed Krupp gun to guard them.The expedition had been successful.It was Helston who read the burial service, and before the men marched down to their ships he made them a short address as they stood on the plateau in a hollow square round him. He always showed to advantage on these occasions with his tall figure, commanding features, and resonant voice."Officers and men of the Royal Navy and Royal Naval Reserve," he said—"we have paid the last honours to those of our comrades who lie buried here on the summit of the hill they defended so valiantly, and no words that I can say will add to their honour."They have, by their courage and devotion, enabled this expedition to be completely successful, and now that our return to England will not long be deferred, I want to say two things to you."Do not forget them."When we leave them here on this lonely hilltop standing in the midst of a distant ocean, sometimes think of them."If fate had ordained that any of you standing round me should have been now lying amongst them, you would have wished to be remembered by your mess-mates."They have done their duty and given up their lives in the doing of it; so let every man keep the memory of what they have done, before him, as long as ever he can, and thus pay them a greater honour than by merely marching here to their burial."The other thing which I want to say is this."They have not died directly serving their Queen or their Country (we are, as you know, lent to the Chinese Government), and this makes the sacrifice of their lives all the more bitter, and it will be still more deeply felt by their relatives at home."But though they were not serving under the British Admiralty, remember that what they have done here, on this hilltop, will add to the glory of our navy, and help to keep alive its fighting spirit."The Royal Navy has not been tried severely for many generations, and it is such a deed as this—the defence of One Gun Hill—which increases the confidence the navy has in itself to maintain its old traditions untarnished when the hour of trial shall come."Rest assured that the lives which have been lost since we left England will not have been wasted if we—those who are dead and those who are alive—have helped even a little to increase the honour and prestige of the Royal Navy."Men, remember the mess-mates you are leaving here, even as you would wish to be remembered yourselves."Helston always "fancied" himself at speech-making, and was almost cheerful as he and I walked down the hill together and stopped on the slopes to watch a crowd of surrendered coolies who had been set to work to bury their own dead.
"I am going to attack those forts at once. Signal to theStrong Armto support me, and to Parker and Lang to close and await orders."
"Very good, sir," said the First Lieutenant and vanished with a joyful smile.
Picking up his telescope, the Captain went on deck, and Dr. Fox began taking off what was left of my monkey-jacket and examining my body. I heard the buglers sounding out for General Quarters, and heard the stamping of the men as they rushed cheering to their stations.
"Look at yourself, boy," said Dr. Fox, standing me on a chair, and I saw myself in the sideboard glass. I had no cap, my face was scratched all over, my flannel shirt was all covered with blood and was almost torn in half, one trouser leg had a great tear in it, and there was more blood on that, but the sea on board the destroyer had washed most of it away. I was sopping wet, and one boot had gone too.
"You don't look worth much; hardly worth sending you back, was it?"
I snatched at my torn monkey-jacket and pulled out the package.
"Mr. Hopkins is dying, sir. That is his will, and he wanted to know it was safe aboard here. He has left everything to Milly."
"To Milly!" said Dr. Fox, astounded. "I knew that he did meet her two or three times. Was he too in love with her?"
"Yes, sir; I think she half promised to marry him. Aren't you awfully sorry for him, sir?"
Dr. Fox smiled that cynical smile that made you want to kick him.
"I can't stop here all day," he growled. "I'm short-handed with Richardson away, and must look after my job. You have had enough fighting to last you till doomsday, so just you go down to the ammunition passages and wait there till I come."
"Can't I stay on deck, sir?"
"Do what I tell you!" he snarled, and, to see that I obeyed him, he took me down below himself.
CHAPTER XXIII
The Attack on the Forts
Below the Armoured Deck—We Engage the Forts—We Silence the Forts—My Wounds are Dressed
Below the Armoured Deck—We Engage the Forts—We Silence the Forts—My Wounds are Dressed
Mr. Midshipman Glover's Narrative continued
The men were hurriedly closing water-tight doors and lowering the water-tight hatchway covers. Dr. Fox and I must have been nearly the last to go below, for the men had to stop lowering the big armoured hatchway cover aft, in order that we might scramble through it and climb down the steep iron ladder to the magazine flats.
The heavy iron armour fell into place with a thud. I heard the men above screwing down the clamps which secured it, and for the first time in my life realized that we were shut in below the armoured deck, and wondered how we were going to escape if anything happened.
Of course I had often been there before during drills, but this was the real thing, and I felt like a rat in a trap.
The big space we were now in was called the "cross passage", and ran right across the ship, with the sloping dome of the armoured deck above it. The magazines opened into it at the after end, and on each side the ammunition passages ran for'ard. These were two tunnels just broad enough for two men to squeeze past, and just high enough for them to stand erect. They ran along each side of the ship, under the curved edge of the armoured deck, to open into another cross passage for'ard, where were more magazines, and from the top of them rose the ammunition hoists—great armoured tubes, five on each side—leading up to the main and upper deck 6-inch guns.
From the for'ard cross passage a huge armoured tube ran up to the fo'c'stle to feed the fo'c'stle 8-inch gun, and there was a similar one running up from the after cross passage to the quarter-deck gun.
Standing underneath and looking up through this one, I could just catch a glimpse of the sky; but of course no daylight came down, and though there were electric lights here and there on the bulk-heads, it was very gloomy.
Men were in the whitewashed magazines, with felt slippers on their feet, handing out 6-inch shell and cartridge-cases. Others, rushing out from the darker ammunition passages, seized them, shoved them into little canvas bags bound with rope, and dashed back again to feed their own especial ammunition hoist. Hooking the bags to a rope which ran up the tube, passed over a pulley-wheel at the top and led down again, they hauled the shell and cartridges up to the 6-inch gun above them.
I crouched in a corner to be out of the way, and as it grew hotter and hotter, and the stifling air became full of dust, the electric lights themselves began to blur indistinctly; and the men, leaping along the passages, jostling each other as they passed, muttering as they barked their shins or dropped a projectile, clothed in nothing but boots, duck trousers and flannels, their faces and necks streaming with perspiration, looked like demons.
A stoker near me, one of two who stood by with a fire-hose, muttered to his mate, "Blow me, Bill, if it ain't as 'ot as 'ot."
"You've 'it it to a shovelful; it's wurs'n what them stoke'olds are," I heard Bill reply, as he cut off some tobacco and stuffed it into his cheek.
"So long as we don't get no blooming fire down 'ere, I'm a-comfortable enough a-standin' 'ere a-watching of them others a-workin'. But what breaks me 'eart every time," he continued, "we don't seem to never get no 'ead o' water through this 'ere hose-pipe. I don't 'old with them new-fangled pumps they've got aboard this 'ere junk."
"The same 'ere," answered his mate, and they settled themselves comfortably on the coiled-up fire-hose to enjoy their quids of tobacco.
Dr. Fox, the three Paymasters, the Chaplain, and the sick-bay people were trying to get a clear corner, and were laying out bandages, tourniquets, and surgical dressings, the mere sight of which made me feel horribly uncomfortable, and more like a rat in a trap than ever.
It was bad enough whilst the men were rushing to and fro, and in that thick, stuffy atmosphere you could smell nothing but sweating men; but presently they had brought out as much ammunition as they could heap round the bottom of the hoists, and there was nothing more for them to do yet. The ammunition parties grouped silently below their own special hoists, and the magazine parties had time to pass their arms across their eyes and wipe the stinging sweat away.
It was a time of terrible suspense, for not a sound could be heard from above, where we knew the guns' crews were standing round their guns, and from below nothing but the regular rhythm of the big engines, the rapid throbbing of the dynamo-engines and the pumps behind the bulk-heads, and every now and again the harsh rumbling of the steering-engine aft.
Added to all this we were rolling very heavily.
Presently a man came scrambling down one of the hoists—sliding down the rope—and there was a sudden stir as men eagerly questioned him.
"Are we getting close inshore?" "Have the forts opened fire yet?" "Is that big gun still firing?" "Where's theStrong Arm?"
Then there was silence again—all but the noises of the engines drumming and thudding on the other side of the white bulk-heads.
The First Lieutenant, trying to appear calm, walked round and round, first along the port side, then down the starboard passage, seeing that everything was ready and everybody in his place, speaking a word here and there to a petty officer, and followed closely by his midshipman messenger, a very junior chap we called "Daisy".
Then the little bell at our end of the conning-tower voice-pipe tinkled loudly. The man stationed there sang out for the First Lieutenant, and he came running up. Captain Helston was giving him an order from the conning tower.
"Very good, sir," he shouted back.
"Stand by on the port side, men; we are just going to commence."
Oh, wasn't it exciting! and didn't I wish that I was up above that armoured deck with the sky overhead, instead of lying down there so stiff and sore that I could barely move!
The men were fidgeting nervously from one foot to the other, and then the silence was broken by the banging of the guns in the port battery overhead. A second later the quarter-deck 8-inch went off, and we could feel the ship quiver; another quiver came from the fo'c'stle big gun for'ard. Two minutes of this and then men shouted hoarsely down the hoists for more ammunition, the voice-pipe bells tinkled, and the order came down to pass up only common shell (shell with thin walls and a large bursting charge).
Men flew backwards and forwards, the dust thickened again, the heat and the mugginess were horrid, and every now and again some of the powder smoke would be blown down the hoists and make those stifling ammunition passages darker still.
The First Lieutenant walked steadily backwards and forwards along the port side, singing out, "Steady, men; don't hurry—don't crowd," and the two stokers near me tucked their feet out of the way and went on chewing their quids of tobacco.
Then a man slid down one of the starboard hoists and crawled aft to Dr. Fox. He had a great gash in one leg, with some spun yarn tied tightly about it.
"They're firing furious," he gasped, "and a splinter from the first cutter caught me."
Then the port guns ceased firing, and we heard the steering-engine rumbling "hard over".
"We are turning now, boys, and going past again. Stand by for the starboard guns," sang out the First Lieutenant.
The quarter-deck gun ceased firing. Now we were almost round again, and could faintly hear the boom of theStrong Arm'sguns coming down the hoists.
There was a crash and a roar above us, something came clattering down one of the port upper-deck hoists, a man jumped and picked it up—a fragment of shell—and he dropped it again precious quickly with burnt fingers. I remember that the men all laughed at him.
"Want the doctor!" someone shouted down.
In a moment Dr. Fox was there with a bag over his shoulder. They made a bight in the rope hoist, he placed his foot in it, and grasped the rope over his head.
"Haul handsomely, men," he growled, and they hauled him up the hoist. He was down again in a minute or two, sliding down the rope.
"Too late!" I heard him mutter as he landed, his hands and sleeves covered with blood.
"Who was it, sir?" somebody asked him, but he took no notice.
Then the starboard guns and the quarter-deck 8-inch commenced, and we had begun to go past those two forts for the second run.
I pictured our shells bursting against the rocks and among the guns I had seen there, and wondered whether the European in charge was sober or not, and whether the Commander was still holding out round his Krupp gun. If only I hadn't been such a fool as to jump down off that parapet of sand-bags, I might have been with him still.
We were coming to the end of the second run now, and the First Lieutenant had just said as he wiped his forehead: "They can't stand much more of this if we're making anything like decent shooting," when they commenced cheering on deck, and somebody shouted down that the forts had hoisted a white flag. The men below cheered from one end of the passages to the other, and the guns above ceased firing.
Dr. Fox and a sick-berth steward climbed up a hoist to look after some more wounded on deck, and in a few minutes the main engines began to slow down and presently stopped altogether.
On deck we heard the bos'n's mate pipe, "Away, second cutter!" a voice yelled down the hoist, "Any second cutters down below there?" A couple of men belonging to that boat scrambled hastily up, there was silence again, and we could do nothing but wait and wonder what was happening.
"If we sit here much longer I'm blowed if we sha'n't miss our first dog-watch," said one of the stokers cheerfully, and unbending his cramped legs.
"'Tis a hill wind that don't blow nobody no good," added the other reflectively, and they both spat into a dark corner behind the fire-hose.
"Put those two men in the Commander's report," said the First Lieutenant, who had just come over from the opposite side and saw them spit.
Daisy, his midshipman, got out his pocket-book and took their names.
"What about yer hill wind now?" said the first one who had spoken, as Daisy went away, and they sat down again. "That will blooming well stop yer chawnce of going ashore and picking up a bit o' loot."
Old Mellins scrambled down to see me, and jolly glad I was. He is such a thoughtful chap, and had brought me some grub—a pot of pâté de foie gras and some bread and butter. Till I saw it I never realized how terribly hungry I was; and you should have seen me eating it, with Mellins standing over me, spreading great chunks of the pâté on thick slices of bread and butter, and telling me all that had happened.
"Our first run past those forts simply knocked the stuffing out of them. You couldn't see them for dust and the smoke of the shells, and when we turned round and went for them again they hardly fired a gun. We could see them tumbling over each other in their hurry to scramble out of the forts, and after we'd ceased firing someone hauled down their colours and hoisted a white flag as big as a sheet. It was simply ripping."
"How about the Commander?" I asked.
"He's going strong, and firing that big gun into the harbour every four or five minutes. 'No. 2' and 'No. 3' are right in under the forts, and Toddles has taken the Captain inshore to take possession of them, or what is left of them."
"Anybody killed?" I asked.
"We have one, poor Joe Connolly, the coxswain of my picket-boat," said Mellins sadly, "and theStrong Armhas three killed and nearly twenty pretty badly wounded. A 6-inch shell burst on her upper deck—in the battery."
Dr. Fox and his sick-berth steward came along then, and Mellins was sent away to get me some more clothes, as the ones I had on were torn and blood-stained. It wasn't all my blood, I think, for when Dr. Fox had ripped off my shirt he only found a clean cut along my ribs, and the wound in my leg was a nasty stab made, I expect, by one of those horrid boarding-pikes the Chinese were prodding me with.
This wound was much the more uncomfortable, and Dr. Fox took quite a long time probing and syringing it till it was quite clean.
It was very painful and smarted a good deal; and wasn't I jolly glad when he had finished and left me alone again, and Mellins had helped me into my clean things!
CHAPTER XXIV
The Capture of the Island
A Crisis—Inside the Pirate Island—A Feeble Resistance—Doctors Wanted—An Awful Night—Schmidt Escapes
A Crisis—Inside the Pirate Island—A Feeble Resistance—Doctors Wanted—An Awful Night—Schmidt Escapes
Whilst theLairdand theStrong Armsteamed past the forts for the first time, at a range of between four and five thousand yards, the forts had replied furiously and struck theLairdrepeatedly.
Hardly had she fired the first gun before a shell passed through her foremost funnel, making a large rent in it, but, fortunately, not bursting. A second struck the first cutter, completely wrecking it and wounding one or two men with the splinters which flew in all directions. Another shell struck the armoured belt at the water-line and burst, doing no damage, and leaving only a dent in the hard steel. A fourth had passed through the ward-room and burst in the Gunnery Lieutenant's cabin, setting it on fire, whilst the last struck one of the upper-deck 6-inch gun-shields, forced it back on top of the gun and burst, killing Connolly, the captain of the gun, and wounding three of his men badly.
TheStrong Armhad not been struck till the ships began to turn, but then she was hit by several shells in quick succession, and lost three killed and seventeen wounded.
But the fire of the two ships had been so terrific, that even as they steadied on their course, and edged in to within three thousand yards for their second run, the signalman up aloft in the fore-top saw the Chinamen already leaving their guns, and before they had completed this second run the enemy had hauled down their flag and presently hoisted a white one.
Captain Helston immediately ceased fire, and ordered Lang and Parker to go close inshore with their destroyers and reconnoitre.
Mr. Lang signalled from "No. 2" that the forts had been evacuated, and Helston called away the second cutter and went himself to make certain that such was the case.
There was no doubt about it—the forts were completely deserted—and he signalled to theLairdand ordered her to land fifty men and occupy them at once, pushing on himself through the entrance-channel till he came abreast of the deserted landing-stages. Not a Chinaman could be seen.
Here he made the men lie on their oars, and now he could see the whole of the harbour, the smoking wreck of the cruiser at the foot of the cliffs on his right, the little town on the other side of the harbour, and the cruisers beyond it, hugging the shore and mixed up in confusion with the anchored merchant ships.
The cruisers were evidently not showing fight, that was as plain as a "pike-staff", but the sharp bursts of rifle firing that the wind brought down from One Gun Hill told him that Cummins was still being severely pressed.
He knew from Midshipman Glover's hurried report that the little party was much reduced in numbers and must be running short of ammunition, and, as far as he could judge, the attack on the forts had not reduced the danger of the Commander's position. In fact, the inference was that he might have driven out the garrison of those forts only to reinforce the crowds of infuriated Chinese, who would now make one more determined effort to overwhelm the gallant little cluster of men who had so desperately held on to that hilltop since daylight.
Fortunately the sudden necessity for immediate action, the prompt resolve to bombard the forts as the only means of relieving the pressure on the Commander's party, and the celerity with which the reduction of those forts had been carried out, bore him along on a wave of fortune which seemed to sweep away his recent indecision and vacillation.
He abruptly determined to take a step still more decisive.
The risks of the project almost appalled him; but the necessity for instant action was so vividly apparent, that though he momentarily hesitated before irrevocably committing his little squadron, the continuous rattle of musketry from the hill above decided him upon one final resolution.
There might be more guns hidden on the high land all round him. The cruisers might still oppose him valiantly, and there was but one hour of daylight remaining, yet he determined to make this last effort for entire success.
"Get back to theLairdas fast as you can," he said to Toddles, the midshipman of the boat, who had been looking with wonder at the change which had come over him.
"Back starboard; give way port. Pull, men, for your lives;" and with bending oars they drove the boat out to sea again, out between the destroyers, and splashed through the heavy seas.
With their boat half-full of water, they pulled under the lee of theLaird, hooked on their boat's falls, and were hoisted up with a run.
"Belay those fifty men," Captain Helston told the First Lieutenant, who hurried up to receive him as he scrambled down on deck, "and go to quarters again. I'm going to take the whole squadron inside."
"Oh!" whistled the First Lieutenant, and rushed off.
The bugles blared; signals flew to theStrong Arm; men passed the word to the guns' crews that they were going right inside; men bellowed the news down the ammunition hoists, down the engine-room and stokehold gratings, and on deck and down below from the bowels of the ship cheer after cheer burst forth.
Now theStrong Armhad the news, and her men too began to cheer as the two ships gathered way and made straight for the entrance.
As they passed between the two weather-beaten little destroyers, rolling gunwale under, with their funnels white with salt, the crews of the destroyers sprang to "attention" and then broke into cheers. TheLairdwas right in the entrance now, her boats, swung out at the davits, almost grazed, to port and starboard, the rocky ledges in which the abandoned guns were mounted.
Grandly she answered her helm, swung round the bend in the channel, and steadied as she majestically moved past the deserted landing-stages. TheStrong Arm, carefully handled by the First Lieutenant, followed her. "No. 2" and "No. 3" dashed in after them, and the whole of the squadron except theSylviawas inside the island harbour.
* * * * *
The sudden approach of these two ships to the attack had found the forts totally unprepared to make any effective resistance.
For the last three weeks the squadron had shown such an evident disinclination to come to close quarters, that Hopkins, Hamilton, and Schmidt had been lulled into a sense of false security, and, imagining that no attack would be made from that quarter, had withdrawn a considerable number of the artillerymen from the forts, all trained and disciplined men, to strengthen the attack on One Gun Hill.
The seizure of the Krupp gun had taken them completely by surprise, and the necessity for its recapture was imperative.
Unable to rely upon their coolies, they had hastily denuded the ships and gathered sufficient blue-jackets to make the first rush. Though nearly successful it had ended disastrously, Hopkins being mortally wounded and such a number of men being killed, that the remainder could only with difficulty be again induced to advance from cover.
The unsuccessful attempt to cut off the small party with the oil-drums, the destruction of the cruiser, and the death of Hamilton, the lame Englishman on board her, made it evident to Schmidt that he must, once for all, overwhelm Cummins and his men before the weather abated and allowed further reinforcements to land. He had, therefore, brought up every coolie he could find, armed them with every weapon he could lay his hands on, and stiffened their wavering ranks with the disciplined men from the forts and what blue-jackets he could muster.
Inciting them to fury with tales of what their fate would be if they were captured, he had plied them with drink, and gathering them behind the smoke from the burning bushes, had hurled them at the top of the hill.
It was with this wild, fanatical mob, mad with unaccustomed drink, that Hopkins had sent the small body of blue-jackets to endeavour to rescue Glover, and though in this he had been successful, the assault itself had been finally repulsed.
Only a few men were left in the forts themselves, and the European in charge, who had been drinking heavily during the last ten days, was in no fit state to utilize even those that remained to him, and when Schmidt first awoke to the fact that the squadron had at last ventured to attack, he left his beaten men to continue to harass the top of the hill with rifle fire, and rushed down towards the forts.
Before he could reach them he met the terror-stricken mob of men flying from them, and almost immediately afterwards saw the top-masts of theLairdand theStrong Armappearing behind the harbour entrance.
These frightened fugitives, scared out of their very lives, had splashed hurriedly past the destroyers lying huddled inshore, and spread the panic among their crews, who, not even waiting till theLairdappeared inside the harbour, took to their boats or jumped overboard and made for the shore.
Schmidt knew well enough that there was nothing now to stop Helston's squadron, knew that the greater part of his blue-jackets were already on top of the hill—many of them dead—knew that one of his partners had been blown to pieces on the opposite side of the harbour, and that the other lay dying; but with a gambler's trust in the last throw of the dice, he jumped into a dinghy, pulled himself across to theHong Lu, and tried to rally his cowed and dispirited men.
* * * * *
It was from the sides of theHong Luthat suddenly, as theLairdand theStrong Armsteered into the harbour, flames shot out and shells came wildly past them. The two remaining cruisers joined in, and for perhaps five minutes the water round the two ships was lashed into foam, and the cliffs behind them were struck time after time by the Chinese shells.
But every gun that could bear upon the unhappy cruisers crowded under the land poured in a fire so concentrated, so coolly aimed, and so accurate, that their already demoralized crews could not stand to their guns, and running their ships ashore, swarmed over the bows and left them to their fate.
TheHong Ludid indeed make one desperate and gallant attempt. Extricating herself from the other ships, she commenced steaming towards theLairdand theStrong Arm, and came down at great speed with the intention of either ramming one or other of them, or of forcing her way past and escaping to sea.
TheLairdand theStrong Arm, opening out a little in the broader part of the harbour, poured in a very hail of 6-inch shells. TheHong Lu'sthin, low plates were rent open in a dozen places, water poured in, and she began visibly to sink by the head. An 8-inch shell burst at the foot of her foremast under the bridge, her bows were smothered in flame and smoke, she fell off to port, and then she too ran with a crash up the shore, and her crew began jumping overboard.
TheStrong Armsteamed towards her to complete the destruction, if necessary, and saw one huge solitary figure on her quarter-deck. This was Schmidt, who quickly dived into the sea, swam with powerful strokes to the land, and disappeared in the dense cover.
With theHong Luabandoned all opposition ceased, and from the top of One Gun Hill the faint sound of cheering could be heard. Looking through their telescopes they could see the gallant little party clustered behind the breast-works they had defended so long, standing up on the sand-bags and waving their helmets as they cheered.
They, too, were safe.
The light was already beginning to fade, and heavy squalls of rain made signalling difficult, but Cummins managed to get one semaphore signal through to theLaird: "Enemy disappearing; am short of ammunition, and require medical assistance. Richardson is killed."
Helston sent for Dr. Fox and handed him the signal.
"I'll go myself," said the Doctor.
"I thought you would," replied Helston. "I'll give you fifty men, and you must get up there as fast as you can, and I'll turn my search-lights on the top of the hill as soon as it is dark. I don't expect that you'll find the Chinese have any more fight left in them, but if you do I will help you."
"No. 3" was sent out to bring theSylviainto the harbour, parties of men were sent aboard the ships, destroyers, and torpedo-boats to remove the breech-blocks of their guns, and a strong body of men was sent down to the forts to do the same there. They found five bodies in the batteries, but very little material damage done—very little compared to the apparent destruction as seen from the ships. Two of the smaller guns had been dismounted and one of the 6-inch had been disabled, but nothing more, though masses of the rock behind them had been blasted with the shells and lay between the guns in heaps.
Another party tried unsuccessfully to extinguish the fire aboard theHong Lu, but had to leave her to her fate, for the flames had taken firm hold of her and were spreading rapidly towards the magazines.
It was quite dark before these precautions were complete, and meanwhile Dr. Fox, with his escort of fifty men, was hurrying to the top of the hill, bearing more ammunition and the urgently-needed surgical dressings.
He had landed far from the town, and, giving it a wide berth—for already the sounds of rioting and tumult rose from it—had struck the zigzag path just as daylight failed.
But few natives had been met, and these had fled precipitately.
Dr. Fox pressed on up the hill, aided by theLaird'ssearch-light, which lighted up the path ahead of him, made still more slippery and treacherous by the heavy rain now falling. Urged to his utmost exertions by the knowledge that he and his men were urgently wanted, he scrambled on, stumbling every now and then over the bodies of dead Chinamen and over rifles which had been thrown away in their flight, and now lay scattered in great numbers on the path.
At last he came out into the open in front of the breastworks, and feeble cheers greeted him from the remnants of the defenders. The search-lights of the ships lighted up the whole of that charred open space below the crest, and hundreds of prostrate bodies dotted it, thickly piled, literally in heaps, where the Maxims had swept them down in their last mad rush, their yellow faces horrible in the beams of the light. Right up to the sand-bags they lay, giving proof of the fierceness of their charge, whilst the dark eyes and haggard, drawn faces of the marines and bluejackets behind the breast-work showed only too plainly the terrible struggle they had made to defend it.
Cummins came forward with blanched, anxious face, his left arm bound across his chest.
"Thank God! you're come. Poor Richardson was killed three hours ago, and we have thirty men wanting you."
The worn-out defenders had roused themselves for a minute or two to welcome their comrades, but then lay down exhausted, and, with all danger past, fell asleep immediately, drenched though they were by the bitter cold rain which swept moaning across the plateau.
Nobody on that bleak hilltop will ever forget the night which followed.
The men were too utterly wearied to carry down the wounded, even if this had been possible. No one thought of leaving the dead unguarded, so the fifty men whom Dr. Fox had brought hastily pulled down the Log Redoubt which Captain Williams had maintained so stoutly, and with the timber made two bonfires under the lee of the gun-pit parapet. By their light and that of the search-light Dr. Fox dressed the wounded who hobbled stiffly over from where they had fallen, or were carried to him.
The dead, too, were collected, reverently laid together, and covered with the big tarpaulin from the Krupp gun—Captain Hunter, Dr. Richardson, eleven marines, the signalman who had been the first to fall, the sick-berth steward who had been killed with Dr. Richardson during that fight round the gun, whilst trying to protect the wounded, and five blue-jackets.
The Commander resolutely refused aid till the last, and when his turn came Dr. Fox found that he had a terrible gash on the left shoulder—from a cutlass—cutting clean down to the collar-bone and shoulder-blade, and his arm was quite helpless. "Another inch, and you would have bled to death," said Dr. Fox grimly. "The bones saved you."
"I dodged my head in time, or it would have caught me there," said Cummins, raising a feeble chuckle; but then he fainted through loss of blood and sheer exhaustion.
Saunderson had a bullet through his chest, and lay very still, wrapped tightly round with a bandage, and too worn-out and numbed with cold to worry about his condition.
"You'll be all right," Dr. Fox told him, and covered him with a blanket; "only don't move till morning."
* * * * *
Down below every corner of the harbour was being searched by the lights of the ships, for Schmidt was still at large, and there was no knowing what devilry he might devise.
TheHong Lu, burning fiercely, threw a red glare over the hills and turned the harbour to a blood colour, and from time to time tremendous explosions on board her quenched the flames momentarily, but they leapt out again more furiously than ever.
From the town itself came the angry buzz of shouting and yelling; rifle shots rang out in a jerky, spasmodic crackling, and it was evident that the natives, emboldened by hunger, by the desire to save their own possessions, or by the lust of looting, had gradually crept back and were now fighting among themselves.
Presently the horrors of the night were intensified by flames springing from the go-downs and warehouses near the water's edge. In half an hour they were well alight, burning fiercely, and, fanned by the wind, the flames spread to the bamboo-matting huts, leaping from one to another with their fiery tongues till the whole lower part of the town was one roaring furnace. The flames and the black smoke blowing across the lurid harbour almost hid the search-lights of the ships.
It was a weird and frightful spectacle, fit end to an awful day.
* * * * *
Far from exulting in its success, Helston's squadron that night was sunk in gloom darker than the acrid clouds of black smoke sweeping through its rigging, for the names of the killed and wounded had been signalled with flash-lamps from the hill, and posted up on each lower deck was the grim list, the roll of killed beginning with Captain Hunter, idolized by officers and men alike, and ending with Gunner Bolton, the corner man in theLaird'sNigger Minstrel Troupe. His mess-mates would chaff him no more "that he had done them out of a show".
Even Ping Sang was not happy, and wrung his hands as he saw the flames devour the warehouses, crammed, as he guessed only too accurately, with his own merchandise, and implored—at times almost commanded—Helston to endeavour to save them.
But Helston was obdurate—not another man would he risk; and though he did send two steam-boats to haul off a big steamer lying alongside the pier under the town, and they succeeded in towing her away before the flames reached her, he resolutely refused to land another man either to quell the riot or subdue the fire.
Even now he was anxious about Cummins and Dr. Fox, and "stood by" all night with a couple of hundred men, to go himself to their assistance if the hill were again assailed.
In the intervals of smoke he could see the flickering bonfires they had lighted on top of the hill, and round which they were huddled waiting for the morning. One incident broke the strain of that terrible night. It was when the clouds of smoke were densest that suddenly a man aboard "No. 2", which was lying farthest out from shore, sang out that he had seen a sail show black above the low land near the narrow outlet.
He lost sight of it behind the driving smoke, and when the view had cleared again and a search-light had swept towards it, a junk could plainly be seen bending and staggering under the fierce gusts of wind which whirled down on her as she cleared the island. A rain squall shut her out, and when it had passed no further trace of her could be seen.
Mr. Lang thought rightly that Schmidt himself was aboard her, and made a signal asking permission to endeavour to cut her off to leeward of the island, but Helston refused to allow him to venture out—the risks were too great—and doubted not that the helpless, clumsy junk could well be left to the short shrift of that howling gale outside.
Even his own ships must have been dispersed that night, and he gave fervent thanks, where thanks were due, that success had been granted him, and that his squadron lay in safety inside the harbour.
Schmidt it indeed was who, with some of his boldest men, had seized the junk under cover of the smoke, cut her grass hawser, towed her silently with a dinghy till she had reached the outlet, hoisted her bamboo-matting sails till he had cleared the land, and then let her run before the raging gale under bare poles.
How he at last reached land, gathered more men round him, and spread terror through the island waters of the Chusan Archipelago, must be told another day.
CHAPTER XXV
The Fruits of Victory
Oh, the Pity of It!—We Find Hopkins—Helston has Suspicions—Helston's Speech—A "Stand Easy"—Ping Sang Departs—We Hand Over our Ships—Homeward Bound—The Admiral Speaks his Mind
Oh, the Pity of It!—We Find Hopkins—Helston has Suspicions—Helston's Speech—A "Stand Easy"—Ping Sang Departs—We Hand Over our Ships—Homeward Bound—The Admiral Speaks his Mind
Dr. Fox concludes his experiences
If I had only known that I should have to spend the whole night on top of that hill, I should never have been such a fool as to volunteer.
The young Surgeon of theStrong Armwas every whit as capable of doing the work as I was, and his youth would have carried him through the night's exposure without harm. As it was, I always date the commencement of my rheumatism from that horrible night, and never cease regretting that at the moment when Helston showed me the signal from One Gun Hill, and I read of the death of my Surgeon, Richardson, and of the wounded lying there without anyone to look after them for the last three hours, my common sense should have failed me momentarily.
Ugh! How it rained and blew! That zigzag path was a miniature torrent, and my feet slipped backwards in the squelching mud at every pace. The idiot, too, who was training theLaird'ssearch-light thought, I have no doubt, he was lighting my way; but he kept his beam fixed on me and the men who went with me, with the result that I was nearly blinded. The shadows were made still more intense, and it was more difficult than ever to avoid stumbling over the bodies of the dead Chinamen which littered the path.
Two hours' hard work it was before the wounded were patched up and made fairly ship-shape.
The Mauser bullet wounds did not bother me much, but quite a number of men had deep flesh wounds inflicted by cutlasses, swords, or bayonets during the hand-to-hand fighting, and it does not require much imagination to understand the difficulty—the impossibility, in fact—of making a good job of these, dressing them by the unsteady light of theLaird'ssearch-light, with the rain pouring in torrents and driving almost horizontally across the top of the hill before the gale.
As each case was finished, and the poor fellow, blue with cold (the skin of their hands and faces was wrinkled like a washerwoman's hands), was laid down somewhere in the lee of the dripping sand-bags, I injected morphia to ease his pain, and could only hope that he would be sufficiently alive in the morning for us to get him safely down to the ships, where he might have a chance of being properly looked after.
Little Cummins had about the worst wound of the lot, and even if he managed to pull through, I had little hope that his left arm would be of much use to him.
However, he tried to be cheery, especially when I told him that young Glover was safe and sound aboard theLaird, and gave one or two of his irritating chuckles before he fainted. He then lay quiet for the rest of the night. There was no need to give him any morphia, for he was absolutely "played out".
Saunderson, with a bullet through his right lung, did not worry me much, because so long as he kept still and was tightly bandaged, nothing more could be done for him, and his grand physique would carry him safely through the night's exposure.
Things were made more comfortable when the men who had come with me pulled some logs across from one of the breast-works and made a fire close to the Krupp gun parapet, and probably more lives were saved by this means than by anything I did.
The men who had defended the hill all day were now fast asleep, most of them absolutely unprotected from the cold rain, so I made my fellows bring them nearer to the fire. Many were so exhausted that they were carried across without being awakened. In fact, it was so difficult to distinguish the dead from the living, that they actually carried over two dead men and laid them down round the fire, nor was their mistake discovered till morning.
At last I finished, and had time to crouch down behind some sand-bags and managed to light a pipe, shivering with cold and cursing myself for a fool for ever having been induced to join Helston in his mad enterprise.
The gale shrieked and howled; the rain stung my face. Seawards, out of the pitchy blackness of the night, the waves bellowed as they pounded the foot of the hill in one incessant roar; the burning ships and warehouses, the crackling of musketry in the town below, the constant explosions from the doomed ships, all made of the harbour a very inferno, from out of which the cold, clear search-light flashed pitilessly on the slaughter-house round me.
Twenty English and two hundred or more Chinamen lay there sleeping their last long sleep.
Oh, the pity of it all!
My worst enemy could not accuse me of being sentimental, and that night all feeling whatever seemed numbed; but as I recognized the dead faces of Hunter, Richardson, and a dozen men whom I knew, the only thought was one of bitterness that men should throw away their lives so comparatively uselessly, and the selfishness of it all made me feel almost angry with them.
Hunter's family I knew. He left a wife and two children. Richardson had only recently married; and little did they reckon, they and the other poor fellows, when they volunteered for this expedition in their lust for change, for excitement, for self-glorification or chance of promotion, the misery they were to inflict.
Who bears the bigger share when the man goes out to war?
Is it the man, with his cares forgotten as the shores of England slip down below the horizon, with the hot blood coursing through his body and the fighting instinct of the male animal to bear him along, or is it the woman he leaves behind him—the mother, wife, or sweetheart—who is left to her humdrum daily duties, with her heart full of empty pains and aching fears, to hope and long and dread for news, day after day, week after week?
It seems foolish to write this, but all through that ghastly night, turn my thoughts how I would, they ever came back to the bitterness, the selfishness, the pity of it all.
Every now and again some wounded man wanted attention—one man became delirious, and at intervals uttered horrible shrieks. Pattison also became delirious, and I had to keep a man watching lest he should tear off his bandages.
About three in the morning one of my men thought he heard a cry for help down the sea slope of the hill, and we searched by the light of the signal lantern for nearly an hour, but found no one.
No longer, no more terrible night, have I ever spent; but at last it did end—the darkness lessened, the uncanny search-light was switched off, and daybreak gradually revealed the gruesome sights which had been but half seen and only partially conjectured before.
Fortunately both the doctors of theStrong Armcame up to relieve me an hour after daylight, and I quickly scrambled down the hill, slipping and sliding in the mud.
I met Helston on the way down, and his face lighted up with relief when he saw me, and I was able to give him a fairly cheerful account of the wounded. He had landed with a couple of hundred men and driven the mob of Chinamen out of what was left of the town, and was now on his way to Hopkins's bungalow, guided by Hi Ling, the head boy.
"Come along with us, Doc, old chap. I want you to see Hopkins before you go off to the ship, if it is not too late."
We were close to the European bungalows, and Hi Ling led us straight to the one Hopkins inhabited, going on ahead of us.
As we approached we saw that everything was in disorder. Furniture, clothes, books, and papers were strewn all over the verandah, and a dead Chinaman lay sprawling half in, half out of a window.
"Looted during the night," I thought, and saw that Helston also thought so, and neither of us expected to find the American alive.
Hi Ling met us on the verandah, wringing his hands and moaning. We pushed aside a bamboo curtain and followed him into a room where everything was in still greater confusion, a trestle-bed overturned, drawers ransacked and their contents scattered, and lying on the floor was Hopkins himself, with a dead Chinaman beside him. The one we had seen from outside had probably been killed as he tried to escape.
Both had bullet wounds, and had evidently been killed by the revolver Hopkins still held in his clenched hand.
He was quite dead, and I must confess that I felt much relieved, because nothing could have saved him, and also I did not want him to speak to Helston of Milly, as I feared he might have done, for Helston was of such a peculiar disposition, that I was very anxious that he should know nothing about the photograph or the will which Hopkins had made in her favour—nothing, at any rate, till I had got him safely home.
I hurriedly examined Hopkins, and whilst doing this tried to find the photograph of which Glover had told me; but it was not near him, only the crumpled-up piece of paper which Helston had signed on young Glover's safe return.
Poor fellow! the knowledge that his will was safe may have cheered his last moments.
We prepared to lift the body and place it decently on the bed, but, unfortunately, whilst we were righting the trestle-bed the photograph fell on the floor, and though I hastily tried to seize it, Helston stooped before I did and picked it up.
His face became rigid as he recognized it, and I saw his hand shaking as if he had an attack of ague, but in a few moments he recovered himself and gently laid it on the table.
"Help me to lift him, Fox," he said in a husky voice, looking at me suspiciously, and we laid Hopkins on his bed and left Hi Ling to prepare his master for burial.
The faithful Chinaman was actually crying. I had never seen a Chinaman cry before.
Hardly had we gained the verandah before Helston stopped, turned abruptly, and went back again. Through the open window I saw him place the photograph in Hopkins's breast, inside his pyjamas.
He rejoined me immediately, and said in a strained, hard voice: "What is the meaning of it all, Fox? You seem to know something about it. Tell me, for God's sake!"
I thought it best to tell him all I knew, and did so.
As I feared, he magnified the very little that I could tell him, and would not believe that I knew no more.
Poor chap! his face was drawn and haggard as he rapidly questioned me in a jerky, constrained manner, trying vainly to conceal his agitation, and darting suspicious glances at me.
"Did you know anything of this before we left England?"
"Nothing. I knew that they had met. Nothing else."
"But had you no suspicions?"
That made me angry. I hate being badgered.
"Look here, Helston, all I know I have told you. That he should fall in love with Milly is nothing remarkable. A dozen men, to my knowledge, are, or pretend they are, in love with her, and as to the photograph, why, every girl thinks the gift of a picture of herself quite sufficient a reward for that."
"Yes, perhaps; but there must have been something in it if he has left her all his money."
"Oh, confound you, don't be such a fool!" And, thoroughly irritated, I left him to climb his way wearily to the top of the hill, whilst I went off to theLairdto get something to eat, a bath, and an hour's sleep. But for that nine stone, more or less, of frilled and furbelowed Milly, Hunter would not be lying dead on the hill above, nor Richardson either, and without Richardson I was left single-handed, just when I wanted him most. I wished most devoutly that Helston and I had never saved the life of that avaricious old Chinaman, Ping Sang, ten years ago.
The first thing I did when I went aboard theLairdwas to get the First Lieutenant to send half a dozen men ashore to bury Hopkins behind his bungalow, and then I had a hot bath and turned in, and slept like a log till I was called an hour later.
I felt better after that, and was hard at work for the rest of the day preparing one of the cleanest of the merchant ships—theHoi Feng—for the wounded, and by night we had brought them all down from the hill and safely aboard her, sending to her the wounded still on board theStrong Armand our own ship as well.
But for half an hour for dinner I did not stop working all day, and what with our own people and the wounded Chinamen, who began creeping back to the town in great numbers, we had enough to do and to spare.
It was nearly midnight before I finally turned in, and at two o'clock Jeffreys, the Sub-lieutenant, woke me up and told me that the Captain was walking up and down the quarter-deck in the rain, and would I speak to him and try to make him go below, as no one else dare approach him.
He was walking up and down with long strides, his hands clasped behind his back, his head drooped between his shoulders, and his eyes vacantly staring ahead of him.
He seemed to wake, as if from sleep, when I put my hand on his shoulder (his monkey-jacket was wet through).
"And this is the moment Bannerman chooses to ask me for theStrong Arm," he said fiercely, "and poor Hunter not even buried yet. How I do despise that man, and wish, with all my heart, that I could give her to Cummins; but he won't be fit for duty for weeks, and is junior to Bannerman, so I suppose Bannerman must have her. It makes me boil over with anger to think of him stepping into Hunter's shoes."
This was not, I knew well enough, the real cause of his discomposure, but I was only too glad that his thoughts should be turned into another channel.
"He'll be stepping into yours if you don't take more care of yourself and get below out of this rain," I told him.
Ultimately I managed to induce him to undress and go to bed; but his mental condition seemed very unstable, and I much feared that the strain of the whole expedition would result in his complete break-down.
However, he slept soundly enough after that, and was much more composed in the morning.
That day every man who could be spared from the squadron was marched to the top of One Gun Hill, and there Hunter, Richardson, and their men were buried, and their graves marked by rough wooden crosses, with their names carved on them.
Three volleys were fired. The buglers of the squadron sounded a melancholy Last Post, and they were left there with that grim bullet-splashed Krupp gun to guard them.
The expedition had been successful.
It was Helston who read the burial service, and before the men marched down to their ships he made them a short address as they stood on the plateau in a hollow square round him. He always showed to advantage on these occasions with his tall figure, commanding features, and resonant voice.
"Officers and men of the Royal Navy and Royal Naval Reserve," he said—"we have paid the last honours to those of our comrades who lie buried here on the summit of the hill they defended so valiantly, and no words that I can say will add to their honour.
"They have, by their courage and devotion, enabled this expedition to be completely successful, and now that our return to England will not long be deferred, I want to say two things to you.
"Do not forget them.
"When we leave them here on this lonely hilltop standing in the midst of a distant ocean, sometimes think of them.
"If fate had ordained that any of you standing round me should have been now lying amongst them, you would have wished to be remembered by your mess-mates.
"They have done their duty and given up their lives in the doing of it; so let every man keep the memory of what they have done, before him, as long as ever he can, and thus pay them a greater honour than by merely marching here to their burial.
"The other thing which I want to say is this.
"They have not died directly serving their Queen or their Country (we are, as you know, lent to the Chinese Government), and this makes the sacrifice of their lives all the more bitter, and it will be still more deeply felt by their relatives at home.
"But though they were not serving under the British Admiralty, remember that what they have done here, on this hilltop, will add to the glory of our navy, and help to keep alive its fighting spirit.
"The Royal Navy has not been tried severely for many generations, and it is such a deed as this—the defence of One Gun Hill—which increases the confidence the navy has in itself to maintain its old traditions untarnished when the hour of trial shall come.
"Rest assured that the lives which have been lost since we left England will not have been wasted if we—those who are dead and those who are alive—have helped even a little to increase the honour and prestige of the Royal Navy.
"Men, remember the mess-mates you are leaving here, even as you would wish to be remembered yourselves."
Helston always "fancied" himself at speech-making, and was almost cheerful as he and I walked down the hill together and stopped on the slopes to watch a crowd of surrendered coolies who had been set to work to bury their own dead.