Ford of H.M.S. Vigilant: A Tale of the Chusan Archipelago

by T. T. Jeans

  *CHAPTER X*

  *The Vigilant under Fire*

  A Foolhardy Undertaking--"Who's Captain?"--Mr. Trevelyan Returns--Taking Precautions--The Skipper's Plans--A Ticklish Job--The Commander's Show--The Skipper's Few Words

  _Written by Commander Truscott_

  I sent Trevelyan away an hour before sunrise, and told him where to lieoff and wait for any sign of Hoffman and the Chinaman--they were to wavea piece of red bunting--and then turned in for another forty winks, andwas called as it grew light. I went up to the fore bridge and found theSkipper already there. He was smoking, even at this hour, and looked asfresh as paint, although he probably had had no sleep at all.

  Hardly had I reached the bridge before we heard guns firing again,strained our eyes to see what was happening, and presently saw the steamboat puffing towards us, with the second cutter in tow.

  "Get their breakfasts ready for 'em, Truscott; they'll want 'em, and'Old Lest' wants his too;" and he went down below.

  In twenty minutes the boats ran alongside, and pretty well worn out allthe people were. Hoffman was the first to come aboard. I have neverseen such a dirty object in my life. He was covered with mud from headto foot; even his face and hair were caked with it. He looked terriblyexhausted. I felt a strange feeling of curiosity in speaking to him,now that I had learnt his history and the part he had played in shapingthe events of the last two months. "Found out whether they are stillthere?" I asked him anxiously; but he shook his head, "Couldn't do it;too weak, Commander; had to give it up."

  The Captain coming up then, took him down below.

  "Brought back the steam cutter and the second cutter, sir," Whitmorereported. "I waited as long as I could, but that Chinaman never cameback, and I daren't stay any longer, sir, as they began to plank shotsall round us."

  "What happened to Hoffman?" I asked. "He looks as if he had had a badtime."

  Then Whitmore told me that Hoffman and his Chinaman had tried to getacross the mud flats at low water, and find their way ashore in thedark. It was a foolhardy undertaking, because Hoffman was evidently notstrong enough; but they lashed flat pieces of wood to their boots.Whitmore ran the cutter's bows into the mud, and they had crawledoverboard and soon disappeared.

  Whitmore backed the cutter into deep water and waited for them toreturn, and in about half an hour had heard a cry coming out of thedarkness and had answered it, and rammed the boat into the mud again.Presently Hoffman came stumbling back, falling and scrambling to hisfeet, and floundering through the mud. He had lost one of his flatpieces of wood, and was unable to reach the shore. Sending on hisChinaman, he had tried to retrace his steps, and had had an awful timebefore he heard their hail. He only just had sufficient strength to getback to the boat, and had to be hauled in.

  "That Chinaman didn't come back at daylight, sir. I don't know how heintended to do so, but, at any rate, we saw nothing of him."

  I told him that Trevelyan had gone round to the back of the island, incase he tried to get off there.

  "I hope you don't think I shoved off too soon, sir?" Whitmore asked meanxiously. "We were very nearly hit several times--as it was."

  "My dear chap, of course not. Go down, have a hot bath and some food;you look as though you wanted both pretty badly. You've not had much ofa time, I should fancy."

  "I've never spent such a night in my life," Whitmore said, and I couldquite believe him.

  "That steamer is as safe as 'eggs', sir. She's right over on her side,"he called out as he went below.

  That was one thing accomplished satisfactorily.

  As it turned out, he might have waited for that Chinaman till he wasblue in the face--well, hardly that, for he was already blue in theface, but till he'd been sunk--because the Chinaman came off withTrevelyan a couple of hours later.

  The Skipper was waiting for his return before making any plans; but longbefore that, something occurred which thoroughly upset him.

  We were all at breakfast, when suddenly we heard the distant report of aheavy gun, and through the open scuttles could hear the "swish, swish"of a shell. Everyone jumped up and rushed on deck, the gunroom peopleclattering up behind us. "They've fired a gun at us, sir," themidshipman of the watch told me. "It went right between the masts andfell over there, sir," and he pointed to where you could still see thespray of the splash, just drifting to leeward, about four hundred yardsaway. "Don't think it was a shell, sir; no one heard it burst." He wasextremely nervous and excited, twitching all over.

  The Skipper came up his ladder, red in the face and indignant, and as hestepped on the quarterdeck there was a shout from for'ard, "They'vefired again, sir!"

  Several people sang out, "Can see it, sir, coming straight this way,sir!" a spout of water leaped into the air, and, "whizzle,whizzle"--with that funny whistling, whispering noise only aricochetting projectile makes--it passed overhead, and fell close towhere the first had fallen.

  It was rather amusing to watch how our people "took it". One officer,whose name wild horses shouldn't drag out of me, threw himself flat downon deck, several tried to get behind each other, and most of them lookedas if they were--well--thrown off their "balance". But you should haveseen the Skipper. He stood there, with one foot on the quarterdeck.His mouth was wide open, his face was absolutely crimson, his eyes stoodout of his head like lobsters' eyes, and his neck was so swollen that itwas a purple colour, and even from where I stood I could see the veinsstanding out. He actually couldn't speak, he was in such a frightfulrage.

  "Close water-tight doors," I sang out, and "steam on the capstan," notknowing what else to do, and then went up to the Captain.

  "Who's captain aboard this ship?" he managed to bring out; "Old Lest oryou?"

  Then, pausing to take breath, he roared: "What the--the--Jerusalem d'youmean by ordering steam on the capstan? D'you think 'Old Lest' is goingto get up anchor, and move off, because a lousy Chinaman fires a gun athim? Umph! What's the range?"

  "About eight thousand yards, sir."

  "Well, he won't hit us," he growled, and with his field glasses slunground his bull neck, he commenced tramping up and down, scowling to leftand right, as everyone hurriedly cleared over to the port side to getout of his way.

  Two more shot--they certainly were not shell--came along presently, oneafter another. They were both a long way short, and ricochettedoverhead like express trains. He never turned his head to look at them,but roared for me. "See those darned youngsters leanin' up against thequarterdeck rails! See 'em--loafin' on my quarterdeck! Give 'em halfan hour's extra drill in the morning, and send them up to the masthead.I'll teach 'em to loaf."

  I wanted to suggest clearing for "action", going to "General Quarters",and sending them a few rounds to quiet that gun, for a lucky shot oftheirs might do a lot of damage, and they must get the range beforelong; but, to tell you the truth, I hadn't the courage to do so.

  "I'll teach 'em to loaf," he growled again. "Sound off 'Divisions'."

  The buglers rather nervously sounded off, and the men began "fallingin". Pretty nervous they were, most of them, especially those withtheir backs turned to the shore; but they knew that this was "OldLest's" way of "showing off", and I could see them winking at oneanother and grinning.

  That was a "Divisions" with a vengeance. It usually lasted ten minutes,but this morning the Skipper, glaring and snorting, went round each"division" himself, stalking along and finding fault if a cap ribbonwasn't put on correctly, or any small detail of the men's uniform wasn'texactly to his liking; and there was no blinking or shrinking--the mensimply dare not--whenever another boom was heard, and another shot camewhistling past.

  When he had at last finished, the men were all marched aft on thequarterdeck, and the young Padre, pale and nervous, and with half an eyefor the shore, read prayers, making many mistakes, at which the Skippergrowled like a bull dog. I'm certain that one of those projectilespassed no
t ten feet above us all, and it fell into the water not twentyyards the other side; but not a scrap of notice did the Skipper take,and presently they left off firing altogether, much to our relief. Thenhe growled out, "Umph! I said so," and went below.

  In the middle of all this Trevelyan was sighted coming back round thecorner from the other side of the island, and as soon as he camealongside, I saw that he had the Chinaman on board, and looked happy."I've got him, sir, and from what I can make out, Hobbs and Sally arethere all right. A lot of those shot have been pretty close, sir; I'vebeen watching them all the way off. I wondered why you didn't fireback."

  "Ask the Captain," I said, and took the Chinaman down to Hoffman'scabin, where the Skipper joined us, and we soon learnt the good news.He had not been able to communicate with them, but they were both safe,and were kept well guarded in an old house, with a high wall round it,just at the back of the town. It was on a little rising ground, and wethought we could actually make it out from the ship through our bigtelescope.

  The man had heard that Evans--that was the name of the rascallyEnglishman--was laid up with fever. The town, he said, was in anuproar. Hoffman told us that he was always going down with fever, whichgenerally lasted for four or five days, and that probably a Swede, namedJorgensen, was running the show. "It's a six-inch modern gun thatthey've got there," he said, "but they haven't much ammunition, and noshell at all for it; and it's just the mad, silly thing he would do, togo easing it off at this long range."

  Hoffman kept on imploring us to prevent Hobbs and Sally being taken offsomewhere again. He felt sure that Evans would try to do so, and toldus that plenty of junks were always lying in the creeks at the back ofthe island, and could get away in half an hour, with the wind as it wasnow blowing.

  "Directly he is well enough he'll be off, and take them with him. Hedoesn't care a straw about anything else, so long as he can force Sallyto marry him, and bleed the old father. He won't wait for you to comeand try to capture them, you may be certain of that." Hoffman was soearnest, that he made us realize the danger of the poor little girlbeing once more spirited away by that unscrupulous villain, and how veryurgent was the necessity of losing no time in preventing this, at allcosts.

  The breeze was still blowing dead on shore, so that we were fairlycertain that no junks could hope to beat out from this side and escape.The steam yacht dare not come out during the day, and as he had donelast night, so the Skipper intended doing every night--leave a boatlying almost in the creek itself to signal directly she attempted tomove. Till the arrival of the gunboats, we had nothing but the ship'sboats to send round to the back of the island to patrol; and the Skipperwas so impressed with Hoffman's earnestness, that he gave me orders to"man and arm" the sailing pinnace, the sailing launch, and the steampinnace for this purpose. I had done this, and they were, in fact, justgoing to shove off, when they reported that the _Ringdove_ was in sight.

  The Captain belayed the boats and ordered Rashleigh round there instead.He had signalled, as he drew near, that he had found the pirate depotdeserted, and not a junk of any sort or description to be seen, and hadtherefore come along here at his utmost speed. Whatever demeritsRashleigh may have had as a writer of despatches, he certainly could nothave turned up at a more opportune moment, and we all felt grateful tohim. I had forgotten to order Trevelyan and Ford to send in their ownreports concerning the loss of their junks, but the arrival of the_Ringdove_ reminded me of the Captain's order, and I sent for them.They were both very bitter about the way in which Rashleigh had reportedon them, and I heard Ford say to Trevelyan as they went away, "I'llwrite a snorter, sir." As the reports had to go through my hands beforethe Skipper saw them, I knew that I should be able to "tone" them downif necessary, so said nothing at the time.

  The Captain was in great good humour now, and had forgotten all aboutthe firing and his morning's wrath. "Hoffman tells me," he said, "thatthere are about a thousand men ashore; got plenty of rifles, too, andammunition, and will probably put up a good fight. So long as Hobbs andSally are safe, 'Old Lest' ain't going to be hurried for nobody, andhe's going to wait till the other gunboats come along. Can't do anymore by myself, Truscott."

  Hoffman himself was down with fever, and, old Mayhew told me, was prettybad. I met him coming out of the cabin, and he held up a thermometerfor me to look at. I couldn't get the hang of it myself, but he told meit marked 104 degrees.

  "Get him on his legs again as soon as you can, old chap," I said; butMayhew shrugged his shoulders, and he and Barclay went away together toyarn about him. Thank goodness the other wounded people, young Mortonincluded, were doing well.

  We took every precaution to prevent anything escaping that night, andsent in both Hoffman's Chinamen, with a couple of Very's lights apiece,with orders to try and find out if any attempt was made to move Hobbs orhis daughter, and to fire them, down at the water's edge, if any suchattempt was made.

  They were evil enough looking fellows, but Hoffman swore that they wereto be trusted, so we had to trust them.

  The night passed quietly, and early next morning the _Goldfinch_ and the_Omaha_ arrived. The latter was at once sent round to assist the_Ringdove_ at the back of the island, as her searchlight was much morepowerful than the _Ringdove's_, and she would therefore be more usefulthere than on this side of the island.

  In the afternoon the _Sparrow_ also came along. They all reported thatthe _Huan Min_ had rounded them up, and we felt very kindly disposedtowards the melancholic Chinese Captain, and Lawrence's chum, Ching, andhoped they would bring the _Huan Min_ along to share our adventures.The _Sparrow_ and _Goldfinch_ had left their junks behind, and broughtthe crews and guns and stores along with them, so that, I am glad tosay, we had all our people aboard once more.

  We felt now that it would be impossible for anything to escape from theisland, and our feelings were much relieved. In fact, I think everyonefelt sure now that it would only be a matter of a few days before thepretty little girl and her old father would be safe and sound on board;and all day long there was a constant stream of people going up to thefore bridge and looking through the big telescope to "spot" the housewhere they were imprisoned.

  Directly the Skipper believed that the rascally Englishman and hispirate crews were at last cornered and unable to escape, he sent aletter ashore demanding the immediate release of Hobbs and his daughter,and the immediate surrender of the island. Whoever was in charge of thebattery at the mouth of the creek respected the white flag, and theletter was jammed in one of a row of fishing stakes till some Chineseventured out and took it ashore.

  It was a mere matter of form. I do not suppose that anyone imaginedthat the man Evans would comply with either demand; and so it turnedout, for he sent back--the morning after, when the same boat went inagain--a most impudent letter, in which he stated that he was going tomarry Miss Hobbs, and "hoping that it would not be necessary to hastenhis marriage on account of any attempts being made to prevent it", athreat which infuriated the Skipper, and made us all feel extremelydistressed.

  The Skipper told me what his general plans were.

  Two brigades were to be formed, one under his own command from the_Vigilant_, and the other under the command of Captain Parkinson of the_Omaha_ from the gunboats.

  They were to disembark at the back of the island, behind the town, atplaces about two miles apart, and were to march inland as quickly aspossible, get between the town and that walled house, and join handsthere.

  He had not yet decided whether he would land at night or during the day,but rather favoured daylight. "Like to see where I'm goin', Truscott.'Old Lest' ain't a badger."

  This was the general idea, but to make certain that no chance should beleft of Sally and her father being spirited away, the _Ringdove_ and_Omaha_ were ordered to destroy every junk and boat they could find inthe three little creeks on their side of the island.

  At the same time the _Sparrow_ and _Goldfinch_ were ordered to anchor asclose in to the town as they could,
to make escape impossible fromthere. They weighed anchor, and proceeded to take up their stationinshore, directly after the receipt of the Englishman's letter, but hadnot steamed within five thousand yards of the town, when the six-inchopened fire on them. We watched anxiously, and saw that the first shotswere very wild. They steadily kept on their way, and, unfortunately,almost directly afterwards, the _Goldfinch_ was struck in the bows, andwe could see was badly damaged. It was very awkward to know what to do,because the little hill, and the house in which Sally and Hobbs wereimprisoned, were directly behind the six-inch gun, and might be damagedif they tried to return the fire. Their little four-inch guns were notof much use at that range, being very old and very inaccurate, and theirerratic shells might have fallen anywhere.

  The Skipper swore angrily, and ordered them to return, which they did,followed by six-inch projectiles, until they were well past us. It wasa very anxious and exciting few minutes, because a single lucky shotwould have sunk either of them, and many were falling extremely close.

  We could see the hole in the _Goldfinch's_ foc's'tle as she steamed up,and she signalled for medical aid, and that she had two men killed andfour wounded. The Skipper cursed roundly, and sent Mayhew and Barclayacross to her.

  "You'll land and destroy that gun to-night, Truscott," he turned to meand growled out. "I daren't fire at it for fear of hurting the littlelass, and I'm not going to have it interfering with my plans. Take whatmen you like, and make what plans you like, and blow it up. Umph!" andhe went across to see what damage had been done aboard the _Goldfinch_.

  This rather staggered me--I'd not been expecting anything of thekind--but I had sense enough to stammer out, "Thank you very much, sir,"before he went away, and went off to find Whitmore, and to get Hoffmanto assist us as well.

  PLAN OF CREEK. (HECTOR ISLAND)]

  Whitmore was wildly excited; but he is a good deal younger than I am,and hasn't a wife to worry about, and I have, and a couple of youngsterstoo, which makes a good deal of difference.

  Hoffman shook his head when he heard of the job, but gave us all theinformation he could. The six-inch gun, he told us, was mounted behindan open earthwork, on some rising ground, about five hundred yards fromthe little battery at the water's edge, the one that had fired at ourboats on the first night.

  He drew the rough plan which I show you opposite, and which I havelettered, so that you can understand more easily where we had to go andwhat we had to do.

  Our first idea was to land clear of the battery and advance straighttowards the six-inch gun; but Hoffman said that there were many nativefishermen's huts all along the beach, and that we should wake their dogsbefore we'd gone five yards. Even if we did get past them, the groundbetween was a swamp, and after the continuous downpour of the last fewdays we should never get through it at night.

  He sent for his Chinamen to help him, and apparently they were of thesame opinion.

  "How about landing on the other side of the island and approaching itfrom the rear?" I asked. He shook his head. "There are huts all overthe island, and where there are huts there are dogs, and you'd wakeevery dog for miles. There's not the faintest chance of your rushing itand surprising the people there."

  I scratched my head. I didn't like the job a little bit; but theSkipper had said it was to be done, so that was the end of it--it had tobe done.

  Whitmore suggested landing abreast the battery and rushing that.

  Hoffman thought that could be done easily enough, though it was hardlyworth it, in his opinion, as the guns were useless old smooth-bores. Hewas evidently afraid of irritating the people.

  "If once they get out of hand," he said earnestly, with a haggardexpression on his thin face, "they'll rush that house and murder Hobbsand little Sally."

  Whitmore hadn't intended merely rushing the battery, but had thought outan entire scheme. One party was to rush the farther end of it--theright-hand end of it--the one opposite the fishing stakes, and they werenot to try to do it silently, but to draw any fellows there towardsthem, whilst another party slipped round the left end and made their wayup to the six-inch gun with a gun-cotton charge.

  "The ground is all right if you could find your way in the dark,"Hoffman told us.

  "Why not send one of your fellows?" we suggested; but he said hecouldn't trust them, couldn't be sure what they would do under fire, andbesides, they were not natives of the place, and wouldn't know the way.

  There are any number of small huts and fences and pitfalls there, andyou could never get past them in the dark.

  I had enough experience of Chinese villages to recognize that it wouldbe a jolly ticklish job.

  We left him then--he looked too ill to be worried any more--and wentback to my cabin, taking his rough drawing with us.

  The landing seemed easy enough--it was the getting back again whichworried me. The party who held the right end of that battery would haveto hold it for at least forty or fifty minutes; the destruction partycouldn't possibly find their way up to the gun, disable it, and returnin less time than that.

  "It has to be done," I said finally, "and your way seems the best.We'll do it."

  I don't mind confessing that I had never run a "real" show previously.Plenty of times I had worked out schemes, and carried them throughsuccessfully, at manoeuvres and things like that; but it was verydifferent now, and I devoutly wished that the Captain hadn't put all theresponsibility on my shoulders, and, without really meaning to do so, Imore or less shifted it on to Whitmore's.

  Whitmore wanted to land at nine o'clock, an hour before high water, sothat we should have firmer ground under us, be able to get closer in tothe battery, and have less trouble with the boats. I, however, thoughtthe early morning the best time, somewhere about three o'clock, for myexperience in manoeuvres and sham attacks had taught me that theattacked side was generally at its worst, and that men, all the worldover, were more likely to be surprised and "shaken", at that hour. Ithad the disadvantage of being at low water, but we should have thosefishing stakes to guide us. Hoffman had told us the mud was fairly firmthere, and, perhaps what appealed to me most, daylight would not be faroff.

  Whitmore eventually gave way, and we decided that we would leave theship at about 1.30 a.m., be towed as far as possible, and pull in withmuffled oars.

  Then it was a question of what men I should take, and I decided to takeMarshall[#] and his forty marines. Speaking generally, they were anolder lot of men than a seaman company, and the older the men were, theless liable they would be to lose their heads.

  [#] Captain S. A. Marshall, R.M.L.I., was in command of the detachmentof Royal Marines.

  It was decided that I should rush the battery, and that Whitmore shouldtake twenty picked men and three torpedo hands with the gun-cottoncharges and try and make for the gun.

  "How about midshipmen?" he asked.

  I personally didn't want to take any; the job was too risky a one.However, we finally decided to take one each, and thought we had betterchoose Rawlings and Ford, as they had had some experience lately.

  "Heads, Ford; tails, Rawlings," Whitmore said, tossing a dollar; andFord fell to me. There was nothing to choose between the two boys.

  I am not going to weary you with all the details which had to be thoughtout and prepared, but I will just say this. There is no possiblesimilarity between preparing for a landing party or a sham fight duringmanoeuvres and preparing for the real thing. When you are getting readyfor the first, someone comes along: "The Gunnery Lieutenant'scompliments, sir, and he doesn't want the small-arm magazines openedthis morning". "All right; very well," you say; so no ammunition ispassed round, you take it for granted that water-bottles are filled, anda hundred-and-one other things which are essential in active warfare.Besides--and this is more serious than everything else put together--forone you prepare as for a football match, for the other you cannot helprealizing that the lives of the men actually standing there in front ofyou, cheerfully getting ready, are to be dependent up
on your judgment.If other people who have the same responsibility are as keenly consciousof their own lack of skill and experience as I was that day, I am verysorry for them.

  By six o'clock in the evening everything that Whitmore and I could thinkof had been prepared. The men had all seen Hoffman's rough sketch, andall thoroughly understood what was to be done. They were thoroughlyhappy too, and the Skipper sending up to tell me that he wanted to say afew words to them, I fell them "in" on the quarterdeck. There was verylittle light, though enough to see his great wrinkled red face.

  "Landing party present, sir," I reported, calling them to attention.

  "Umph!" he said, speaking in his gruffest tones. "You went in lastnight, most of you, and blew a hole as big as a house in that tramp.You know why you did that, and got wet skins doing it--to stop 'emtaking away the little lass, now I've cornered 'em. To-night theCommander is going to take you in to blow up that gun which had theconfounded cheek to fire on the _Vigilant_ the other day, and killed twomen aboard the _Goldfinch_ this forenoon.

  "Umph!" he growled. "Last time the Royal Marine detachment went ashorethere was a good deal of leave breakin'. I hope you'll all come backthis time." (The men guffawed and chuckled.)

  "Captain Marshall," he roared, and pointed to one of the front-rank men,"have that man's hair cut before he leaves the ship. He's a disgrace tothe detachment;" and he went round and inspected them all.

  "Well! Umph! Good luck to you!" and he looked them up and down again,growled, and went below, the marines all grinning with amusement.

  I dismissed them.

  "What a grand chap the old man is!" Marshall said. "No wonder the menwould do anything for him. Hasn't he a grand 'few words'?"

  The rain had ceased, and the night showed signs of being clear thoughcold, and the breeze was not strong enough to make boat work difficult.

  I tried to make Ford and Rawlings turn in directly after dinner, butthey--like the two young fools they were--were much too excited to doany such thing. I turned in myself, but that drawing which Hoffman hadmade seemed to haunt me. Directly I turned my light out and shut myeyes, I saw it, and even now, when I am much worried, it comes before meas clearly as it did that night.

  I couldn't sleep a blessed wink, and at one o'clock my servant calledme, bringing some cocoa and biscuits.

  I had no appetite for anything, and it was so cold that I shivered as Idressed.