Chapter III: Part 3

"Poor little lass! Poor little lass!" he groaned, and all the anger died out of his face. He came down with me to that bay, saw the bodies and the marks on the shore, sent people to scour all the neighbourhood; but nothing more could be discovered, and we went back again.

Presently the missionary came up—he’d been down to see those bodies too. He was shaking like a leaf, and his sunburnt face was quite ashen in colour. "Ah, mon!" and he wrung his hands, "but one o’ those puir dead things was my servant. I know him by his clothes—the one with his head fair smashed in."

I had had too many puzzling events suddenly sprung on me that morning, and, honestly, couldn’t try to explain this last, and could only say feebly, "Poor chap! Poor chap!"

"A vairy faithful mon, an’ vairy leetil expense," moaned the missionary. Trevelyan showed him the shawl, and he recognized it at once as the one Sally Hobbs had thrown over her head before leaving the Mission, so our last faint hope vanished.

Fortunately young Rawlings relieved the grimness of everything just then. He is a most pugnacious youngster, and though I had sent him on board with Whitmore, he had managed to come ashore again. He had got into trouble with two coolies—I suppose he had found them looting—and had gone for them with his fists, and was laying about him in fine style. One had taken to his heels, but the other stood his ground, and kept banging at him with a piece of wood. The Skipper caught sight of them too, and, for all the bad temper he was in, smiled grimly, and chuckled out, "Go it, youngster!" Rawlings had already received a nasty cut over the forehead, and would have been "knocked out" in another minute, if I hadn’t stepped forward and knocked the fellow down. I don’t mind telling you that I put more "beef" into that blow than was absolutely necessary. Somehow or other I felt I must hit somebody, and it was unlucky for that Chinaman.

"Go down to the boat, Mr. Rawlings. Umph! what d’you mean by brawling?" growled the Skipper, suddenly remembering himself.

The Skipper told me, as we walked back to the landing-place, that several Europeans had been seen during the night, and that they were evidently in command of parties of Chinamen, who had prevented the inhabitants extinguishing the flames when they first started. This made it positive that it had been the work of the pirates, and confirmed the rumours that Europeans had frequently been seen among them at different times, and when any outrage on a large scale had been carried out.

What made the Skipper so furious was that they had so completely outwitted him; and he became purple in the face with fury at their daring to swoop down on the town, under his eyes, as it were, burn half of it, kidnap Hobbs and his daughter, probably Travers too, and get away scot free.

He took it as a personal insult, and I can’t tell you all the mad things he suggested. He felt very much as I did—he wanted badly to batter somebody’s face, but he soon quieted down, and walked beside me with great strides, grunting and growling, and screwing up his face, and I knew that he was trying to work out some plan in his bull-dog brain.

But you can’t hit a man till you’ve caught him, that was the difficulty, and we had to catch him first, and knew well enough that among these islands were a thousand places where those two steamers—the tramp and the yacht—could lie concealed for years.

"Unless they want to make money over ’em, they’re as good as done for," the Skipper said, as we went on board. "Poor little lass, not more’n a couple of years older than my lass Nan!"

I had served with "Old Lest" seven years, and I would do any mortal thing for him. He pretended he was a thundering bully, and was really as gentle as a child; and the men worshipped him, his gruff voice and great red face—even his bad temper. I was extremely sorry for him too, because the responsibilities resting on him were so great, prompt action so necessary, and the difficulties so enormous.

He did what I suppose was the best, and sent the gunboats and the _Huan Min_ cruising, whilst we remained at Tinghai, with fires "banked". Leave to officers and men was forbidden, and that meant, of course, that the Skipper himself did not go ashore, and had to give up his shooting, which was the one thing for which he lived. The _Vigilant_ was, in fact, kept ready to start within an hour of receiving any news.

Meanwhile natives—as trustworthy as Ching and the Taotai could procure—had been scattered through the archipelago, and the war junks also had been induced to leave Tinghai and endeavour to procure information. The Skipper seemed to depend upon these particularly, because they had naturally more intimate knowledge of the islands and the character of the people. They could cruise, too, without attracting so much attention as our gunboats. They generally cruised for a week, and at the end of that time came sailing back to Joss House anchorage, covered with flags and firing off guns, but with never a particle of news.

Week after week went by, and not a trace of the pirates could be found. Indeed, they seemed to have disappeared off the face of the seas, and not a single outrage had been reported since they had burnt Tinghai. Rashleigh, coming back in the _Ringdove_, did certainly report that he had one night heard what he thought was the sound of guns somewhere off the Chung-li Tao group, but had discovered nothing when he steamed in the direction of the noise. "Silly fool!" roared the Skipper to me, "he don’t know the difference between thunder and guns."

These weeks of weary waiting were most depressing, and the constant confinement on board, without any exercise, most bad for our health—and tempers.

We now felt sure that someone, probably the dead Mission servant, had guided Travers down to the shore that night; that he, like the mad fellow that he was, had rushed off alone, hoping to rescue Sally and her father single-handed, and that he had been kidnapped with them. I forgot to tell you that Barclay, our Surgeon, had found the bullet in the body of the mutilated Chinaman, and that it was a service Webley revolver bullet, so it was quite possible that Travers had shot him. There probably had been a scuffle, and the Mission servant, not being worth capturing, had been killed and mutilated to prevent recognition.

We all were so worried and depressed, that two days of strenuous work, coaling ship from a collier, and another day of cleaning ship afterwards, came as a welcome relief. It’s precious seldom that one does welcome that job, but we did then.

For some long time I had not heard the noise of the gunroom piano. Someone or other would be banging it at all hours of the day, and as the gunroom was immediately beneath my cabin, the noise was a continual source of annoyance to me. My messenger used to be always taking down fiery messages to the Sub, Langham. The absence of this noise was now a blessed relief, and when I mentioned it to Langham, he asked me to go down and see for myself the reason of it. I went down, and found that the piano was shut, and that _Vigilant_ cap-ribbons had been glued across, to prevent it being opened. "Miss Hobbs was the last to play it, sir, and the Mids and all of us have sworn that no one shall play it again till she does, and till she cuts those ribbons with the senior mid’s dirk."

"Who suggested that?" I asked, smiling.

"Mr. Langham, sir," several of the mids cried; but he, getting red in the face, said it was Hamilton, the Engineer, and he put it on to Moore, the A.P., so I left them settling the subject, and only too glad that the piano was so effectually sealed.

I think that everyone did feel, as the gunroom did, that some day we should see them all aboard again—Travers, with his mad, chivalrous notions and "tired" manner, and the pretty little girl, with her winsome face and funny twang.

At the end of the third week after the fire at Tinghai, the United States gun-vessel, the _Omaha_, came down to place herself under the Skipper’s orders and assist us in our search. She was larger than our gunboats, very much more modern, and was rather quaint looking, with one mast and an enormously long, thin smoke-stack.

"If that chap comes along here giving Old Lest advice, Old Lest will—— Umph!" the Skipper growled when she was sighted.

Her captain, a man named Parkinson, was a tall, gaunt, disappointed man, with grey hair, and as old as Captain Lester himself, though actually junior in rank to me. He came across to report himself, and I heard him say, "Guess my boys thought the old _Omaha_ was a fixture in the ’chow-chow’ water at Shanghai, and our mud-hook could never be hauled out again. Say, Captain, we are right pleased to come and assist you."

He was sent away cruising.

Another weary week went by, and still no news came.

Then it turned out—one of the gunboats actually caught them at it—that those war junks, on which the Skipper relied so greatly for information, simply went out of harbour, round the corner, and hid in a neighbouring creek till their provisions ran out, and they had to come back again for more.

This news put the finishing touches to the Skipper’s bad temper, and he was mad with rage, and sent for the Taotai at once.

"Umph! A pretty how d’ye do! Those lumbering junks of yours simply skulk out of sight round a corner," he roared; and when this had been interpreted to the Taotai—I wondered how much the interpreter understood and passed on correctly—the frightened old man gesticulated feebly, and then out it came: "Taotai speaks, sir! If junks caught by Pilons, he makee buy new ones—he no caree."

So that was it, was it—the old chap didn’t intend to risk losing them? He was given so much a year to keep so many in good order, and if one was lost he would have to replace it. No wonder that we could gain no information from them.

You should have seen—and heard—the Skipper when he understood this, and you should have seen the old Taotai hurry down to his state barge, hide under his red umbrella, and shove off for the shore—glad enough he was to get away, too.

Late that evening the Skipper sent for me. He was beaming all over his face, puffing out his cheeks and working his shoulders, as I hadn’t seen him do for a fortnight. He banged me on the chest and nearly knocked me over. "Willum, where the dickens is Willum? Willum, you scoundrel! bring the Commander one of my eighteen-penny Havanas," he roared.

It was half past eleven; I wanted to turn in, and didn’t care to smoke, but it had to be done.

"Hit on a scheme, Truscott; I’ll wipe the old Taotai’s eye; I’m going to put our own people aboard those junks, and see if we can’t make them useful like that. Umph! What d’you say to that?" and he thumped the table with his huge fist, and glared at me.

"Six of ’em I’m going to take."

"Won’t the old chap object, sir?" I asked.

"Object! I’ll teach him to object! He’s got it down in black and white from his boss at Ningpo to put all his forces at our disposal," and the Skipper winked at me from behind a cloud of blue cigar smoke. "He’ll be pretty sorry he tried to pull Old Lest’s leg before he’s done with me. Umph! Our only sporting chance is to catch some of these rascals, and I’m not going to be too particular how I get information from ’em when I do catch ’em."

Fortunately the _Huan Min_ came in that night, and Ching helped us negotiate with the old gentleman in the walled city. He, I am certain, did his best; but he told me, very candidly, that if we persisted in our demands, we should touch their pride very greatly, and that it would increase the already hostile feeling of the Chinese towards us, and would very possibly prevent any information coming in from private sources.

Captain Lester was much annoyed at the attitude he took up, and always thought that he was the cause of what happened, though, personally, I am sure that he had acted honestly by us. At any rate, the Skipper had blurted out, "If he won’t lend ’em to Old Lest, Old Lest’ll borrow ’em;" and somehow or other this threat got to the Taotai’s ears, and so scared the old gentleman, that next morning not a war junk remained in harbour.

Ching came across directly, and protested that neither he nor his Captain had any knowledge of their going to sea. I believed him, and so did everyone, except the Skipper, who flew into a terrible rage, and I was very glad to get Ching away and soothe his ruffled feelings, but could not induce him to stay to breakfast.

"Made a fool of Old Lest again, have they? Umph! I’ll—I’ll—" he stuttered and bellowed when I reported "divisions" to him, "I’ll do ’em yet. I’ll buy half a dozen of their big merchant junks and man ’em myself! Old Lest’ll sell a farm or two, if the Admiralty don’t pay for ’em."

"D’you mean that, sir?" I asked.

"D’you ever hear me say anything I didn’t mean?" he roared; and though I must confess I had done so, I dare not say so.

I slipped away directly in my gig, and went across to the old _Huan Min_. I saw her Captain and Ching pacing gloomily up and down the poop, and it was very pleasant to see their faces open out again when they heard the news, and that their country’s honour was not to be disturbed.

Ching gripped me by the hand—"You English, sir,"—and the muscles of his face were working strangely—"do not understand how these things, these slights, and—these little insults to our country hurt us. All you Western nations think we have no such love and pride of country as you have, and do not feel it. We do, sir! We do!"

I have always been glad that I did go aboard that morning, for my ideas of the Chinese were very much changed.

Ching himself came of a very old fighting stock—his people had always belonged to a high military caste, and his father had fought against the French well and nobly. He himself—Lawrence had told me this—had fought against the Japanese in the Yalu battle, and when all his senior officers had been killed, and his ship almost a wreck, had taken her out of action and staggered across to Wei-hai-wei, keeping the light cruisers, which hung round him, at a respectful distance with the one gun that was able to fire.

Japanese naval men had told me the story, in admiration of his plucky ship, but it was not till Lawrence told me that I knew who had commanded her.

I knew Ching a good deal better after that. He had done more fighting than I ever hoped to have the luck to do, and when one’s job is to fight, and one gets paid to keep oneself ready for it, one always admires a man who has earned his pay.

Ching took me into his cabin once, a strange kind of barn, half Chinese and half English, with two old faded photographs hanging on the bulkheads, one of the _Inflexible_ and the other of her Mids, Ching in the middle, and Lawrence, a fat little chubby-faced youth, by his side.

I often chaffed Lawrence about that photo—he looked so angelic.

*CHAPTER V*

*Midshipman Ford’s First Command*

The Junk—H.M.S. "Sally"—"Here’s Luck to the ’Sally’"—Ready to
Start—Under Way—In Command—Night at Sea—The Strange Junk

_Written by Midshipman Ford_

If anybody had told me a week ago that by this time I should be captain of my own ship, I should have called him a blithering Ananias, and probably punched his head if he was anything like my size, and made him jolly sorry for trying to pull my leg.

But there it is. I am the captain of the _Sally_, converted junk, two guns, tender to H.M.S. _Ringdove_, and who, do you think, is my first lieutenant? Why, Dicky Morton, "Dear Little Dicky" of all chaps in the world, and he’s turning out not to be half such a silly fool as he looks—I often tell him so, just to buck him up.

I must tell you how it all happened.

The Captain had found out that those war junks never cruised at all, simply hid round a corner out of sight, and as he depended a great deal on them for news of the pirates, he was simply furious when he heard of it, and sent ashore and bought six of the biggest merchant junks.

I was with the party of men under Mr. Whitmore sent to bring them off. The steam pinnace was to tow them, one by one, but got a rope round her screw, and delayed everything whilst it was being cleared. I happened to be on board one of them with six men, preparing to be taken in tow, and it struck me that it would be a jolly good "wheeze" to sail off. Mr. Whitmore sung out that I might try, and I did, and got her off quite comfortably, without breaking anything when I came alongside.

I had had a jolly lot of experience in sailing at Upton Overy, both before and after going to the _Britannia_, and I don’t want to be cheeky or anything like that, but it seemed to come quite naturally to me to sail any boat, and I always seemed to be able to feel exactly what was wanted to make it sail its best.

The Captain was very pleased with me for doing this, and that is how I got the command of my junk.

He had all of us Midshipmen and Cadets fallen in on the quarterdeck, glared at us and growled, "Now, you young gentlemen, you’ve got a job to do at last—no skrim-shanking about it either—jolly hard job—and I want those of you who can sail ’em best to take charge of ’em. You’ve got to get hold of some of those pirate fellows for me—don’t care how you get ’em, but get some of ’em alive. Can’t get anything out of the dead ’uns, umph!"

You can’t imagine how excited that made all of us, and when the six junks had all been lashed alongside, we had to clean them first and fit them out afterwards.

The Commander told me that I could have the one which I had sailed off, and told me that I could choose one of the cadets to go with me. Dicky came and offered to do any mortal thing for me if I would take him—he was nearly blubbing with keenness—so I said I would, and we both had to start the job of cleaning her out. The Commander gave me twelve hands, and it was a jolly beastly job. She was perfectly filthy, and we had to scrape away half an inch of stuff from her inside with shovels before we could even commence scrubbing. The smell in the holds was almost enough to knock anyone down, and we worked till long after it was dark, and they had hoisted big yardarm group lights to make it easier for us.

It rained too, but we didn’t worry about that in the least, because we were so jolly happy. I’d never seen Dicky like it before. He was chirping about like a bloated sparrow, and was much too happy even to speak.

You can see what the junk was like by the picture. The great stern place was where we all had to live, and it was something like a huge pigeon loft with three sliding-door places in it. One opened from the deck into a fairly big place, where the rudder head came up through the stern and the long tiller worked. The ten bluejackets were to live there. Above it and under the poop deck were two little places about eight feet square, and only just a little more than four feet high. In one of them Dicky and I were going to live, and the two petty officers who were coming had the other.

A narrow platform was below the two upper doors, with a ladder running down on deck at one end, and one running up to the poop at the other. It looked exactly like a pigeon loft.

All the time we were busy scraping and shovelling and scrubbing, the carpenters and blacksmiths were busy fitting two great balks of timber with some cross-pieces to take a six-pounder Hotchkiss quick-firer and its mounting. They were bolting them down to the deck and the sides of the junk, just in front of the mainmast, and on the top of the poop they mounted a Maxim gun. The _Vigilant_ hadn’t enough Maxim guns for all six of the junks, so three had had Nordenfelt machine guns from the gunboats. I had never seen the ship so busy; she was humming from morning to night, and for most of the night too, for four whole days. Besides the carpenters’ and blacksmiths’ work, the anchor gear and all the standing and running rigging had to be refitted or overhauled. I only wish, as you will know by and by, that more of it had been refitted, because it really was not strong enough.

You can just imagine how excited Dicky and I were when they did at last lower a six-pounder down into our junk, and we saw it sitting in its mounting, and knew we might soon have to use it.

We got most of the filth out of ours by the middle of the second day, and the holds didn’t smell so badly, though we could never get the Chinese kind of smell out of the living places under the stern. What troubled us most were the fleas and bugs and cockroaches. They were perfectly awful, and we couldn’t get rid of them in the few days we had. We must have drowned thousands of them, but there seemed to be just as many left, and we were itching all over and covered with bite marks, even whilst we were only working in her.

The cockroaches would watch us cleaning the bottom boards, and when we went on to another spot they would swarm down over the clean places, and squashing the brutes made them dirtier than ever again.

It was Dicky who first thought of giving our junk a name. I wanted to call her _Nan_, because Nan was my chum, but then I thought perhaps the Captain wouldn’t like it, and Dicky suggested _Sally_ instead. It turned out that all the others wanted the same name, but Dicky was the only one of them that got it. You see, the letters had to be cut out in wood first, and as all the carpenter people were so frightfully busy, it was almost impossible to get anything extra done at all. But Dicky had made great friends with the old Boatswain and Carpenter. He used to go and yarn with them in their cabins on the other side of the gunroom flat, and used to take refuge there sometimes when we had driven him out of the gunroom with our chaff, and sometimes hide there when he was afraid of being bullied, and Jim was not there to protect him. It was really owing to this that we were the only ones who did manage to get it done, and then Dicky actually had the pluck to ask the Commander for some gold leaf to gild the letters. He volunteered to do that too, and I went with him to the Commander’s cabin—outside the door—to give him courage. When he knocked timidly, and we heard the Commander sing out, "Yes, what is it?" in his gruff voice, Dicky looked as if he would have bolted away—I expect he would have done so if I hadn’t been there and the sentry as well—but he just squeezed his lips together, wriggled in at the side of the curtain, and squeaked out, "Please, sir, gold leaf," and couldn’t say another word, he was so frightened. I went in then, "Please, sir, we’ve got Mr. Williams, the Carpenter, to cut out _Sally_ for our junk—in big wooden letters—and we want gold leaf, please."

The Commander grinned at us—he was a perfect ripper—took a book of gold leaf out of a drawer, and gave it to Dicky. "D’you boys think I’m made of gold leaf?" We didn’t even thank him, we were so excited, but rushed for’ard to the "paint shop" under the fo’c’stle to see old Modley, the painter, and ask him to put the gold leaf on for us. We couldn’t get anything out of him, though. He was a bit of a sea lawyer, and he "wasn’t going to do nothink but what he’d orders to do from the Commander or the First Lootenant".

We didn’t know what to do then, and went on deck and climbed down to the junk, feeling miserable. Scroggs was there screwing the letters on to a board—Scroggs was the petty officer who was coming with us—and we told him all that had happened, and how we’d got the gold leaf, but couldn’t get Modley to gild the letters.

"You just give it to me, sir," he said; "that ’ere Modley be a bit of a ’ard nut, but we both comes from the same village down Dorset way, an’ ’is missus goes to the same chapel as my old missus, and ’e may do it for me."

He managed to get round him somehow, and when, next morning, Dicky and I ran up on deck in our pyjamas, as soon as it got light, to have another look at the junk, the first thing we saw was the board on her stern, and the letters all beautifully gilded. We had to climb down, just as we were, and lean over and look at them. They looked simply gorgeous, and there were Scroggs, and Sharpe, the other petty officer, and one of the carpenter’s crew, and old Modley grinning at us. They had just finished fixing the board to the stern. "Thank you very much," was all we could think of saying; and when we all climbed up aboard the _Vigilant_ again, the ship’s cocoa was just being served out, and Scroggs brought us a bowl of it and said, "Here’s luck to the _Sally_," and we all sipped it, and Modley said, "May the Lord have mercy on the little lass!" but the carpenter’s crew didn’t say anything religious, because he burnt his mouth.

Then we jumped down below before the Commander could see us on deck in pyjamas, and rolled ourselves in our hammocks again—we were jolly cold.

We had a good bit of gold leaf left, and I nudged Jim, whose hammock was next mine, to tell him that he could have it. I knew he wanted it very badly to make his junk look smart, and when we woke him and he knew about it he gave a whoop! and tumbled out and woke the others; and Dicky and I watched them having a grand pillow fight, till we couldn’t stand it any longer, and joined in, and got splendidly hot—even Dicky joined in!

All that day we were busy getting ammunition on board, and it was simply grand to see the boxes being lowered into the hold and jammed there, so that they would not fall about. There were 200 cartridges for the six-pounder—the long brass cartridge and the little shell all in one—and three thousand rounds for the Maxim gun. Then there were the casks for the water, and a boat’s stove to be secured, and one of the _Vigilant’s_ dinghies to be lashed down amidships.[#] We took the native boat, which you can see in the picture hanging over the stern, so that we should look more like an ordinary junk. Then there was all our own gear and boxes of biscuit and corned meat, and any amount of stuff. Dicky and I got heaps of things from old Ah Man—jam, sardines, ginger-bread biscuits, and things like that—and when we’d got them all into our little square pigeonhole, and our sea boots, mackintoshes, greatcoats, and a uniform tin case between us, there was hardly any room left for our hammocks, and, of course, it wasn’t possible to stand up inside—it was much too low. When everything was ready we took her away to practise sailing, and the Captain came with us, and was jolly pleasant, and Mr. Whitmore, the Gunnery Lieutenant, came too, and we tried the guns and, I must say, made very wretched shooting.

[#] See page 77.

After that we had to wait for the gunboats to come back from cruising, fill up with coal, and take us away in pairs.

The only thing that did make Dicky and me feel rather sad was that Jim hadn’t a junk all to himself. But he was going with Mr. Trevelyan, and as he was a splendid chap, we knew that they would have a grand time together.

They called their junk the _Ferret_. The Captain had said, "Ferret ’em out for me, Trevelyan," so we all thought the name was jolly appropriate. They only had it painted on the stern, not done with big wooden letters as ours was. They had tried to use the rest of our gold leaf, but had made a mess of the job and wasted it all, which was rather a pity.

The Commander sent Mr. Langham a list of all the fellows who were to go in the six junks, and he stuck it on the notice board in the gunroom.

This is a copy of it, and will explain how they were "told off", and who were to go in them.

_H.M.S. Vigilant_,
_Tinghai Harbour._

The six junks will be told off as tenders as follows:—

Tenders to H.M.S. _Ringdove_—

Junk No. 1, { Lieutenant Mervyn L. Trevelyan.
{ Midshipman James Rawlings.

Junk No. 2, { Midshipman Richard Ford
{ Naval Cadet Richard F. Morton.

Tenders to H.M.S. _Goldfinch_—

Junk No. 3, { Lieutenant Ronald G. Forbes.
{ Midshipman the Hon. Talbot Withers.

Junk No. 4, { Midshipman Harry G. Webster.
{ Naval Cadet W. D. St. G. Ponsonby

Tenders to H.M.S. _Sparrow_—

Junk No. 5, { Lieutenant Benjamin Langham.
{ Midshipman Percy Jones.

Junk No. 6, { Midshipman Steven J. Johnston.
{ Naval Cadet John E. Smith.

Two petty officers and nine seaman ratings and one signal rating will be detailed to each tender, also one native pilot.

The tenders will act under the orders of the Commanding Officer of the gunboat to which they are attached, and will be prepared to leave Tinghai after the gunboats have completed with coal and provisions.

CHAS. E. LESTER,
_Captain._

We had nothing to do now but wait for the _Ringdove_, so Mr. Trevelyan took his junk and our junk the _Sally_ away sailing every day, till we really got quite good at managing the clumsy gear and the huge matting sails. We did some more gun practice as well.

The _Goldfinch_ and _Sparrow_ took their junks away before our gunboat arrived, and we gave them a jolly good send-off. At last our turn came, and the _Ringdove_ finished coaling, and we were given orders to be ready to start at daybreak.

The evening before we had to start there hadn’t been a breath of wind, and Dicky and I sat up whistling for it till very late. This was the first time we had spent the night aboard, and we really couldn’t sleep because of the excitement and the fleas. The wind did come by the morning, but from the wrong direction, and the _Ringdove_, to save time, simply towed us away behind her.

It wasn’t a very glorious start, but they gave us a grand cheer, and the Captain had shouted, "Good luck, Dick! pull your pound for the good old West Country," and that made me gloriously happy, because he had never called me "Dick" since the first day I joined.

When we had got round the corner, out of sight of the _Vigilant_, and knew that we were in for any amount of adventures, we felt simply ripping, and the sun came out too, and we sat on deck and dried our things.

We were so close to the _Ferret_ that we could talk to Jim, and presently he came out of his "kennel"—he called his a "kennel", and we called ours a "rabbit hutch"—and yelled across to us to look. He had a huge cake in both hands. "You’ve got one too, I expect," he shouted, and we crawled into our hutch; and in a corner, under the sea boots, was just such another, all covered with icing, and "Chin Chin Joss from Ah Man" scrawled on it in sugar. Wasn’t that jolly decent of the old messman? Of course we’d spent no end of money getting sardines and jam and biscuit from him—those sovereigns the Captain had given Jim and myself had come in jolly useful—but we never expected anything like this, and it just made us completely happy, and we had a piece each on the spot, and waved across to Jim whilst he and Mr. Trevelyan had slices too.

The pilot who came to us was named Ah Chee, a funny-looking old chap, and I’m sure you wouldn’t have guessed his age within twenty years. He could talk a little "pidgin" English, and volunteered to do the cooking—in a tiny little galley place over a brazier belonging to the junk, and that boat’s stove which we had fitted up—and did it jolly well too, except when he’d been smoking too much opium.

As I told you before, Scroggs was the name of one petty officer, a fine great chap, and Sharpe, a fat, good-natured little man, the other. They were both jolly good at their job, and the Commander had given us a good lot of seamen too.

When it got dark they started a "sing song", and Dicky and I each sang a song. I sang "We’ll rant and we’ll roar", and Dicky sang "Clementine", and we had an awfully jolly time, and were just as happy as anything, but for those wretched crawling and jumping things.

The _Ringdove_ towed us along for two whole days, and on the morning after the second night Mr. Rashleigh had towed us to wind’ard of the Chung-li Tao group of islands. He then stopped her engines and hauled us alongside for orders. We took our charts with us, Mr. Trevelyan and I, and he told me I was to cruise to the eastward and search all the channels, and rejoin him to leeward of a certain island within four days—I forget the name of the island; and he told us a lot more of what we must do in case the weather or the wind changed, but as he had written it all down, it was not necessary to remember it. Then he said goodbye, wished us good luck, and his final orders were: "Keep your guns covered up with old tarpaulins, don’t let your people show themselves when you’re close to a village or a junk, and don’t attempt to look too smart. Don’t hoist your sails as if you were in a blooming hurry, and if you’re not sure where you are, anchor for the night. You’re intended to be ordinary merchant junks, and you’re just bits of bait—sprats to catch a whale—and you have to get hold of some of these fellows for the Captain, and get ’em alive too—he doesn’t want dead ’uns. If you meet more than you can tackle, just run down to me, and," he added solemnly, "if other things happen, keep one cartridge in your revolvers for yourselves."

That made me feel rather creepy and coldish, but not exactly frightened, because Mr. Rashleigh is so plump and so—well—funny looking that, however solemnly he tried to say anything, you really wanted to laugh.

Just before we went away Dr. Hibbert, the jolly Surgeon of the _Ringdove_, gave Mr. Trevelyan and myself two big wine bottles each. They were marked "Foretop" and "Maintop". He winked cheerily at us: "You’ll find ’em useful, you fellows. If any of your chaps gets a pain below the belt, shove in a big whack of the ’Maintop’ bottle; if he gets a pain above the belt, give him half a dozen whacks of the ’Foretop’."

I marked mine "Above" and "Below", and stowed them away very carefully in a corner. He gave me some tobacco too; for though I oughtn’t to have smoked—I wasn’t eighteen—it was rather different when I was away from the ship. I had brought my pipe with me, but, like an ass, had forgotten any tobacco.

Well, we shook hands and then off we went, the "Ringdoves" cheering us, and all of us cheering each other. She steamed off to the north’ard to get to leeward of the islands, we went away towards the sun, and the _Ferret_ the opposite way, Jim waving from the poop and sending a last "Luck to _Sally_!".

There was quite a good breeze blowing, and when we’d got all our sails hauled up and the leeboard down, we went flying along, heeling over till the lee gunwale raced through and under the water. It was simply grand. The sun came up too, and made it all the more cheerful, although there wasn’t much warmth in it, and when the _Ringdove_ and the _Ferret_ had both got out of sight, Dicky gave a great sigh of contentment.

I must say that, at first, I felt frightened at being alone, and should have been jolly pleased to see the _Ringdove’s_ masts and funny little funnel sticking up over the horizon; but presently I forgot to be nervous, because the junk sailed so well, and it was simply ripping to be in command, all by myself, with a six-pounder and a Maxim gun, and all those two hundred shells down below, and to think of the surprise we should give any junk which tried to take us, because, you see, none of them had ever known what a bursting shell was like. There was Scroggs to fall back upon too, if one really got into a tight fix and couldn’t make up one’s mind. He was such a huge chap, that he could have lifted Dicky and me up with each hand; but he would always talk about his missus and his "kids" if we gave him the slightest opening, and—well—neither Dicky nor I were the least enthusiastic about them after the second day, and I’m quite certain that Sharpe felt just the same—he had to live with him, too—because I heard him say, "Now chuck it, if you don’t want to drive me off’n my blooming rocker."

To show you how the pirates had scared everything off the sea, we never saw a single junk all those two days we were being towed by the _Ringdove_, and now we had the sea all to ourselves. Our first island was right ahead, and we soon got up to it, and Ah Chee came out of his pigeonhole and sniffed and looked, and sniffed and looked again, and smiled, so we knew everything was all right, from the "running-on-rocks" point of view. I didn’t tell you before, but Mr. Trevelyan had had a great idea before we left Tinghai, and bought enough loose-fitting blue Chinese short coats, and enough native caps to go round his men and mine too; so now, as we got quite close to the land, we made the men stick them on, and Dicky and I put ours on, and looked jolly funny, I expect. I couldn’t help thinking what my mother would imagine had happened if she’d been able to see me rigged up like this, and I was pretty sure that Nan would say something to make me get red and angry. But it was grand fun, all the same.

We had one of the _Vigilant’s_ dinghies, besides that native sampan hung over the stern, and it had to be covered up with a tarpaulin, so that its shape wouldn’t show through. Good old Ah Chee seemed to understand our game, and ran in quite close, and when we were nearing a small village, began gesticulating and signing to me to lower the sails a little. "Too plenty quick—plenty too quick—pilons thinkee you no got"—and he pointed down to the hold, and I suppose meant "cargo"—"no good makee catchee." We lowered our mizzen altogether—it wasn’t doing much good anyhow—and slacked off the sheets, and went past very slowly, Dicky and I looking through our telescopes, and hoping to see something coming after us. There was nothing there, though, and Ah Chee shook his head—"Too plenty good fellow can do."

One or two small junks were hauled up above high-water mark, with their masts out—to make it all the more difficult for pirates to carry them off, I suppose—a few children were playing with the dogs and the pigs on the shore, and one or two miserable wretches were hauling in handlines and picking small fish off the hooks—we could see them glitter in the sun as they wriggled.

Then Ah Chee signed to us to go faster, so we hoisted the mizzen again, and hauled in our sheets and boomed along. We spent all that day doing this, running down one channel and beating up another, and only once saw any junks. There were two beating to windward very slowly, and when we sighted them Dicky and I were very excited, and brought Ah Chee out to look at them. He only shook his head and repeated, "Plenty good fellow can do."

Dicky suggested that we should see how fast we could sail and try and overhaul them, and we were getting on finely, gaining every minute, though we could see them doing their best to go faster; but presently Ah Chee, who had borrowed my telescope, made us slow down, shaking his head, "Plenty bad joss can do—if too plenty quick go—him Chinaman," and he pretended to dive overboard. Dicky understood what he meant first—that the Chinaman would think us pirates, and would jump overboard if we overhauled them, so we lowered our foresail, just to comfort them, and eased down.

We had to keep under way that night, because the next lot of little islands which we had to examine were about nine miles away, and the breeze had fallen considerably. I slept jolly soundly till midnight—I rolled myself in my blanket and slept on deck, to escape the bugs under the poop—and then relieved Dicky for the middle watch.

It was jolly cold, but the stars peeped out every now and again, and it was just light enough to see rocks or land a hundred yards ahead, so there was very little danger of our running ashore.

It was the first night I had spent at sea under sail since the Upton Overy days, and this made me think a lot of the old village, and to wonder what they were doing at home. It was so jolly to know, after all the time—the years, in fact—that I’d been longing to come to sea with the Captain, that I was now doing quite an important job for him, and that I might be lucky enough to help him, and even be able to find Mr. Travers and Sally Hobbs and her father. It was grand, and I did so enjoy myself that night, with, everyone, except myself and the men at the helm and a lookout man for’ard, sound asleep.

I had only the foresail and mizzen set, because there was no reason for going fast, and I was rather nervous about squalls. You couldn’t see them coming at night—at any rate I couldn’t, because I’d had so jolly little experience.

I stood up alone on the poop, near the Maxim gun, and kept my eye on the sails and the long, narrow deck below me, and I don’t know whether you will understand what I mean, but I felt frightfully proud and conceited. I’d felt like that ever since we left the _Ringdove_, but I’d done my best not to let it ooze out, for fear that Dicky and the men should think me an ass, or too cocky, and now it seemed to swell up from my boots, and gave me an awfully funny feeling all over.

We sighted the island about six bells, and then I tacked away again, as it was no use to go in close till daylight. Scroggs relieved me at four o’clock, and I felt almost sorry, but crept in alongside Dicky, as it was raining, and went to sleep directly, without disturbing him.

It didn’t seem many minutes before Scroggs woke me. "The breeze is steady, sir, and the island’s on our port bow, and I think, sir, that something is following us and just smelling ’around’."

I crawled out like a shot. It was raining gently, and the sails were all damp and dripping, but I couldn’t see anything at first except the long dark line of the island to the east.

Scroggs pointed down to leeward, and I thought I made out, just for a second, three great sails.

"She’s there, sure enough, sir; I’ve seen her, off and on, for the last half-hour, and she’s working up to wind’ard, as if she wanted to have a look at us."

I watched and watched, my heart thumping like mad, and presently I caught sight of her dark sails again.

We went off on the other tack, and, sure enough, the next time I saw her she’d done so too.

I knew then that she must be following us.

"She don’t quite know what we are, sir," Scroggs chuckled. "She’ll know a bit later."

Presently, as it grew lighter and she got closer, we could see her all the time. She looked huge in that light, and had four masts and four immense sails, not three, as we had thought at first. She was heeling over tremendously, sailing two knots to our one, and overhauling us fast.

If you think that I was frightened you are jolly well right.

*CHAPTER VI*

*The "Sally" goes into Action*

The Chinaman draws Nearer—First Shots—The Maxim Gun—A Near
Thing—Four to One—Running the Gauntlet—"Well Done, Sir!"—At
Close Quarters—The The Grappling Iron—Left Alone

_Continued by Midshipman Ford_

"What shall we do?" I whispered to Scroggs. "Go down and have a look at her?"

"Beggin’ your pardon, sir, you’ll just keep straight on, and edge a bit more up in the wind, if she’ll do it. Once you’ve got the wind, sir, and can keep it, you can do about what you like; keep away if you want to, run down to her if you want to, and she’ll have to do what you want her to, and when you want her to."

Then I remembered reading all about fights in the old time, and when we were in the _Britannia_, and learnt about actions in the old sailing days, how each side always tried to get to wind’ard first, before fighting, and that the man who was to wind’ard could fight or not just as he pleased. I’d never thought much of it before, but now that Scroggs had put it so plainly, I saw, all at once, how practically everything depended on having the wind’ard position.

"How about giving her the mainsail?" I asked Scroggs. "She’s gaining very fast."

"She’s doing all right, sir! We doesn’t want to run away. Just you edge up a bit more in the wind and wait for her. Time enough for the mains’l if she be a pirate, and we have to chase her."

So we edged up into the wind again and began to stand out to sea, beyond the island.

I pointed that out to Scroggs—I felt fearfully excited and nervous.

"That’s all right, sir, never mind about the island; you’ll be getting her out in the open, and she’ll think you’re just trying to give her a wide berth." Then I remembered Dicky, and shouted through the little sliding door for him to come and see the fun. He scrambled up on the poop, rubbing his eyes, and we both stood looking at her, feeling frightened because she looked so big and came on so like a ghost, and didn’t notice that we were getting wet through. I did wish then that the _Ringdove_ was in sight.

"How about letting the hands have food, sir? Maybe, if we’ve luck, we’re like to be busy later on, sir!"

Of course Scroggs was right, and Dicky said that Nelson always gave his men food before going into action—he squeaked again, he was so nervous—and that settled it; and the men were turned out, and were almost too excited to eat anything. Ah Chee was quite stupid and silly when we tried to wake him—he must have been smoking opium during the night—and the men had to make their own cocoa. Dicky and I managed to gulp some down, and had a couple of gingerbread biscuits each. We didn’t like looking at each other for fear of giving away our—well—funk, though it wasn’t exactly funk.

By this time it was quite light, and the island was about three miles away, right under our port bow, and the huge Chinaman was about half a mile astern, and still a little to leeward.

We dragged Ah Chee out of his hole again, but he hadn’t recovered, and staggered about, shaking all over; and when he’d steadied himself, got both eyes to focus properly, and seen the junk, he simply let out a howl and crawled back, yelling "Pilons! Pilons!" which made me feel creepy, although I had to pretend it didn’t. I had to pretend jolly hard.

"He’ll kill himself with that pipe, sir, and we’ll want him later on," Scroggs said, but I didn’t know what to do. "You leave ’im to me, sir," and Scroggs dragged him out again, took away his pipe and tobacco and opium, and then shut him down in the forehold and jammed the hatch cover over it. Glad enough too he was to crawl into it.

The strange junk was coming up finely, heeling over and splashing through the water. We could only see one man on board, standing on the poop watching us, and he looked peaceable enough.

"She’s got guns—I can see them sticking out!" Dicky squealed; but that didn’t make it certain that she was a pirate, because all merchant junks carry guns too. "Couldn’t we go for her now, Scroggs, don’t you think? She isn’t half a mile off."

Dicky and I were so excited and "quivery", we could hardly breathe, and this waiting for her to catch up with us was the worst part. But Scroggs wouldn’t alter course, and said: "Just you ’oist the mains’l, sir, and get them tarpaulins off the guns, and stand by. When she sees that ’ere mains’l creaking up, she’ll guess we’re frightened, and maybe she’ll let fly at us."

We got the tarpaulins off, and the men began working the clumsy windlass which hoisted the mainsail, and the great "clammy" thing went squeaking up the mast. That made us go faster and heel over more.

The guns were all painted a dirty grey, so didn’t show up at all, but just what Scroggs had expected happened. The junk all at once luffed up, shot up into the wind, came on to an even keel, her great sails began flapping, we could see men pouring up from below, and four white clouds of smoke shot out from her port side, and before we could say "knife", there were four splashes in the water behind us, and one shot came ricochetting over us, humming like a top, and fell into the sea ahead of us.

Dicky and I ducked, and then we looked up to see if the ricochet had done any damage, and Scroggs pointed out a hole in the mainsail, close to the mast, where it must have gone through, and a piece of sail flapping down.

I’m certain that I wasn’t frightened then, for I thought more of the mast than myself, and knew what a bad "egg" it would have been if the shot hadn’t missed it.

I looked at Scroggs.

"Give ’em one, sir! Give ’em one!" he was beaming all over his face; "we can ’ardly miss ’er, sir."

I shouted for the six-pounder to open fire, but the mainsail was in the way, and they couldn’t get the sights on.