Chapter IX: Part 9

Breakfast of ship's biscuit and corned beef, washed down with a "pull" from the water-bottles, lasted ten minutes, and then everyone set to work again.

Williams suggested that they had better start lopping down the bushes below Saunderson's two breast-works.

"It would give us a better chance if they tried to rush us, sir."

"Now, lads," sang out the Commander, "get your axes and knives and cut down the bushes in front of you--make a clear sweep of them."

They started hacking and cutting, and in half an hour had cleared three or four yards along their front, when suddenly, bang! went a shell, bursting just below them, and the fragments went shrieking overhead.

Every man "ducked", then ran back up the slope, seized his rifle, and lay down behind his own breast-work.

"Whew!" whistled the Commander, "that is their game, is it?"

*CHAPTER XX*

*The Fight for One Gun Hill*

We Must have Oil--Under Shell Fire--The Pirate Guns are
Silenced--The First Attack--Hopkins Wounded--The "Strong Arm's"
Arrive--The Oil Party Cut Off--A Momentary Respite--The Second
Mistake--The Oil is Rescued--The Big Gun Fires

That first shell was quickly followed by two more, both of which burst below among the bushes. A fourth sang overhead, going out to sea.

Williams, Saunderson, Cummins, and the two signalmen searched through their glasses and tried to find the guns that had fired. The shells came two or three a minute--one burst near the men's blankets and covered the tarpaulin with dirt, another crushed through the trees without bursting.

"I see them, sir," yelled one of the signalmen; "right over there, sir, under those trees;" and he pointed in the direction. As they all followed his hand, outstretched towards some trees on a hill, on the other side of the harbour, overlooking the low ground near the outlet channel, they saw two little spurts of flame shoot out from beneath them. Two little thin clouds of grey smoke drifted out of sight, and almost immediately a shell burst three hundred yards in front of the breast-works, high up in the air, and sent down a hail of bullets into the bushes; the other flew overhead.

"Shrapnel," muttered Saunderson, and, seeing Glover looking nervously from one to another, added, "I wish I wasn't so immense. Hi! Glover, come and stand in front of me."

Another shrapnel tore up the ground in front of the breast-work. One or two of the men were covered with dust. They all tried to wriggle themselves into as small a space as possible.

The non-commissioned officers had at first lain down with their men, but now, seeing their officers standing behind them, rose sheepishly on one knee, one after another. Saunderson's sergeant (Wilkins by name) stood upright, walked up to Saunderson, saluted, and said, "Beg pardon, sir, it shall not occur again," marched stiffly back to his men, and stood there like a statue.

"It's pretty hard luck on these youngsters to come under shrapnel fire before they are used to rifle fire," Saunderson said to the Commander. "If I once lay down behind a sand-bag, nothing in this world would induce me to get up again. I think I should give them something to do, sir. They are not old soldiers."

The Commander told Glover to ask Captain Williams to speak to him.

Glover bolted off, only too glad to have anything to do, gave his message, and ran back.

"Never run, boy; you are apt to get overheated," chuckled Cummins.

Poor young Glover looked fearfully ashamed of himself and grew as red as a tomato.

Williams was of the same opinion. "Let them go on cutting down the brushwood, sir."

Cummins nodded assent, and the necessary orders were given, the sergeants repeated them, with many flowery additions, and the men nervously rose to their knees and in a very half-hearted way prepared to obey.

"Leave your rifles, you fools!" shouted Sergeant Wilkins. "There are no niggers to shoot you. Get out of it, all of you!"

Once they got to work, spread out at wide intervals, they became less nervous, and Blue Marines and Red Marines vied with each other as to which should clear the wider space.

Williams and Saunderson worked among their men in the bushes, whilst Cummins sat on the sand-bag breastwork, Glover nervously hovering round him, and Dr. Richardson lying down by his side, waiting for a job.

Every now and then shells burst on the plateau, but it was evident that most of them were directed towards the gun, and Pattison and his men were having a very warm time of it.

Presently Pattison came across from the gun-pit to where the Commander was sitting, saluted, and told him in a very low voice that the recoil cylinders of the gun were empty, and that he could find no oil. The gun, of course, could not be fired with empty recoil cylinders. It would probably have toppled over into the sea.

Cummins did not reply for some time, and his face grew very stern. "We must get oil from the ships," he said at length, and sent a signalman to find out from the _Sylvia_ whether the whole of the second party had already left the beach. "They are already a quarter of the way up," the signalman reported.

"Well, I cannot send them back now. I must get Bannerman to send me a dozen hands with a couple of oil-drums, and"--his eyes twinkling again--"I'll tell you what I will do. I will send Parker round to engage those guns. I believe he could reach them over that low ground."

He sang out for the signalman.

"Excuse me, sir," interrupted Pattison, "I should suggest that you ask Commander Bannerman to go round and shell those guns with his 12-pounders, and order Parker to send up the oil. I have been aboard the _Sylvia_ for three weeks, and I think that Commander Bannerman will be more inclined to engage those guns than to spare a dozen men to carry up oil. Parker, sir, you know; I do not think you know Commander Bannerman."

The two men looked at each other in a strange way for a few moments. Cummins smiled grimly, called for the signalman, and wrote down:

"Commander Cummins's compliments to Captain Bannerman, and would he steam off the low land to the west and engage two guns on the hill behind. They are seriously annoying him."

"Will that do, Pattison?" he asked, smiling bitterly.

"I think so, sir."

"And, signalman, also make to Mr. Parker from me, 'Send four drums of oil--urgent'."

The signalman ran hurriedly off to make the semaphore, but before he could cross the plateau a shell burst overhead, and he fell headlong.

The second signalman, at a nod from Cummins, darted out and picked up the paper with the signals on it, and jumped down the side of the hill overlooking the sea.

Dr. Richardson and his sick-berth steward ran forward, bent over the prostrate man, picked him up, and carried him behind the gun-pit out of fire.

Pattison and Glover helped them.

They came back immediately, Glover white as a sheet.

"He is dead, sir," reported Dr. Richardson; "the top of his skull was carried away."

"Cover him up and get him out of sight of the others," said Cummins slowly; "and, Richardson, I must insist on your remaining under cover."

"Very good, sir;" and Dr. Richardson went away to take shelter behind the gun-pit parapet.

Back came the remaining signalman with the replies: "Captain Bannerman will have much pleasure in supporting Commander Cummins, and will engage the two guns which are annoying him ".

Cummins tore it up contemptuously.

The second was from Parker: "Oil is being sent with utmost despatch".

Pattison asked for orders. He could do no more with the gun, and was told to finish cutting down those trees--"They are probably aiming at them as much as at the gun." A few minutes went past, and then two marines came staggering up--one with blood flowing from his head, another with his arm limp at his side. A shrapnel had burst short.

They fell down inside the breast-work, and Cummins sent them over to Dr. Richardson.

They crawled across.

Then the sentries down below on the zigzag path came running back. "Hundreds of men are coming up, sir; they look like sailors, sir."

Cummins was perfectly prepared for this news, because half an hour ago he had seen a commotion among the cruisers in the harbour at his feet, and boats pulling to and from shore, and had guessed that they were landing sailors.

"The only people they can rely upon," he thought, and told Glover to ask Captain Williams to bring his men back.

"No hurry, Glover," as Glover, wild with excitement, was rushing off.

"Wish to goodness I had never brought that boy," he muttered to himself. "If he gets bowled over his cousin will give me my marching orders like a shot. I am sure she will.

"Plucky little fellow, too," he continued, as Glover came slowly back, alongside the huge Saunderson, at the head of his men.

As they came up the slope a shell burst among them, and the smoke hid Glover and Saunderson for a moment, but the wind carried it away, and they reappeared, Saunderson steadying his men with a backward sweep of his arm.

"That's better, sir," he said to Cummins, his face glowing with pride as the Red Marines stepped quietly over the breast-work and lay down along-side their rifles. "Got 'em in hand all right now, sir."

And Williams's Blue Marines were just as well in hand, threw down their axes, and took their places without the least fuss or confusion--half of them in Sergeant Haig's redoubt, half of them with Captain Williams behind the Log Redoubt. A minute or two passed, and then a few blue-coated Chinese came into sight, and a little crowd of them halted at an open corner of the zigzag path, then rapidly deployed into the bushes on each side.

The men lying on the extreme right of the breast-work also caught sight of them, and without orders began easing off their rifles.

The whole line would have been blazing away in another minute, firing blindly into the bushes beneath them, if Saunderson, his face red with rage, had not bounded across and stopped them. Cummins chuckled.

As it was, their few shots made the Chinese scatter still more rapidly, and they vanished to cover without firing a shot.

Then came the most trying time of all, and it tested the young marines' endurance to the utmost. The two guns were firing rapidly, shells were screaming past, shells were bursting on the slope in front of them and on the plateau behind them. Every now and again a little white ball of smoke burst with a dull "puff" overhead, and a hailstorm of shrapnel bullets came splashing down. They knew, too, that the Chinamen were creeping up unseen through the bushes, and they could do nothing but wait.

The intense tension of suspense was still further increased by the sentry on the crest path running back from that gap in the bushes with a scared face.

Another party was advancing along the path they had followed in the morning, and almost before he had reported this, shots from Bush Hill came whipping past, and then from the slopes below a furious fire burst out, the bullets fortunately flying wildly.

Cummins sang out for the signalman. "Go back and signal to Mr. Parker, 'Am attacked in front and left flank. I expect you to keep my rear open'," and turning to Saunderson, who was standing near him, "Eh! Saunderson, you make me nervous standing up; I wish you'd lie down."

"I will when you do, sir."

"But I can't, you know," Cummins said, with a silly chuckle.

"For goodness' sake keep moving, then, sir," the giant answered nervously, as several bullets flew past, and one struck the sand-bag on which Cummins was sitting.

Cummins dug it out with his finger. It was a small-bore Mauser bullet.

"Hullo! that's capital!" he cried, jumping to his feet, as a faint report came from the extreme left, and a shell burst among the trees from which the two guns had been firing. "Bannerman's got round at last."

The men saw it too, and gave a joyful cheer of relief.

"Now, lads," he sang out cheerily, "you won't be bothered with those shells, and these Chinese can't hit a haystack. Save your cartridges, and never fire till you are sure of hitting. The _Strong Arm's_ will be here with their Maxims in another hour, so don't waste a shot."

With the dreaded shells silent, the men settled down more confidently and fired very seldom, and once or twice a yell of pain below told them that a cartridge had not been wasted.

The bullets were going past in great numbers--ping-ping! flick-flick! Occasionally one struck the ground with a puff of dust, or struck a stone or an axe and went whistling away, twisted out of shape. Every now and again one buried itself in a sand-bag with a thud, but most of them were high overhead. Evidently the Chinese were too undisciplined to take aim.

Still, it was a sufficiently awkward position, with three or four hundred men attacking from below, and probably as many on the left, concealed among those bushes opposite the Log Redoubt.

Cummins had only forty-eight men left, and though they were well in hand and were steadying every minute, the odds were sufficiently serious.

He was perhaps not so anxious about himself as for the second party, which was now reported by "No. 3" as being more than half-way up the hill. If the Chinese attacked them whilst they were struggling through the thick undergrowth, encumbered with the two Maxims, ammunition, and provision-boxes, it would go hard with them. Once they joined him with their machine-guns, he was confident of holding his ground till the oil arrived and enabled him to fire the big Krupp. His right flank, too, gave him little concern, for it was comparatively open in that direction, and gave no shelter for an attacking force; and so long as "No. 3" could sweep the sea-slope of the hill, he did not worry about his rear.

But could "No. 3" do so?

The wind, which had been blowing strongly from the north-west, was already beginning to veer again to the south, and was increasing rapidly in strength, and Cummins knew only too well that neither "No. 3" could remain near the foot of the hill, nor the _Sylvia_ near enough to the low land to smother those two field-guns if the wind remained in that quarter and brought in a heavy sea.

Unsupported by the ships, he recognized that his position would be precarious in the extreme.

If, too, the _Strong Arm's_ party followed his route of the night before, they would run right into the Chinese massed on his flank. Fortunately he could communicate with them through "No. 3", and signalled directions for them to incline to their right and make for the shoulder of the hill on the eastern or gun-pit side of the top.

It took twenty minutes to get the signal to them and to get a reply, and it was a great relief to him when the signalman reported that the _Strong Arm's_ landing-party had received the signal and were already altering their course.

"The oil is also on its way up," was the signalman's welcome news.

"I don't know what we should do without you, Gordon," the Commander said; "keep under cover as much as you can."

A marine now came hurriedly over to the Commander with a message from Captain Williams.

"He thinks, sir, that they are gathering for a rush beyond those bushes," pointing along the crest towards Bush Hill.

Cummins went across to the Log Redoubt, and found Williams scanning the bushes beyond him through his glasses.

"They are gathering pretty thickly behind there, sir, and I think I can make out a couple of Europeans."

Cummins could see them too, and he sent Glover to Mr. Pattison to tell him to bring his men out of the gun-pit. They swarmed over the parapet and came flying across the level ground, and lay down in the grass on the right of the Log Redoubt.

"They are using Mauser rifles, sir," said Williams.

"Yes, I know. How do you know?"

Williams held up his left arm, his handkerchief tied around the wrist and red with blood. "Two tiny holes slap bang through."

"Bones broken?" the Commander asked anxiously.

"I don't think so," Williams said, adding, as the most awful shrieks and yells came from the bushes--"they are trying to frighten us and getting up courage to rush across, but I think we can stop them in the open. Steady, men, don't waste a shot, and fire low. Loosen your belts, men, and see your ammunition clear."

Each of the ten Blue Marines loosened a couple of packets and laid them in little piles at his right-hand side.

A wild crackle and splutter of rifle firing rang out--another hideous yell. Two Europeans sprang into the open, and a crowd of blue-coated Chinamen followed them and began rushing madly across.

"Now, men, you can't miss them; fire low, fire low, and take aim. Take aim, can't you?" (this to a young marine who was shoving in cartridges and pulling the trigger almost at the same time).

Seven or eight fell before they had gone as many yards, but still they came on, the Europeans well ahead.

They covered a hundred yards, and now they were coming up the rise, the ground behind them dotted with little blue heaps.

Cummins drew his revolver. "Is yours loaded, Glover?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then don't draw it unless they get over the sandbags," he chuckled, "or you'll be shooting me."

The marines were up on their knees now, firing over the breast-work. It was absolute slaughter, but the Chinese showed no sign of slackening.

One of the white men Glover recognized--the man with the black beard.

"Two of you take that black-bearded scoundrel," Williams sang out, "and two the other white man."

Chinamen fell all around them, but still they came on.

"Take a shot yourself, Williams," Cummins ordered. (Williams was a noted rifle shot.)

He seized a rifle, rested it on a sand-bag, took careful aim and fired, loaded, and fired again.

The second European twisted round and fell. As he fell his hat came off, and Glover recognized, with a funny feeling of regret, that it was Hopkins. The Chinese following him stopped, came on again, looked back, half a dozen threw up their arms and fell, and then the others had had enough of it, could face no more, and, throwing their rifles away, ran down the hill to the right. The black-bearded man, with fifty or sixty Chinamen still behind him, got to within fifty yards. The marines began to cheer, standing up now to fire.

They dwindled to forty, to thirty, and then with a sudden shock Glover realized that they were actually up to them, and woke to the fact that men were fighting hand to hand, marines clubbing their rifles and smiting left and right (they were still outnumbered three to one), and that the Commander was standing in front of him coolly firing his revolver.

He suddenly remembered that he had a revolver too, and drew it, but Cummins seized it and handed him his empty smoking one to reload.

A cheer on the right, and Pattison and his men threw themselves into the fray; another cheer, and the mighty Saunderson with half of his Red Marines came charging over; more revolver shots rang out, the Chinese began to give way, turned tail, and rushed down the slope, the huge bearded European last of all.

As he bounded back he passed Hopkins's prostrate body, bent down, lifted him up, and staggered away with him.

"Let him go, men; don't fire at him," shouted Cummins, and he disappeared into the bushes.

Glover heard the Commander mutter, "What a silly fool I am!"

The men stood up cheering like madmen; but firing started again from the bushes, bullets came whistling over, and they were ordered to take cover.

Saunderson ran back to his breast-work with his men.

"That was a pretty close shave, sir," said Williams, coming up and painfully reloading his revolver with his wounded hand.

"A very close thing indeed," replied Cummins with a chuckle, as he reloaded his.

Pattison lay on the ground without moving, blood pouring from his head; one man was dead, lying half over the sand-bags with a bullet through his chest; one had a bayonet wound in his thigh, and was sitting up trying to stanch the flow of blood; another sat stupid and half stunned with a blow on the head from the butt-end of a rifle.

"Sing out for Dr. Richardson," said Cummins, bending over Pattison.

"Here I am, sir," the Doctor answered, coming up with an axe in one hand and an empty revolver in the other.

"I did not think it was the time to stand on professional etiquette, sir."

"My word!" Williams burst out, "I saw that axe flying round, and, man alive! you saved a beggar from running me through."

A cheer from Sergeant Haig's breast-work made them turn round, and they saw the head of the _Strong Arm's_ party just appearing over the shoulder of the hill, beyond the gun.

If fifty men ever cheered loudly these did.

"What about Pattison?" Cummins asked, before he hurried across to greet them.

"Only stunned I think, sir; he's coming round already," answered Dr. Richardson.

* * * * *

At the head of the _Strong Arm's_ party was Captain Hunter, looking like an enormous school-boy out for a holiday, his great red face beaming with sheer joy, and sniffing the air as stray bullets flew by.

He was followed on to the plateau by his men with the two Maxims and their tripod stands, box after box of ammunition, more breakers of water and more provision boxes, slung between them from poles across their shoulders, coolie fashion.

The Commander hurried up to him.

"Never expected to see you yourself, sir," he said, as Hunter grasped his hand.

"Well, fact of the matter is this. Helston sent me down in the picket-boat at the last moment to recall you, but I got there too late"--with a broad grin and a twinkle in his eye--"to do that, and, well, when I saw my men going ashore by themselves, I simply couldn't stay behind, and here I am. Hope we are not too late for a scrap. We didn't start till nearly seven o'clock, and we've just taken two hours and a quarter to climb up that confounded hill. My fellows are pretty well fagged out."

"Only a quarter past nine!" Cummins exclaimed. "I thought it must be past mid-day." He rapidly explained the situation. "We've just repulsed a rush from the opposite side, and we have knocked over that man Hopkins and thirty or forty of their men as well, so they won't be coming on again just yet.

"Two of our people are killed, I am sorry to say, and five or six wounded badly. Pattison is badly damaged, and Williams has a bullet through his wrist. Down below us, under cover of those trees, there are about three hundred Chinese blue-jackets, and as many more on the crest behind those bushes. Those, though, won't be worrying us for some time.

"The _Sylvia_ is keeping down the fire of two field-guns which bothered us a good deal at first from the opposite side of the harbour, and I am depending upon Parker to keep my rear open."

"You won't be able to do so much longer," Captain Hunter replied; "the barometer is going down rapidly, and a heavy sea was coming in even before I left, and it is blowing hard now from the south."

It indeed was, sweeping up from the sea in great gusts which one turned one's back to, and bringing heavy rain-squalls with it. Several of the half-cut-through trees, which had not already been felled, had been blown down, and the remainder swayed ominously.

"I'm afraid not, sir. Where will you have the Maxims?" asked Cummins.

"My dear chap, I'm only a volunteer. You're in command, and I'm only too jolly glad to do anything you tell me."

"That can't be done, sir. You are the senior officer up here, and must take command."

Captain Hunter's jolly face clouded over. "Well, look here, Cummins, 'pon my honour I'm confoundedly sorry I've come at all if it spoils your game. Believe me, old chap, I never thought of it; I didn't, really!"

"I'm only too glad to have you, sir," Cummins said, and what he said he meant--always. "Why, you are worth a dozen men yourself, sir!"

"D' you really mean that?" Hunter answered, his face flushing with pride and pleasure, like the great school-boy he was. "We caught sight of a lot of those skunks on our way up," he continued, "but they were much too wily to come within reach of us."

"That is serious news, sir. The recoil cylinders of the Krupp gun are empty, and I had to signal to Parker to send some drums of oil ashore. They are on their way up now, with a dozen men."

"Phew!" whistled Hunter, "they'll run right into them."

Even as he spoke, the loud report of a solitary Martini was heard, half-way down towards the sea, quickly followed by more shots, and then a rattle of sharper reports--Mausers, evidently, by their short, sharp cracks.

"I must go back for them; you carry on here;" and Captain Hunter sang out for his marine officer, a dapper little subaltern, to follow him with thirty men, and, with a cheery shout of "Come along, lads," went striding down the hill he had just climbed.

Cummins now knew why bullets had almost ceased to whistle past either from Bush Hill or the trees below him. The little party painfully toiling up with its oil-drums had been sighted, and the pirate leaders, knowing probably for what purpose the oil was being brought, had sent most of their people to creep round under cover and intercept it.

* * * * *

Parker, from the unsteady platform of his destroyer's bridge, had heard the first few rifle shots from the party which he had just landed to rush those precious drums of oil to the top of the hill, and knew that they were being attacked. He could see them, too, lying in a small circle round their drums, and attempted, as best as he could, to shell the dense cover from which they were apparently being attacked.

The Commander now semaphored from the top of the hill an urgent message for him to do his utmost to protect them.

He could do nothing with his guns.

A heavy sea was driving in and pounding itself against the foot of the hill, smashing to match-wood the boats which had been left on the beach. The violent motion of "No. 3" herself made accurate shooting from any gun absolutely impossible, and though Pat Jones crawled out of his hammock down on the mess-deck to fire his beloved 12-pounder, even he, splendid old gunner that he was, could do no better.

The little shells were as dangerous to his own men as to the Chinese, and, not only had Parker to cease firing, but the necessity for immediately steaming out to sea became completely obvious. He had already hugged a lee shore too long, and must push away from these treacherous rocks.

His feelings can be imagined when he was compelled to signal, "Cannot maintain an accurate fire, and must haul out from the land".

"Hunter and Cummins will know I hung out to the last," was his only consolation as he turned "No. 3" into the fierce rain squalls which drove into his face, and plunged her bows into the heavy seas.

Cummins smiled grimly as the signal was reported to him, and anxiously watched the destroyer fighting her way into safety.

With Parker unable to remain inshore, he knew that it was only a question of minutes before Bannerman would be compelled to follow his example, and expected momentarily to find himself once again under shell fire from these two field-guns.

Another danger was also imminent--a much more serious danger.

Down in the harbour one of the older cruisers, either the _Mao Yuen_ or the _Yao Yuen_, was being warped across to a spot almost under the ledge which had concealed him the day before, with the very evident intention of shelling the top of the hill from there.

Her guns would not be able to touch the Krupp gun, but with shrapnel he knew that she could sweep the greater portion of the plateau, and knew, too, that unless that oil arrived and enabled him to use his Krupp gun, he could not possibly maintain his position. Once he could drop those 12-inch shells into the harbour, however inaccurately at first, he was confident of being able to destroy that cruiser--in time.

But without that oil and without the support of the ships, the very existence of the whole party was at stake; and the possibility of cutting through the mass of encircling Chinamen, fighting his way, encumbered with wounded, along the crest of the hill, and then endeavouring to maintain his position at some other point, even the possibility of rushing one of the forts at the entrance and standing at bay there, flashed through his brain.

He could do nothing more to assist Captain Hunter at present, so he employed his men in still further strengthening the sand-bag breast-works. The Maxims were placed in sand-bag redoubts, one at the angle between the Log Redoubt and the end of Saunderson's breast-works, and the other between these two breast-works. Both swept any approach up the harbour face of the hill by the zig-zag path, and the first also commanded the bare crest between it and Bush Hill.

Sand-bags, too, were hauled to the edge overlooking the sea, and little did the men think as they cheerfully piled them up that the Commander, studying his notebook and the sketches he had taken the day before, was debating the necessity of abandoning the hill, and the possibility of rushing one of the two forts.

No rifle fire was annoying them, no shell fire alarming them. Captain Hunter, whom they idolized, had gone to rescue the oil-drums; therefore the oil-drums would be up at the top directly, and the big gun would have the pirates at its mercy, so right cheerfully they worked, despite the soaking rain sweeping the top of the hill.

Glover was standing near the Commander, blue with cold and soaked to the skin. Cummins suddenly noticed him and his condition. "Go and help with the sand-bags, boy; you can run this time," he chuckled, and turned to watch Captain Hunter's progress below him.

He and his little party of thirty marines had disappeared among the trees and bushes, crashing their way through them, but now they were hotly engaged, and their progress could be traced, as they fought their way down, by the line of smoke puffs which rose above the bushes.

The line steadily descended towards the little spot near the sea, from which the rapid firing of more Martinis comforted him with the certainty that the destroyer's men were still guarding the precious oil. The loud reports of their big-bore rifles, however, were almost drowned by the constant crackling of the small-bore Mausers.

Had he not been certain that, by a merciful dispensation, a Chinaman can seldom be made to take aim, he would have thought it impossible for any of the little band to survive.

Now the wind brought up the sound of British cheers--he could swear to Captain Hunter's above the rest. The line of smoke puffs swept downwards, and he knew that they had joined hands with the destroyer's men.

Then came the upward struggle, and slowly they fought their way, whilst the Chinese set up a shrill yell of triumph, and the Mauser fire crackled in one continuous roar.

Still the line of black powder smoke advanced, but more slowly. Then he saw, with anxious eyes, that it was stationary. The Chinese had got in above Hunter and cut him off. He watched a single tree; the little puffs of smoke came regularly behind it; the yells of triumph redoubled.

Captain Hunter and his men could advance no farther. Could he take the tremendous risk of reinforcing them and still further weakening the little garrison at the top of the hill?

His mind was made up in a moment, and he called Williams and Saunderson to him and showed them the position of affairs.

"Take forty of your men, Williams; leave me Sergeant Haig; creep down to the left till you get on a level with them, and rush their flank. There is no hurry, and don't waste cartridges."

"Thank you, sir, my men want something to warm them."

As they filed down the hill towards the left, the two field-guns again opened fire. Bannerman at last had been compelled to haul out in the face of the gale.

"Take cover, men," Cummins sang out to the few bluejackets and marines still left to him; "their bark is worse than their bite;" and he remained in the open watching and waiting for Williams to come in touch with the enemy.

He and his party had already disappeared among the trees which had swallowed Captain Hunter and his men nearly an hour before. Ten minutes went by and nothing happened. Minutes seemed like hours, and to his tense nerves it seemed that the Chinese were closing in on Captain Hunter, and that the Martini rifle fire was slackening. Surging through his brain swept the burning thought that he had made not one, but two mistakes.

To find the gun unable properly to control the harbour was bad enough, but now his second mistake was ten times more serious. The Chinese could fight, and his whole plans had been based on the opposite belief.

For a moment his own inherent optimism and resourcefulness, bred in the bone through many generations of fighting men, deserted him. He saw the failure of his scheme, the ruin it would bring to the whole squadron, and the end of poor Helston's ambitions. Of his own fate he cared nothing at that moment, but cursed himself for leaving the sea to venture a soldier's job, and for sacrificing, to his own self-assurance, the men who had so willingly followed him.

At that moment his vivid brain even pictured the final back-to-back struggle and the sobbing panting of stricken men as one by one they fell.

Would he be the last? he wondered.

A shell burst on the ridge, and the jagged fragments screaming past him woke him from his nightmare to catch sight of Glover's scared face as he stood at his side.

Putting his hand on the midshipman's shoulder he said softly: "Glover, I am sorry; get under cover, boy."

But before Glover could move away a great burst of cheering came up from below.

Williams and Saunderson, with their forty men behind them, were charging into the flank of the unsuspecting Chinamen, and, hardly firing a shot, they were driving them like sheep from Captain Hunter's path.

Yells of pain and shrieks of agony told that they were relying on cold steel. The Martini fire broke out again with a roar, and now the line of smoke began to ascend once more.

With a gasp of relief and a funny feeling at the back of his throat, the Commander saw it coming towards him rapidly now, the whole eighty of them cheering madly.

They had got the Chinamen "on the run".

"Bring a Maxim over here, Glover! Quick, boy! we shall have them when they break into the open."

The cheering redoubled. Chinese suddenly appeared among the trees below them, doubling to left and right as Hunter burst through with a dozen or more of his men. Then came the destroyer's men with their drums of oil, Collins the Sub at their head, a knot of men carrying some mess-mates, and, bringing up the rear, Williams, Saunderson, and the marines fighting slowly, running a few yards, then dropping behind a tree and shooting downhill.

Directly the oil-drums were safe and the wounded had burst through, Hunter swung his men round and went down again, his great, joyous, bellowing cheer heard above the noise of Mauser or Martini. The Chinese gave way and fell back down the hill. Some that tried to escape to the left had to pass Sergeant Haig's redoubt, and his men knocked them over like rabbits; others swept across the right towards Bush Hill, but then the Maxim spoke with its horrid "br-br-br", and brought them down in heaps.

In less than a minute not a living Chinaman was to be seen, but a desultory fire commencing again from "Bush Hill" showed that they were still under some control.

As Captain Hunter and his party, flushed with success and breathless with their exertions, swung into the plateau, a shrapnel burst above them, and the bullets, pouring down all round them, covered them with dust. A marine fell with a yell, his thigh smashed, but no one else was touched, and Hunter ran up to Cummins, who had now recovered his composure. He was simply mad with the physical joy of fighting, and this hailstone of shrapnel bullets had simply intoxicated him.

"My country! that was a pretty bit of fighting," he roared; "worth ten years of ordinary life. I've got your oil, and we've brought every man Jack back again. There's a man on the other side I'd like to shake hands with--after my own kidney, that chap--a huge fellow with a black beard; led 'em on time after time, but those skunks of Chinamen would not follow him."

"He led the first rush," Cummins answered, trying to calm him, "and led it well, too. Have you lost many men, sir?"

"What a brute I am!" he cried, the joy of battle quickly vanishing. "I don't know exactly, but we've brought them all back. Before we came ashore I told my men that if anyone fell he should not be left, and--and they are splendid fellows, Cummins."

The casualties were serious enough. Five had been killed--two of the destroyer's and three of the _Strong Arm's_--and eleven wounded--three of these belonging to Captain Williams's party, three to the destroyer, and the other five to Hunter's party.

"That oil is worth a good deal now," said Cummins sadly.

* * * * *

Behind the gun-pit parapet Dr. Richardson busied himself with the wounded, a lieutenant of the _Strong Arm_, Gibbins by name, took charge of the gun in place of poor Pattison and commenced to fill the recoil cylinders, the less fatigued of the men carried on hauling sand-bags towards the edge overlooking the sea, whilst the remainder, thoroughly exhausted, lay down behind the breast-works.

Shells were still coming from those field-guns, but the _Strong Arm's_, reassured by the _Laird's_, who had already begun to despise them, soon learnt that they were harmless so long as they kept down behind their sand-bags.

Meanwhile preparations were being made to shell the hilltop from the guns of the cruiser which had been warped across the harbour. Her guns could not at first be elevated sufficiently to reach the top of the hill, but they were overcoming this difficulty by letting water into her on one side and giving her a list to starboard, and thus tilting her gun muzzles still farther upward.

Hunter and Cummins were anxiously watching this operation--necessarily a slow one--and it was not completed before Gibbins rushed across to them and reported the Krupp ready for action.

"We'll weigh in first, old chap!" Hunter exclaimed with glee.

A great shell, grooved and lead-coated to take the rifling, was hoisted out of the magazine, the derrick raised it to the breech, a dozen men shoved it home with a long rammer, a quarter charge of powder-bags followed it, the clumsy breech-block was slowly worked across, Gibbins sprang up to the sighting-platform and jammed in the friction-tube with its lanyard, and all was ready.

Cummins coolly examined everything till he was satisfied that nothing was wrong with gun or mounting, and then the ponderous mass of steel was laboriously trained towards the spot where lay the cruiser under the cliffs, at the opposite side of the harbour. From the sighting-platform not even her masts could be seen, and the direction had to be roughly found by means of rifle cleaning-rods stuck in a line on the edge of the intervening plateau.

Clumsy this method was, but the best available.

Cummins grasped the lanyard, the gun's crew were ordered out of the pit in case of accident, the marines, lying behind the breast-work at the edge of the plateau and in front of the gun, were cleared out of danger, and he gave it a sharp tug.

A huge cloud of smoke, a huge, bellowing roar, cubes of burning gunpowder leapt down the side of the hill, some or the sand-bags were blown over the crest, the muzzle of the gun cocked itself into the air as the gun recoiled along its slides and then gently slid forward again. Everyone rushed to the edge to see where the shell fell. Half a minute of breathless anxiety, heedless of the bullets that were flying past, and then, up on the cliffs, behind the cruiser, a balloon-shaped mass of white smoke burst out, masses of rock leapt into the air and fell splashing into the sea, and the roaring of the explosion tossed from hill to hill, and, crashing from cliff to cliff with tremendous reverberations, came up to them like thunder.

"Their game is up," shouted Hunter. "Cheer, men, cheer!"

Cummins, a quaint little rain-soaked figure, standing on the parapet of sand-bags behind the gun, and with the lanyard still in his hand, simply chuckled: "You can load again, men, she is quite safe."

*CHAPTER XXI*

*On One Gun Hill*

The Hill on Fire--Gunner Bolton, R.M.A.--I Help Dr.
Richardson--Doing Well--We Stir Up the Pirates--Reporting to the
"Laird"--A Yarn with Collins--A Overwhelming Rush

_Mr. Midshipman Glover relates his experiences_

I have often wondered whether or no I was really frightened.

Certainly, whilst we were climbing up that hill through bushes and trees, in the most absolute darkness, I should have been in an utter funk if I had not been obliged to stick to the Commander and do my utmost not to lose touch with him.

As far as I can remember I thought of little else but that, and to wish that he would not go so fast. When at last we had found the pathway--just as it was getting light--I was too excited to be really frightened, and afterwards, when I had to follow the Commander about the level space on the top of "One Gun Hill", as we called it, I was kept so busy taking messages that I hardly thought of the bullets, or even the shells, and was much more afraid lest the Commander should think that I was funking.

At first it was simply horrid to have to walk across, for you could hear bullets going by and making a noise just like a crack of a thin whip, and sometimes would see one strike the ground or a sand-bag just in front of you, where you would have to pass in a few seconds, and then--well, it was jolly hard work to prevent your legs from going as fast as they could go. I seemed to take up so much room, so much more than anything else near, that it seemed actually impossible for the bullets to miss my body. In fact, when they commenced shelling us, and Mr. Saunderson, who is really an immense man, turned round and told me chaffingly to stand in front of him, I thought that I actually should shield him if I did so. That feeling explains what I mean rather better than anything else I can say.

Later, however, I became so awfully tired and sleepy that things just happened, and I did what I had to do quite mechanically. When the Chinese made their first rush I was hardly even excited, and remember that I thought it the most natural thing in the world to see Hopkins fall down wounded. I was sorry for him, just as one is in a dream, and, in fact, I kept on thinking that presently I should wake up and find myself on board the _Laird_, with some silly idiot of a midshipman playing a trick with my hammock. It never even occurred to me till long afterwards that all that time the Commander had been standing in front of me to protect me.

I was very cold and very wet, and stood shivering and watching Captain Hunter trying to rescue the oil-drums, and afterwards found myself hauling sand-bags and piling them round one of the Maxims, and getting warmer every minute.

Then I remembered that the Commander had told me to do this.

When a little time afterwards he put his hand on my shoulder, with a terribly sad expression on his face, and said in a strange voice, "Glover, I am sorry," I had not the least idea what he meant, and thought that it was because I was absolutely drenched to the skin.

Of course I know now what he meant, but at the time had not the faintest notion that we were in so much danger.

What did at last really wake me was the firing of that big Krupp gun and the noise of the shell bursting on the cliff on the opposite side of the harbour, just above the cruiser which was preparing to shell us, and not far from the ledge where the Commander, Jones, and I had been hidden.

Quite close to where it burst were several little groups of Koreans--white patches against the green background. They had been watching from daybreak the attempts to recapture One Gun Hill, but now vanished out of sight, and we never saw them again.

Our second shot, five minutes later, was still nearer the cruiser, but she made no attempt to move, and began firing single guns. They had been obliged to give her a tremendous list to starboard, in order to elevate their guns sufficiently, and as her gunners could not see our Krupp gun from the decks, they had men stationed high up on the cliffs, some distance away, who signalled with flags (I could see them quite plainly) after each shot, whether it was right, left, short, or over.

Most of them went right over (they were firing shrapnel), some burst very short, only the fragments of the shell coming crashing on the ground round the gun, whilst the bullets plunged into the bushes below us, beating them down.

Many actually struck the slope of the hill before bursting, and whether it was these, or whether it was the burning cubes of gunpowder which went flying down the hill each time we fired that gun, I do not know, but presently the bushes and undergrowth began to smoulder, and the smoke, all the denser because they were damp, was driven down towards the town by the wind.

This in time increased the clear space below the breastworks, but the smoke made our shooting all the less accurate, did not hide us at all, either from the two field-guns or the cruiser, and unfortunately concealed the movements of the Chinese behind it.

I suppose that Captain Hunter or the Commander never thought of that at the time, otherwise they might have stamped the fire out when it first began to burn.

"Go and get something to eat," the Commander had told me; "I sha'n't want you for half an hour." So I had gone across to Sergeant Haig's breast-work, and was lying down close to a fire his men had made, and huddled up against the sand-bags to find some shelter from the wind and rain.

I was feeling precious hungry again, so, unfastening my haversack, I broke off a big hunk of that home-made cake. It was jolly good, and I had a good pull at my water-bottle; old Mellins had filled it with weak tea. It was jolly hard work pulling out the stopper, for my fingers were so numb with the cold.

I broke off another piece of cake and gave it to the marine lying next to me. It was Gunner Bolton, with his rifle pointing through a loophole and his finger on the trigger. He turned round into an easier position, and after a few bites said: "D'ye think, sir, as 'ow I shall get into trouble about that 'ere gun?

"You see, sir, it was just like this. I'd been bringing up the rear and got rather be'ind'and, what with one thing an' another, and in them thick bushes, it being so dark an' all, I jest lost mysel' and couldn't no'ow find the rest of 'em. So I thinks to mysel', 'Jest obey orders', and when you're lost, as the Commander said, 'Jest climb and climb'.

"Well, that was what I did, sir," he continued, with a half-anxious, half-humorous expression, "and I climbed and I climbed till, blow me! I simply fell over them sandbags, and not a savidge anywhere could I see. So I jest lights my pipe and stops there, knowing the Commander would be along in no time. But you see, sir, I've rayther done 'im out of 'is show, and my mates are rayther furious about it too.

"I wish I'd 'ung on to the party, an' then there wouldn't 'ave been none of this 'ere trouble."

He munched his cake solemnly and then added slyly: "That 'sentry-go' business, sir, that's what riled 'em. That was just for effect, I don't mind telling you, sir."

"That's all right, Bolton," I told him. "You won't hear any more about it from the Commander, I'm sure of that."

"Well, I 'opes you're right, sir; an' if you'll look arter this 'ere rifle of mine I'll jest see if there ain't a little o' that 'ot cocoa left."

He crawled away, scraped a little out of the big mess-tins, warmed it over the fire in his own tin cup, and brought it back to me.

It was jolly refreshing, I can tell you, and warm and oily.

He took his rifle from me and watched me drink.

"You'll put in a good word for me, sir, when we gets aboard the _Laird_; now, won't you, sir?"

I promised that I would do so, but could not help smiling.

"You see that 'ere Chinaman?" he said presently, jerking his thumb towards a motionless blue heap which lay about a hundred yards away along the crest--one of those who had bolted away from Captain Hunter. "I shot 'im, sir; knocked 'im all of a 'eap. Caught 'im in the upper works I did, sir, an' 'e jest toppled over an' over an' never moved a 'air, though there I was all waiting, with another cartridge jammed in, in case 'e did.

"Never moved a 'air," he kept repeating softly to himself, evidently vastly contented with his marksmanship, "an' with that 'ere rifle too," and he kept patting its breech.

"Eh! look at that, sir!" he said, pointing down to the harbour, just after the Krupp gun had fired again, and jumped to his feet, waving his rifle over his head and cheering loudly, as did the others, for the shell had landed, fair and square, in the cruiser's stern, and seemed to have practically wrecked her.

Every man on top of the hill roared himself hoarse.

However, they sank down behind the sand-bags again, for they had drawn a rapid fire from "Bush Hill" and the field-guns.

I watched the great clouds of black smoke rolling up from the cruiser.

"If that ain't pluck, call me a coal-shovelling stoker!" cried Bolton, as the big fo'c'stle gun fired again before our Krupp had time to reload, and the shell burst just below the crest.

We ducked our heads behind the sand-bags, and the fragments tore up the ground.

"There's a Englishman a-running that show, sir; none o' your spotted Dagos, I'll be bound."

He was just a little too talkative for me, so I went away, Sergeant Haig smiling grimly as I left. "Haven't had much to do this side yet, sir."

I ran across to the rear of the big gun just as it fired again.

That shot was short, and whilst they were reloading her the cruiser fired two more rounds; but our next shell struck her farther forward, bringing down her funnel and foremast and crumpling her up like match-wood.

We could see them taking to their boats and pulling ashore, and the men yelled again with delight, for although her shells had done very little mischief, and had only wounded one man--a marine behind the "Log Redoubt"--the noise of their bursting shells was intensely unpleasant and disconcerting.