GUNBOAT AND GUN-RUNNER (continued 7)

Mr. Scarlett almost immediately reported by signal—ammunition remaining—four six-pounder, twelve hundred Maxim and rifle. At the same time Mr. Fisher, haggard and drawn, staggered in to tell me that although the main body had been repulsed a large number had succeeded in reaching the fifteen-foot wall on the east side and could not be dislodged.

"They're there now," he said hopelessly. "We can't touch them; they're firing up through the loopholes. They tried to climb the wall, but I got some of my men and your man Ellis to fire from the roof of an outbuilding close there, and they've cleared them off. What shall we do? Could the Bunder Abbas steam round and drive them away?" As this seemed reasonable I wrote out a signal telling Mr. Scarlett to raise steam at once and come round to the east bay. But the "B.A." could not move for at least two hours, and meanwhile Ellis and his few natives remained on top of that outbuilding, lying down behind the parapet ready to pick off any Afghan who attempted to climb the wall. More ammunition and some sand-bags were sent across to him to make his position more secure. However, the Afghans were quite content to wait where they were—under the foot of the wall—and made no offensive movement.

If they had done so the time might have gone by more quickly. As it was, it seemed an eternity before Hartley reported that the Bunder Abbas was under way.

Perhaps half an hour afterwards I heard her Maxim firing—at a great distance seemingly—firing only a few of her precious rounds and then ceasing.

It turned out that she had driven the Afghans away from the rocks near the cable house, but owing to the contour of the ground she could not reach the fellows under the wall itself. She stayed there to prevent any reinforcements joining them, and then had to come back hastily again because more parties of enemy were taking advantage of her absence from the west bay to creep along the beach there—the beach where we always landed in the dinghy—to try to find a lodgment under the opposite wall of the telegraph-station.

However, the Maxim on the roof kept those in check, and directly the "B.A." appeared round the end of the peninsula they all fled back to the New Fort.

One thing gave me much relief: we had not expended many rounds of ammunition.

The situation was now alarming, to say the least of it. If those fellows stayed where they were there was nothing to prevent them climbing the wall during the night, and Mr. Fisher explained (and I was perfectly convinced) that if they did this most of our natives would simply bolt. The Eurasians might put up some sort of a fight, but there were only eight of them now unwounded and they were almost exhausted.

We both realized that there were only two courses open: the first, to abandon the telegraph-station and take refuge aboard the Bunder Abbas; the second, practically to abandon the Bunder Abbas and bring her white crew on shore with their rifles and the few remaining rounds of ammunition.

As Mr. Fisher absolutely refused to consent to the first, the second plan was the only alternative. I decided to do this. First of all I took the block of note-paper and wrote: "Miss Borsen must be sent to Bunder Abbas"; but she, coming into the room at this moment, read what I had written and shook her head. She said there was work for her to do here and she wouldn't leave it; she stamped her foot angrily when Mr. Fisher implored her to go.

So I sent for Mr. Scarlett, and with my scribbled notes and Mr. Fisher's explanations we made him understand.

He was very furious, and "swung off" at Mr. Fisher for exposing everyone to such risks, doing his utmost to point out the horrible consequences which might happen if once the Bunder Abbas was abandoned and escape cut off, looking at me to back him up.

He felt that this second plan was more a disgrace to us than the abandoning of the station would be to Mr. Fisher; instead, he offered to bring ashore all the men he could spare, make a sortie, and drive the Afghans away from that side wall just as he and Mr. Fisher had driven them from the huts yesterday. He would bring his men ashore during the few minutes of dark after sunset (when they might hope to escape observation), lead them round the west wall and the wall towards the end of the peninsula, and then swoop along the eastern fifteen-foot wall from the top end. The Afghans would never expect an attack from that quarter, and whilst he was doing this he wanted Mr. Fisher (if his damaged shoulder let him), Ellis, and Hartley, with as many men as possible, to make a sortie through the door in the wall facing the slope, to creep along the face of that wall to the corner, and thus catch the enemy between two fires.

I, too, hated so much the idea of abandoning the "B.A." that I nodded my head in consent, and, having made all the arrangements with Mr. Fisher, he went back to the dinghy, though not before Mr. Fisher had implored Miss Borsen again, unavailingly, to accompany him. Not long afterwards he made a signal that he had determined to bring all hands with him, and that until they returned the "B.A." would be quite safe at her anchor.

I only hoped that she would, and I lay there dejected in the extreme, to think that now, of all times, I was helpless. It was no use pretending that I was not. Even without Miss Borsen to assure me that my only chance lay in remaining absolutely still, there was a funny feeling in my chest that the least exertion would finish me altogether. One or two drops of blood had come into my mouth during the day, and I instinctively knew that more was only waiting its chance. It was an extremely unhappy position to be in.

The remainder of the afternoon passed fairly quietly, and the dread of the coming night seemed to make the hours of daylight fly very quickly. Miss Borsen brought me some tea, and whilst she was in the room I remembered some signal I wanted to make to Mr. Scarlett. But the pencil had dropped off the bed and broken its point, so that it would not write, and I motioned to her that there was a knife in my dispatch-box. Whilst she was looking for it, jumbling among my letters and other papers, out slipped that little velvet bow, the one which had stuck to my button the night I had carried her over the swamp and made her so angry.

She picked it up, grew red, and I thought she was very angry at being reminded of the quarrel; because she shut up the box, said: "Bother the knife; it isn't here," and went away, sending in Hartley to help me with the signal.

This added to my worries.

As dark came on—very completely in the room, because of the sand-bags—I pictured the dinghy pulling to and fro to land Mr. Scarlett and the rest of the crew, and had a horrid feeling that they ought never to have left her. I feared, too, that they had not done this unobserved, because a good deal of firing broke out from the direction of the beach. However, there was no one to tell me what was happening, so I had to guess, listening anxiously to the murmur of voices outside, below the balcony, as Mr. Fisher and the others gathered near the door in the wall and prepared for their sortie.

I could hear them filling the magazines of their rifles, occasionally dropping a cartridge on the ground, and my ears were straining to hear the bolts fly back and to hear them rushing out; but instead of this a tremendous fusillade broke out down the slope, and the same yelling which had always accompanied the previous attacks broke the silence. So fearfully excited was I that more blood came into my mouth, and thoroughly frightened I lay flat, hardly able to breathe. The noises seemed to grow until they became one awful roar, dinning into my ear-drums till they seemed to overpower my brain altogether, and I must have lost consciousness.

I had a dim recollection of men running through my room, of rifles going off, and then woke to the fact that rifles were being fired quite close to me, outside on the balcony, their flashes lighting up the room, and that from every quarter came the most fearful uproar. People were running backwards and forwards, up and down the stairs; Zanzibari niggers came dragging sand-bags back through my room; the old butler, without his turban, came and went without giving a glance at me; no one seemed to take the least notice of me, and for some time I thought it must be another of those nightmares and I should presently waken.

Then the uproar seemed to grow more distant; a red glow filled the room with weird shadows, and what finally brought me to a realization that I was actually awake was Miss Borsen's hand sliding down to my wrist to feel my pulse.

"Hush!" she whispered; "keep still; you're all right now. They've got inside the walls and have gone off to burn down the other buildings. Mr. Fisher is down below—most of the others too; we are safe for some time."

I remembered that Mr. Scarlett and all the rest of my men ought to be on the outside of the wall, and wondered what had become of them.

"Mr. Scarlett?" I muttered, but she put a finger on my lips. "Be quiet; be still."

The niggers and servants must have torn away some of the sand-bags to make better openings to fire through or to take them somewhere else, for the room now was filled with a red glare. The crackling noise of flames seemed to grow more furious and closer; but above everything I heard Hartley's voice down below shouting orders.

It was a comfort even to know that he was there.

Then men began to climb the stairs outside the room, panting heavily and running down again. Miss Borsen went out to see what they were doing. She crept back, terrified.

"They're carrying water up to the roof—the flames are so close. It's awful—awful!" and she crouched on the floor with her hands over her eyes. She pulled herself together when Hartley—bleeding from a wound on his head—rushed in to tell me that we were fairly safe for the present, but that Ellis and a few natives on the top of that outbuilding, where they had been all day, were cut off, and that no one knew what had become of Mr. Scarlett and his party. "What with the moonlight and these 'ere flames from the mess buildings," he said, "it's as light as day now, and the Afghans won't come out in the open. They're skulking in the shadows under the walls, and daren't run across the open spaces."

After this—for a time—there was but little rifle firing near us, and the glare from the burning building died down somewhat. Outside on the balcony I could see the Zanzibaris there moving about in the shadow behind the sand-bags and peering over them to look below. Presently one of them saw something to fire at, for he let off his rifle and called to the others. A regular fusillade broke out, and in the midst of it I heard, to my intense relief, Mr. Scarlett's stentorian voice roaring out: "Stop that firing," and then shouting something in Hindustani.

Before I realized what was the meaning of this Miss Borsen sprang to her feet and was out on the balcony in a moment, pulling the wretched servants and Zanzibaris away from the sand-bags and calling out: "Stop! stop!

"It's Mr. Scarlett and your men climbing over the loopholed wall," she cried. "They are crawling over the corner just below us."

In a very few minutes Mr. Scarlett was standing in the room.

"We got caught on the 'hop' that time, sir; they saw us coming ashore and we had a fight for it. Managed to get up the slope near the wall, but then had to fall back again. Couldn't make headway against them. Jones was wounded again—badly this time. Most of the chaps were knocked about, so we dragged him back among the rocks and kept the Afghans off till they cleared out up here to join in the loot. We found the dinghy on the rocks with her bottom stove in, so couldn't send Jones on board, and we've brought him along with us—dodged the Afghans and hoisted him in over the wall. He's down below—pretty comfortable; but Moore's missing. No one's seen him since we had the first 'scrap', poor devil. I hope he's killed outright.

"Don't you go fussing," he went on. "There's five of us, besides Hartley and me, and we'll pull you through—and the little lass too. We're just off to line the veranda and the sand-bags there till those devils come at us again at daybreak. They'll come sure enough then. I'm off now, sir."

He left me alone again, for Miss Borsen had slipped away directly she had heard that there was another wounded man below, and she did not come back.

To know that Mr. Scarlett and his men were safe and were on the veranda below put heart into me; but the position seemed so desperate that I wonder my brain didn't throb itself out of my skull that night. It seemed to be trying to do so. The noise of the flames had died down; but scattered rifle shots rang out in the compound below every few minutes hour after hour, and the room seemed to be so full of smoke that I could hardly breathe. The old butler, going out to the balcony with food for the people there, gave me some water once, and I was very grateful.

Towards dawn there was an almost complete lull, as if everyone was too tired to go on shooting. Mr. Scarlett took this opportunity to come in and tell me that, so far, the Afghans had not broken into the building where the transmitting instruments were. They had to cross the concrete tennis-court to get to it, and Ellis and his people had kept them out so far. "We've done our little bit too, sir," he added, quite pleased with himself.

As dawn broke the Afghans first turned their attention to that outbuilding from the roof of which Ellis had punished them so heavily during the night. Of course I could not see this, but heard the uproar and the shooting, and in the middle of it Mr. Scarlett and Mr. Fisher came in (his left arm bound to his side) looking very anxious.

"We'll have to go along and bring Ellis out of it," the gunner said; "he and his chaps can't hold out much longer. Don't you worry, sir; we'll be back in a 'brace of shakes'." Stooping, before he left me, he placed a revolver on the chair at the head of the bed. "If you want it, sir," he said, and I understood.

They both went away, and I knew that they were going to lead another sortie across the compound and that open tennis-court. I heard them run down the stairs, heard the burst of cheering as they and others dropped down from the veranda, whilst the natives still on my balcony crowded away to the right of it and opened fire.

Almost immediately the noise of fierce hand-to-hand fighting came through the windows, and I waited, tremblingly, to hear the cheers which would tell me that Mr. Scarlett's people were coming back with Ellis; but, instead, the Afghans began yelling triumphantly, as if they were getting the upper hand. I turned my head and saw Miss Borsen stagger into the room, her face whiter than the dress she wore.

She stood still for a moment, listening, then saw the revolver, glided across and steadied herself to pick it up and to open it. She made sure it was loaded, and then, in a broken voice, told me that Mr. Fisher, Mr. Scarlett, and the rest had been cut off and forced back against the telegraph building.

"The Afghans are flocking down here now, and there is no one left in the house—only a few of the telegraph people down below, and they can't do it," she moaned. Then she stood at the side of my bed and handed me the revolver, saying, in a very low voice: "If the Afghans break in I want you to kill me."

She looked me through and through as I took it, as though she was not certain that she could rely on me; but then she seemed satisfied, for she knelt down close to the bed, with her head just above the edge of it, staring fixedly out to where the daylight grew and to where a surging wave of roaring, savage yells seemed to be beating round and against the whole house.

The Zanzibaris began coming back into the room from the balcony, grey with fright, running, throwing away their rifles and looking for somewhere to hide, taking not the slightest notice of us.

It was "all up" with us now, I felt sure, and I had to speak to her before the end did come.

"Will you forgive me?" I asked. "You know what for! I'm sorry."

She put out a hand and touched mine, the one which held the revolver, and said: "I have—for a long time." Then she turned her head away.

There we stayed—for how long I do not know—and although every moment I expected to hear the Afghans breaking into the rooms below us and charging up the stairs, and knew what I should have to do then, I felt quite happy.

Suddenly, among all the furious tumult and clamour below and all round us, I heard, we both heard, another sound—the sound of cheering—cheering loud and lusty. All the noises seemed to die away before it; it grew; nearer and nearer it came; it swelled through the windows, across those sand-bags, in a continued shout of victory; rifle firing died down as though by magic, then burst out again; those shouts of despair which we knew so well by this time filled the whole of the compound, and Miss Borsen, springing to the balcony, tore away a sand-bag, looked down, and rushed back to me.

"The Intrepid!" she cried, fell on her knees, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

CHAPTER XIX

The Grey-eyed Lady Decides

Dear old Popple Opstein was the first to find us, rushing up the stairs two steps at a time, calling out my name, and bursting into the room, his yellow hair standing up from his forehead like a parrot's, and his eyes staring out of his violet face.

Miss Borsen flung herself at him, clinging to his great sunburnt hands, laughing and crying hysterically. She would not let him do more than grip my hand, taking him away very quickly for fear the excitement should start the bleeding again, although I imagined that if the agony of that last half-hour had not done so nothing else would.

Presently she brought Nicholson, who came lumbering into the room, fat and jolly as ever, felt my pulse, heard what she had to say about me, and told me the same old thing: "Just you lie still, absolutely still, and don't speak". He promised to come and overhaul me properly later on.

"I've a terrible lot of jobs on hand now," he said.

He must have given orders for no one to visit me, because I was left entirely alone, impatient to hear of all that had happened, and listening to the heavy booming of guns—the Intrepid's guns, out at sea—shelling the retreating Afghans. At least I imagined that was what they were doing.

In about an hour's time the old head boy brought another trestle-bed into my room, and, whilst I was wondering who was going to use it, Mr. Scarlett was carried in, quite unconscious, his head swathed in bandages.

Nicholson followed, and told me that he had had "the devil's own whack" with the butt end of a rifle, and there was no knowing what would happen.

The reaction after the strain of the last four days was now very great, and there was no disguising the fact that I was as weak as a cat. I had had no real sleep for at least four nights, and listening to the long, slow, snoring noise coming from Mr. Scarlett's bed made me drop off to sleep too. When I woke it was night, but by the light of the lamp I saw Percy—a melancholy-looking figure in white—squatting on the floor at the side of the gunner's bed, with his eyes fixed on his hero's bandaged head. He turned and smiled at me when I moved, but only for a moment, turning again like some big faithful dog to watch the gunner.

For two whole days the only other people I saw were Nicholson, who doctored me, and the head boy—his yellow turban once more as smart as a new pin—who brought me food and fed me.

At the end of those two days Mr. Scarlett began to show signs of returning consciousness, and Percy, who had not left him day or night, wept tears of joy when his eyes opened and he asked where he was.

Popple Opstein was now allowed to come and talk to me.

From him I heard how the Intrepid had been called away from Muscat, on what turned out to be a wild-goose chase, after some dhow reported to be loading rifles down the coast; how she had heard on her return that Jask telegraph-station had been attacked in force and the telegraph cut; and how she had come across at full speed.

"I'm almost certain Jassim was the chap who brought the news which took us down the coast. We heard he'd shot you dangerously, and I put two and two together. My dear old chap, I was in the dickens of a funk. The skipper had the men all ready waiting to land; they were over the side and in the boats almost before the anchor dropped, and we were only just in time. Your fellows were all pushed up against the side of the building, with a crowd of chaps howling round them, and were getting the worst of it, half of them laid out already. Another half-hour and it would have been 'finish'."

He gave me a list of the casualties, and they were very severe. Jones had died of his wounds, and Moore's body had been found on the rocks close to the smashed dinghy, with three dead Afghans near him; so the poor, irritating chap had made a great fight for his life. There was not a single one of the "B.A."'s who had not a wound of "sorts".

Mrs. Fisher had come ashore from the "B.A.", but her nerves were so completely shaken that she intended to go down to Karachi very shortly. Miss Borsen was to accompany her. Both of them visited me occasionally, but always together, and I was longing for the day to come when Nicholson would give me permission to talk, because I had much to tell the little, sad, grey-eyed lady, and much, very much, to ask her. At last came the great day when I was allowed to sit out on the veranda and talk—just a little—as long as I did not raise my voice. By this time Mr. Scarlett was very nearly his old self, or, rather, his new self, once more; and Percy was so happy that we had to make the head boy kick him—half a dozen times a day—to stop him singing to himself. We now had crowds of visitors, from Commander Duckworth, Mr. Fisher (his shoulder nearly well), and Popple Opstein, down to Jaffa, clean and white and as impenetrable as ever. The one I wanted most was Miss Borsen, but she seldom came, and then only with Mrs. Fisher. As I recovered, so she seemed to shrink from coming near me, and I counted the days before she was to sail for Karachi in fear lest I should never have a chance of speaking to her alone.

One evening, as Mr. Scarlett and I were sitting on the veranda, watching the last glow of the sunset on the Baluchistan mountains, Popple Opstein came bounding up the stairs and out to us.

"We've just got the news!" he cried excitedly. "There's going to be a great 'show' here. The Indian Government is sending a whole brigade from Karachi, the Persian Government has ordered round the old Persepolis with a lot of troops, the flagship's on her way from Bombay, and we're going to land a naval brigade—with guns. There's to be a regular expedition into the mountains to punish those Afghans, and who d'you think is going in charge of the guns? Why, you, old chap, you! The skipper has just sent me along to tell you the great news. The Indian Government has asked for you. Just fancy that! It's a reward for collaring that caravan. 'Nick' says you'll be as fit as ever by the time everything's ready to start. I am so glad, old chap, and you bet I'll find some excuse for coming along as well, even if it's only to carry old Nick's 'first-aid' bag."

"What a ripping show!" I said, tremendously pleased, and Mr. Scarlett came over to congratulate me, as pleased as I was.

My chum fidgeted about, and although it was now too dark for me to see his face I knew that he had something else to tell me.

"Out with it! What is it?" I asked.

Smacking his knees, he burst out with: "I've done it! Old Martin, I've done it!"

"Done what?"

"Don't you know? Can't you guess? Little 'Grey-eyes' and I are engaged—engaged! What d'you think of that, old tongue-tied? I've felt it would come ever since we met her in the steamer coming out, and the last few days have done the trick. Isn't it glorious? She goes home to-morrow, worse luck! but I couldn't let her go without telling her, and we're to be spliced as soon as ever I get back to England. You'll have to do 'best man'. You will, won't you?"

It was dark. I stuttered out how pleased I was, and he, too excited to suspect anything, dashed downstairs again, singing lustily.

"D'you think you could manage to take me along with you, sir, when you land in charge of those guns?" Mr. Scarlett asked me diffidently.

"I will," I told him. "We'll land together, and have another smack at those Afghans—the treacherous brutes. We'll go back to the old 'B.A.' to-morrow morning, doctor or no doctor. We can't stay loafing round here any longer. I'm sick of being a cripple."

The night air seemed to have turned cold, so we went back into our whitewashed room with its bullet marks on the wall behind my bed, and as Mr. Scarlett lighted the lamp we heard Popple Opstein whistling "Two Eyes of Grey" somewhere down the slope towards the beach.

"That used to be your tune," Mr. Scarlett said as he closed the shutters; "d'you remember, sir—a while back? It used to get on my nerves at times; that it did!"