Volume One--Chapter Five.
Catching a Tartar.
No wonder that the murderous band of treacherous Malays stopped paralysed in their desperate assault on the poop.
There, right facing them, in front of the saloon doors, stood the whilom quiet, delicate-looking passenger “Mr Meredith,” dressed in the smart uniform of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, a drawn sword in one hand and a revolver in the other; while drawn up behind him were the whole of the first cutter’s crew of HMS Albatross, the name of which vessel stood out embossed on the bright ribbons of their straw hats—ten in number of stalwart blue-jackets, armed with cutlasses and with pistols stuck in their belts—levelling the shining barrels of their Snider rifles point-blank at their heads. No wonder that the swarthy scoundrels recoiled in terror.
“Surrender!” exclaimed Lieutenant Meredith in a loud stern voice; and the men, frightened by the force opposed to them, might possibly have submitted, when, at the moment that Snowball made his onslaught on their leader, Jack Harvey, who stood by his captain on the poop, rather injudiciously fired off a shot from his revolver, which struck and broke one of the Malays’ outstretched arms, with crease uplifted ready to stab his enemies.
With a ferocious yell the band again rushed forward.
“Fire!” said the lieutenant; and with one report the blue-jackets delivered a volley which stretched four Malays in front of them lifeless on the deck; and then rushing forward with their drawn cutlasses, a terrific hand-to-hand fight ensued. Captain Morton and his officers on the poop fired into the mass of the Malays, and then leaped down to join the fray; and the boatswain, with Jem Backstay and the other sailors from the forecastle, caught up handspikes and fell upon their rear.
Even in the very midst of the fierce struggle Snowball and the serang, in deadly embrace, were rolling on the deck, each trying to get the upper hand so as to be able to use their knives. Neither could succeed in shaking the other off; and as the two rolled and twisted together about the deck, now a mass of blood and gore, they gradually edged away from the thick of the fight, until they rolled together close to the fore-hatch; then, with one vigorous effort, the black cook, as if he had reserved his final coup until he had wearied the other out, lifted the Malay over the combing of the hatchway, and both tumbled into the fore-hold, with a smash and crash which even made itself heard above the din, the black cook shouting out as he felt himself falling, dragging his enemy with him, “Golly, yer yeller beggar, I got you at last!”
While this episode was being acted, the Malays were still fighting desperately with their creases, a formidable weapon in the hands of men fighting for their lives; and many of the tars were wounded, and one or two killed. The Malays stood in a group at bay, and fought on desperately, like rats driven into a corner, their numbers being still but little inferior to those of their opponents. At this moment the woolly head of Snowball appeared above the fore-hold with a triumphant grin on his black face, all wet with perspiration; and in a second he leaped on the deck, carrying on his shoulder the body of the serang, who was knocked senseless by the tumble into the hold, although the darky’s head, accustomed to such rude shocks, was not one whit the worse. Laying down his burden he hurried to the caboose.
The remaining Malays were huddled up in a corner by the capstan, hemmed in by the bluejackets. To all cries of “surrender” they turned a deaf ear, and they were evidently trying to prolong the struggle until their piratical accomplices, as they no doubt were, in the schooner came up to help them.
Lieutenant Meredith, being a humane man, did not wish to slaughter the wretches like sheep, so refrained giving the fatal order to fire another volley, which would have terminated the contest, and was endeavouring to capture them alive. The struggle was so prolonged, however, and so many of his men were wounded, that he was just going to give the word “Fire!” when Snowball came to the rescue in a novel way, which completed the victory.
The darky emerged from the caboose with a bucket of boiling water filled from the galley coppers, which he had got ready with apt forethought, and dashed it full on to the group of huddling Malays.
They did not want a second dose.
Giving out an appalling howl of pain, which no cut or shot had evoked, they threw down their arms with one accord, and the blue-jackets before, and Bill Musters and Jem Backstay in the rear, seized the trembling scoundrels.
“Gag them all, as well as bind them, men!” said the lieutenant to the blue-jackets. “I don’t want them to give the alarm to the schooner. Look alive, men! Be smart there; we’ve no time to lose! She isn’t half a mile off now, and will be alongside in a few minutes!”
Lieutenant Meredith was right.
It was almost a dead calm, and the Hankow Lin,—her way deadened by the jib, which still trailed in the water across her bows, for no one had time, during the deadly fight in which they had just been engaged, to hoist it clear on board again—was almost motionless on the water; while every breath of the fast-expiring breeze was gently wafting the pirate schooner nearer and nearer.
The sail that obstructed her motion was at last cut away, and the ship began to creep along through the water; but it was too late for her to have got away from her enemy if those on board had so wished—which, however, they didn’t!
“Look out, my men,” shouted out Captain Morton, who was as keenly alive to the urgency of their situation as the naval lieutenant,—“we’ve all our work cut out for us!”
In truth they had; still, although only just out of one fight, in which some two or three had already lost their lives, and several were severely wounded, the blue-jackets under their gallant officer, who had already won the Victoria Cross for his bravery, ably seconded by Captain Morton and Mr Scuppers, and the crew of the Hankow Lin set to work to prepare for a fresh struggle with all the alacrity and glee of schoolboys going out for an unexpected holiday.
The conquered Lascars were tightly bound, and then tumbled below, the hatch being secured over them; and all then set to work to unload the heavy hogsheads which had caused the tar such uneasiness on account of their cumbering his decks, when they had first been shipped on board at Canton, some ten days before.
“There, Jem!” said the boatswain, as the staves of the first cask were knocked to pieces, and a nine-pounder Armstrong gun disclosed in all its ship-shape nicety. “There, didn’t I tell you that the skipper had his head screwed on straight?”
“Aye, aye, bo, right you were,” answered the brawny foretopman as he knocked in the head of another hogshead. “I’ll never doubt him again, you be sure.”
There were four guns altogether, and the two other casks contained their ammunition, and spare rifles for the Hankow Lin’s crew.
These cannon the lieutenant now caused to be loaded heavily with grape-shot, and placed at the midship ports to windward, on the side that the pirate was approaching; the ports still kept closed, but everything ready for raising them, and running out the guns to command the schooner’s deck when she got alongside.
The hands were then mustered. Captain Morton, Mr Scuppers, the lieutenant, and Jack Harper had escaped without a scratch on the part of the officers; but Mr Sprott, the second mate, had a cut across his face from a Malay crease, which caused him considerable pain, and undoubtedly spoiled his beauty; although the brave fellow refused to be put on the list of the non-fighters. Amongst the men, two blue-jackets were killed outright, as well as Phillips, the ship’s carpenter of the Hankow Lin; while one blue-jacket was wounded severely, and two slightly, as well as another of the ship’s regular hands.
Altogether, their defensive force consisted now, therefore, of the lieutenant, captain, and three other officers—for Sprott would fight, and Jack Harper was quite as good with a revolver as any of his seniors—and fifteen men, counting in Snowball, who was as good as two others any day, besides Jem Backstay, who was a regular giant.
“Now, men,” said the lieutenant addressing them—“Captain, I have your permission to take the command?”
“Certainly, sir,” said Captain Morton. “You’re my senior officer in the service, and I wouldn’t wish to fight under a braver!”
“Well then, men,” resumed the lieutenant, “we all here, Albatrosses and Hankow Lins alike, fight under one flag, the Union Jack of Old England! Stop, don’t cheer, men, or those pirate scoundrels will hear us too soon, and we don’t want ’em to hear us till they feel us! Men, I want you to be cool—I know you are brave—and wait my word of command before you utter a shout or draw a trigger. That pirate scoundrel is plucky enough, and will take some beating; but he’ll get it soon enough if you only obey orders. Captain Morton, will you take charge of the guns, please, with Mr Scuppers? Boatswain, you with that brave black fellow, and two other hands, will mind the forecastle, to prevent boarders coming up while we are attacking them elsewhere. I shall want eight hands along with me for the gig, to clear her away, and get her ready to lower to leeward, when the pirate comes alongside to windward. When we’ve given them a good sweeping discharge, and cleared their deck, captain, I shall, after reloading, drop into the gig, and board her on her weather-side, so that’ll take them between two fires. Now, men, quick to your posts! Boatswain, to the forecastle with three others; gig’s men step out, four blue-jackets and four Hankow Lins; the others of my cutter’s crew will work the guns.”
“May I come with you, sir?” said Mr Sprott anxiously. “I have no special duty here, and I’d like to pay out that cut across my jib on some of them piratical scoundrels!”
“Aye, you can come,” said Mr Meredith cordially, “and glad I’ll be to have such a brave fellow with me. Now, is everything ready in the gig, and the falls all slack for lowering?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the coxswain. “Right as a trivet.”
“Well, then, see to your small-arms, men. Have them all loaded ready, like the guns. The surprise will favour us at first, but we shall have to fight hard afterwards, as they’ll muster pretty numerous if the account I have received be true.”
All these preparations being complete, the guns loaded, and ready for discharging the moment the enemy ranged herself alongside, and each man being in his proper station, they awaited with the courage and caution of brave men the approach of the pirate. Fortunately for them, as it gave them more time to prepare, the breeze had quite died away, and a dead calm had fallen on the surface of the deep, while yet the schooner had scarcely decreased her distance, and they had been making their preparations for the fight. The glassy sea heaved up and down under the burning sun, which was now high in the heavens, with a sort of heavy, waveless throb, as if composing itself uneasily to sleep, the ship rolling with the motion to and fro.
The pirates were not asleep, however. As soon as the breeze failed they rigged out long oars from her low sides, and were leisurely sweeping nearer and nearer to the Hankow Lin with every pulse of the sea.
They must have heard the reports of the rifles and revolvers, as well as seen the smoke of the discharges, and heard the yells of the Malays as they fought hand to hand with the blue-jackets, for the air was as clear as could be; but the stillness now, and the absence of any attempt to trim the sails or to escape, deceived them. They evidently thought that their fellow-conspirators on board had gained the day, or that the slaughter had been so great on both sides that there was no longer anybody capable of resistance; for after a short pause, when they were a cable’s-length distant, the sweeps again set to work, and the low black hull of the schooner was urged forwards again towards the Hankow Lin, until those on the watch between the ports could see down on to her deck, which was crowded with yellow Malays like those with whom they had had such a desperate fight; besides numbers of Chinese, some of the black natives of Borneo and New Guinea, Portuguese desperadoes, and such ferocious-looking ruffians as herd together in Eastern seas.
“Be ready, men, to lift the ports and run out the guns,” said the lieutenant, with finger uplifted to impose silence. “Depress your muzzles, and wait till I give the word to fire. She’ll come up on this side, as I thought, so we’ll give her the benefit of all four at once!”
Up crept the pirate, the ominous black flag still hoisted, although, as the breeze had dropped, it hung down limp from the mast; and they could hear the chatter of voices on board her quite distinctly. Nearer and nearer she came—until the lieutenant could count every man that stood grouped on her flush deck.
There seemed to be sixty or seventy of them, and they clustered together, looking over the side of their vessel at their expected prey.
Nearer and nearer she still continued to glide—until the schooner was almost alongside the Hankow Lin, and not ten yards off. It looked as if the pirate was going to run them aboard!
“Now,” whispered the lieutenant again to the expectant Englishmen around him—“small-arm men reserve your fire; you at the guns, be ready to run them out. Now, men, altogether, drop the ports! Run out the guns! Fire!”
The concussion shook the ship to her centre, and a perfect hail of grape-shot was poured on the deck of the schooner, making long lanes or furrows through the ranks of the pirate’s crew, as if they had been mowed down by a scythe!
“Again, men; sharp’s the word. Load again, and give them another round. Quick! That’s right,” as a wild yell rose again from the crowded pirate. “Now, Captain Morton, one more round and then I shall board her on the weather-side. Load again as quickly as you can. Fire!”
The terrific shot-shower again swept into the schooner, which had remained in the same position, the first two broadsides having broken the sweeps and killed the men manning them; and before the pirates could recover from their surprise the guns had been loaded again, and the gig of the Hankow Lin, with Lieutenant Meredith and his chosen crew, not forgetting Mr Sprott, had dashed out from the ship and boarded the schooner on her other side, where they least of all expected a foe, and the smoke concealed the boat’s movements.
At the instant that the naval lieutenant jumped into her rigging with his men, another discharge of the Armstrong guns swept her decks, and the schooner, impelled by the calm, which makes floating surfaces approach each other on the water, ranged up alongside the tea-ship. At this moment, Snowball dropped from the forecastle of the Hankow Lin into the bows of the schooner, followed by Jem Backstay and half-a-dozen others.
Assailed thus on all sides—the lieutenant and his crew clearing all before them with a valiant cheer, which Snowball re-echoed with a terrific shout like an Indian war-cry, perhaps from some intuitive recollections of his native wilds on the banks of the Congo, in which the words “golly, take dat now!” could, however, be plainly distinguished—the attack proved a trifle too hot for the mongrel lot of scoundrels whom the pirate captain, or cut-throat, commanded; and they gave way instanter. Some died fighting to the last; some jumped overboard, preferring cold water to English cold steel; and the remainder, some twenty in number, who had escaped the murderous grape from the guns and the keen cutlasses of the blue-jackets, threw down their arms and surrendered, when they were driven into the hold, and the hatches battened down over them.
The fight from beginning to end had not lasted ten minutes; and the pirate ship was captured in almost quicker time than it had taken to overcome the original Malay gang on board the Hankow Lin.
“Hoist the Union Jack, Snowball,” said the lieutenant to the darky, who had done so much to gain the victory—seeing him with the flag in his hand, and apparently itching to haul it up. “Hoist away, darky, and let us have honest colours over that dirty black rag! Now, lads, three cheers!”
“Lord bless you!” as Bill the boatswain said to his wife when telling her the story of the pirate’s repulse when he got home some time afterwards, safe and sound, as luck would have it, “you oughter have just heard the shout that then went up from our throats to heaven! It sounded a’most like thunder; it were louder nor the report of the Armstrong guns as peppered the varmint!”