In the mean while Kettle consolidated his defences. Frantically he worked, and like Trojans Clay and the negroes labored under him. All that drunken doctor's limp laissez faire was gone now. The blood of some fighting ancestor had warmed up inside him. He might be physically weak and unhandy, but the lust of battle filled him up like new drink, and he forgot his disgraceful past, and lived only for the thrill of the present moment.
The log barricades had to be lashed and strutted so that no collision could unship them, and all hands sweated and strained in that tropical heat, till the job could not be bettered. And at the after part of the lower deck, Commandant Balliot, driven on also by the strong-willed man whom nobody on board could resist, tended the engines with all his brain and nerve, and did his best to make the fighting machine perfect.
"Now," said Kettle at last, "as we have got those fool Tommies nicely tailed out about the river, we'll quit this running-away game, and get to business. Mr. Chief Engineer, open that throttle all it'll go, and let her rip, and mind you're standing by for my next order. Doc, you keep your musketry class well in hand. Don't waste shots. But when you see me going to run down a canoe, stand by to give them eternal ginger when they're ten yards from the stern. I'll whistle when you're to fire."
Captain Kettle went on to the upper deck and took over the wheel, and screwed it over hard-a-port. The little top-heavy steamer swung round in a quick circle, lurching over dangerously to the outside edge. She ran for half a mile up stream, and then turned again and came back at the top of her gait. She was aiming at one particular canoe, which for a while came on pluckily enough to meet her.
But African nerve has its limits, and the sight of this strange uncouth steamer, which followed so unflinchingly their every movement, was too much for the sweating paddlers. They turned their ponderous dug-out's head, and tried to escape.
Kettle watched them like a cat. He had the whistle string in his teeth, so as to leave him both hands free for the steering wheel, and when the moment came he threw back his head, and drew the string. The scream of the steam whistle was swamped instantly in the roar of a blasting volley. Not many of the shots hit--for the African is not a marksman--but the right effect was gained. The blacks in the canoe ducked and flinched; they were for the moment quite demoralized; and before they could man their paddles again, the stern-wheeler's stem had crushed into their vessel, had cut a great gash from one side, had rolled it over, and then mounted the wreck, and drove down stream across the top of it.
A few more angry shots snapped out at the black bodies swimming in the yellow water. "Hold up, there," Kettle ordered, "and let them swim if they can, and chance the crocodiles. They've got their gruel. Load up now, and get ready for the next."
He turned the launch again, and stood across the stream down the strung-out line of canoes, occasionally making feints at them, but ramming no more for the present. They all fired at him as he passed them; indeed, a wild, scattered fire was general from all the fleet; but his log armor protected him from this, and he steamed grimly on, without returning a shot.
At the furthermost end of the line he turned sharply again, and ran down the last canoe, just as he had run down the other; and then he deliberately started to drive the whole fleet together into one solid flock. He had the speed of them, and with rifle fire they could not damage him, but for all that it was not easy work. They expected the worst, and made desperate efforts to scatter and escape; finally, he drove them altogether in one hopeless huddle--cowed, scared, and tired out; and then he brought the stern-wheeler to a sudden stop just above them, and made Clay shout out terms in the native tongue.
They were to throw all their weapons overboard into the river. They did it without question.