The boat was held only by Motu’s pike-pole now, and its stern began to swing toward the shore. That wasn’t so bad, because there was no armor plate around the back, and we could shoot right through. We didn’t miss any time doing it, and the way they scrambled to swing their navy around was a caution.
It was only a question of time now, and we all knew it. The Man could stand up as soon as he was ready and smash Motu’s pole the same way he did Plunk’s, and then we fellows would have to join battle with our lances.
But it didn’t come to lances just then. All of a sudden Mark Tidd yelled to look out. I looked up instead and saw him leaning over the edge of the balcony with a big pail in his hands. He held it like he didn’t like the job very well. I could see he had a cover on it and was pretty careful to keep the cover in place.
“L-l-look out, fellows!” says he again, and then heaved over the pail. It struck square in the middle of the boat and in a second I heard a sound I recognized. It was an angry sound, the kind of a sound you want to get away from. And right on top of it we heard a yell, and then another yell, and the sound of a wild scramble in the boat.
But through all the noise the Japanese made I could hear that low, angry sound. It was a sort of humming, singing, stinging buz-zzz-zzzz.
“Whee!” I yelled. “Reinforcements have arrived. Whoop!”
It was reinforcements, all right. More than a million of ’em, I guess, and a million of the best and meanest fighters in the world. We could begin to see them now, a regular cloud of them, and we could see the enemy was in a bad way. They yelled and slapped and scrambled and squealed while our allies went for them. Then they began a retreat that was a rout. With only three oars left they started rowing for the other shore, and, in spite of the speed they made, which was considerable, I’ll bet it was the longest ride they ever took.
Just before they got to shore a Japanese stood up and jumped out of the boat, waving his arms around his head and yelling. Another was right on his heels, and the rest followed in quick order. The Man Who Will Come wasn’t last, either. They laid right down under the water with nothing showing but their noses—and our allies kept them there. Every time a hand showed one of our friends made a dash for it.
“I t-t-told you reinforcements were goin’ to come,” says Mark, all doubled up with laugh.
They had come, and a sort of reinforcement I wouldn’t have wanted to call on. I wouldn’t have known how to use them if I’d wanted to. Friends like those are hard to handle. Sometimes they don’t quite detect the difference between the folks you want them to attack and you. In fact, our allies were the sort of fighters who take a lot of pleasure in attacking anybody, friend or foe.