In a second we are all at it. Crash! bang! bang! The sentry at the gate also joins in, and we can see the flash and hear the report of his weapon as he fires from behind his shelter of sods.
All my nervous impatience is gone, and I no longer growl at fate and speculate on my chances of being shot in the dark. I am hitting back now, and feel joyful at it. Also I seem to possess two distinct individualities, one watching the other; and the one knows that the other will be pleased if I do not hurry, as I slip another cartridge into the breech, and close the bolt with a snap. So I effect the operation in the regulation manner, though I am craving to rush through it with lightning speed, and would do so, were not my invisible double watching me so attentively. My rifle is as light as a feather as I bring it up to the shoulder. Then I peep along the barrel, and wait a second for a flash from the enemy. It is too dark to see the top sight, so when the flash comes, with a steady pull I loose off at it.
Now the bugle brays the "Cease fire," and the rattling din ceases suddenly.
Within our room all is still again, except for an occasional cough, for we are breathing powder smoke. The place is full of it, and it hangs around like a fog.
The enemy's fire on our front is almost extinct. The little there is comes from a long way off—500 or 600 yards, perhaps. An occasional twinkle and a following pop! and then it ceases altogether.
On the right of our position they are still keeping it up, till we hear the quick successive crashes of two volleys fired by our comrades from the trenches, after which it dies away and is soon finished. So ends the night alarm.
Awaiting orders we remained under arms until our captain came round, accompanied by M. Joly, our surgeon, to enquire if there were any casualties. On our lieutenant replying in the negative, we heard our commanding officer laughingly inform him that the only patient for the doctor was the sergeant-major's dog, which had been shot clean through the body. Strange to say, this animal, a liver-coloured pointer, recovered completely from its wound.
At about a quarter to two the "dismiss" was sounded, and we returned to rest again.
For the next few weeks the work of building went on apace, and by the end of May all the garrison was comfortably lodged and the defences completed. The tirailleurs laboured with us at this task; and it was whilst watching them at work that I was struck by the diversity of uses to which these natives are capable of adapting the bamboo. They used it for almost everything. Roof-beams, doorposts, window-frames and rafters were obtained from it for building purposes, and also beds, tables, chairs, matting and blinds. The whole of our position was surrounded by two barriers of bamboo, and in the space between them, about 20 feet, thousands of small pointed stakes of the same wood, boiled in castor oil to harden them, were planted in the ground. The native troops were undoubtedly cunning workmen, and were of great assistance in the construction of the fort.
They are, however, held in small respect by the Legionaries, whose opinion of them as fighters is of the poorest.