“Lot of niggers creeping along the spit on their stomachs toward him,” I answered. “Got some idea of rushing the camp for the sake of the plunder in it, I expect. But now that Mr Purchase and the port watch have gone out to back him up I think we need not—hillo! that sounds like business, though, and no mistake.”
My ejaculation was caused by a sudden cracking off of some six or eight muskets, one after the other, closely followed by a heavy if slightly irregular volley, and the next instant the air seemed to become positively vibrant with a perfect pandemonium of shrieks, howls, yells, and shouts as of men engaged in close and desperate conflict. The skipper pricked up his ears and clapped his hand to his sword-hilt; then he turned to where Tommy and I were standing close beside him.
“Mr Copplestone,” he said, “take twenty men—the first you can pick—and go with them to support Mr Marline, for I fancy he will need a little help presently. The rest of us are going out to support Mr Purchase and Mr Nugent.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Tommy. He picked out the first twenty men he could lay hands on and taarched them off to join Mr Marline’s “picnic,” as he expressed it, and the rest of us went off at the double to take part in the scrimmage that was proceeding in the neighbourhood of the sand pits. And a very pretty scrimmage it was, if one might judge from the tremendous medley of sounds that reached us from that direction. The firing was now very irregular and intermittent, but there was plenty of yelling and shrieking mingled, as we drew nearer to the scene of the fray, with sounds of gasping as of men engaged in a tremendous struggle, quick ejaculations, a running fire of forecastle imprecations, the occasional sharp order of an officer to “Rally here, lads!” dull, sickening thuds as of heavy blows crashing through yielding bones, and here and there a groan, or a cry for water. It was evident that the fight had resolved itself into a desperate hand-to-hand struggle; and it seemed to me that our lads were being hard put to it to hold their own. But the worst feature of the whole affair, to my mind, was that the darkness was so intense that it was almost impossible to distinguish friend from foe.
We reached the scene of the struggle so much sooner than I had expected that it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that our people were being steadily forced back in the direction of the camp; and this I afterwards found to be correct; but the appearance of the skipper with his reinforcements soon put another face upon the matter. It was evident that the foe—consisting of some hundreds of negro savages had been under the impression that they were fighting the entire strength of the British, but when we came up they at once discovered their mistake, which, with the knowledge that, for aught they could tell, there might be further reinforcements waiting to take a hand in the game, somewhat damped their courage. Not by any means at once, however; indeed it was not for perhaps two or three minutes after our appearance upon the scene that the first actual check upon their advance occurred. For they appeared to number seven or eight to every one of us, and moreover they were all picked warriors in the very prime of life, brave, fierce, determined fellows, every one of them, and well armed with spear, shield, war-club, and, in some cases, a most formidable kind of battle-axe.
“Spread out right and left, and cut in wherever you can find room,” ordered the skipper as we plunged, stumbling and gasping, into the midst of the fray. And there was no difficulty in obeying this order; for, narrow as the sand spit was, it was yet too wide for Mr Purchase and the port watch to draw a close cordon across it; there were gaps of a fathom or more in width between each of our men, and those gaps were rapidly widening as some poor wretch went down, transfixed by a broad-bladed spear, was clove to the shoulder by the terrific blow of an axe, or had his brains dashed out by a war-club. But as our contingent arrived each man chose an enemy—there was no difficulty in doing that—and pulled trigger upon him, generally bringing him down, for we were too close to miss; after which it became literally a hand-to-hand fight, some using their discharged muskets as clubs while others flung them away and trusted to their cutlasses, and one or two at least—for I saw them close alongside me—depended entirely upon the weapons with which nature had provided them, first dealing an enemy a knock-out blow with the clenched fist and then dispatching him with one of his own weapons. As for me, I still had the brace of pistols and the cutlass with which I had provided myself when setting-out upon our ill-starred boat expedition up the river, and I made play as best I could with these, bowling over a savage with each of my pistols and then whipping out my cutlass. For a time I did pretty well, I and those on either side of me not only holding our ground but actually beginning to force the enemy back; but at length a huge savage loomed up before me with his war-club raised to strike. My only chance seemed to be to get in a cut or a thrust before the blow could fall, and I accordingly lunged out at his great brawny chest. But the fellow was keen-eyed and active as a cat; he sprang to one side, avoiding my thrust, and at the same instant brought down his club upon my blade with a force that shattered the latter like glass and made my arm tingle to such an extent that for the moment at least I was powerless in the right arm. Then, quick as thought, he swung up the huge club again, with the evident determination to brain me. Disarmed and defenceless, I did the on’y thing that was possible, which was to spring at his great throat and grip it with my left hand, pressing my thumb hard upon his wind-pipe. But I was like a child in his hands; he shook me off with scarcely an effort; and as I went reeling backward I saw his club come sweeping down straight for the top of my head. At that precise instant something seemed to flash dully before my eyes in a momentary gleam of starlight, a sharp tchick came to my ears, a few spots of what felt like hot rain spattered in my face, and the great savage, his knees doubling beneath him, reeled backward with a horrible groan and crashed to the sand, with Cupid’s axe quivering in his brain, while the club, flying from his relaxed grasp, caught me on the left forearm, which I had instinctively flung up to defend myself, snapping the bone like a carrot, and then whirling over and catching me a blow upon the head that stretched me senseless. But before I fell I had become conscious that through the distracting noises of the fight that raged around me I could hear the sound of renewed firing spluttering out from the direction of the boats.
When my senses returned to me the day was apparently some three or four hours old, for the shadows of certain objects upon which my eyes happened to fall as I first opened them were, if anything, a trifle shorter than the objects themselves, which was a sure indication that the sun stood high in the heavens. I was lying, with a number of other people, in the large tent-like structure which the ward-room officers had used on the preceding evening; and Hutchinson, the ship’s surgeon, was busily engaged in attending to the hurts of a seaman who lay not far from me.
This was the first general impression that I gained of my surroundings with the recovery of consciousness; the next was that my left arm, which was throbbing and burning with a dull, aching pain from wrist to shoulder, was firmly bound up and strapped tightly to my body, and that my head, which also ached most abominably, was likewise swathed in bandages. I was parched with thirst, which was increased by the sound of a man drinking eagerly at no great distance from me, and, turning my head painfully in the direction of the sound, I saw Jack Keene, a fellow-mid., administering drink out of a tin pannikin to a man whom I presently recognised as Nugent, the master’s mate, who, poor fellow, seemed to be pretty near his last gasp.
“Jack,” I called feebly, “you might bring me a drink presently, when you have finished with Nugent, will you? How are you feeling, Nugent? Not very badly hurt, I hope.”
I saw Nugent’s lips move, as though attempting to answer me, but no sound came from them, while Keene, glancing towards me, shook his head and laid his finger upon his lips as a sign, I took it, that I should not attempt to engage the poor fellow in conversation.