“Not yet,” I answered. “But they are ready at a moment’s notice.”
“Right!” he approved. “Let them be served out at once; a cutlass and a brace of fully loaded automatics to each man, not forgettin’ our noble selves. With these Maxims we shall not need any rifles, I guess.”
I turned away to issue this order, when I was met at the head of the poop ladder by Bledsoe, the gunner.
“You sent for me, sir?” he asked.
“I did, Bledsoe,” said I. “Come up. Mr Kennedy is here, and he may have some orders for you.” Then I turned to Kennedy and said:
“Here is the gunner. I sent for him a few minutes ago, thinking you might wish to see him. Also, I had it in my mind to order him to send a few portfires up on deck. It occurred to me that if those fellows insist on closing with us, it would be a good plan to have a hand up in the maintop with some portfires; it would enable us to see what we are doing.”
“It would that,” agreed Kennedy; “and we’ll do ut. See to it, Mr Bledsoe, if ye plaise. And ye may also send up some ammunition for the four-inches and Maxims. I guess we’ll not need the Hotchkisses. That’ll do, gunner; let’s have that ammunition quick. Mr Leigh, be good enough to attend to that matther of the shmall arms, and then come back here and take charge of the Maxims. It’s about time we let those ginks know that we’re awake, so I’ll step down to the main-deck and see about throwin’ a shot over ’em.”
We descended to the main-deck together, all hands being by that time on deck and at stations; and while I went below to attend to the sending up and distribution of the cutlasses and automatics, Kennedy planted himself in rear of Number 2 gun of the port battery. A minute later the deep, ringing report and jar of the discharge were heard and felt, but with what effect I knew not, being on the deck beneath. A minute later a second gun roared overhead, and while my ears were still ringing with the report I heard the boom of a distant gun, and listened breathlessly for the impact of the shot. I heard nothing, however, so concluded that the missile had flown wide. By the time that our third gun spoke my task below was completed; I therefore snatched at a cutlass, buckled the belt round my waist, took a brace of automatic pistols from the man who was loading them, thrust them into my belt, and rushed up on deck. I encountered Kennedy near the foot of the poop ladder, reported to him what I had done, and received from him the order to go up on the poop and open fire with the Maxims forthwith.
“We’ve hit one of thim, and she seems to be sinkin’,” he said; “but the rest of the divvies are comin’ for us like mad, wid their sweeps churnin’ up the wather like the paddles of one av your London tugs. Shtop ’em from layin’ us aboard, if ye can, bhoy. We want no hand-to-hand fightin’ wid thim, for they’ll outnumber us ten to one, I calculate.” He added this last item in a confidential whisper.
I dashed up on the poop, and, to my great satisfaction, found both the Maxims manned and well supplied with ammunition. But although it was now easy enough to hear the grind and splash of the sweeps with which the attackers were urging their craft through the water, ay, and even to hear their shouts of encouragement to each other, the darkness and the mist together still combined to render them too indistinctly visible to permit of effective firing from our Maxims. I therefore shouted to Kennedy a suggestion that he should order the man in the maintop to light his portfires, so that we might have light to see what we were about. And Kennedy was in the very act of giving the order when three of the approaching craft fired upon us almost at the same instant; and a moment later I heard a sharp, splintering crash, followed by a dull, crunching sound below me on the main-deck. One of the enemy’s round shot had got home through our port bulwark, so far as I could judge.