“Great Scott!” cried this noble-hearted American to his officers as he saw our poor fellows pulling up the heavily-laden launches and cutters against stream, under the withering fire of the batteries, with a sort of dogged resolution, determined to do or die, giving the boats a friendly tow to the nearest point of land and approaching as close as he could to the low, muddy shore on which the rising tide was beginning now to flow again, regardless of any ill consequences to himself or his ship; albeit he was supposed to be a neutral, the Government of the United States not having taken sides with us in the war. “Blood’s thicker than water, boys! Let us lend them a hand. Thunder, they are brother sailors and white men like ourselves!”
Chapter Twenty Eight.
The Harvest of Death!
Nor did the sympathy of the American commodore cease here; for the boats of the Toeywan helped to pick up many of our wounded fellows who were struggling in the water, while a lot of his men, coming alongside one of the gunboats, which had redoubled their fire in order to cover the landing of the assaulting party, climbed on board and “lent a hand” to man the gun.
The stalwart “down easters,” when called to order by their officer later on, when leaving this vessel to regain their own ship, excusing themselves for having taken so unneutral a part in the action, on the plea that seeing we were short-handed and in a tight place, they had done it “for fellowship sake!”
Most of our fellows were in the attacking column, though neither I nor Larkyns, nor, indeed, any of the other youngsters, were permitted to accompany them, but I can tell of my own knowledge with what wistful eyes we watched their progress from the deck of the little spitfire of a vessel that I was only on board of on sufferance, I having smuggled myself in with Larkyns, who was on duty as midshipman of the launch; for the gunboat had now returned to the barriers further up the river and began hammering again at the batteries, in order to divert their attention from our field column, after assisting to bring up a quota of the force and waiting till they disembarked from the boats.
Gallantly the little band, a compact mass of six hundred men, pursued their way through the treacherous mud, night closing in as they struggled onward, and the darkness only lit by the flashes of our guns firing over the head of the column at the fortifications in their front; the Chinese only replying to our cannonade in a half-hearted fashion, as if they had got weary of the job, leading us thus to believe that the “forlorn hope” had an easy task before it!
But, Larkyns and myself were both deceived, this sudden quiet on the part of the enemy being really a ruse; for, hardly had the column reached firm ground than the hitherto silent batteries all at once burst into a sheet of flame, pouring shot and shell, jinghal balls, rifle bullets, in fact every variety of deadly missile known in war, on the heads of our devoted men, at such close quarters, too, that not one in three escaped the avalanche of destruction!