The Tartar garrison defending the place, we subsequently learnt, used bows and arrows and matchlocks, in addition to the best modern weapons, the better to discomfit their foes; “those vile red devils of barbarians,” as they called us, who had so rashly ventured to tackle them at close quarters, thinking to “catch a weasel asleep.”
“Oh, Vernon, look, look!” cried Larkyns, as the gloomy night with its overhanging pall of smoke from the endless bombardment, which had been going on ever since mid-day, was lit up by a crimson glow that enabled us to see every detail of what took place and even recognise the features of some of our officers. “See how they are mowed down—not a man of them will come back alive!”
Saying which, grown lad that he was of seventeen, and courageous and foolhardy to desperation, he burst into tears, the tension on his nerves from the excitement we had all gone through since the early hours of that ill-fated morning having completely unmanned him, making him for the moment a perfect baby!
But I was just as bad; and, to relieve our feelings, we helped the marine gunners, who were pounding away at the rascally Chinese, although we had presently to stay our fire, for fear of hitting friends as well as foes.
The end was not far off now, things shortly coming to a climax.
Half our men fell at the first discharge; but the remainder resolutely rushed on to the broad ditch in front of the bastion, and about a third of these got bravely through this obstruction, some fifty finally reaching the base of the works.
There were no scaling ladders, however, wherewith to climb the steep escarpments, no available reinforcements, for every man jack that could be spared from the gunboats was there, to fill the voids in the ranks which dwindled and dwindled each instant; and so at last, although the handful of heroes who succeeded in getting up to the foremost fort, advancing almost within sight, so to speak, of victory, might possibly have held their own where they were until morning, if they had been allowed to remain, being partly sheltered now by the salient angle of the fortification, our senior officer, perceiving the hopelessness of continuing any longer the unequal contest, ordered “the retreat” to be sounded.
Then came the most harrowing scene of all.
If the Chinese fire had been hot before, its intensity was increased tenfold as soon as the bugle-call echoed out shrilly between the reports of the heavy guns and fusillade of the musketry, and the remnants of the gallant little band began to fall back on their boats, retiring in wonderful order despite the cruel pelting they received on all sides, not a wounded man being left behind whose life could be saved.
A wonder it was, though, as Larkyns said, that a single soul escaped; for the guns which were aimed at the poor, worn-out fellows as they waded out through the mud to their boats, were now turned on the latter as they got into these, scattering grape as they were massed together, and when the gunboat advanced to their rescue.