The Fight on the Beach
Carver gave a low-voiced command to halt, and enjoined his men to see to their weapons. As he ran his eyes over his company and saw their dogged jaws and alert, watchful faces, devoid of any trace of nervousness and excitability, his face lit with a quiet satisfaction. These men would fight—they were veterans who knew how to fight, and they had a motive; Paddy was a universal favorite.
A Dyak plunged through the bush toward Jahi and jabbered excitedly. Jahi cried:
"China boy, him go proa, three-four sampan."
"Lead the way," Carver cried. Peter Gross translated.
"Double time," the captain shouted, as Jahi and his tribesmen plunged through the bush at a pace too swift for even Peter Gross.
In less than three minutes they reached the edge of the jungle, back about fifty yards from the coral beach. Four hundred yards from shore a proa was being loaded from several large sampans. Some distance out to sea, near the horizon, was another proa.
A sharp command from Carver kept his men from rushing out on the beach in their ardor. In a moment or two every rifle in the company was covering the sampans. But there were sharp eyes and ears on board the proa as well as on shore, and a cry of alarm was given from the deck. The Chinese in the sampans leaped upward. At the same moment Carver gave the command to fire.
Fully twenty Chinamen on the two sampans floating on the leeward side of the proa made the leap to her deck, and of these eleven fell back, so deadly was the fire. Only two of them dropped into the boats, the others falling into the sea. Equipped with the latest type of magazine rifle, Carver's irregulars continued pumping lead into the proa. Several Chinamen thrust rifles over the rail and attempted a reply, but when one dropped back with a bullet through his forehead and another with a creased skull, they desisted and took refuge behind the ship's steel-jacketed rail. Perceiving that the proa was armored against rifle-fire, Carver ordered all but six of his command to cease firing, the six making things sufficiently hot to keep the pirates from replying.
The sampans were sinking. Built of skins placed around a bamboo frame, they had been badly cut by the first discharge. As one of them lowered to the gunwale, those on shore could see a wounded Chinaman, scarce able to crawl, beg his companions to throw him a rope. A coil of hemp shot over the deck of the vessel. The pirate reached for it, but at that moment the sampan went down and left him swirling in the water. A dorsal fin cut the surface close by, there was a little flurry, and the pirate disappeared.