There were no dead Chinese, nor any wounded, for a detachment of Russian marines, who had charged up the Chinese ramp after the Americans and British had swept by its upper end, had followed them, pitching every dead or wounded Chinese whom they discovered over the parapet and down into the southern city. When these Russians met the returning victors they reported that they had found two dead Americans and carried them back to the barricades.
This news suddenly quieted Rob Hinckley's jubilant shoutings, for instantly he recalled Turner's foreboding, and realized that he had not seen nor heard him since that first mad scramble over their own barricade. Now he shouted: "Turner! O Turner!" but there was no answer, and when they reached the American post his worst fears were confirmed. Turner and another marine, named Thomas, had been shot and instantly killed in the brief space between the two barricades. Here, too, had Captain Meyers received a spear wound that he disregarded until the affair was ended. Then it sent him to the hospital, where he remained for weeks. One of the British marines was found to be slightly wounded, as was one of the Russians; but these were the only casualties that the legation defenders were compelled to pay for the most important victory of the entire siege. By it they had gained a clear quarter of a mile of wall that they never afterwards gave up, and which remains to this day American Legation territory.
[CHAPTER XXIX]
JO HEAPS COALS OF FIRE
Turner, crack shot of the American marines and one of the best men in the corps, was buried. Rob laid a wreath of flowers, twined by Annabel Lorimer, on his coffin, and then went back to the wall, where he was on guard duty at the eastern barricade. A drizzle of rain had fallen since early morning. The Fourth of July of 1900, as celebrated by Americans in Pekin, had not been a particularly happy or enjoyable day.
When Rob relieved the man who had taken poor Turner's place on guard, the latter said:
"There's some chap down below there in the southern city who has bothered me a good deal. He keeps calling out, 'I-ho!' or something of that kind, every few minutes, and has been at it for more than an hour; but I can't get a sight of him or even locate him."
"Like this?" asked Rob, at the same time leaning over the parapet and uttering clear and loud the Hatton Academy call.
"Yes, that's exactly it," answered the marine. "How did you know? There he goes now—"