"Starboard!" I heard the Commander say; "starboard, hard!" and then knew that in another half-minute we should be scrambling ashore. I crept along to the bows with the Commander, to be ready to follow him. We had hardly got there when the bows ran into the mud with a jerk, and I had to hang on to the gun mounting to prevent being knocked over. "Keep on 'giving way', Withers!" the Commander sang out, and slipped down into the water without the least hesitation. It was up to his waist, and he held out a hand for me. I fell in after him up to my armpits, with my feet sinking in the beastly mud at the bottom. I was so excited, that I didn't notice how cold it was; but it just flashed through me how Captain Marshall could do it, with all his beautiful uniform on, and then I found myself wading after the Commander, and pulling my feet out of the mud. There was enough noise now to wake anybody. No one could help the rifles and everything else knocking against the side of the boat, and the splashing, and the men cursing under their breath. There were some frightened cries above us, and a rifle was let off (it sounded like a six-pounder), and all the dogs in the town seemed to start barking; but we were all too excited and busy getting through the water and mud to notice much. In half a dozen steps the water was only up to my knees, and in two or three more I dragged my feet out on to firm mud, and started to break into a kind of "splodgy" trot to keep up with the Commander—I could only just see his dark figure, and had to keep close for fear of losing him.
Then the beach began to slope up, and was quite hard, and we ran over a lot of shells and loose stones, the water running off me and squelching inside my boots. I was out of breath and panting, and my clothes had all stuck to me, especially my trousers over my knees, and the Commander wouldn't stop, and never once looked back to find out how many men were following. He seemed to disappear in a very black shadow; but it was only a bank about four feet high, with stiff grass on the top, and he helped me, and someone shoved me, and I got a lot of sand or earth in my mouth, and spat it out. The Commander stopped for a moment, and I was only too glad to get back my breath. We could see some lights moving backwards and forwards, and appearing and disappearing at regular intervals, and knew at once that men were running about inside the battery, and that they shone out when they passed one of the gun embrasures. There was any amount of calling and shrieking going on. The Commander drew his sword, I saw Captain Marshall close to me with his sword drawn, any number of dark figures kept scrambling over the bank; the Commander yelled, and we all yelled and rushed straight ahead.
Several people behind me fell—I heard them—and I heard Captain Marshall cursing, and asking "Where the blooming buttercups his eyeglass was?" and then there shot out from the dark wall a most tremendous flame, with an awful roar—they had fired one of the guns. It seemed as if it was almost in our faces, and I turned my head half round, and the flame lighted up the men's faces just for a moment. It showed us all the outline of the battery as well, and, what was better, a little path, and we raced along it, cheering like mad. I think that they must have been firing at us with rifles as well, but I don't know, and the next thing I remember was clambering up a stone parapet, with someone's feet in my face, which I hardly noticed at the time, digging my nails into some cracks, and then getting my arms round something hard and round. I "muscled" up, and found it was one of the little guns, and knew I was in one of the embrasures. "Get along, curse you," someone yelled; "give me a hand with this rifle," and scrambled up after me. I couldn't get down for a second, because there were so many in front, and the man simply took a flying leap past me. He didn't know who I was in the dark.
I got down somehow or other, and then hunted for the Commander, heard him shouting away to the left, and got close to him again. We were right inside the battery, and we followed the wall—inside—all round, and not a Chinaman was there. We were all cheering like mad, or panting for breath, and then we saw some lights from huts fifty yards away, and crowds of Chinamen running backwards and forwards in front of them, and heard more yelling. Without waiting for any orders, everybody rushed towards them and carried me along too, doing my best to keep with the Commander.
There weren't any Chinamen there when we got to the huts, and the men were for rushing on, but the Commander managed to halt them, and we could hear the mob running away and making a squealing, frightened noise, but couldn't see them. Three yards away from the lighted huts everything was simply pitchy black.
"Get back to the battery, boys!" the Commander shouted; "they'll be coming back soon." The men had to fall "in" just inside the battery wall, behind the little guns, and we found that no one was missing.
I don't think that the Commander knew quite what to do then. I heard him telling Captain Marshall and Dr. Barclay that he wished the Chinamen had made a fight of it instead of running away, because he feared that they would simply bolt back to the six-inch gun, and that Mr. Whitmore's party would never get to it.
Whilst we were waiting like this, I had time to notice all the noises. Talk about dogs! I should have thought that all the dogs in the world wouldn't have made so much noise. There must have been simply thousands of them barking away all over the town; and some came running out of the darkness into the light from those huts, and we could see their eyes. It was something for me to do to throw stones at them, and the bugler boy—Wilkins—helped me; they would howl if a stone went near them, and rush away yelping. It was jolly good fun doing this. All of a sudden there was a dull crash behind us, as if a heavy weight was rolling down outside the battery.
"What was that?" I heard the Commander shout, rather nervously, and he went across, and I followed him.
"Very sorry, sir," the Sergeant-major said. "Some of the men chucked a gun over the wall, sir. I've taken their names, sir."