"Funny place for their magazine, eh, Commander?" I heard Captain Marshall chuckle; and we all kept pretty clear of the others. The explosion had made the dogs stop barking—just for a few seconds—just time for us to hear noises as if the townspeople were waking up at last.
"They're getting 'busy' over there," Captain Marshall said. "That sounds as if our friends would be coming to call on us shortly."
I think that the Commander and he wanted them to come very badly, and I didn't mind either, because I wasn't so cold now, and the flames lighted the place all round grandly.
They walked all round the lighted-up part, and decided that the best position for the men would be standing on the shore of the battery wall, firing over that, and for some men to stand on the beach, farther along, at each end, and fire over the bank which we all had to climb over. We couldn't hear a sound of Mr. Whitmore's party; but there was another strange noise like the quacking of thousands of ducks—you could hear it even with the flames roaring and crackling and the dogs barking.
"Whatever is it, sir?" Wilkins asked me; but I didn't know, and asked Dr. Barclay.
"Bull frogs, down in the paddy fields below the six-inch gun," he told me, and I didn't say any more, because I thought that he was pulling my leg.
A few minutes afterwards, the Commander and Captain Marshall and Dr. Barclay all went along past the huts—they were having a look round—and Wilkins and myself followed behind them. The flames were between us and the sea, and suddenly something whistled past me, and I jerked my head round, and then there was the noise of a rifle going off—and another—and another, and flick—flick—flick—flick, the bullets went whizzing past us.
I put my hands up to keep them off.
CHAPTER XII
Midshipman Ford on his Mettle