"I can't take in flashing lamp," I told him, trying to make my brain work.
"It ain't flashing lamp, sir; they're adoin' it with a searchlight, and very very slow, sir, an' the Chinee signalman what came along with 'im, sir, is dead, sir. You'll 'ave to come along pretty quick too, sir; there's a 'orrid fog been shuttin' everythin' out ever since, but it's just cleared off for a time. The wind's gone round to the south, and it 'as been as thick as pea soup."
I told him that I would try, and got him to help me up. I knew that I could read it if it was slow enough, and my brain would only remember properly. We had to go to the other end of the house, and I don't know how Miller got me down that ladder. I know that I slipped and was caught at the bottom, and my left arm was wrenched again. The pain seemed to wake me up, but I had to grind my teeth and sing out.
Miller helped me along the passage and made me stoop down when we passed a window, because the shutters had been thrown back and men were standing at them firing out, and sometimes bullets were coming in.
"How are we getting on?" I asked him.
"Pretty middlin', sir. We've only had about three killed and two or three wounded, and we can keep the skunks out of it when we can see them, which we can't always do on account of this 'ere blessed fog."
He helped me up some steps, and then up a short ladder. Someone hauled me out of a small square opening, and I saw that there was nothing but fog all round drifting slowly past. I heard Mr. Ching's voice: "Can you take in Morse? I've forgotten it, and my signalman is dead—shot half an hour ago;" and he pointed to a huddled-up figure beside him. "They've been trying to signal through the fog ever since I fired that rocket, and he got one or two words, but it's been too thick till now. They're just starting again."
I did my best to pull myself together, and asked him where the Vigilant was, and followed his finger, pointing through the mist, and suddenly saw a very faint searchlight beam sticking straight up.
"Don't stand up; kneel down," he whispered. "They are firing at us." So I knelt down very quickly. Just seeing that beam made me buck up, and I watched it very steadily. I had only just knelt down in time, for a bullet came flying past, and made me crouch still lower.
Then the beam began to wag very slowly—long sweeps down to the ground for "longs", and short ones only half-way for "shorts".