Even Blucher was unhappy, and wagged his tail doubtfully. He had never been on a shooting expedition like this before, and he didn't know quite what to make of it, or the fog, and stuck to the Skipper like a leech, for fear of losing him.
We had heard a lot of desultory firing going on, even before we had landed, and couldn't quite understand it, as it came more from the direction of the walled house than from where Ching should have been; but we did not worry much about that.
We found ourselves running up against huts and bamboo fencing about two hours after we'd landed; but there wasn't a single soul there, and as we were getting out of them I happened to bump into Trevelyan, who'd lost himself. We were wondering what had become of the inhabitants.
"They've gone into town to the theatre, and supper afterwards at the Savoy or the Carlton, I expect," he said jokingly.
"I jolly well wish I had," I said.
That set me thinking of the good times I'd had in London, and I forgot, for a second, all about the beastly island and the beastly pirates, but woke up again with the sound of heavy firing—volleys, too—from the same place from where we'd heard the firing before.
"That's Ching," I thought; "he's got his hands full."
We ran into some people ourselves in front of us, heard them yelling, and heard their footsteps, but never saw them. There must have been a goodish lot of them, to judge by the noise they made, and sometimes they fired rifles, and bullets went by, overhead, but they didn't worry much, and we pressed them before us. Eventually they got all round us, yelling "blue murder", but daren't come near enough to be "spitted", which was a pity, as their noise was very irritating, and made the men jumpy.
There was no sound of the other little brigade having landed, and in about an hour after the heavy firing had started, it died down again. We were rather worried lest this meant that Ching had failed, but an occasional shot coming from the same direction told us that, at any rate, he was still holding on. I don't believe that we made half a mile in the first three hours, the fog and darkness were so intense that one actually couldn't see one's hand.
A halt was called—for the hundredth time, I should imagine—and presently the Skipper came up, singing out for me, and being passed on from one section to another. "The first bit of firm ground we come to I'm going to stop there," he growled. "It's no use going on like this. I haven't the shadowiest idea where I'm going."