One happened, once, when I'd brought Rawlings and Ponsonby with me, and stumbled over a Chinaman, crawling along the ground. He fled like a rabbit, but the two mids were on him like terriers, I shouting all the time for them to come back. There were two or three revolver shots, which started all my sentries easing "off", and then back they came, bubbling over with excitement. It was lucky that my chaps hadn't shot them.
"Bagged him?" I asked.
"Rather! Got him with my second; he ran into a tree," Rawlings said, but Ponsonby was much too excited to speak.
The other incident occurred just before we shoved on again.
I had put one of my "bad hats"—an old villain who spent most of his time doing "cells" and 10A[#]—on the extreme left of the line of sentries, and I thought I had heard a bit of a scuffle somewhere in his direction, and presently managed to find him. He was standing over a Chinaman, perfectly unconcerned. "Killed that 'ere little lot, sir; crawled up to me and was going to knife me—the dirty thief; did it with this bagonet—'arf an 'our ago, sir."
[#] 10A.—A particular scale of punishment.
"I wonder you didn't shoot him," I said. And he snorted, "There's plenty as would 'ave," and gave the body a kick, "plenty as would 'ave, and waked the 'ole blooming camp."
When he was eventually relieved, he dragged it back with him to show his pals, and kept the knife as a trophy. The fog began to clear away about six o'clock in the morning, and as it gradually became possible to see a few yards ahead, we shoved again. We had just got up to the hut and pigsty I told you about, and were chaffing Whitmore about the effect of his Maxim, when we heard, about a mile off, the report of a gun. The Skipper came swaggering up, his fierce old eyebrows covered with fog (all of us were as wet as drowned rats with it)—"What's that, Marshall? What d'you make of that? Field gun, eh?"
"Sounds like it, sir;" and we heard it fire again, and it went on regularly at about three or four minute intervals. We could hear volleys, too, all from the same direction, and felt pretty certain that good old Ching hadn't let them have it all their own way.
"It means that they're shelling that house. Umph! And that means that Ching has got inside it," the Skipper growled, rubbing his great hands in delight.