The Skipper also wanted to go back the way he had come. He told me that I should have the first job—to seize the hill opposite us across the paddy fields and hold it whilst he, Trevelyan, and "B" company and Ching's bluejackets brought along Sally, her father, and the wounded.
Parkinson, the Omaha's skipper, was to stay behind with the gunboat's brigade and act as rearguard till the Skipper had got safely across to me, and then I was going to do "rearguard", whilst they all went on.
He hoped to get in touch with the Ringdove and Omaha a mile from the shore and obtain some assistance from their guns, if he was much pressed by the Chinese. He was just going to give the order to "carry on", when we saw a little party of people approaching with a white flag waving over their heads. It was headed by a most respectable-looking old "josser" beautifully dressed in silks, with a mandarin button on his cap, and a most benign, fatherly expression on his face. He was brought along to the Skipper, and the old Scotchman acted as interpreter.
He had come to offer to let us go back to our ships without being molested, if we would only leave off shelling the town, and was very surprised when the Skipper refused to do so. Then he called up a man who was standing behind him with a bundle in his hand, and made him empty it on the ground, looking at us and expecting to see us beam with delight. Ugh! I was nearly sick, for out rolled the head of a white man.
"It's Boss Evans!" I heard the Scotchman mutter under his breath.
We all involuntarily stepped back in disgust, and the old gentleman opened his eyes in amazement when he saw that we were not pleased, and explained that it was the Boss Pirate himself, the chap who'd done everything he ought not to have done, and that now they had killed him, and that we had seen that he was really dead, and had got Hobbs and the girl, "it all makee end—all belong plenty too much bobberie—no can do—vely good—vely good", and he rubbed his hands together, and bowed and beamed at us again from behind his great horn-rimmed spectacles.
"Chuck him out!" the Skipper roared, and walked away.
The poor dear old Chinee chap was almost in tears when he was led home again, and wasn't allowed to take the head with him either.
We buried it alongside the other dead.
Someone must have told my poor little princess, because she was now only too anxious to get away, and looked more mournful and heartbroken than ever.