No one troubled us in front, and we marched along quite quickly—as quickly as it was possible to carry the wounded.
It was really a race against the fog. Everyone knew that, and we got over the first half-mile without difficulty.
The Chinese were not worrying the rearguard much; but of course they saw the fog almost as soon as we did, and many of them began streaming away to the left and right, and I knew that they would scoot round our flanks, try and get in between us and the sea, and hem us in as they had done during the night. I didn't like the idea of that—not a little bit.
But with only another half-mile to do, the moist tongues of fog began drifting overhead, and in five minutes we couldn't see fifteen yards. We recognized the huts with the dead pig's near them, and some of my chaps had a brilliant idea, and brought them along on their bayonets. "Wat 'o! Bill, for a bit of the Gunnery Lootenant's sucking pigs when we gets aboard," I heard one of them sing out.
The advance guard halted to let the main body get up to them, and threw back their flanks to overlap it, and as we came up we threw forward our flanks, and this meant that we practically formed a hollow square round the main body and the wounded. Like this we marched very slowly along, keeping in touch by shouting to each other. The Chinese were now beginning to draw up to our rear, and we could hear them yelling and firing rifles at us, the bullets seeming to make much more noise in the fog.
They didn't venture close yet.
In another five minutes the fog was so dense that I couldn't see the third man from me in the ranks. The skipper made a bugler with the main body in the centre sound two "G's" every half-minute, and that was a great help to us to keep in station. All round us I could hear the non-commissioned and petty officers singing out: "Not so fast on the right! Keep up on the left! Close towards the bugle, you on the flanks! Where's No. 1 section? Don't get ahead too far!"
These cries, with the howling of dogs and the yells of Chinamen, who had got all round us now, were extremely discomposing. When presently they did leave off yelling, and we had no idea where they were gathering or where they did intend to attack us, I must admit that it was still more disconcerting. But we could hear the sea beating on the shore, and smelt the decaying seaweed, and knew we should reach it in a few minutes. The Skipper must have been a little nervous too, for his bugler sounded the "halt" and the "close", and everyone drew in towards the centre till our little square was as complete as we could make it in that horrid yellowish-grey fog.
We were just preparing to move on, when there was a most hideous uproar on our right flank. People began firing; there was the noise of hundreds of feet rushing towards us through the fog, a fearful din of yelling, shrieks of pain, then the noise of bayonets at work, and I could feel that the right side of the square was giving ground and being pressed back, and could hear the strange, choking, grunting noise men make when they are fighting hand to hand, and being overcome by numbers.
I had heard it once before with General McNeil's column in the Soudan, when our zareba had been rushed, and it was touch and go for a few moments whether we were entirely wiped out or not. I was only a newly caught subaltern in those days, and I shall never forget that rush.