Ford of H.M.S. Vigilant: A Tale of the Chusan Archipelago

by T. T. Jeans

The marines fired three volleys, and "A" and "B" companies fired another three volleys, and then the two bluejacket buglers sounded the "Last Post" six times, and each time, as the last note died away, there was a splash, and I felt as if something icy cold had struck me right in the middle of the back.

I did not dare to look at anyone except the Captain. Then the band played a cheerful march, Mr. Lawrence sang out—"Ship's company! Right and left turn! Quick march!" and the men marched for'ard into the battery, very silently, looking over the side at the water as they went through the battery screen door.

"Hoist the colours!" the Captain said, and went below. His lips were very tightly squeezed together. No one could eat any lunch, we were all so miserable, and no one even heard Captain Marshall "hee-hawing" for a long time—not for days and days.

But the Commander's third day had gone by, and Dr. Mayhew and Dr. Barclay, both of them, said that he would get well, and that cheered us all; and in a couple of days or so the Captain began to get angry again, and to grunt and growl at everybody, which was another good sign, and cheered us up a great deal. He was fearfully angry about the fog; for it settled down and never lifted for four days, and was so thick that we could do nothing all that time, and of course the Captain had only half finished his job, and wanted to burn the town and the junks and recapture the yacht.

It did lift on the fifth day, and when the gunboats stood inshore and the Captain landed, with everyone who was well enough to land, there was no one there to oppose him, and only about twenty small junks still remaining in the creek. The pirates had simply cleared out in all the big junks and escaped in the fog, and before they left they had set fire to the yacht and the tramp steamer, and these were simply complete wrecks. Jim told me that they were nothing but bent and warped iron.

The Captain was in a terrible rage about it; but I don't see how he could blame himself, and it was only lucky that the fog had lifted during the morning on which we had all got off.

He burnt the rest of the town and destroyed the six-inch gun; and the Chaplain went ashore, with a firing party, and read the funeral service over the graves of Mr. Hoffman and Wilkins, the marine bugler, and fired three volleys, and the bluejacket drummer-boy used Wilkins's own bugle to sound the "Last Post". When this was done, and when the Huan Min had towed away some of the junks and burnt the others, we all steamed back to Tinghai.

The Ringdove was sent up to Shanghai to communicate with the Admiral, and took with her our mails. I wrote a most gorgeous letter to my mother, and you can imagine what tremendously exciting letters we all had to write home.

Jim was in charge of the boat that took the mail bags across to her, and he came back red with anger. "They've got that gun all burnished and polished, just abaft the mainmast—I saw it;" and that made us all, everyone in the gunroom, angry again. We had almost forgotten about it in the excitement of getting back to Tinghai and writing home.

Sally and Mr. Hobbs went in her, but before they went Mr. Langham coaxed her down into the gunroom to cut those ribbons across the piano. She was very nervous and uncomfortable, and just as she was going to do it with Webster's dirk, someone suggested that Withers's ought to be used, so we went away and fetched it from his chest. When she knew whose it was she cried, and we all felt horribly "snuffy", and then she opened the piano and sat down, but only touched one note and burst into tears again. Mr. Langham pulled out his big handkerchief, shoved it into her hands, and she ran away.