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

by T. T. Jeans

"Heaps of time, sir," Sharpe said, looking at me in a funny way. "They daren't go near their guns to reload 'em. I thought you'd been killed, sir!"

"What happened?" I asked him, trying to shake the blood from my face and eyes; I felt quite stupid. "Where's Scroggs?"

"Scroggs is gone, sir. One o' them round shot took him in the middle, just as you were standing by, and carried what was left of him overboard, and another struck some of the six-pounder cartridges, and they blew up and knocked over Adams and Cooke, and threw you up ag'in that mast, sir."

Poor old Scroggs! and I'd been beastly to him too. I have always been sorry for that.

Dicky gave a yell when he saw me. He looked funny about the eyes—rather mad—and burst out crying, just for a second. "I thought you'd been killed," he stuttered, "and I've killed dozens of those brutes to revenge you."

I shouted something, and a funny hot kind of feeling came up inside me, and the only thing I thought of was to go on killing; and we edged up, just to leeward of the junk, and fired at her with the six-pounder as fast as Fergusson could load—Sharpe had sent him two more hands, and had hauled Adams and Cooke aft, out of the way.

Not a single live Chinaman could we see on deck—they'd all gone down below out of sight—but every now and again we could hear shrieks coming from inside her, and knew that our shells were finding them out. I felt mad, and Dicky was mad, and only Sharpe kept his head. We must have made some holes in her below the waterline, because she was now much lower in the water, and I simply longed to see her sink and drown all the crew—I'd forgotten all about trying to capture her.

Then suddenly, as we were expecting her to go under, someone pointed down to leeward, down the channel, and, looking there, I saw four great junks beating up towards us. They were about a mile away, and had covered themselves with pendants and streamers—all the colours of the rainbow—and began firing guns to frighten us, I suppose.

I went cold all over, for I knew we couldn't manage four more, and I saw that Sharpe thought so too. Dicky didn't seem to be quite right in his head, for he shook his fist at them, and yelled to me that there were more for him to kill. "Off out of it, sir; we can't tackle that lot. We're only nine all told, not counting orficers, sir. Back again, sir; beat up to wind'ard, sir; and get away into the open sea."

We hadn't a moment to lose, either, and I knew he was right, and stood away from the sinking junk, and started to beat up the channel, through which we had just entered. The entrance was about half a mile to wind'ard of us, the tide was against us, and jolly slow progress we made, though I knew it was the same for those who were chasing us. We'd sailed so much more quickly than that sinking junk, when we ran before the wind, that I hoped we should be as good when we were beating; but I soon had a most horrible feeling that we were not pointing so high as they were, and not going so fast through the water, either.