But I was not going to worry about them or Afghans. I was going to set that dhow on fire with my shells.
At twelve hundred yards I opened fire.
"At the dhow!" I shouted to Mr. Scarlett. "Don't worry about people."
Her woodwork began flying, and I knew that the shells were bursting inside her. It was only a question of time—the people aboard and close to her had vanished at the first shell—and presently smoke began to pour from her hatches. We cheered at this—those of us on deck working the gun, Griffiths at the wheel, and poor old Popple Opstein supporting himself against the deck rails. The rest I had sent down below under cover.
We kept on firing at her, and soon there was a rush of black smoke, small explosions took place aboard her, her stern blew out, her masts came tumbling down, and she took fire fore and aft. Every other minute some ammunition must have exploded, scattering fragments of wood and broken rifles round her on the sand. It was courting death to go near her; but, even so, some Afghans now and then rushed towards her, seized a rifle, and rushed back again. What plucky fellows they were!
By half-past ten o'clock there was no doubt that not a round of ammunition remained in her, nor a rifle that was not entirely useless; so, with a parting shot dropped behind the sand-hills, I went back to the cutter and dinghy, running the gauntlet of the cliffs without receiving any damage.
Hoisting in the dinghy, and taking the empty, waterlogged cutter in tow, I steamed very slowly seawards to find the Intrepid and Nicholson.
Four men killed, one missing, and five wounded among the cutter's crew, one man killed and one wounded aboard the Bunder Abbas, was the price of that Sunday morning's work.
As we left Sheikh Hill behind us reaction set in, and we were very depressed.
The edge of civilization! I could not help thinking of that. At home people were just getting out of bed, wondering what Sunday clothes they should wear. I wished that some of them could have seen how we had spent that morning. If only I could have got hold of the people, English, French, or Germans—I didn't know and I didn't care—who had manufactured those rifles or sent them out there, I should have enjoyed torturing them.