The Three Admirals

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Captain Rogers had ordered another party of seamen to join him under the second lieutenant as soon as the boats could bring them on shore, and finding the determined way in which the rebels were attacking the part of the walls he had been directed to defend, he sent back Tom and Desmond to hurry them forward. The midshipmen met the party about half-way, and Tom delivered the message. Under the belief that he knew the road, he led them through several narrow streets, when suddenly he discovered that he had made a mistake, but whether he ought to have kept more to the left or right, he could not tell.

Sharp firing, however, being heard to the right, he concluded that was the direction he ought to have taken. The party moved forward again at the double. The walls soon rose up before them, and the shot, which came down like hail, showed that the enemy were firing away as hard as ever. Just then, at the end of a short street they caught sight of a large body of men moving away from them.

“I wonder where those fellows can have come from?” remarked the lieutenant.

“They are making for the gate we rode out of yesterday,” observed Tom.

“Probably the enemy are attacking it; we will go and assist, though they appear to be Chinese, and are not likely to make much of a stand,” observed the lieutenant.

The seamen dashed forward, when just as they reached the gate, which was in front of them, it was thrown open, and the party they had seen, turning round, rushed back the way they had come, followed by many others who were streaming through the gate.

“There is some treachery at work here,” exclaimed the lieutenant, and ordering his men to halt and fire, they poured a volley upon the advancing mass.

Before the rebels could recover from the confusion into which the unexpected shower of bullets had thrown them, the blue jackets were in their midst, cutting them down, knocking them over, or making them turn and try to escape through the gate. This put a stop to the further progress of those still outside, and the seamen, led by their gallant officer, fought their way up to the gate. Here a desperate struggle ensued. A big Tae-ping was on the point of cutting down Tom, when, a cutlass intervening, brought the Tae-ping with a blow on the head to the ground, and Tom saw his old shipmate, Jerry Bird, whom he had not before recognised, slashing away right and left by his side. The rebels at length having been forced out, the lieutenant ordered the gates to be shut. This was no easy matter, with the space on either side covered with the dead and wounded, but the seamen, hauling the bodies out of the way, at last succeeded.

One party remained to guard the gate, the other made prisoners of many as they could catch of those who had treacherously opened it. Tom, with Jerry Bird and three other men, was now sent to inform Captain Rogers of what had occurred, that he might despatch people to the other gates to prevent the same trick being played.

“You rendered me good service just now,” said Tom to Jerry Bird, “in saving my head from the sword of that big Tae-ping. He would have cut me down to a certainty. I shall never forget it.”