Phil had always trained his men in their drills to charge cheering. Now the time had arrived; in the next hundred yards the men would surely be exposed to the view and fire of their enemy; concealment then would not be an advantage; the Chinese should see and hear the danger in order to have it strike terror to their hearts.
Raising his whistle to his lips, Phil blew a shrill blast.
“Open fire!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, “and charge, men, cheering!” he added, raising his voice in an excited shout as he sprang forward, leading the way toward the now startled enemy.
The sailor line, an advancing sheet of flame, charged straight for the crest of the hill in front. The Chinese, occupied in their attack on the mission, had never dreamed that the small body of men believed to have crossed the bridge would dare attack a position as impregnable as theirs. Then out of the night, without warning, what seemed to their superstitious minds a thousand yelling demons came as lightning towards them. If these were the foreigners that had crossed the bridge a miracle had been wrought and their number increased a hundredfold; their simple minds were ready to believe that the despised foreign devils had taken wings and flown across the unbridged ditch. An unreasonable terror seized the surprised Orientals; some threw down their guns and deserted precipitously, while others showed their military training in turning gallantly and firing fiercely at the rapidly approaching attackers; some even made a vain effort to turn the artillery in the direction of the unlooked-for attack, but the charging Americans were amongst them before a single gun could be moved.
His revolver tightly gripped, Phil fired blindly at the shadowy forms now but a few yards from him; the bright flashes of his shots revealing the terror in his victims’ faces as they gave way before him, and then screaming with pain and an unconquerable fear, melted into the night. Deafeningly in his ears rang the discharges of both the pilot’s and O’Neil’s revolvers, unerringly mowing down those who dared stand in their path, while on either side he saw his men fire volley after volley into the mass of totally demoralized Asiatics. Without leaders to stay them, their wild terror had put wings to their feet, and in but a few minutes the Americans found themselves in undisputed possession of the fortified position held so recently by their enemy.
Phil could hardly believe his eyes; he glanced joyfully about him at the four guns and his exultant men crowding into the enemy’s deserted trenches. O’Neil’s cool voice soon brought him to a realization of his duty; his thoughts had been full of his easily-won victory against such a formidable foe.
“We must hold this hill,” the sailor exclaimed; “if the Chinese find out how few men we have they’ll try to retake it.”
“You’re right, O’Neil,” he answered quickly; “but I must send word to Commander Hughes. I’ll stay here while you, Langdon, take a dozen men and give the captain the news; he may have some new move in mind.”
Langdon readily agreed, and after a hand-clasp with the midshipman, the pilot led his handful of men back toward the main American force.
After his friend had gone, Phil, with his boatswain’s mate, looked carefully over the situation. He saw with joy that the enemy had left a great store of ammunition for the artillery pieces, and that the guns were similar to those his men used for drill on board ship. He started his men to work with a will and in a few minutes they had turned the guns’ muzzles away from the mission and directed them toward the line of the enemy’s flight.