“Stop your grumbling,” O’Neil overheard the sergeant tell one of his soldiers in language more forceful than polite. “This is something that your thick skulls can’t savvy. It’s naval strategy. Wait till the ball opens and every mother’s son of you can prove his claim to a sharpshooter’s medal.”
When all was ready, Phil could only wait patiently for the sun to give Sydney enough light for his gunners to see to shoot, but meanwhile he saw with ever-increasing impatience that the enemy was gradually closing in about the church and convent. If the dawn were too long coming! If the terrible, irresistible rush came before Sydney had opened fire, then their attack would have failed, for the loss of twenty American soldiers could not be repaid by the death or capture of the whole insurgent army. It seemed to the awaiting midshipman that hours must have passed since his men had entrenched themselves on this small hillock. Surely the sun had stopped in its movement around the earth! The flames in the town became higher and the smoke arose in greater volume while the crackling of burning bamboo added its sinister sound to the discharges of the rifles, ever drawing nearer the besieged garrison. With heart beating rapidly and youthful indecision stamped on his face, he gazed anxiously at the “Mindinao.” He breathed a sigh of partial relief as he saw she was close inshore and was clearly visible. Surely it was light enough to see, or if not yet the enemy must soon discover the presence of the unwelcome and much-feared visitor. When they fled, their retreat would be toward where he and his machine-gun and sixty-five American rifles were awaiting them.
Moisture stood out on the youngster’s forehead in great beads and his tongue lay like cotton against the roof of his mouth.
“I couldn’t have stood it another second,” he breathed, as a jet of flame shot out from the gunboat’s bow and a sharp report followed by thunderous reverberations awakened for the first time an unknown terror in the hearts of the savage attackers, and brought courage and joy to the hopeless men inside the stifling walls of the church.
The little gunboat belched flame from her three-pounders and the eager and delighted watchers on the mound of earth, clustered about the Colt gun, gazed with admiration and awe as the high explosive shells tore great gaps in the earth, scattering the demoralized natives in all directions. The avenue of escape to the right was closed; the enemy dared not approach nearer that death-dealing war-ship, and with one accord, an uncontrolled, terrified mob of human beings, without method or leaders, they turned and retreated directly toward the mound on which Phil and his men were impatiently awaiting them.
O’Neil had taken his place at the Colt gun. Seated in the bicycle saddle, he squinted carefully down the massive rifle barrel, while the seething mass of brown came ever closer. When the insurgents had arrived at a distance of two hundred yards, Phil gave the order “Open fire,” in a voice scarcely recognizable as his own, it trembled so with excitement.
Bang—bang—bang, faster than one could count, resembling the explosions in the cylinders of a high power touring car, only infinitely louder and more sonorous, the Colt gun hurled a solid leaden stream of bullets into the charging mass.
As coolly as if he were merely steering a boat, O’Neil played the leaden hose on the startled enemy. They went down like chaff before the reaper; while from behind urging them onward, the cordite shells of the gunboat, which had followed them, burst with terrific havoc.
Throwing down their rifles—it did not enter their heads to ask for the quarter which the Americans would have been only too willing to give—they turned inland directly toward the burning town.
“Cease firing,” Phil cried out in alarm, as he saw suddenly appear, almost in the path of the routed natives, the small band of men who had come so near death at their hands. Rifles in hand, the relieved soldiers advanced toward the now terrified insurgents and poured a deadly fire into their already mortally stricken ranks.