She held out, too, in spite of her not having nine men of her original crew left efficient out of the party with which she commenced the action; while Lieutenant Rason, who commanded her, was killed by being cut in two by a round shot.

The admiral himself was grievously wounded by the splinter of a sh.e.l.l in the thigh, and the rest of the officers swept down--a terrible amount of slaughter in so small a s.p.a.ce.

Of course, we did not know all this till afterwards; but we could see the poor little temporary flagship's battered state, as she swung all abroad across the sullen, dark-flowing river, now seemingly red with blood from the flashes of the guns, whose murderous roar rent the air each moment, sweeping down our comrades and laying them mangled and bleeding on the deck, every time we heard the sound.

Then, we noticed a signal for a.s.sistance thrown out from the solitary spar the _Plover_ had yet standing; and the _Lee_ and _Haughty_, which were anch.o.r.ed below the first barrier and busily engaged with the batteries on the left bank, at once weighed and proceeded to the admiral's aid.

A few minutes later, Admiral Hope, though fainting from loss of blood, transferred his flag to the _Opossum_, which had not been so badly served out as the _Plover_; but, no sooner had the square white flag, with its red Saint George's cross been seen flying on the second gunboat, than every gun in every battery was apparently directed on her, the admiral getting wounded a second time, while nearly every officer and man was shot down.

"By heavens, it's too cruel!" cried Mr Stormc.o.c.k, jumping up in the launch as the _Opossum_ dropped down towards us on the ebb tide, away from the withering fire. "Can't we do something to help them?"

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

"BLOOD'S THICKER THAN WATER!"

"Ay!" replied Mr Gilham, who was equally impatient to go to the rescue of our poor comrades, and, if not able to help them, to fall beside them, the lieutenant speaking in a hoa.r.s.e tone, with his face of that pattern which shows a desperate purpose, and biting his lip so that the blood came, to keep in his repressed feeling. "But, not before the word's given for us to go forward. I wish to G.o.d this would come!"

It was terrible work for us, lying sheltered there under the lee of the junk to which we were moored, looking on inactive, listening to the whistle of the round shot hurtling in the air and hearing the heavy thud of the missiles as they crashed through the sides of the gunboats; for we pictured the devastation these missiles wrought inboard, with the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, and the hapless bodies of the dead strewing the decks.

It was more terrible far to us than for those partic.i.p.ating in the grim tragedy with all its attendant horrors.

They were fighting and oblivious of everything save a mad longing to kill and slay; while we were doing--nothing!

Every one of us in the launch of the _Candahar_ felt that; and yet, what could we do?

A limit, however, came at length to our endurance.

The _Plover_ and _Opossum_, which had dropped out of the first line, drifted down nearer to us; and then, the captain in command of the reserve called for volunteers to re-man those staunch little vessels that had borne all the burden and heat of the battle so far, but were staunch, practically speaking, no longer, being almost floating wrecks, and their crews either wounded or dead.

No second call was needed, the men being all alert in an instant, the boats' crews vieing with each other as to which should supply the fresh hands required for the gunboats; although these would be going, as they well knew, into the very jaws of death.

Fortunately the launch was the nearest.

"Give way, men!" cried Mr Gilham, waving his sword over his head in a perfect delirium of joy at being at last no longer a mere spectator of the exciting scene. "Now, we have a chance, lads; pull like devils lest it be taken from us!"

But, the lieutenant might have spared his breath, for the men's blood was up; and, with a bound, the heavily-laden launch dashed forwards as if she were a racing galley, distancing all her compet.i.tors, and being alongside the leading gunboat before the rest had got half=way up, our start giving us an advantage, which even their lesser weight could not lessen.

In less than a minute, the lot of us scrambled on board the _Opossum_, bluejackets, marines, gunners and all.

We found the engineer and one solitary uninjured stoker below, the others having all been killed by a bursting sh.e.l.l.

These men, however, were still sticking manfully to their posts in the engine-room, notwithstanding that they must have been longing all the while to scuttle up on deck and "have a shy" at the treacherous beggars who had caught us in such a villainous trap; and at once piling on steam, the gunboat in which we were in, followed by the _Plover_, hurried up to the front again to relieve the _Lee_ and _Haughty_ which were now standing the brunt of the fire from the enemy's batteries, and looked decidedly as if they were getting the worst of it.

The _Lee_, indeed, had a hole knocked in her bows which a wheelbarrow could have been trundled into; while her consort had been hulled repeatedly below the water, and, being close in under the guns, these, as the tide fell, plunged their shot right through her bottom planking.

"Hot work, ain't it, youngster?" observed Mr Stormc.o.c.k to me, presently, when we came under fire and I had the pleasant sensation of a jinghal ball pa.s.sing close to my ear, cutting a bit out the collar of my jacket and making me wince, though I can honestly say I was not frightened at this, my first experience of being really in action.

"Keep moving about and there'll be less chance of your being picked off.

A lively man who does his work without thinking of the shot, seldom gets touched. So I found it two years ago, at all events, when I was in the thick of it at Canton!"

"That's thrue, sor," put in Corporal Macan, who had lately regained his stripes after a long spell of good behaviour that atoned for his debauch at the Cape which lost him his rank; the Irishman now being engaged in serving the bow gun of the gunboat with the utmost deliberation, taking steady aim with each shot which he pitched into the cavalier of the nearest battery and knocking the gun into "smithereens" at his third attempt, though, for every weapon of the enemy which we silenced they seemed to bring a hundred others to bear on us. "Jist kape hopping about an' faith ye'll niver be hit, sure. Och, murther, what's that now?"

As he jerked out the sudden exclamation, he certainly acted up to his advice; for, he gave a hop that took him some ten feet in the air ere he fell down on the deck, all covered with blood.

"Poor Macan!" said Mr Stormc.o.c.k, bending over his prostrate form, and trying to lift him in vain. "Well, he's done for at last, I'm afraid.

We could have better spared a better man, perhaps!"

"He's dead, sir, sure enough," corroborated one of the marines who had been a.s.sisting to work the big bow gun, the carriage of which had been smashed, on one side by a heavy chain shot, which must, we all thought, have settled the corporal at the same time. "He'll never eat plum duff again, poor chap. He was a good one over his vittles, too, was the corporal, and likewise at his drink!"

"Faix, ye lie, ye divil," cried the seemingly lifeless man, reviving at this moment and struggling to his feet. "I'm not d'id at all, at all!

D'ye think now I'm going to be kilt--by a Haythin Chaynee? Begorrah, whin I am kilt, may the saints in h'iven presairve me from it yit!--I hopes as how it'll be by a Roosian, or a Proosian, or a dacint Christian man of some sort or t'other, an' not, faix, by one of thim yaller-faced Johnnies over yander!"

We all laughed at this, it being quite a relief to find our old friend the corporal had not yet lost "the number of his mess," as he was the life and soul of the ship on the lower deck, drunk or sober!

He had, however, a narrow squeak of it; for a splinter had jogged his leg from the ankle to the knee, while the bollard on which he had been standing had been shot away under his feet.

This caused that wonderful jump of his which had surprised me so much, himself all the more, too, the heavy fall he had on the deck afterwards having knocked him senseless for the time and, indeed, bruised him very considerably.

Macan, though, had all an Irishman's pluck, and would not give in.

"Sure, sor, it's ownly a thrifle," he urged, when told by Mr Stormc.o.c.k to go below to Mr McGilpin, who was busy in the after-cabin, attending to those of the wounded that the Chinese gunners, who aimed remarkably well, had not put altogether beyond the reach of surgical aid. "I wudn't throuble the docthor wid it; an' faix, I want to pay thim Chaynee images fur smashin' me crockery! Bedad, an' I will, too, for I've got my hands left all right an' a straight oye, an', I'll have a slap at 'em ag'in, sure, by your leve, sor!"

"Carry on!" cried Mr Stormc.o.c.k, who had been a.s.sisting to wedge up the gun so that it could be still fired, only the carriage having been injured by the shot. "Make as good practice as you did before, Macan; and, then you'll soon be revenged on some of those beggars!"

"I will that, sor," replied the corporal, bending down to the rear right of the sixty-four pounder, which had been slewed round in the direction of the battery abreast us, and taking careful aim. "A ha'porth more illivation, Number 2. Well--muzzle left! Well--fire!"

Bang it went off, making the dirt fly from the embrasure opposite, while a cloud of smoke rose up, as if a magazine had been exploded; and so we continued, hammer and tongs, the atmosphere all sulphur and gunpowder, the deck slippery with gore, our ears deafened with the ceaseless discharges of the guns, till it really seemed "as if h.e.l.l had broken loose!" as Mr Stormc.o.c.k said.

It was the last sentence the master's mate ever uttered; for a bullet penetrated his brain the next instant, and he dropped down beside me stone dead, almost as soon as the words escaped his lips.

I hardly knew what occurred after that, I was so saddened by the loss of Mr Stormc.o.c.k, whom I had always found a very good friend to me, for he had taught me a good deal; and, notwithstanding that I had not taken to him at first, I had since learnt to have a most sincere regard for him, while he on his part, though so much older than myself, liked me, I believe, for he appeared fond of being in my company.

His death, however, only added one more to the long list of those who had already fallen; while every moment some fresh casualty occurred.

The enemy's fire got hotter as the afternoon wore on and the fight proceeded, until everyone felt the task the admiral had attempted, with his comparatively weak force, in attacking such formidable defences, was doomed to failure; although not a single man thought of abandoning the struggle or confessing, as was the case, that we were "licked!"

But, it could not be much further prolonged; for, at six o'clock, the _Kestrel_ had been sunk, fighting her guns to the last, the _Lee_ obliged to run on the mud to prevent her meeting a like fate; while the _Plover_ and _Opossum_, which were still in the van, had been pretty well knocked out of shape.

The _Cormorant_ was ahead of us all, with the sorely wounded admiral lying bleeding in his cot on her deck, our gallant chief persisting in watching the battle to its bitter end, in spite of being compelled from absolute exhaustion to give up the immediate command of the squadron to his senior officer, Captain Shadwell; though it was as much as the gunboat could do to keep her prominent position, in face of the terrible fire on her front and flanks.

To retreat, however, was impossible then, as there was not water enough in the river for the vessels that still floated to recross the bar before midnight; besides which, if they attempted to move off while daylight lasted, they would be exposed to the risk of greater loss from the terrible fire from the batteries which was certain to be hailed on them.

Under the desperate circ.u.mstances of the case, therefore, it was determined by the senior officer, who acted in concert with the other captains present, that a bold stroke should be attempted to save the honour of the day, which was to try and carry the forts by a.s.sault--a "forlorn hope" in every sense of the word!

No sooner was this desperate expedient resolved on than it was gallantly set about, the boats filled with the marines and small-arms men, who yet remained below the barrier at the river mouth being brought to the front--an operation in which we were generously aided by Commodore Tatnall, of the United States steam frigate the _Toeywan_, which had been lying off the Peiho for some time, out of the line of fire.

"Great Scott!" cried this n.o.ble-hearted American to his officers as he saw our poor fellows pulling up the heavily-laden launches and cutters against stream, under the withering fire of the batteries, with a sort of dogged resolution, determined to do or die, giving the boats a friendly tow to the nearest point of land and approaching as close as he could to the low, muddy sh.o.r.e on which the rising tide was beginning now to flow again, regardless of any ill consequences to himself or his ship; albeit he was supposed to be a neutral, the Government of the United States not having taken sides with us in the war. "Blood's thicker than water, boys! Let us lend them a hand. Thunder, they are brother sailors and white men like ourselves!"