Chapter XVIII The Escape From the Island
We Scramble Down—We Secure the Sentries—We Capture the Steam-boat—We Run the Gauntlet
Midshipman Glover’s Narrative continued
At six o’clock (we could hear the cruisers striking their bells, so knew what time it was), and just as it was getting dusk, a little steam-boat came across from the opposite fort, the European we had seen in the morning landed at the jetty below us, and went up towards the fort, leaving the boat with a coxswain, bowman, and a stoker.
In a few minutes he returned and went back to his own side.
At seven o’clock, or a few minutes afterwards, he came again. It was quite dark, but we heard the bowman make the boat fast by hooking: the bow rope into a ring on the landing-stage. The bowman then lighted a lantern and showed the way up the cliffs to the European, the two sentries who had been crouching in front of their now fiercely blazing fire following him round the corner.
In about ten minutes they returned.
Another hour dragged past—my goodness, how it did drag!—the lights went out in the little town, and just as the Hong Lu’s bell struck the hour the steam-boat came puffing across again.
The same routine was carried out, and for ten minutes the little steam-boat lay alongside the landing-stage with no one aboard her except the coxswain and the stoker. Evidently this European had to visit the fort every hour, and we noticed as he passed across the glare of the fire that he appeared to be walking unsteadily.
“We must stretch our legs,” the Commander whispered. “I can hardly move mine;” and he rose to his feet and began hopping up and down. Jones and I did it after him, one at a time, and though at first our legs were horribly cramped and painful, the blood at last began to flow through them, and we were able to move freely.
“My old rheumatism, sir—the same what I had up the Straits—won’t be no better for this, sir, I’m afraid,” said Jones.
Then the Commander told us to be prepared to climb down to the path directly the guard-boat came alongside again and the European and the sentries had gone away.
There was no doubt at all that he was visiting the fort every hour, for as two bells (nine o’clock) rang out away over the harbour, we heard the crew of the steam-boat chattering as they took her alongside the opposite landing-stage.
Then a lantern came down the cliff path swinging jerkily, we heard several rough oaths, a command in Chinese, and the steam-boat shot across into the light of the camp-fire to our jetty.
“Stand by,” whispered the Commander as coolly as possible, though my heart was beating tremendously fast; “I will go first, and, when I’m at the bottom, you, Glover, will follow, and Jones will bring up the rear.”
We heard the hook-rope catch the ring, the European landed, lurching unsteadily, and disappeared up the path with the bowman and the two sentries.
Instantly the Commander slid over the edge of our ledge and went wriggling down. He made hardly any noise, and gave a low whistle when he had reached the bottom.
With my heart in my mouth I followed, grasping every branch and bit of rock, and lowering myself down. Everything I touched seemed to make an awful noise.
When I was half-way down my foot slipped, I grabbed at a branch, missed it, and went falling headlong, smashing through bushes, dislodging stones, and falling with a crash into a bush at the bottom.
The Commander was at my side in a moment.
“Not hurt, Glover? No. That’s all right. Keep absolutely still; the men in the boat heard you, but they are not moving.”
We waited a minute; the two men began talking to one another (we could just see their faces in the glow of the sentry’s fire above them), and then Jones commenced to climb down, making wonderfully little noise for such a big man as he was. Some stones came rattling down, however, and the men became uneasy again, looking over their shoulders towards us, but not leaving the boat, and, of course, not being able to see us.
As Jones joined us the lantern reappeared, and the European came stumbling down the steps.
The coxswain began excitedly talking to him, pointing in our direction (“Get hold of a big stone, each of you, and hide in the long grass,” the Commander whispered), but the European, evidently rather drunk, only cursed him, got into the boat, and still cursing made them shove off.
We breathed freely again and then waited.
“We have to settle those two sentries—Jones and I will do that. You, Glover, cast off one of the boats and get her alongside.”
The steam-boat had shot across to the other side, the drunken man had gone staggering up the path, and then we heard the engines working again and heard the guard-boat going up harbour, the thud of her engines getting fainter and fainter in the night.
“Now wriggle along through the grass till I tell you to stop.”
Even as the Commander gave this order he gave a warning hiss, and we sank down in the grass, for the two sentries, more concerned about the noises the coxswain had described than the officer was, or perhaps anxious for something to do to pass the time, lighted a lantern, and, coming down the steps, began walking along the path towards us.
“The Lord hath delivered them into our hands,” the Commander muttered piously. “Jones, you seize the one with the lantern—by the throat, mind you—I’ll seize the other. You put out the light, Glover, and stand by to help. Not a word and no noise.”
Chattering to themselves they came along swinging the lantern unconcernedly. Perhaps they had expected to find that a goat had fallen down and broken his neck, and hoped to make a good supper of its strong meat. At any rate, they were not the least on their guard, and were quite unarmed.
I was much too excited to feel frightened.
They were examining the face of the cliff, holding the lantern up to find the cause of the noises, and as we were lying in the grass on the other side of the path they never even saw us.
As they passed, Jones and the Commander jumped up and sprang at them. One gave a funny hoot like an owl—it was the Commander’s man, I think. The man Jones tackled never made a sound except a gurgle, and both went down like stones. I seized the lantern as it fell and blew it out, whilst they dragged the two Chinamen into the long grass.
Jones’s man seemed to be giving the most trouble, so I tore up a handful of coarse grass and stuffed it in between his jaws. Then, Jones holding him by the neck all the time, I unwound a long sash or belt he had round his waist and bound his arms. Jones bound his feet together with his knife lanyard, and he lay perfectly still like a log, not making a sound.
Then I crept over to help the Commander, but his man was as limp as a rag, and it was an easy job to gag him and secure his arms and legs.
“Now for the boat, boys,” whispered the Commander, and we crawled to the landing-place, keeping well down so as not to show up in the light from the fire. We wriggled along, got hold of the boat’s painter, hauled the boat alongside, and slid over the side into her.
There was a pair of oars in the boat and some rude rowlocks, but good enough. I was just going to shove her off into the stream when the Commander gave a chuckle, as if he had had a sudden inspiration, and said softly: “Get her close in to the bank. That’s it; now haul her along.”
We hauled hand over hand till we came opposite the spot where the two sentries lay gagged and bound. The Commander and Jones sprang ashore, leaving me alone in the boat, and presently reappeared out of the darkness and bundled first one and then the other into the bottom of the boat, both sliding down like sacks of potatoes.
We then let the boat drift down with the ebb tide, which was already setting out strongly, till the Commander with a couple of strokes sent her in under the bank again, where we lay in absolute darkness just above the landing-place.
“What is he going to do?” I thought. He kept chuckling to himself, so I knew that everything was all right; but why did he not get away as quickly as he could? I was tremendously anxious to know, and expected every moment that one of the fellows at the bottom of the boat would commence yelling.
We waited there, crouched down beneath the bank, till we could hear the guard-boat coming back. It ran alongside the other landing-stage, the crew talking sleepily. Presently the light came down the zigzag path again, jerking more than ever, and the steam-boat shot across into the light of the sentry fire and bumped against our jetty. It was hooked on, the bowman helped the European up the steps, and then, of course, the sentries were discovered to be missing.
The flow of language was pretty strong, I can tell you, and the European staggering about in drunken anger round that glowing fire was not a pleasant sight. He called out to the coxswain, and that man jumped ashore. Why he wanted him was very easy to see, for he could hardly stand without support, and leant heavily on him. Like this the three disappeared round the corner, and the boat was left with no one but the stoker in her.
“Now drop alongside and board,” chuckled the Commander. “You take the helm, Jones, I’ll manage the stoker, and Glover, you cast off the ropes.”
In a moment we had shot out from the bank, and were alongside the steam-boat before the scared stoker knew we were there. The Commander laid him out in the bottom of the boat with a crack over the head with a stretcher he had found in the boat. Jones jumped aft, secured the boat’s painter, unhooked the stern rope, and got hold of the helm. I sprang across her bows and unhooked the bow rope, the Commander opened the steam-valve, the propeller flew round (it went astern for a moment, but the Commander found the reversing-lever and threw it over for “ahead”). I shoved her bows off for all I was worth, nearly falling overboard doing it, and by the time I had recovered myself we were away with the boat, and our two gagged sentries, towing behind us.
Jones steered her bows round till we were in the middle, and then I wondered how ever we were going to find our way through the twisting channel.
The tide was sluicing us out as fast as it had borne us in that morning. The glare of the fire was shut out as we rushed round the corner into the channel, into absolute pitch darkness. You could almost feel the intense darkness, and I was horribly scared lest we should smash into a rock, so hung on like grim death for fear of being knocked overboard.
But then the Commander stopped the engines, and we simply drifted between the wall faces of those two forts, only standing by to shove her off if she had hit up against anything. But we were well in the middle, well in the grip of the current which was running like a millstream, swinging us round and round like a cork, and all we could do was to hold our breath and trust to being safely swept out to sea.
The only noise was the bubbling of the current, till suddenly the stoker in the bottom of the boat let fly a most piercing yell which echoed from side to side. The Commander was on top of him in a moment, and must have caught him by the neck. We could see some lights moving overhead. Somebody called out, and I jumped aft to help the Commander.
“Go back, Glover, and stoke; shove a little coal on at a time. I can manage him, and we shall want all our steam when we get outside.”
I had never done such a thing before in my life, but it wasn’t difficult to find a shovel, and I lifted the furnace door open, and by the light of the furnace saw where the coal was stored. I threw some on, as far back as I could, and shut up the door again, but already the alarm had been given. On each side of us I could hear men shouting and see lights hurrying up and down, and that one flood of light from the open door must have just showed them where we were.
Sentries began letting off rifles, and the shouting redoubled.
We were half-way through by this time. We began to feel the motion of the sea beneath us, and, unless they had a search-light ready, or we ran on a rock, we were almost out of danger.
They had not a search-light ready, and we never ran into a rock, but in two minutes knew by the dancing of the steam-boat and the wall of blackness that appeared behind us that we were clear of the channel and out at sea.
Suddenly the darkness was lit by vivid flashes and with horrid ear-splitting bangings—the batteries commenced firing at us from both sides of the entrance.
I was horribly frightened at first, for I thought that they must be able to see us, but I was quite wrong—they were simply firing blindly. One little shell hit the water behind us, and, bursting, showed us up for a second, but nothing else came near, and in a minute or two they ceased firing. The Commander opened out the steam, and the little steam-boat jumped nimbly along, dancing about like a duck, and taking in a lot of spray over her bows as she breasted a tide rip5.
We ran out of the tide rip in a short time, and then the stoker began groaning again, so we bound his legs and arms with rope so that he should not jump overboard. As we were doing this a search-light began sweeping the sea, then another from quite a different quarter, and we knew that Mr. Parker and Mr. Lang were looking for us.
The lights swept past us once or twice, lighting us up sufficiently for us to see each other’s faces, but they were too far off for the destroyers to spot us, and presently they switched off and we were in darkness again.
With the danger over I began to feel how frightfully hungry and thirsty I was, and how cold. My feet and legs were warmed by the furnace fires, but the cold spray had soaked me through and through.
Perhaps the Commander was feeling the same, for at length he said, “I’m not going’ to stay out here all night,” and told Jones to steer towards where we had seen the nearer search-light.
I threw on some more coal. The glow of the fires did not matter now, and we rummaged round and found a lantern, but there was no candle in it.
Then the Commander handed me an oil-can, and I threw some of it through the furnace door, shutting it again very quickly. There was a great rush of smoke, and a flame shot out of the funnel three or four feet high.
It lasted only a few seconds, however, and then I threw in another, and then a third lot of oil.
“They’ve seen us, sir,” Jones sang out. “One of them has hoisted position lights.” And, sure enough, two bright little lights, one above the other, shone out.
Jones steered towards them, a search-light began sweeping round, swept past us, came back again, and steadied itself on us for a few seconds. We all yelled as hard as we could and blew the whistle, the light was switched off, and in a couple of minutes the black outline of one of the destroyers appeared as we ran alongside in her lee.
The crew cheered wildly, strong arms helped us on board, and by the light of a lantern I saw the cheery red face of Mr. Parker and Toddles too, of all people, looking white and scared.
They took us down below into the warm ward-room, got our things off, wrapped us in hot blankets, and gave us food.
Pat Jones was brought down too, much against his will, for there was no fire anywhere else, and we three sat and warmed ourselves and ate, till I slid off my chair, coiled myself in a corner next the stove, too sleepy even to answer Toddles’s questions, and went to sleep. What a sleep that was!
Notes
5 Tide rip. This is a jumbling sea caused by the wind blowing against a strong tide.