Chapter X The Fight Round the Casino
Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, R.N.
Well, if Zorilla intended to try and cut his way past us into San Fernando, I’d learnt enough about the old man to know that it would be jolly hard work to stop him, and it struck me that the little chaps, on each side of me, were not placed in a very good position to defend the road and the beach, and that the ‘Gnome,’ however plucky a chap he was, did not seem at all certain what to do.
The good sleep which I had had must have cleared my brain. Whatever was the cause, I seemed to realise, all at once, exactly what ought to be done. Of course I was tremendously excited, but I tried to calm myself by imagining that this was only a sham-fight, and to think what would be the natural thing to do.
It was all very well to make our little chaps lie down behind the ford and behind the stream where it trickled down the beach, but, however deep it was farther inland, it was so shallow here that it hardly covered one’s boots and wouldn’t stop a cat. To stop where we were, and leave that bungalow garden wall, on the enemy’s side, unoccupied, was perfectly silly, and I looked about to see if there was not something we could use to barricade the road itself.
I saw those empty wagons standing in front of the Casino, and knew that if we only pulled them across the road and put some of our chaps behind them, it would be grand.
First of all, for that bungalow wall, I thought, and, almost before I knew what I was doing, I found myself dashing across the stream, and looking over it to see if it would be any use to make the little chaps fire over it. But for the giant palms and ferns, in the garden, I could see right along the road, and fellows behind it could easily sweep the road with rifle-fire. I called José, and he came, then the ‘Gnome’ came, stood on tip-toe, looked over, and knew exactly what I meant. I seized a machete, jumped over the wall, and began lopping down the palms, and in a minute he’d sent thirty or forty chaps to help me, and began bringing riflemen over to line the wall—he made some climb on the roof of the bungalow, too, where they could get even a better field of fire.
Now for those wagons, I thought, and began trotting down the road towards the Casino, hoping that the others would come along as well, but only José panted after me, singing out ‘No, no!’
‘No, Señor, no!’ the Gnome shouted, but I wasn’t going back, for another idea came to me. How about the top of the Casino itself?
I got up to the Casino, dashed in, and ran upstairs—I knew that there must be a way to the roof, as there were railings all round it, and it was flat. I found a staircase leading up there, and was on top in a jiffy, José following me and pulling me down to my knees, because, directly my head had shown above the railings, there were yells from the edge of the forest, and bullets came splattering against the house. I wriggled myself to the edge and looked down, really only wanting to see whether it commanded the road properly, but—my eye!—beyond that corner, three hundred yards further along, collecting there, as far back as I could see, were hundreds of cavalry, and the woods were thick with infantry.
I beckoned to José, and he crawled across and looked too; his face got almost white when he saw what I had seen.
I heard the people at the ford opening fire. ‘Señor! Señor!’ José cried, and pointed down into the road at our feet, and I saw there, right below us, twenty or thirty regulars streaming across the road from the forest to the front of the Casino—the leading ones were already springing up the steps.
We were down off that roof like redshanks, and as we got down to the first floor we heard them clambering up the main staircase. We raced down the corridor and saw the first of them. They saw us and yelled. I fired my revolver in their faces and dashed into a back bedroom, José slamming the door behind us. I knew there was a verandah outside, and we jumped out, swarmed down a supporting pillar—like monkeys—and swung off back along the beach, the soldiers firing at us from the verandah we’d just left. I split one of the knees of my riding breeches, I ran so fast.
I didn’t run so fast entirely on account of those bullets, but because I wanted to let the ‘Gnome’ know what I had seen round that corner. José told him, pointing up the road.
They had commenced firing at us now from the Casino; one of our chaps kneeling in the road dropped his rifle and fell backwards, the ‘Gnome’s’ big hat spun round and fell on the ground. He picked it up, put a finger through a bullet-hole, and stuck it on again. He didn’t look frightened, but muddled—he didn’t seem to know what to do.
My aunt! it was all clear enough to me—now.
All that heavy firing, away on the left, where my brother had gone, was merely Zorilla’s bluff, just a piece with his pretending to fall back on El Castellar, in the night, and he meant to make his real attack along the road. As soon as his cavalry were ready he’d launch them along the beach and across the ford, and simply gallop into San Fernando, clearing the way for his infantry.
Oh, why wouldn’t Gerald come and tell us what to do!
‘Geraldio! Don Geraldio!’ I shouted to José, pushing him to the left, and he understood, and bolted along the edge of the stream in among the trees where our little men were swarming.
We couldn’t stay where we were, for the regulars simply rested their rifles on the verandah and the window ledges and fired point-blank at us. Several of our chaps, lying across the road, had been hit already, and although the ‘Gnome’ brought more men and made them form a double line, with fixed bayonets, ready to spring to their knees directly they were wanted, they were terrified and kept turning to look backwards. Every second I expected to see the cavalry come thundering round that bend in the road, and I knew that we couldn’t possibly stop them. Our own chaps behind the low wall were certainly potting at the regulars in the Casino, but they didn’t even aim properly, they were too frightened, simply popping up over the wall and firing haphazard.
Three more of our men were hit, the ‘Gnome’ couldn’t make any more fill their places, and I knew that, in a few minutes, those who were there would creep back among the trees. The ‘Gnome’ stood in the middle of the road, behind them, one hand on his sword-hilt and the other on his revolver holster, as brave as a lion, but I could see that he hadn’t an idea what to do.
I knew, I knew well enough, that we couldn’t stop the cavalry, but if we could only capture the Casino and occupy that flat roof before they charged, we might possibly check the advance of his infantry till Gerald came back. I couldn’t explain all this to the ‘Gnome,’ who stood there looking stupid, with bullets flicking all round him.
Oh, why wouldn’t Gerald come and lead them!—I couldn’t.
I heard the sound of a horse galloping towards us—from behind—from San Fernando way. Some one in white was coming along as hard as his horse could go. Gerald at last, I thought, and my heart thumped with joy, but it wasn’t, it was Seymour. As he leapt off his horse it fell in the road, dead, and before it had finished shuddering, half-a-dozen chaps were fighting to take cover behind it.
‘For God’s sake, help!’ I said, jumping towards him. ‘Zorilla’s cavalry is all round that bend—the woods are full of his infantry—they’re firing at us from the windows of the Casino, and I can’t make a soul understand.’
‘Where’s your brother?’ he said, out of breath.
‘Over to the left—there’s been very heavy firing there—I’ve sent to tell him.’
‘I’ve come on to tell him there’s a pom-pom coming along the road—Jones and Richardson are bringing it—it will be here in half an hour.’
Half an hour! Good God! In half an hour all would be over.
‘We must capture the Casino,’ I said, trembling with despair. ‘They’ve only about twenty men there at present. Tell him—tell that chap,’ pointing to the ‘Gnome’, who was kicking and cuffing some of the little men, squirming on their bellies and fighting each other to get behind two dead men who lay in the road.
‘Right you are, old chap,’ and Seymour shouted to him.
I saw his face clear, he dashed off, and in a couple of minutes had got hold of some men—those who were lining the beach—harangued them, and then we all rushed along the shore to the Casino. We were hidden, a little, by that bungalow and the garden, but I saw several hit before we got into the open, and then a dozen fell. Seymour was in front of me with a machete in his hand, I was a good second, and the ‘Gnome’ and thirty or forty natives were close behind us. We poured over the verandah into the billiard-room, but not a sign of any one was there, and all the regulars were upstairs. Seymour yelled something, and some of our fellows began firing up through the ceiling, bringing the plaster down in clouds. I and some others dashed for the main staircase, but, at the top, the regulars were gathered, and were firing down.
It was the most appalling din—rifles firing, mirrors and glasses smashing, and wood-work splintering all round us. Our men wouldn’t face the stairs.
‘There’s a back staircase,’ I heard Seymour yell, and I went after him. We clattered up and burst on those chaps from the rear. There was a scuffle, Seymour shouted down for our people to stop firing, and in five minutes there wasn’t a living regular in the house. Most of them had escaped by sliding down from the verandah, and had run back into the forest again, shooting at any one who went near a window.
‘On the roof!’ I heard Seymour shouting, and rushed back to find him leaning on the banisters—the excited little brown men, thirsting for more blood, crowding up the stairs, past him. He looked awfully white.
‘What’s the matter?’ I yelled.
‘Shot through the stomach—make these chaps line the roof.’
I saw the ‘Gnome’ dashing from room to room, placing his men at the windows, and I rushed up to the roof, pushing all the chaps in front of me, and made them lie down along the four edges, shoulder to shoulder with their rifles pointing over the concrete ledge—across the beach at the rear of the house, back towards the stream where Seymour’s dead horse was lying, across the road in front of the Casino, and, on the fourth side, right along the road and round that bend in it. The cavalry men were still clustered there, and they were so numerous that I couldn’t see the end of them among the trees; some were dismounted, so that Zorilla evidently was not ready yet.
‘Fire! Fire!’ I yelled, pointing towards them, but the little chaps seemed numbed and frightened at the sight of them and wouldn’t fire. I suppose they were overawed by the sight of the cavalry, or perhaps they knew there would be no escape from that house if Zorilla’s people won, and feared to anger them. Perhaps, too, as no bullets were coming at them they didn’t want to draw their fire. Whatever it was I couldn’t get them to shoot, so I seized a man’s rifle, kicked him out of the way—pulled back the bolt to see if it was loaded—leant it against the edge, aimed right in among the cavalry, and fired. I saw a horse fall down in a heap, and his rider extricate himself, looking this way and that to see where the bullet had come from. I fired again and again—there was a stir among them—the little chaps on either side of me bucked up and began to let off their rifles—the cavalry began fidgeting, crowding and jostling together—more horses fell—there was a sudden turning of the horses’ heads, and they all began to retire. My little chaps squealed with delight, the little fellow whose rifle I’d bagged, seized it, imploring me with his black eyes to let him have a turn, and I crawled away, breathing freely again, for the cavalry had all retired behind the next bend in the road, and I knew that they were not yet ready to charge. But we had drawn a tremendous fire from the infantry in the woods, and we could not see any one to aim at.
Then I thought of Seymour, and jumped down the stairs to see what I could do for him. He was still leaning on the banisters—deadly pale. ‘The cavalry have retired. We’ve time for a breather. Show me where you are hit.’
He pointed just below the middle of his stomach, and I knew what was the only thing I could do, for Dr. Clegg had been teaching us ‘first aid’ ever since we left Gibraltar. I tore a sheet off a bed, tore it in strips, and wound them round his stomach as tightly as I could. ‘For God’s sake, fetch me a drink,’ he gasped, but Dr. Clegg had said: ‘If any of you get shot through the stomach, throw your water-bottle and biscuits away and lie down. It’s your only chance.’
‘No, not a drop!’ I said, and wanted him to lie down—he wouldn’t. ‘I’ll go on the roof. I can help there.’
I carried him up, very gently, and laid him down in the middle—with the little men’s naked feet and their yellow soles and toes all round him. I got a mattress, too, and made him lie on it.
‘I can just see that bend in the road,’ he said; ‘I can manage all right; get those wagons across the road.’
I had forgotten them. I ran below, slipped on the stairs—they were wet with blood—steadied myself, and got down to the ground floor. The ‘Gnome’ was there, tying a table-napkin round the arm of a native. He smiled at me.
‘Wagons!’ I shouted, pointing through the doorway to where they stood. He knew what I meant, dropped the napkin, roared to his men, and they began pouring out from the lower rooms. We ran across the road under a very heavy fire, got hold of the wheels of one, and, shoving for all we were worth, pushed it into the middle of the road. The man next me fell, shrieking, and clutched my feet; I shook him off, and we rushed back for another wagon, and were just getting a ‘move’ on it when I heard yells of ‘Yuesencia! Yuesencia!’ The little chaps on the roof who were lining that side of the Casino began shouting, ‘Don Geraldio! Don Geraldio!’ and I saw Gerald galloping up to the ford and the few men who still lined that garden wall. I shouted out ‘Hurrah!’ we all shouted, and then came a roaring noise from the road, the clatter of horses’ hoofs, and round the bend thundered the cavalry. They were coming along the beach too, their lances and pennons lowered—and my fellows on the roof began firing like ‘billy loo.’
‘One more push—shove altogether!’ I yelled. The front wheels were on the road, but the rear ones stuck fast, and the ‘Gnome’ and his men dashed back to the Casino.
Before I could follow them, Zorilla’s cavalry were on top of me. I dodged to the rear of the first wagon as they swept round it. Over it went, there was a jumble of horses and men, and I was dashed to the ground, my right leg jammed down by a horse. Troopers tried to cut at me or get me with their lances, but they were swept along by those coming behind them. The horse which was pinning me down half struggled to its feet, I drew my leg away, and huddled under the wagon as they thundered along the road to the ford.
I’d been knocked a bit ‘silly,’ and the next I know I was hobbling up the stairs to the roof with my right leg giving me ‘gyp,’ and the little brown chaps firing like mad.
‘Look! Look!’ Seymour cried, leaning on his elbows and pointing towards San Fernando.
Oh! My God! The cavalry had swept clean across the stream and were dashing madly along the road and beach, but behind them they left a trail of dead and wounded men and horses. I saw some riderless horses dashing backwards and forwards, and then had to lie down because the firing was so heavy. I hadn’t seen Gerald, and there seemed to be no one alive at the ford.
‘The infantry are advancing now,’ Seymour told me, but it was that cloud of cavalry galloping towards San Fernando that I couldn’t take my eyes off—there must have been five hundred of them, and we could hear the noise they made though they were a mile away.
‘D’you hear that?’ Seymour cried; ‘Jones and Richardson have started firing.’
Hear! Why, I jumped to my feet and yelled with delight, for the ‘pom—pom—pom—pom,’ ‘pom—pom—pom,’ ‘pom—pom—pom’ and the ‘crack—crack—crack’ of the little one-pound shells bursting, told me what had happened.
‘Keep down, you fool!’ Seymour shouted. Bullets were shrieking past, chipping against the concrete every second, and Zorilla’s infantry were coming down the road and through the trees, in close order, sweeping past the Casino towards the ford.
My aunt! how we shot! I’d never heard any noise like the noise of the firing that went on then, and I wonder, now, how many of those rifles were properly aimed.
The Casino seemed to be trembling and shaking, my little chaps began scrambling in the bottom of their bags for cartridges, and I knew that they were running short of ammunition, but then they began shrieking with joy, because the infantry couldn’t stand the fire from Gerald’s chaps along the stream, and we saw them dodging back again from tree to tree, and clearing away from the road—a tall gaunt officer, on horseback, trying to stem the retreat and turn them round again.
Even at that distance I recognised him. It was General Zorilla, but he couldn’t make them face the stream again, and they swept past him out of sight.
‘The cavalry are broken!’ Seymour cried joyfully, and, turning my head, I saw them coming back again, the pom-pom shells knocking up little spurts of dust and smoke among them, and some of Gerald’s people at the side of the road firing point-blank at them. They were having an awful time, horses and men coming down every second, and as a horse fell, it brought down others behind it, in a heap of struggling bodies and legs, the little white-shirted men darting out from the trees with their machetes to kill the wretched troopers before they could get to their feet.
Those still on horseback came nearer and nearer, the leading ones were almost up to the ford, and I could see them lying down on their horses’ necks, their arms raised in front of their heads, as Gerald’s people crowded to the side of the road to fire at them; they burst through the stream and came flying past the front of the Casino, many horses riderless, their flanks streaming with blood from sharp spurs, and their blood-shot eyes almost sticking out of their heads. We could hear the sobbing noise they made in their distress—poor brutes, they were absolutely foundered.
Those of my chaps, on the roof, who had any cartridges left let off their rifles at them again, and at others who were lashing their poor tired brutes through the sand, along the beach, at the back of the house. I don’t think that more than a couple of hundred got back beyond that bend in safety. One, a powerful-looking native, half-nigger, was the last to come struggling along the beach. Hundreds of bullets were hitting the sand all round him and splashing in the water beyond, but he seemed to bear a charmed life. He’d thrown away his rifle and his lance, and as he came to that line of Gerald’s people across the beach, he put his hand in front of his face, bent low over his horse’s neck, and charged right through them. I felt jolly glad to see him safe and coming towards us, but then one of my own little chaps ran out from the Casino, down the beach, knelt down, raised his rifle, and waited for him.
The trooper saw him, struck his poor beast with the flat of his sword, and made one gallant effort to ride him down, but the horse was so exhausted that he could hardly raise a trot in that loose sand. The little kneeling man fired, and the horse plunged on to its head and rolled over, the trooper slipping to his feet and jumping clear. With a yell he grabbed his sword and rushed at the little man, and I thought my chap was finished, but he had another cartridge in his rifle, fired again, and the big trooper slithered forward, clawed at the sand, and was dead. I felt jolly sorry, but the men on the roof, watching with bloodthirsty eyes, jumped to their feet and yelled, and the little man, bending over the body, pulled off the big trooper’s boots, stuck them on his own feet, and came awkwardly up to the Casino again, his face beaming with pride.
I felt rather sick, and looked round. Seymour was on his knees.
‘We’ve won,’ he cried, with a wild look in his eyes. ‘I’ve done my bit, too.’ He raised himself to his feet, and would have fallen if I hadn’t caught him and lowered him on his mattress.
I heard shouts of ‘Don Geraldio!’ ‘Viva los Horizontals!’ and looking over into the road, saw dear old Gerald stalking along smoking his pipe, making big strides over dead men and horses, and José, in his red sash, leading his horse behind him. I ran down to meet him as he came up the steps.
‘We’ve won, Gerald!’ I sang out.
‘You’ve made a beastly mess of the Casino, Billums; I hope no one has collared the mater’s bag,’ was the only thing he said.
Well, that finished the ‘Two Days’ Fight’ as it was called; Gerald’s chaps were too worn out and too short of ammunition to follow Zorilla immediately, and gave him time to withdraw, with the remnant of his people, along the road to El Castellar.
Jones and Richardson came along presently with their two pom-poms and five or six hundred riflemen they had brought from San Fernando. They were awfully full of ‘buck.’
‘We frightened those cavalry chaps with our shells, and these little brownies stopped them with their rifles,’ they told us, as we all carried Seymour down from the roof and put him in his buggy, which turned up from somewhere or other.
They took him back—very slowly and gently—to San Fernando, and intended to take him on board the Hector.
‘Thank God, you came!’ I said. ‘You were just in time.’
He smiled wildly, wanted to say something, but didn’t, and was taken away.
And now came the saddest of all things, for the wounded began to creep out of the forest and make their way to the Casino or be carried there—hundreds of them—and there wasn’t a piece of lint or a bandage in the place. They simply squatted down and waited—for what I don’t know. I got a good many of them water from the Casino well, and they were very grateful, but I couldn’t do anything else.
I missed Gerald, went in search of him in the Casino, heard the noise of splashing water, and found him having a cold bath, José standing by to rub him down.
‘Only thing which keeps me awake, Billums,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve given my chaps a couple of hours’ sleep, and shall follow Zorilla as soon as those field-guns you took into San Fernando come along. I’ve sent for them.’
‘They don’t seem to be going to sleep yet,’ I said, for there was any amount of noise outside and shouting of ‘Viva Don Geraldio! Viva los Inglesas!’
‘They want me, I expect,’ he said; ‘chuck us a towel, Billums,’ and, winding it round him, he went out. He still had a nasty scar on the right arm—where that bit of shell had hit him a month ago.
‘Tidy your yellow mop a bit,’ I sang out, ‘it’s all over your eyes,’ so he smoothed it back and went out on the balcony overlooking the road.
My aunt! there must have been thousands of the little brown men and their black-bearded officers there, and they made a tremendous noise, shouting, ‘Viva Yuesencia Don Geraldio!’
I was looking out from behind a door, and you bet I was proud of old Gerald. Wouldn’t the mater have just loved to see him there, the only white-skinned chap among them, and wouldn’t the old pater have grinned and chuckled to think he’d been the father of him. I could just imagine him patting Gerald’s naked shoulder and tipping him a sovereign.
There were more yells.
‘Come out, Billums, they want you!’
I went cold all over.
‘Come out, you ass! Take your hat off too—let ’em see your straw thatching.’
I went and stood beside him, and it was the proudest thing that ever happened to me; it was nothing but a sea of brown heads and white hats, rifles and bayonets, and then they yelled and waved their hats—even those of the wounded who could stand, stood up and shouted, ‘Viva los Hermanos!’6
When the noises stopped a bit, I sang out, ‘Gracias! Gracias! Muchas Gracias!’—about the only Spanish words I knew. They cheered more than ever.
‘Quite effective show, that,’ Gerald smiled cynically, as he went back to dress, ‘you and I standing there by the side of the insurgent flag. They love anything like that.’
I hadn’t really noticed the flag—I’d been much too nervous.
‘That little fiend of yours tried his tricks on again last night, tried to knife me,’ he said presently.
‘And you killed him?’
‘I took away his knife and boxed his ears,’ he told me, lighting his pipe with one of my last matches. ‘It’s a treat to get a decent match, Billums, I hate those “stinkerados”7 we get in this confounded country.’
‘Confounded country!’ I answered angrily. ‘You seem to be risking a good deal for it. I wished to goodness you’d killed the beast.”
‘My dear Billums, I’d fight on either side so long as I could get a bit of excitement—so long as I could boss the show.’
‘I wish to goodness I could chip in with you,’ I told him. ‘I don’t even boss the gun-room—not properly, the Commander thinks.’ Oh, bother the Hector! I remembered that my leave was up at noon. ‘Bother it all, Gerald, I’ve got to keep the “afternoon” watch, and see that a boat doesn’t shove off with the fenders over its side, and listen respectfully whilst the Commander bellows at me that a man hasn’t got his chin-stay down, and that I’m an incompetent, useless fool. It’s nearly ten o’clock now and I must be off.’
He got me a horse, and I left him, his worn-out little brown chaps, and his wounded, and shoved off back to San Fernando, galloping along the beach, and learnt then what an unsuccessful cavalry charge meant; for the shore was strewn with dead and dying horses, dead men, rifles, swords, lances, and, more conspicuous than anything else, the red blankets they’d thrown away in their retreat. The tide, too, had risen and was half covering some of the bodies with sand, as if it wanted to hide the horrid sight and wipe out all traces of that awful morning’s work.
I was looking about me for something to take back for the mater, and had passed any number of ordinary swords, which were not worth the trouble of dismounting, but at last saw one with a very elaborate hilt and sword-knot, lying close to a body stretched face downwards in the sand, so jumped off and picked it up. The uniform on the body was that of an officer, and out of curiosity I turned the head round with my foot. Ugh! It was Zorilla’s black A.D.C., the chap who had been so impressed with our after 9.2 gun that day we anchored off Los Angelos. I scrambled back into the saddle with his sword and rode on, shuddering and thinking a lot of things which I couldn’t write down, without you laughing at me.
Presently, as I got a bit more chirpy, and began looking round again, I saw a little chap trudging along ahead of me, splashing through the edge of the sea where the sand was firmer. Something about him seemed familiar, and as I overtook him he looked round, gave a yelp of fright, and bolted, drawing a machete out of his belt. It was the little brute, and I dug my heels into the horse and was after him like a shot. I simply rode him down—he couldn’t run fast in the loose sand—and at last turned, holding up the machete to protect himself. I was jolly glad that he’d lost his revolver, for I had lost mine somewhere. I meant to kill him, and I saw that he knew it, and that he couldn’t be springy on his feet in the sand, and struck at him for all I was worth with the A.D.C.’s sword, meaning to beat down his guard and get at his head, but the horse swerved when he saw the sword flash, and the blade only came down on the back of the hand which held the machete and lopped the fingers clean off, the machete falling down. I wrenched the horse round and went at him again, and was just going to finish him when, I’m sorry to say, something inside me wouldn’t let me kill him now that he couldn’t defend himself, and, like the ass I am,—how I cursed myself for it afterwards—I jumped off and tried to stop the bleeding. He thought me a fool, I know, and so I was.
Then I made him step out alongside me, and was so angry with myself for being so soft-hearted that I prodded him in the back when he wouldn’t go fast enough.
But the miserable brute, with his bleeding stumps, was nearly dead with fright and could hardly put one foot in front of another, so at last I swung him up in front of me, and took him into San Fernando like that, riding up to the Cuartel de Infanteria, where a ‘red-cross’ flag was flying, and handing him over to the people there, trying to explain that he was a prisoner.
My Christopher! the look he gave me when I went away!
I left my horse at the barracks, walked down to the shore, stood on that jetty, and waved my arms about till one of the Hector’s signalmen spotted me, and the skiff was sent in to take me off.
I had just time to change into uniform, and get a bit of grub in the gun-room, before the ‘Forlorn Hope,’ who’d kept the ‘Forenoon’ watch and wanted his lunch, sent down an indignant message to know when I was going to relieve him, so up I went, buckling on my sword-belt, and tramped up and down the quarterdeck for four hours. I’m certain that I could never have stopped awake had not Cousin Bob, the ‘Angel,’ and young Marchant walked alongside me and made me tell them all that had happened ashore.
When I went down below again, I showed the black A.D.C.’s sword to Navarro, and told him, as well as I could, all that had happened. He was very depressed, chiefly because he was so fond of old Zorilla, but didn’t seem to worry in the least about the black A.D.C., and made me keep the sword.
He shrugged his shoulders when I told him about not killing that little ex-policeman, and said, ‘Till he die he always make revenge,’ which made me think myself more of an ass than ever for not having killed him when I had the chance.
Notes
6 Hermanos = brothers.
7 ‘Stinkerados’ is a term applied to the ordinary foul-smelling Spanish sulphur matches.