|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 5
"He's mad," roared Webster, meaning Chubb; "we ain't going to be sunk
to please him," and he rushed on the bridge to put a stop to our
flight.
Chubb interposed to prevent him; they closed, grappled together, and
finally fell off the bridge, still struggling.
The cruiser had to stop to pick up her boat, and the delay probably
saved us; we must, moreover, have been a very uncertain mark in the
unnatural light, which doubtless would be no aid to gunnery practice.
On we tore, with the steam-gauge uncomfortably near danger point; the
warship in hot pursuit, looking, wreathed as she was in the smoke and
flame of her fiercely worked guns, and the electric glare of the vivid
shaft which still turned night into day, more like some fabulous
sea-monster than a fabric contrived by man. She plied us with both
shot and shell; one of the latter burst in the air over our bows; two
men were killed and several injured by the fragments. We were struck
nine or ten times in all, but they were glancing blows, which never
fairly hulled us. Chubb held on resolutely; we increased our distance
fast, and at length ran out of range. Never before had I felt so
thankful as when those fearful projectiles began to fall short. From
that point we were safe. We were five knots better than our pursuer,
and the only danger lay in the chance that some other cruiser,
attracted by the firing, might be brought across the line of our
flight. None, however, appeared, and our great speed dropped the enemy
long before daylight.
The damage to the ship was confined to the upper works, and could soon
be put to rights, but five of the crew had been killed and twice that
number wounded, and unused to such work as I was, I felt strongly
inclined to blame Chubb for incurring this sacrifice of life for what
appeared to me an inadequate object. He laughed it away.
"They take the risk," said he, "they know it, and they are well paid
for it. We've saved ship and cargo; that's all old H---- will think
about, and all we need care for."
It was far, however, from being all I cared for as I looked upon the
mangled corpses lately filled with life and vigour. I had embarked on
the enterprise in a spirit of levity and carelessness, reflecting
little on what it might entail, and there was something shocking in
thus suddenly coming face to face with the dread reality of war. But
whatever may have been the source of the feeling, it soon passed away,
and when the dead had been sewed up in their hammocks and laid to
their last rest in the deep--a ceremony we performed the day after our
escape--Richard was himself again, and the old careless buoyancy
swelled up once more.
Prayer-books had been omitted in our outfit, and we were at a loss for
the burial service. However, we laid our heads, or rather our memories
together, and most of us being able to recollect a scrap of it here
and there, we contrived to patch it up sufficiently to give our
unfortunate shipmates Christian burial. I should mention that another
of the wounded men died after our arrival at Tientsin, and was
interred in the English cemetery. He was the man who was first hit;
his name was Massinger, and he claimed to be a descendant of the
dramatist. He was known on board chiefly as "Hair-oil," from his
addiction to plastering his bushy black hair with some shiny and
odorous compound of that nature. Both his legs were broken by the shot
that struck him.
As to my friend Webster, adorned with a black eye, he never ceased,
during the remainder of the voyage, to declaim against Chubb's
foolhardiness and uphold his own proceedings on the eventful night.
For his own discomfiture he sought consolation in rum, protesting that
it was a miracle that any of us had survived to taste another drop of
that liquid comforter.
"But I'm a houtcast," he would wind up invariably, as his potations
overcame him; "that's where it is--who cares what a ---- houtcast
thinks?"
Chubb took no further notice of him than to laughingly threaten to put
him under arrest for mutiny. It must not be supposed that the
"houtcast's" behaviour on the occasion in question was due to any want
of courage. Escape seemed impossible; the risk of the attempt was
tremendous, and I am convinced that if the matter had been left to my
own judgment, I should not have dared it. But Chubb was one of those
men whom nothing can daunt, and who are never more completely in their
element than when running some desperate hazard.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|