“What is it, Mr Murray?”
“Firing, sir. I heard shots.”
“Are you sure?”
“I heerd it too, sir,” said the injured man.
“Attention there!” said the lieutenant sharply.
“One, two, and three from the left make ready. Present – Fire!”
The three shots rang out like one, and directly after they were replied to, the reports sounding faintly enough but perfectly distinguishable through the distance.
The lieutenant waited while twenty could be counted, and then ordered the men to fire again. This drew forth a reply, and so evidently from the same direction that the order was given for the party to march; but directly after the lieutenant called Halt, for from behind them and quite plainly from the direction they were leaving, came the deep-toned thud of a heavy gun.
Chapter Eleven.
“The Smoke’s Lifting.”
“Well done, Seafowl!” said the lieutenant, and the men gave a cheer which drew forth a “Silence!” from the officer.
“You’re holloaing before you’re out of the wood, my lads,” he said. “Ah, there they go again – nearer too. Those must be Mr Munday’s or Mr Dempsey’s men. Halt, and stand fast, my lads. Let’s give them a chance to join, and then we can retire together. No doubt, Mr Murray, about the direction we ought to take.”
“No, sir,” replied the midshipman, “and we are going to be quite out of our misery soon.”
“What do you mean, my lad?”
“The smoke’s lifting, sir.”
“To be sure, my lad, it is. A cool breeze too – no – yes, that’s from the same direction as the Seafowl’s recall shot. If it had been from the forest we might have been stifled, after all.”
The signals given from time to time resulted in those who had fired coming before long within hail, and the men who now joined proved to be a conjunction of the second lieutenant’s and boatswain’s, who had met after a long estrangement in the smoke, and without the loss of a man. Then, as the smoke was borne back by the now increasing sea breeze, the general retreat became less painful. They could breathe more freely, and see their way through the burned forest in the direction of the anchored sloop.
It was a terribly blackened and parched-up party, though, that struggled on over the still smoking and painfully heated earth. For they had no option, no choice of path. The forest that lay to left and right was too dense to be attempted. There were doubtless paths known to the natives, but they were invisible to the retreating force, which had to keep on its weary way over the widely stretching fire-devastated tract that but a few hours before had been for the most part mangrove thicket interspersed with palms. But the men trudged on with all the steady, stubborn determination of the British sailor, cheered now as they were by the sight of the great river right ahead, with the sloop of war well in view; and in place of bemoaning their fate or heeding their sufferings the scorched and hair-singed men were full of jocular remarks about each other’s state.
One of the first things observable was the fact that to a man all save the officers were bare-headed, the men’s straw hats having suffered early in the struggle against the flames, while the caps of the officers were in such dismal plight that it was questionable as to whether it was worth while to retain them.
Titely, the seaman who had been speared, was the butt of all his messmates, and the requests to him to show his wound were constant and all taken in good part; in fact, he seemed to revel in the joke.
But there was another side which he showed to his young officer as, cheering at intervals, the party began to near the river edge and get glimpses of the boats waiting with a well-armed party to take them off to the sloop.
“It’s all werry fine, Mr Murray, sir,” said Titely, “and I warn’t going to flinch and holloa when one’s poor mates wanted everything one could do to keep ’em in good heart; but I did get a good nick made in my shoulder, and the way it’s been giving it to me all through this here red-hot march has been enough to make me sing out chi-ike like a trod-upon dog.”
“My poor fellow!” whispered Murray sympathetically. “Then you are in great pain?”
“Well, yes, sir; pooty tidy.”
“But – ”
“Oh, don’t you take no notice, sir. I ought to be carried.”
“Yes, of course! Yes, I’ll tell Mr Anderson.”
“That you don’t, sir! If you do I shall break down at once. Can’t you see it’s the boys’ chaff as has kep’ me going? Why, look at ’em, sir. Who’s going to make a party of bearers? It’s as much as the boys can do to carry theirselves. No, no; I shall last out now till I can get a drink of cool, fresh water. All I’ve had lately has been as hot as rum.”
“Hurray!” rang out again and again, and the poor fellows joined in the cheers, for they could see nothing but the welcome waiting for them, and feel nothing but the fact that they had gone to clear out the horrible hornets’ nest with fire, and that the task had been splendidly done.
Chapter Twelve.
After the Lesson
As the suffering party gathered together upon the river shore preparatory to embarking in the boats, Murray’s first care was to see that A.B. Titely was placed where he could lie down and rest, and while looking after the poor fellow, and seeing that he was one of the first to be helped into the stern sheets of the first cutter, Roberts came up.
“Oh, I say!” he cried. “Who’s that wounded?”
“Hallo! Who are you?” said his fellow middy sharply. “Don’t disturb the poor fellow.”
“Why, eh? Yes – no,” cried Roberts, with a mock display of interest, “I was wondering where – well – it can’t be! Why, Frank, you do look a pretty sweep! Hardly knew you. I say: is it you?”
“Is it I, indeed!” growled Murray. “You’re a pretty fellow to try that on! Go and look at your face in the water if you can find a still pool. I might grin at you.”
“Am I browned, then – scorched?”
“Are you scorched brown! No, you are scorched black! Where are your eyebrows? I say, Dick, those two little patches of hair in front of your ears that you believed were whiskers beginning to shoot – they’re quite gone. No, not quite; there’s a tiny bit left in front of your right ear.”
The conscious lad clapped his hands up to the sides of his face.
“I say, not so bad as that, is it, Frank? No games; tell us the truth.”
“Games? No, I’m too sore to be making game,” cried Murray, and he gazed carefully at both sides of his messmate’s cheeks. “You’re scorched horribly, and the whisker shoots are all gone – No, there’s about half of one left; and you’ll have to shave that off, Dick, so as to balance the other bare place. No, no; it’s all right; that’s not hair, only a smudge of sooty cinder off your burnt cap. I say, you do look a beauty, Dick.”
“Oh, I say!” groaned the youth, patting his tingling cheeks tenderly. – “Here, what are you grinning at, sir?” he cried, turning upon the wounded sailor angrily.
“Beg pardon, sir. Was I grinning?” said the sailor apologetically.
“Yes; and he can’t help it, Dick. Don’t be hard upon the poor fellow; he has had a spear through the top of his shoulder. But you do look an object! Enough to make a cat laugh, as they say.”
“Well, I don’t see that there’s anything to laugh at.”
“No, old fellow, because you can’t see your face; but I say, you can see mine.”
“Humph!”