Oh, the Pity of It!—We Find Hopkins—Helston has Suspicions—Helston's Speech—A "Stand Easy"—Ping Sang Departs—We Hand Over our Ships—Homeward Bound—The Admiral Speaks his Mind
Dr. Fox concludes his experiences
If I had only known that I should have to spend the whole night on top of that hill, I should never have been such a fool as to volunteer.
The young Surgeon of the Strong Arm was every whit as capable of doing the work as I was, and his youth would have carried him through the night's exposure without harm. As it was, I always date the commencement of my rheumatism from that horrible night, and never cease regretting that at the moment when Helston showed me the signal from One Gun Hill, and I read of the death of my Surgeon, Richardson, and of the wounded lying there without anyone to look after them for the last three hours, my common sense should have failed me momentarily.
Ugh! How it rained and blew! That zigzag path was a miniature torrent, and my feet slipped backwards in the squelching mud at every pace. The idiot, too, who was training the Laird's search-light thought, I have no doubt, he was lighting my way; but he kept his beam fixed on me and the men who went with me, with the result that I was nearly blinded. The shadows were made still more intense, and it was more difficult than ever to avoid stumbling over the bodies of the dead Chinamen which littered the path.
Two hours' hard work it was before the wounded were patched up and made fairly ship-shape.
The Mauser bullet wounds did not bother me much, but quite a number of men had deep flesh wounds inflicted by cutlasses, swords, or bayonets during the hand-to-hand fighting, and it does not require much imagination to understand the difficulty—the impossibility, in fact—of making a good job of these, dressing them by the unsteady light of the Laird's search-light, with the rain pouring in torrents and driving almost horizontally across the top of the hill before the gale.
As each case was finished, and the poor fellow, blue with cold (the skin of their hands and faces was wrinkled like a washerwoman's hands), was laid down somewhere in the lee of the dripping sand-bags, I injected morphia to ease his pain, and could only hope that he would be sufficiently alive in the morning for us to get him safely down to the ships, where he might have a chance of being properly looked after.
Little Cummins had about the worst wound of the lot, and even if he managed to pull through, I had little hope that his left arm would be of much use to him.
However, he tried to be cheery, especially when I told him that young Glover was safe and sound aboard the Laird, and gave one or two of his irritating chuckles before he fainted. He then lay quiet for the rest of the night. There was no need to give him any morphia, for he was absolutely "played out".
Saunderson, with a bullet through his right lung, did not worry me much, because so long as he kept still and was tightly bandaged, nothing more could be done for him, and his grand physique would carry him safely through the night's exposure.
Things were made more comfortable when the men who had come with me pulled some logs across from one of the breast-works and made a fire close to the Krupp gun parapet, and probably more lives were saved by this means than by anything I did.
The men who had defended the hill all day were now fast asleep, most of them absolutely unprotected from the cold rain, so I made my fellows bring them nearer to the fire. Many were so exhausted that they were carried across without being awakened. In fact, it was so difficult to distinguish the dead from the living, that they actually carried over two dead men and laid them down round the fire, nor was their mistake discovered till morning.
At last I finished, and had time to crouch down behind some sand-bags and managed to light a pipe, shivering with cold and cursing myself for a fool for ever having been induced to join Helston in his mad enterprise.
The gale shrieked and howled; the rain stung my face. Seawards, out of the pitchy blackness of the night, the waves bellowed as they pounded the foot of the hill in one incessant roar; the burning ships and warehouses, the crackling of musketry in the town below, the constant explosions from the doomed ships, all made of the harbour a very inferno, from out of which the cold, clear search-light flashed pitilessly on the slaughter-house round me.
Twenty English and two hundred or more Chinamen lay there sleeping their last long sleep.
Oh, the pity of it all!
My worst enemy could not accuse me of being sentimental, and that night all feeling whatever seemed numbed; but as I recognized the dead faces of Hunter, Richardson, and a dozen men whom I knew, the only thought was one of bitterness that men should throw away their lives so comparatively uselessly, and the selfishness of it all made me feel almost angry with them.
Hunter's family I knew. He left a wife and two children. Richardson had only recently married; and little did they reckon, they and the other poor fellows, when they volunteered for this expedition in their lust for change, for excitement, for self-glorification or chance of promotion, the misery they were to inflict.
Who bears the bigger share when the man goes out to war?
Is it the man, with his cares forgotten as the shores of England slip down below the horizon, with the hot blood coursing through his body and the fighting instinct of the male animal to bear him along, or is it the woman he leaves behind him—the mother, wife, or sweetheart—who is left to her humdrum daily duties, with her heart full of empty pains and aching fears, to hope and long and dread for news, day after day, week after week?
It seems foolish to write this, but all through that ghastly night, turn my thoughts how I would, they ever came back to the bitterness, the selfishness, the pity of it all.
Every now and again some wounded man wanted attention—one man became delirious, and at intervals uttered horrible shrieks. Pattison also became delirious, and I had to keep a man watching lest he should tear off his bandages.
About three in the morning one of my men thought he heard a cry for help down the sea slope of the hill, and we searched by the light of the signal lantern for nearly an hour, but found no one.
No longer, no more terrible night, have I ever spent; but at last it did end—the darkness lessened, the uncanny search-light was switched off, and daybreak gradually revealed the gruesome sights which had been but half seen and only partially conjectured before.
Fortunately both the doctors of the Strong Arm came up to relieve me an hour after daylight, and I quickly scrambled down the hill, slipping and sliding in the mud.
I met Helston on the way down, and his face lighted up with relief when he saw me, and I was able to give him a fairly cheerful account of the wounded. He had landed with a couple of hundred men and driven the mob of Chinamen out of what was left of the town, and was now on his way to Hopkins's bungalow, guided by Hi Ling, the head boy.
"Come along with us, Doc, old chap. I want you to see Hopkins before you go off to the ship, if it is not too late."
We were close to the European bungalows, and Hi Ling led us straight to the one Hopkins inhabited, going on ahead of us.
As we approached we saw that everything was in disorder. Furniture, clothes, books, and papers were strewn all over the verandah, and a dead Chinaman lay sprawling half in, half out of a window.
"Looted during the night," I thought, and saw that Helston also thought so, and neither of us expected to find the American alive.
Hi Ling met us on the verandah, wringing his hands and moaning. We pushed aside a bamboo curtain and followed him into a room where everything was in still greater confusion, a trestle-bed overturned, drawers ransacked and their contents scattered, and lying on the floor was Hopkins himself, with a dead Chinaman beside him. The one we had seen from outside had probably been killed as he tried to escape.
Both had bullet wounds, and had evidently been killed by the revolver Hopkins still held in his clenched hand.
He was quite dead, and I must confess that I felt much relieved, because nothing could have saved him, and also I did not want him to speak to Helston of Milly, as I feared he might have done, for Helston was of such a peculiar disposition, that I was very anxious that he should know nothing about the photograph or the will which Hopkins had made in her favour—nothing, at any rate, till I had got him safely home.
I hurriedly examined Hopkins, and whilst doing this tried to find the photograph of which Glover had told me; but it was not near him, only the crumpled-up piece of paper which Helston had signed on young Glover's safe return.
Poor fellow! the knowledge that his will was safe may have cheered his last moments.
We prepared to lift the body and place it decently on the bed, but, unfortunately, whilst we were righting the trestle-bed the photograph fell on the floor, and though I hastily tried to seize it, Helston stooped before I did and picked it up.
His face became rigid as he recognized it, and I saw his hand shaking as if he had an attack of ague, but in a few moments he recovered himself and gently laid it on the table.
"Help me to lift him, Fox," he said in a husky voice, looking at me suspiciously, and we laid Hopkins on his bed and left Hi Ling to prepare his master for burial.
The faithful Chinaman was actually crying. I had never seen a Chinaman cry before.
Hardly had we gained the verandah before Helston stopped, turned abruptly, and went back again. Through the open window I saw him place the photograph in Hopkins's breast, inside his pyjamas.
He rejoined me immediately, and said in a strained, hard voice: "What is the meaning of it all, Fox? You seem to know something about it. Tell me, for God's sake!"
I thought it best to tell him all I knew, and did so.
As I feared, he magnified the very little that I could tell him, and would not believe that I knew no more.
Poor chap! his face was drawn and haggard as he rapidly questioned me in a jerky, constrained manner, trying vainly to conceal his agitation, and darting suspicious glances at me.
"Did you know anything of this before we left England?"
"Nothing. I knew that they had met. Nothing else."
"But had you no suspicions?"
That made me angry. I hate being badgered.
"Look here, Helston, all I know I have told you. That he should fall in love with Milly is nothing remarkable. A dozen men, to my knowledge, are, or pretend they are, in love with her, and as to the photograph, why, every girl thinks the gift of a picture of herself quite sufficient a reward for that."
"Yes, perhaps; but there must have been something in it if he has left her all his money."
"Oh, confound you, don't be such a fool!" And, thoroughly irritated, I left him to climb his way wearily to the top of the hill, whilst I went off to the Laird to get something to eat, a bath, and an hour's sleep. But for that nine stone, more or less, of frilled and furbelowed Milly, Hunter would not be lying dead on the hill above, nor Richardson either, and without Richardson I was left single-handed, just when I wanted him most. I wished most devoutly that Helston and I had never saved the life of that avaricious old Chinaman, Ping Sang, ten years ago.
The first thing I did when I went aboard the Laird was to get the First Lieutenant to send half a dozen men ashore to bury Hopkins behind his bungalow, and then I had a hot bath and turned in, and slept like a log till I was called an hour later.
I felt better after that, and was hard at work for the rest of the day preparing one of the cleanest of the merchant ships—the Hoi Feng—for the wounded, and by night we had brought them all down from the hill and safely aboard her, sending to her the wounded still on board the Strong Arm and our own ship as well.
But for half an hour for dinner I did not stop working all day, and what with our own people and the wounded Chinamen, who began creeping back to the town in great numbers, we had enough to do and to spare.
It was nearly midnight before I finally turned in, and at two o'clock Jeffreys, the Sub-lieutenant, woke me up and told me that the Captain was walking up and down the quarter-deck in the rain, and would I speak to him and try to make him go below, as no one else dare approach him.
He was walking up and down with long strides, his hands clasped behind his back, his head drooped between his shoulders, and his eyes vacantly staring ahead of him.
He seemed to wake, as if from sleep, when I put my hand on his shoulder (his monkey-jacket was wet through).
"And this is the moment Bannerman chooses to ask me for the Strong Arm," he said fiercely, "and poor Hunter not even buried yet. How I do despise that man, and wish, with all my heart, that I could give her to Cummins; but he won't be fit for duty for weeks, and is junior to Bannerman, so I suppose Bannerman must have her. It makes me boil over with anger to think of him stepping into Hunter's shoes."
This was not, I knew well enough, the real cause of his discomposure, but I was only too glad that his thoughts should be turned into another channel.
"He'll be stepping into yours if you don't take more care of yourself and get below out of this rain," I told him.
Ultimately I managed to induce him to undress and go to bed; but his mental condition seemed very unstable, and I much feared that the strain of the whole expedition would result in his complete break-down.
However, he slept soundly enough after that, and was much more composed in the morning.
That day every man who could be spared from the squadron was marched to the top of One Gun Hill, and there Hunter, Richardson, and their men were buried, and their graves marked by rough wooden crosses, with their names carved on them.
Three volleys were fired. The buglers of the squadron sounded a melancholy Last Post, and they were left there with that grim bullet-splashed Krupp gun to guard them.
The expedition had been successful.
It was Helston who read the burial service, and before the men marched down to their ships he made them a short address as they stood on the plateau in a hollow square round him. He always showed to advantage on these occasions with his tall figure, commanding features, and resonant voice.
"Officers and men of the Royal Navy and Royal Naval Reserve," he said—"we have paid the last honours to those of our comrades who lie buried here on the summit of the hill they defended so valiantly, and no words that I can say will add to their honour.
"They have, by their courage and devotion, enabled this expedition to be completely successful, and now that our return to England will not long be deferred, I want to say two things to you.
"Do not forget them.
"When we leave them here on this lonely hilltop standing in the midst of a distant ocean, sometimes think of them.
"If fate had ordained that any of you standing round me should have been now lying amongst them, you would have wished to be remembered by your mess-mates.
"They have done their duty and given up their lives in the doing of it; so let every man keep the memory of what they have done, before him, as long as ever he can, and thus pay them a greater honour than by merely marching here to their burial.
"The other thing which I want to say is this.
"They have not died directly serving their Queen or their Country (we are, as you know, lent to the Chinese Government), and this makes the sacrifice of their lives all the more bitter, and it will be still more deeply felt by their relatives at home.
"But though they were not serving under the British Admiralty, remember that what they have done here, on this hilltop, will add to the glory of our navy, and help to keep alive its fighting spirit.
"The Royal Navy has not been tried severely for many generations, and it is such a deed as this—the defence of One Gun Hill—which increases the confidence the navy has in itself to maintain its old traditions untarnished when the hour of trial shall come.
"Rest assured that the lives which have been lost since we left England will not have been wasted if we—those who are dead and those who are alive—have helped even a little to increase the honour and prestige of the Royal Navy.
"Men, remember the mess-mates you are leaving here, even as you would wish to be remembered yourselves."
Helston always "fancied" himself at speech-making, and was almost cheerful as he and I walked down the hill together and stopped on the slopes to watch a crowd of surrendered coolies who had been set to work to bury their own dead.
* * * * *
For a week after the capture of the island of Hong Lu the gale blew with such fury that Helston could not venture out of the snug harbour.
During this time practically the whole of the Chinamen had surrendered, and were employed by Ping Sang and A Tsi to bury their dead countrymen, and afterwards to load the merchant ships with what goods had been saved from the great fire and prepare them for departure. Among the coolies were sufficient seamen to form crews for all the captured merchantmen, and the survivors of the men-of-war's crews were also set to work on board the remaining cruisers, destroyers, and torpedo-boats to get them in a fit state to steam to the mainland.
Personally I should have hesitated to send these men aboard their own ships again, but Ping Sang and A Tsi never doubted the expediency of this course, and their trust was not misplaced, for they worked with such energy that in a very few days the ships were ready for sea, and cleaner probably than they had ever been.
A Chinaman knows his master when he meets him—he has wits enough for that—and right well did they labour to appease the wrath of such a tyrant as was Ping Sang.
Each one thought that the safety of his head and his pigtail depended upon his exertions, and no greater stimulus was required. Though a Chinaman may not dread death, he dislikes the idea of the preliminary pain sufficiently strongly.
At any rate, they coaled our five ships with a speed which could not be equalled by the smartest ship in the Channel Fleet.
During this time we doctors were extremely busy, and, more by good luck than by excessive skill, the wounded progressed favourably.
They were all aboard the Hoi Feng—the steamer I had converted into a hospital ship for them—and did extremely well. Pattison was convalescent in ten days. Saunderson and little Cummins joined him soon after, and all three were always ready to greet me cheerily whenever I climbed up the side, Cummins chuckling hugely, and annoyingly, at having "dodged the doctors", because he knew well that I had at first thought his arm would have to come off.
Young Glover rather worried me. The boy's wounds would not heal properly, and the wound in the chest must have penetrated more deeply than I, at first, had thought, because he developed some pleurisy on that side.
Helston's broken arm was also on the way to recovery, and the rest in harbour and the comparative immunity from worry did him a vast amount of good.
I took him for walks ashore every day when it did not rain, but was always careful to land on the side opposite to the town, and never went anywhere near One Gun Hill or Hopkins's bungalow. He always made great efforts to talk about every subject under the sun, but before we had gone far he inevitably reverted to the one subject—Milly. It was slightly tedious, and tried me considerably; but the man's whole existence was centred round her, so I suppose it was natural.
That did not make it any the less boring, however.
Our people had been for a month on salt provisions, but we were able to supply them now with fresh vegetables from the island, and killed the few oxen and goats we could find to give them fresh meat.
There had been many fowls on the island, but, unfortunately, during the first two days, the coolies had eaten them all.
However, there were plenty of pheasants and pigeons in the woods, and from somewhere or other guns appeared—every officer seemed to have brought one, though little did any of us think that we should get any sport—and shooting-parties landed every day and were so successful, that the wounded on board the Hoi Feng fairly revelled in fresh game.
The fresh meat and the vegetables did probably more good than all our doctors' skill; at any rate, we attributed the excellent progress they made to this change of diet—and rightly, I think.
Eventually the weather moderated, and Helston sent the Sylvia to Shanghai to telegraph his dispatches to Peking and to the Admiralty at home, to purchase more surgical dressings and more cattle, and to await instructions from England before returning.
Ping Sang went with her.
Very glad, too, we were to get rid of him, for the old gentleman had got "on our nerves", and we had begun to dislike him intensely. Without a spark of humanity, and unable to sympathize with our heavy losses, he showed by his manner, even if not by his actual words, that he regarded us practically as his employees, and, now that our work was accomplished, was only too anxious to see us started on our way home. According to agreement with the Admiralty, the cost of the personnel of the expedition would cease when he had sent us to Hong-Kong, so it was quite natural that he should try to hasten our departure. However, he showed so little consideration for everybody that we hated him.
He was also much incensed at Helston's absolute refusal to allow his men to aid in refitting the captured ships; but Helston rightly considered that they deserved a rest after their three months' hard work, and a right good time did they have, leave being given after morning "divisions" to every man not actually required on board, and they indulged themselves to their hearts' content in securing trophies, playing football, seining for fish, and scrambling about the island.
What strange beings blue-jackets and marines are!
They asked to be allowed to mount guard over the graves on One Gun Hill during the time the squadron remained, and worked out all the details themselves. Helston found their arrangements such that every man in the squadron would at one time or other do his turn of duty on that plateau, and the only alteration he made in the scheme was to detail two midshipmen for duty there in charge of the hilltop, changing them every twenty-four hours.
Many of the men also went ashore in their working suits, and the blacksmiths and the armourers obtained permission to take their tools with them.
We could see from the ship that they were working round the big Krupp gun, but did not interfere, and in about ten days they asked Helston and myself to go up there. We found that they had constructed a stout iron fence, enclosing the gun-pit and the graves, planted small fir-trees all round it, and actually built a solid stone cairn supporting a great boulder of some hard rock. It had evidently come from the beach at the foot of the hill; but we never asked how they had managed to haul it up, though we shrewdly suspected that they had forced the coolies to do this for them.
They had smoothed and polished the faces of this boulder, and on them had engraved the names of all the men buried there. On one face were also the names of those killed previously—during the fight south of Hong-Kong and during the operations outside the island.
Strange fellows they are, for, probably, if Helston had given them orders to do this, the work would not have been carried out half so substantially.
They were all up there to show it to Helston. Every man in the squadron had done a little, so they told me. Helston made a speech, and everybody was vastly pleased with himself—with justice, too, for the railings and the monument were stout enough to stand unattended for years.
The Sylvia returned a day or two afterwards with the news that the Chinese Government was sending a transport with blue-jackets and officers to take over our ships, and that when this was done we should be immediately taken down to Hong-Kong and sent home.
She brought a mail which she had found waiting for us at Shanghai. There was nothing for me, as usual, except a couple of bills. Telegrams came for Helston from the Admiralty congratulating him and the expedition on its success, and also the Queen had done us the honour of telegraphing her congratulations, condolence at our losses, and expressions of sympathy with the wounded.
These two telegrams were immediately signalled round the fleet, and it was rather pleasant to know that they had been sent off from England only three days since.
Helston made a big ceremony of the reading of the Queen's telegram, "dressed ship", and "fell in" the crew of the Laird on the quarter-deck, making them a speech after they had heard the telegram, and calling for three cheers for "The Queen". The feeling of personal loyalty to the Queen was always so intense that one invariably felt that the cheers were completely genuine. Every man Jack yelled his cheers till he was hoarse.
Helston went from the Laird to each of the ships in turn and repeated the ceremony, returning so extremely pleased with himself that I conjectured rightly that he had repeated the speech as well.
We had nothing now to do but wait for the transport, and it appeared at last, a great lumbering steamer, the Moi Wa, crowded with Chinese blue-jackets.
"Ping Sang must have hustled them at Peking," said Helston to me, evidently surprised at the promptness of the Chinese Admiralty. "He knows we are anxious to get home, and did his best for us, I expect."
"Did his best for us? For himself, you mean!" I answered. "He doesn't care a twopenny rap for our feelings, but wants to get rid of us and the cost of our pay and food. Why, I actually heard the old miser ask the Paymaster whether he would have to pay the men left behind at Hong-Kong wounded; and the Paymaster told me that Ping Sang also asked him to let him know what was the total daily pay of the officers and men killed on One Gun Hill, and when he learnt it he rubbed his hands with delight—the fat, oily brute—and said, 'Five pounds a day, fifty dollars a day, nearly four hundred dollars a week', and went off chuckling."
"You don't make allowance for him, Doc."
"No, I don't," I replied shortly, "and I cannot either."
How we all managed to pack ourselves into that transport I cannot imagine, but we did somehow or other after she had been cleaned out, and, amid much firing of salutes from the Chinese now aboard our old ships, we slowly steamed out of the harbour three days later, lumbered through the dark entrance-channel and between the forts which had kept us at bay for so long, and turned our bows southward.
We all felt a pang of regret at leaving the ships which had been our homes for such an exciting three months, and I think everybody came on deck to watch One Gun Hill sink slowly beneath the horizon, and was somewhat silent for the rest of the day.
We anchored off the dockyard at Hong-Kong four days afterwards. A most uncomfortable passage it was, and one of the first persons to come over the side was Harrington, the sub-lieutenant of "No. 1", who had been so badly scalded and kept in hospital. He was practically well, and only rather sad that he had been unable to accompany us.
Helston and I, as soon as we could manage it, took rooms at the Peak Hotel, taking Jenkins with us and Hi Ling as well, for I meant to keep my eye on that man and see him safely in England, in case there was any legal trouble about Hopkins's will.
A big cruiser left for home almost immediately, and the crew of the Strong Arm took passage in her. Bannerman went with them, of course, and very glad we were to see the last of him. I know that I was.
The remainder of us were ordered home by the next intermediate P. & O., and we had five days to wait for her. These five days were full of troublesome annoyances to me, because the colony, from the Governor downwards, especially the Chinese merchants, fêted us as I certainly had never been fêted before and trust never will be again. However, I managed to avoid most of the entertainments, and spent most of my time playing golf in the Happy Valley, and left all those things to Helston, who, on the average, must have made three speeches a day, so enjoyed himself thoroughly.
Cummins, Saunderson, and Glover I had sent up to the officer's sanatorium, and the last two were practically well before we left.
Eventually our P. & O. arrived, and we made a comfortable voyage home in her, only marred by the foolish enthusiasm of the people at Singapore, Colombo, and Aden, who gave grand dinners in our honour, and wanted more speeches. They did not get them from me, but Helston was in his element.
By the time we reached Port Said, Cummins had resumed duty, little the worse for his terrible wound, and Helston, frightfully eager to reach England, especially Fareham, as quickly as possible, telegraphed to the Admiralty and obtained permission to go overland. He arrived in London a week before we did.
I joined him at his hotel as soon as possible, and found Jenkins there in a bland state of happiness.
"The Cap'en is just doing 'imself a treat, sir," he told me. "That there Miss Milly 'as come to 'er senses at last, sir, and all's going to end 'appy like. The Admiral 'as been and read 'The Articles of War' to 'er, I reckon, and the Cap'en 'e won't be wanting Mrs. J. and myself to keep house for him no longer."
"Have you seen your wife yet?" I asked him; and his face dropped as he answered somewhat mournfully, "Well, sir, I ain't finished my leave yet."
Helston came in presently, looking marvellously well and full of animation.
"It's all right, old chap," he sang out, as he nearly wrenched my hand off. "Milly is going to marry me directly I'm promoted, and, from what they tell me at the Admiralty, I shall be promoted in July without a doubt. You must be my best man, old chap; and the Admiral is bringing her up for a week or so, and we four will have a jolly good time before we go down to Fareham."
My "jolly good time" meant, as I expected, looking after the Admiral and listening to his endless and pointless yarns. However, I did not mind for once in a way, and should have quite enjoyed myself if Milly herself had seemed happy. But, poor little soul, I could see that she was not, and one evening, when we happened to be alone in the private sitting-room, after a very tiring day, she suddenly came over to where I was reading the evening-paper, buried her head on my shoulder, and burst out crying. She broke my spectacles, too, which was a nuisance. As far as I could gather between her sobs, she was feeling frightfully lonely, wanted a mother, which, poor little soul, she had not had since she was two years old, and didn't want to marry anyone.
I sent her off to bed, and went out to buy another pair of spectacles.
I had an idea that the old Admiral would not be so keen for her to marry Helston if he had known that Hopkins had left her all his money, and told him all about it; but I had misjudged the old man, for the first thing he said was: "Well, Helston deserves it, if any man does, and Helston shall have it, too," so I could say no more.
Next morning Milly was in the most boisterous spirits.