In Greek Waters Part 22

"Now retire briskly for a bit, and load as you go."

After a hundred yards' running they again fell into a walk. Horace kept his eye upon Tarleton's party. They did not seem so severely pressed, and had the advantage that their foes were on somewhat lower ground than they were. Presently a sailor came in from the left.

"Captain Martyn's orders are that the two flanking parties are to fall back quickly to the path, then to double down the hill to that shoulder a mile below. You are to act as rearguard, and to follow close behind them."

In two or three minutes the two flanking parties, taking advantage of cover which concealed them from the enemy, made a rush to the path.

The body under Tarleton gained it first, and at once started down at the top of their speed. Martyn's party were but a minute later. He himself paused till Horace came up at a run.

"We can go faster down this path," he said, "than they can follow over the rough ground, and there are such a lot of them that they will jostle each other on the path, and won't get along as fast as we shall. How are you feeling, Mr. Beveridge?"

"I am all right now we are going downhill, Martyn. It is only the climbing I can't stand. This is really very exciting work, though I don't like running away."

"We will make another stand presently, but I wanted to be getting on.

They will get stronger every minute, and we shall have to fight hard presently. Do you see that the schooner has gone?"

An exclamation broke both from Mr. Beveridge and Horace. In the excitement of the fight neither of them had thought of the schooner.

"There she is, five-and-twenty miles away to the northwest, with two Turkish frigates lumbering after her."

The firing had ceased; the yells of the Turks rose loudly in the air, but they were fully two or three hundred yards in the rear.

"We are in plenty of time," Martyn said. "We will line the other side of that flat step when we reach it. We can keep them back there for some time."

There was no attempt at keeping in order, the path was too steep and broken; but they went down running and leaping, each as he best could.

Down the path, in front, was a long straggling line of Greeks, with the sailors, keeping in two distinct bodies, among them. As soon as the head of the line came down on to the flat step in the hill they spread out right and left, and in less than ten minutes from the issue of the order to retreat the hundred and eighty men were lying down along the lower edge of the level ground, which was some forty yards across, the centre of the position being left vacant for the last party that arrived. The instant the rear-guard threw themselves down they opened a heavy fire upon the Turks, who were crowding down the path. Horace was lying next to his father.

"Do keep your head lower, father," he said, as the Turks left the path and bounded in among the rocks and shrubs and opened fire.

"But I can't take aim if I don't see, Horace."

"No, father, that is right enough; but you might move a foot or two back, so as to be in shelter while you are loading. Then, if you push your rifle up before you, you would only have to raise your head to look along the barrel and fire. Some of these mountain fellows are good shots."

The firing in front of them increased every moment as the Turks poured down and took up their positions, until puffs of smoke seemed to dart out from every bush and rock. Martyn now went along the line posting the men. Horace's party were left lying thickly opposite the path, in case the Turks should attempt a rush. The rest were disposed two yards apart, the sailors being placed at regular intervals among the Greeks.

Fortunately the ground fell sharp away from the flat, so that even from the higher ground those lying behind it were completely sheltered, except when raising their heads to fire. This, by Martyn's orders, they did but seldom.

"Let them blaze away as much as they like," he said, "they do us no harm. The great thing is to have every musket loaded in case they make up their minds to try a rush, and I don't think they will do that. The more smoke they make the better, for it prevents them taking aim. We can stop them here for hours, as long as they don't work round our flanks."

Satisfied that all was going on well, Martyn returned to Mr.

Beveridge.

"We have stopped them for the time effectually, sir."

"Yes, this is a capital position, Martyn."

"Capital as far as it goes, sir. Of course if these fellows were soldiers they would either gather and make a rush, or march away and work round our flanks; but being only peasants, there is no one to command, and every man fights for himself. Macfarlane is at work with the wounded."

"Did you lose many men in your retreat, Martyn?"

"No; three of the Greeks were killed and half a dozen of them were wounded, fortunately not severely. Two of our own fellows were hit, but neither of them badly. I have sent them and the Greeks on ahead to join the women on the sh.o.r.e. Tarleton lost two Greeks, killed, and had about as many wounded as I had. One poor fellow was so badly hit that he could not keep up with the others on the retreat. Two of our men tried to carry him; but it hurt him so much that he begged them to put him down; and as soon as they did he drew his pistol and shot himself.

So, altogether, we have lost six, which is little enough, considering we are more than half-way down to the sh.o.r.e."

"If they do try to outflank us, I suppose we must fall back again?"

"Yes, if they succeed we must do so. Of course we shall try to prevent it. Directly I see any signs of their trying it on, I shall make a strong effort to drive them back; but I don't think they will try it at present, the sole object of each man seems to be to fire away his ammunition as quickly as he can. I have just been giving orders to the Greeks and our fellows to shove their caps up in front of them on the ends of their ramrods, so as to encourage the Turks to keep on firing, and to push a musket up and fire occasionally, without raising their heads to take aim. The smoke hanging about along the line will hide the trick of the caps, and the shots will keep the Turks blazing away."

For two hours the firing continued; but towards the end of that time it slackened considerably.

"I expect a good many of them are running short of ammunition," Martyn said. "Now they have done firing they will have time to talk a bit, and may arrange to march off somewhere, and come down between us and the sh.o.r.e; so I think it is time for us to be making a move. I will go along and tell every third man to fall back at once. I think, Mr.

Beveridge, it would be as well that you should go with them. I shall send Tarleton in command, and tell him to pick out a spot, from a hundred to three hundred yards from the sh.o.r.e, and place the men in position there. Five minutes later you shall pick out every second man, Horace, and go down and join them. We will keep up a more rapid fire now, so that they sha'n't have any idea we are falling back. Of course, when you join Tarleton, you will take up your position with him. I shall be down five minutes after you. When we are all there we can form a semicircle, with the ends resting on the sea, and there will be an end of this constant fear of being outflanked."

Five minutes later Tarleton, with a third of the men, went off at the double down the path. Those left behind renewed their fire, taking aim among the rocks and bushes, and this at once provoked a fresh outburst of firing on the part of the Turks. In a short time Martyn told Horace to get his men together and be off, and in twenty minutes he joined Tarleton, who had taken up his post at a little more than a hundred yards from the sh.o.r.e. The men were slashing down bushes with their cutla.s.ses, and piling them and stones so as to make a low breastwork.

The party Horace had brought at once joined in the work.

"It is a screen we want more than a defence," Tarleton said. "You see we are commanded everywhere from the hill, but these bushes will hide us, and they will only be able to fire into them at random; besides, we want them cut down in front of us to be able to use our guns."

They were soon joined by the rear-guard.

"The Turks must be some distance behind," Martyn said. "We could hear them blazing away when we were nearly half a mile on the road. That is a good work, Mr. Tarleton; we shall get it finished by the time they come."

So strong a party made quick work of it, and in another quarter of an hour the screen of bushes was completed down to the sh.o.r.e on either side, the sweep being some three hundred yards in length, and the breastwork in most places three feet high.

"It won't keep out bullets," Martyn said; "but from the distance they won't see how thin it is. At any rate it is a good screen."

The whole of the Greeks and twenty of the sailors were placed at intervals of about six feet apart behind the screen, and each man was told to dig up the soil with a knife or cutla.s.s in front of him, and with that and a few rocks to make a protection for himself against stray bullets. The other twenty sailors Martyn retained under his own command to carry to the a.s.sistance of the defenders at any point against which a serious attack might be made. Mr. Beveridge had gone down at once to the women and children who were sitting under shelter of the bank by the sea-sh.o.r.e, and cheered them by a.s.surances that the schooner would be sure to return some time during the night. It was not until a quarter of an hour after the screen had been completed that parties of Turks could be seen descending the side of the hill.

They did not seem to be hurrying.

"They think they have got us in a trap, Horace," Tarleton said, "and that they have only to wait a bit to starve us out. Perhaps it is just as well the schooner made off, for it would have been hot work all getting on board under their fire, whereas now we shall be able to slip off in the dark almost without their knowing it."

When the Turks approached to within a distance of three or four hundred yards of the breastwork, the party with the rifles opened fire upon them, and they at once fell back some little distance. For half an hour nothing was done, and then a party of fifty or sixty men were seen reascending the hill.

"They are going to make a siege of it," Martyn said. "They don't like the look of this breastwork."

"But what are they sending the men away for, Martyn?" Horace asked.

"Because it is just as necessary for them to eat and drink, Horace, as it is for us. We have got our water-bottles and biscuits, and the Greeks have all brought something with them; they were warned to do so before they started. But those gentlemen all came off in a hurry. I don't expect any of them had breakfast, and in the excitement not one in twenty is likely to have caught up as much as a gourd of water, so I have no doubt those men you see going up the hill are on their way to their villages for a supply of food and water, and perhaps to get some more ammunition if they can find any. I will warrant half those fellows in front of us have fired away their last shot. You will see they won't disturb us any more to-day."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAPTAIN IS WOUNDED]

A few shots only were fired from either side during the course of the day, this apparently being done on the part of the Turks from pure bravado, as they generally showed themselves conspicuously, brandished their long guns over their heads, and shouted defiantly before firing.

One of them, however, having been shot by a sailor armed with a rifle, the amus.e.m.e.nt ceased, and during the afternoon all was quiet. An anxious look-out was kept seaward all day. At five in the afternoon one of the sailors sang out, "Sail, ho!"

"Where away, Baldock?"

"About west-north-west I should say, sir, though I ain't sure of my bearings here."

Martyn went up to where the man was standing on a rock that projected eight or ten feet above the surrounding ground, a position which would have been dangerous had not the Turks been almost out of range.

"There, sir, do you see just under that streak of white cloud? it is a little black patch."