Young Tom Bowling Part 33

Draper, who had saved her and us, was the last man to leave her, when the falls were secured and the gripes put round the boat again.

After this exciting episode, nothing very notable occurred during our stay on this part of the coast for the next twelve months, beyond my being made 'able seaman.'

I pa.s.sed for this grade very satisfactorily, I am glad to say; but, it would not be fair for me to omit mentioning that it was mainly through my old friend Larrikins that I was able to get off with flying colours.

My old chum coached me up in the knotting and splicing of wire rope, of which art he was a proficient, his father being a working smith, and Larrikins himself having been intended originally for that trade, before the superior attractions of the sea weaned him from the paternal handicraft.

In the following year, however, matters became a trifle livelier on the East coast.

The Somali, from the constant blockade we kept up along their territory with our boats and cruisers, from Cape Guardafui down to the Equator, thus putting a stop to their slave-dealings, capturing as we did all their dhows and blocking all outlets from the coast, determined on retaliatory measures; so, mustering all their forces and calling up the a.s.sistance of the slave-dealers of the interior, they began to attack various points of the British protectorate.

Possibly, had the Arabs only us to deal with, things might not have got to this pa.s.s; but, very unluckily for this country, the Germans, who have long been jealous of our colonial enterprise and commercial success in Africa as elsewhere, took it into their heads, not long since, to extend their trade on the eastern seaboard.

The ideas of Meinherr Von Sourkrout and his warlike Kaiser in respect of the colonisation of this part of the Dark Continent, like those of our French cousins on the West Coast, differ much from the more peaceful plan pursued by England for several generations past--a plan that has worked wonderfully well in the building up of our Empire, and the spread of our manufactures over every land and sea!

Meinherr Sourkrout's method for extending trade, that is, according to the experience of us bluejackets of the British Navy who have served on the East African station, has been to shoot down the natives wherever the flag of his Fatherland has ever been stuck up; and, when the men of the negro tribes, objecting to such friendly advances, have bolted into the bush, Meinherr, imitating the example of his great countryman Marshal Haynau, took to flogging their wives and womenfolk in order to coax the black gentlemen back.

The darkeys, somehow or other, didn't tackle to this treatment; and, the Germans having thus roused them up to the south of our protectorate, where, unfortunately for us, Meinherr Von Sourkrout and his domineering compatriots have a territory far too close to our own, the natives, being of the opinion that we were in sympathy with their oppressors, joined hands with the Somalis in their advance on our trading posts along the coast--they did not touch those belonging to the Germans, for the very good reason that these have none!

I heard Mr Gresham explaining all this one day to Dabby when they were both sitting in the captain's gig, to which I had been shifted since my promotion to able seaman; for I was pulling stroke at the time, the boat taking them ash.o.r.e to a grand dinner-party given by the British Consul to the Sultan or some other 'big pot' at Zanzibar, off which port the _Mermaid_ was then lying.

I wondered what led to this queer talk, as none of us on board had heard anything on the lower deck about any row being imminent; for, of course, sick of our stagnant life for the last few months, as all of us were, the inkling of any fight being in the air would have been as welcome to us as the 'flowers of May.'

Still I kept my ears open all the same; and when, the next morning, I met the captain's steward returning from the galley with a cup of early cocoa for 'old Hankey Pankey,' and he told me that he thought we were going to be busy soon, the 'old man' having directed him to take out his sword and pistols, and give them to his marine servant to be cleaned up, I began, as 'Gyp' did that time on board the _Saint Vincent_, 'to smell a rat.'

A little later on, my impressions became confirmed; for, just as we were piped down to breakfast after 'wash and scrub decks,' and I was telling Larrikins, who sat alongside me at the mess-table, what I had heard, the engine-room gong sounded, and the word was pa.s.sed to get up steam as quickly as possible.

'Old Hankey Pankey' did not waste time when he had once got his orders; and some couple of hours after we had weighed anchor and were rapidly leaving Zanzibar, with its rows of square stone houses, built with flat roofs in the eastern style, that front the beautiful curving bay, whose white sandy beach is washed by water so clear that you can see the bottom at six fathoms, and which is backed, beyond the warehouses and mansions of the merchants, by the bright greenery of palm trees and dates and other rich tropical growths, the beautiful foliage of which contrasts vividly with the intense whiteness of the buildings and adjacent sh.o.r.e, offering quite a relief to the eye from the glaring sun and coppery sky overhead.

"Say, Tom," said Larrikins to me presently, as the two of us, with a lot of the other hands, were polishing up the bra.s.swork of the machine-guns on the upper deck, "d'yer know where we're bound in such a hurry?"

"No, Larry," I replied. "Somewhere up the coast, though, I 'spect from what I told you down below."

Larrikins chuckled to himself.

"Ye'r a fine chap, Tom, to give a fellow h'infumation," he said with a sn.i.g.g.e.r. "I could 'a told you as much meself. Why, carn't I see with 'arf a h'eye we're steerin' to the north'ard up the coast, with the munsoon a-blowin' right in our teeth and the sun on our starb'rd 'and!"

I laughed, too, at the sharp wag's rejoinder.

"Well, Larry," I said at last, after polishing up the ratchet of the Nordenfeldt I was working at to my personal satisfaction, hoping to have the aiming of it bye-and-bye, "I can't tell you any more than that we are bound up the coast, and are likely to have a brush with the Arabs along there somewhere; but where that somewhere is, my joker, I'm hanged if I know!"

"I can tell you, mate," put in a man who was rubbing up the gun at the end of the bridge hard by where we were standing. "We're off for Momba.s.sa again. I heard 'old Square toes,' the navigator, tell Mr Chisholm just now. He said we were agoin' to meet the _Merlin_ there, and purseed further up the coast together."

"Oh!" said Larry, "that means business, Tom."

"Ay," said I, "it does, my hearty, and to tell the truth, Larry, I'm jolly glad of it."

So were all hands on board, when the news spread through the ship; and, on our reaching Momba.s.sa late in the afternoon of the same day, steaming fifteen knots all the way, pretty nearly our full speed when the stokehold was not 'closed up,' we found the _Merlin_ there before us, as the man on deck had told Larry and me in the morning.

This made a.s.surance a certainty, every man-jack of the crew being c.o.c.k- a-hoop with excitement, when, after a lot of signalling between the two cruisers, and the _Merlin's_ gig bringing her captain alongside, he being junior to 'old Hankey Pankey,' the two of us sailed off in company just before sunset.

Our destination was Malindi, at the mouth of the Sabaki river, where it was reported the Somalis had made an inroad into the British protectorate, and burnt one of the out stations of the East African Company, slaughtering all the whites and natives employed by the traders.

This place was only some sixty miles to the northward of Momba.s.sa; and all the arrangements for our landing having been completed, and 'old Hankey Pankey' settled his plan of operations with Captain Oliver of the _Merlin_, we did not hurry on the pa.s.sage to Malindi, timing ourselves to arrive about daybreak, casting anchor in front of the town, as near in as we could get without shoaling our water, at Six Bells in the morning watch to the minute.

During our run up the coast from Momba.s.sa, the first lieutenant and Mr Dabchick saw to our boats being got ready, and the bluejackets and marines, who were detailed for service with the expedition, mustered on deck in all their 'war paint,' and told off to the respective craft in which they were to go ash.o.r.e; and by Eight Bells, after a hurried breakfast, which none of us much cared to eat, we were all so full of enthusiasm at the prospect of action, we shoved off from the _Mermaid_-- all in dead silence, though, so that no inkling of our coming might reach the ears of the Arabs before we were upon them.

The boats of the _Merlin_ left their ship at the same time as we did ours; the two lots making for the land in two columns abreast, 'old Hankey Pankey' leading our line in the launch, with the first and second cutters and the whaler trailing on behind, while Captain Oliver led those of the _Merlin_.

On reaching the sh.o.r.e, the sea being fortunately very quiet, though the north-east monsoon was now blowing, we waded up the sandy beach without any difficulty; and, leaving our flotilla under charge of the boat- keepers, a couple of hands in each craft to look after them so as to prevent their grounding in the event of the wind getting up, when the surf might be dangerous, we united our forces and marched in a body inland.

Avoiding the town of Malindi, our object being to surprise a stockade, where the Somalis were reported to have established themselves, some five miles off in the bush, in the rear of the outposts of the settlers, we shaped a course south by west under the guidance of one of the natives, who had been sent to us by one of the princ.i.p.al merchants of the place on hearing of our landing, so as to make our way easy for us, steering by compa.s.s in the jungle ash.o.r.e being very different to what it is on the open sea.

The rascal, who was evidently a Somali spy sent by his astute comrades to watch our movements, made our way very easy indeed; for he took us directly in front of the stockade we had intended surprising, instead of showing us a by-path leading to the rear of the fortification, from which we could have outflanked the defence.

'Old Hankey Pankey,' who led our fighting force of bluejackets and marines, which mustered in officers and men altogether some two hundred strong, was flabbergasted as he gaily marched in front of the column on our being received by a hail of bullets and buckshot, which decimated our ranks as we suddenly debouched from a rough, tangled undergrowth of scrub and dwarf plantain trees.

Amidst these we could hardly see an inch before us; and then, we found ourselves in front of a high palisade, made of the trunks of heavy trees lashed together with lianas and rattan creepers that were as strong as wire rope. This was loopholed for musketry, and from thence a murderous fire of innumerable weapons was directed at our devoted heads.

Plucky as a lion, however, the captain rallied us; and, dividing the column into three portions, taking command of the middle division himself, while Captain Oliver of the _Merlin_, and Lieutenant Dabchick of our ship, headed the two others, we advanced with a cheer to storm the stockade, 'old Hankey Pankey' aiming for its front face, and the other sections of our force for the flanks of the fortification.

Talk of fighting, it was a case of 'pull baker, pull devil!' then!

We numbered two hundred, as I have said, but the Somalis must have mustered two thousand at least, if they had a man there.

Twice we advanced to the attack, twice we were forced to fall back before the withering flight of bullets that met us face to face from every hole and corner of that infernal stockade; though Captain Hankey bravely walked right up to the timber work till he almost touched it, a revolver in either hand, which he fired alternately at the beggars!

But, the captain got a big matchlock ball through both his legs, the missile having been discharged at him as he turned sideways, with a "Follow me, lads!" to cheer us on.

He was not licked yet, though; for, as Larrikins stooped over him to lift him up, 'old Hankey Pankey' got his arm round his neck and climbed up on to him pick-a-back, Larry highly delighted at the job, he and the captain then advancing again to the a.s.sault.

In the meantime, Mr Dabchick had brought up one of our little nine- pounder boat-guns which had stuck in the rear and blew in part of the palisading on the left of the stockade, when he and a lot of us made a desperate charge to storm the entrenchment.

Poor little Dabby, though, was shot dead while entering the breach the sh.e.l.l of our nine-pounder had made in the outer palisade that protected the Arab defences; and then, finding a second fence composed of similar baulks of timber in front of us, as strong as that we had surmounted, and that the fire of the Somalis increased the nearer we got to them, our chaps, staggered by the fall of poor Dabby, I must confess it, all at once began to cut and run!

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

BABOON VALLEY.

"Stand by!" roared 'old Hankey Pankey' from his perch on the top of Larry's shoulders, noticing our hasty retreat from the left of the stockade, our fellows indeed rushing back in their scurrying flight into the midst of the centre column and mixing it up into irretrievable confusion. "Steady there! Face round, my men, stand firm!"

Just at that moment, though, when starting forwards again, with the captain still pick-a-back on his shoulders, Larrikins stumbled over a dead Arab that lay in front of him, and down came he with 'old Hankey Pankey' all in a heap together, with a couple of Somalis, at whom they were going full b.u.t.t.

This second catastrophe broke up our ranks, some of the chaps--only a few, though, I am proud to say--bolting into the bush; but Mr Chisholm, who was leading the rear division, waved his sword in the air, and cried out for volunteers to rescue our captain.

At once, the whole lot of us that were left followed him up to the front, where Larrikins and 'old Hankey Pankey'--the latter of whom of course could not rise of his own accord, by reason of the injury to his legs--were fighting as only Englishmen can fight amidst a perfect horde of Arabs, who had poured out from the stockade on seeing us retreat.