CHAPTER XVII

*

*Jassim Takes his Revenge*

At four o'clock in the morning Mr. Scarlett shook me and reported all quiet and the fire on shore dying down. I scrambled to my feet to take over the "morning" watch, feeling as fresh and wakeful as though I had not been to sleep for a fortnight!

The moonlight was very brilliant, so brilliant, indeed, that the telegraph buildings on the dark rocks and the New Fort on the white sand stood out quite as boldly as in the daytime; and all that could be seen of the remains of the fire was a glowing line of red-hot ashes extending along the beach, where the village had been.

The slope leading up to the loopholed wall was so flooded with light that I could distinguish even the barbed-wire fence and the shadows of the wires and uprights.

Of the Afghans themselves nothing whatever could be made out; but this did not imply that they had gone away, because most of them might be sleeping inside the fort and the others behind it, and at the base of the peninsula the fringe of date-palms threw such extremely dark, puzzling shadows that the camels might have been concealed among these, or even been driven farther along behind the sand-hills without our having noticed any movement.

At any rate, whatever had or had not happened, I was not going to leave anything to chance, or take any risks: so the rest of the hands were called and stood to their guns; cocoa was served out; and to make sure that Ellis and Hartley were on the alert I made a flashing signal to them. As it was answered I knew that they, too, were "standing by" their Maxim.

After this there was nothing to do but strain our eyes shorewards and wait for daylight. In the half-hour when the increasing light of dawn is absorbing the light of the moon and rendering the outlines of objects uncertain and ill defined, this waiting for an attack is always most scaring. It makes no difference how often one experiences this feeling of acute tension, it always seems to occupy one so completely that not a soul moves or speaks; even breathing is a difficult matter, and breaths come in deep jerks, only when they can be held no longer.

But if the strain is great when the moon is there to help, it is ten times as great when there is no moon and the first glimmer of daylight distorts everything so strangely and forms such strange weird shapes.

How grateful we were to the moon that morning!

Daylight did come at last. The fading shadows under the fringe of date-palm trees showed us hundreds of motionless lumps which gradually outlined themselves into camels; figures began moving about among them, and out from the door of the fort streamed many more to kneel on the sand, facing the glory of the rising sun, throw their arms above their heads, and bend at their devotions.

This might only be the preliminary to an attack; so still we remained at our guns, until the sight of many little spirals of blue smoke rising in the calm morning air, and the little groups of men seated round them--evidently cooking--made it absolutely certain that they did not intend any such thing--not that morning.

"That finishes the business," Mr. Scarlett said, drawing a deep breath, and letting it out again with a jerk.

We had been so certain--Mr. Scarlett and I--that they would have done the one thing or the other, and now they had done neither; they had simply stayed where they were, in complete possession of the base of the peninsula, and entirely cutting it off from any assistance from Old Jask.

Mr. Scarlett shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. He could not understand these tactics.

"It ain't like 'em, sir; it ain't like anything I've seen or heard of before, and I don't care about it," he said, as I dismissed the men from the guns to get their breakfasts and scrub decks.

Whilst they were doing this we were startled suddenly by the sound of rifle firing, a long way off, in the direction of Old Jask, and drawing rapidly nearer. Without waiting for the order, the crew tumbled up from below to their guns, but no one could see anything happening. At first we made sure that another band of Afghans were attacking the old town; but this could not be so, because the people round the New Fort seemed even more startled than we had been. They sprang to their feet, seized their rifles, and whilst some began to "round up" the camels, driving them close to the wall, others poured into the fort itself.

Whilst we were wondering what all this meant, the battlements of the fort became alive with dark turbans; puffs of smoke darted out from them, and the reports of their rifles came across to us. At what they were firing we could neither see nor guess.

At last, after firing had been going on continuously for four or five minutes, Mr. Scarlett saw a cloud of dust, and, looking in the direction of his finger, I made out a number of mounted men--some on horses, others on camels--advancing over the plain from Old Jask. Spurts of light, showing in the cloud of sand dust over their heads, told us that it was from them we had heard the first firing.

"It's the old Mir's border police coming to recapture the fort," Mr. Scarlett sang out. "Now you'll see some pretty fighting. Just remember, sir, that they are mostly Bedouins from the other coast, and they and the Afghans hate each other like poison. Now watch what's going to happen."

I did; we all did.

The line of men came charging up to the base of the peninsula, sweeping away to the right and wheeling round the bend of the swamp lying there, until they were not more than two thousand yards from the fort. Firing from both parties was continuous. Then for a moment I lost sight of them behind some sand-hills, and expected, when next they appeared, to find that they had dismounted, left their horses and camels in rear of those sand-hills, and were attacking properly--with short rushes or something of that sort--although I was puzzled to think what they could effect against the thick walls of the fort.

Instead of this they reappeared in sight--in somewhat looser formation certainly, but still mounted--and galloped madly along the intervening sand, firing rapidly, whilst the fusillade from the parapet and towers of the fort swelled furiously, and the people who had driven the camels under cover of the walls lay down to fire as well.

The attacking party came to five hundred yards--to three hundred; none of them seemed to have been hit. Still they galloped, the men on camels bringing up the rear left far behind. Then the horsemen suddenly divided into two parties, and, yelling and firing their rifles, they circled completely round the fort, enveloping it, meeting in the rear of it, and dashing round again. A continuous splutter of musketry burst out from the walls above their heads, without, as far as we could see, doing the faintest damage. In fact, the firing was so wild that a good many bullets began falling round us, and one banged against the funnel close to where I was standing.

The circling rings of horsemen grew larger as they curveted and pranced in the clouds of dust kicked up by their own horses' hoofs, until they all swooped off like a flock of birds and gathered in a knot about half a mile from the fort; whereupon the firing died down almost completely. Every now and then a horseman darted out from among them, dashed towards the fort, gave a display of horsemanship, fired his rifle, performed some circus tricks, and then dashed back again.

I was so interested and amused that I forgot that the fort was well within range of our six-pounder.

"Let's help them," I shouted, ordering Moore to "plug" a shell at the fort.

Mr. Scarlett only laughed. "You'll see what happens."

Our first shell burst short, burying itself in the sand; the second blew a hole in the soft bricks of the fort; and before we could fire a third the whole covey of those border police had whirled round and galloped rapidly away, quickly disappearing in another cloud of dust on their way back to Old Jask, still firing their rifles furiously.

I don't believe that a single man of them had been hit.

"Shall we cease fire, sir?" Mr. Scarlett asked. "We haven't enough ammunition to waste any more on the fort."

"Right oh!" I nodded.

The horsemen of the party had galloped off, but the few men on camels who had been left in the rear had evidently "rounded up" some of the Afghans' camels, for they now reappeared beyond the sandhills trying to drive a dozen--perhaps more--in front of them.

Immediately there was a stir among the Afghans outside the wall; more poured out through the door of the fort, and in a twinkling they were after them on foot, wading across the swamp so as to head off the party with the camels. Firing burst out more furiously than ever, and it was not many seconds before the captured camels were abandoned and the other fellows followed the horsemen.

"Well, sir, that little 'show' was what they call a battle--a regular 'pitched' battle," Mr. Scarlett said. "How they decide who's won beats me. It's an accident if anyone gets killed or even wounded, but those Bedouins will go back and pour out a long yarn to the old Mir; every one of them will have to give an account of the fierceness of the fight, and probably they'll all desert during the day and go looting on their own account--looting peaceful villages, which is much more in their line. We may as well let our chaps, and the Afghans too, go on with their breakfasts."

In ten minutes the whole of the tribesmen were squatting round their fires again as though nothing had happened.

Now that we knew they had not retired--had no intention of doing so--Mr. Scarlett was as anxious as I was that those huts should be burnt, the breastwork levelled, and the trench filled in; so I went ashore to try to persuade Mr. Fisher to make a start on these jobs.

I found him much more surprised at the non-retirement of the Afghans than we had been, and very much more disappointed. In fact, he looked about as worried as any man could look. He took me up to the house so that I could personally assure his wife that the _Bunder Abbas_ would not leave them. She was in a terrible state of alarm, almost beside herself; her eyes were terrified, and she clutched my arm so tightly whilst she was imploring me to stay that her finger nails left deep marks.

"Why don't you send for the _Intrepid_? We shall all be killed," she said in the most agitated manner; and it was quite useless to tell her that the _Intrepid_ had gone up the coast and that we could not communicate with her. When she did let go of my arm her hands worked convulsively at her sides, and I no longer wondered why her husband looked so worn.

Miss Borsen was not there, of course, and I had not the courage to ask after her. In fact, I was very glad to tear myself away and go up to the Maxim on the roof, to see for myself whether it could sweep the whole slope.

Mr. Scarlett had told me correctly. The Maxim had a grand position, and no one could approach without coming under its fire except towards the right, where it was possible to creep up unseen behind those huts.

Ellis and Hartley had filled old flour-sacks with sand and placed them along the parapet, on each side of the gun. They were busy bringing up more, and were quite happy. "If only those huts were out of the way, sir, nothing could get near us," Ellis said; and though I again implored Mr. Fisher to burn them he still refused. He took me to see the two wounded Eurasians--one shot through the arm and the other badly slashed about the head. They were bandaged in very "shipshape" fashion, and looked comfortable enough.

"Who did that?" I asked, pointing to their dressings; and when he told me that Miss Borsen had looked after them, as she knew something of "first aid", I envied them for a moment.

He had now only fifteen of the telegraph staff remaining, and, as he said, none of them knew anything about fighting. He was doubtful about trusting rifles to the servants and telegraph employees, because these were of all nationalities--Zanzibaris, Baluchis, Tamils, and various half-castes; but he had collected the rifles strewn over the slope yesterday when those fellows had been shot down--nearly a hundred of them there were, of all patterns. Very little ammunition had been found on the dead bodies, and that, too, was all mixed up--Mauser, Mannlicher, Le Bras, Lee-Metford, Martini--all in a hopeless jumble. He promised to have them sorted.

Then I was taken all round the outside of the loopholed wall, and discovered--what I had not thought of before--that it was possible for an enemy to crawl along the rocks on the eastern side--the right side looking inland--without being seen, to clamber up them, and attack that flanking wall without exposing themselves. However, the man who designed the wall must have realized this and had built it nearly fifteen feet high, so that unless they brought ladders with them it would be difficult to scale. The cable-house--a little square building into which the cable from Muscat wriggled out of the sea--stood isolated on the rocks, and could be attacked at night with impunity.

Walking round the rear wall I satisfied myself that no attack could be made from that quarter, because the rocks at the end of the peninsula could only be reached in boats, and as the sea was always rough there at this time of year a landing was out of the question. The western side--the one looking over the bay where the _Bunder Abbas_ was anchored--was fairly safe, though here again a daring enemy might creep round by the beach (where I had just landed) and attack from short range. However, so long as the _Bunder Abbas_ remained (or had ammunition), and the nights were moonlit, this possibility did not worry me.

Mr. Fisher kept on complaining of the few men he had left--fifteen all told--which was a ridiculous number to protect all three of the vulnerable sides; but I implored him to arm the servants and any of the labourers he could trust, and gradually convinced him that this was safe.

As we came back to the front side I saw that thirty or forty men were already shovelling the breastwork back into the trench. This pleased me.

Then he took me through the door--covered with bullet marks and the dents of rifle butts--as I wanted to see where best to make a defence should the wall itself be captured. I went all round the buildings, and came to the conclusion that his own house would be the most suitable. It was strongly built; it had a raised veranda running round it, and was almost overlooking the left-hand corner of the loopholed wall--the corner nearest to the _Bunder Abbas_. This was the house on the roof of which the Maxim was already mounted, and from the parapet there it would be easy to pick off any Afghans who had gained a lodgment on the wall itself. Another point in its favour was that the well was close to it--in the rear.

I urged him to get sand-bags and pile them up round the veranda and in the open door-ways or windows. I also urged upon him the necessity of bringing in food from the telegraph stores and also all the reserve ammunition. All my arguments could not convince him that this was necessary, and he pointed out that, whatever happened, he could not abandon the telegraph instruments in the other building.

"We must keep them working at all costs," he said stubbornly.

He had not said this many seconds before up came a messenger, followed by an excited Eurasian "operator", to tell him that the overland wire to Karachi had been cut again some fifteen miles out.

"That solves part of the difficulty," I said, smiling. "You cannot pass on cable messages, so won't want so many of the staff at work."

He too seemed relieved, and told me that half his fellows had been lining the wall all last night and the other half working the instruments. "They can't keep awake twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four. Now they'll be able to get a little sleep.

"Oh, I forgot," he went on; "a dhow which came in last evening brought some passengers for Old Jask. They stayed here during the night, and are waiting to see me at my office, though how they think I can get them through I don't know. By the way, they brought a letter for your gunner. I've been carrying it about in my pocket. Here it is," and he handed me an envelope addressed in Arabic. "You might give it him."

I caught sight of Miss Borsen coming towards us and evidently wishing to speak to Mr. Fisher; so, as I did not want to worry her with my presence, and had done all I wanted to do, I took the letter and went down the slope to the dinghy and so back to the _Bunder Abbas_.

"Here's a letter for you," I told the gunner. "It's not Jassim's writing this time."

He grinned as he read it.

"It's from the governor of the Muscat fort. He says that Jassim's got out. I didn't imagine he'd keep him there long after my back was turned."

"Well, he won't bother us here," I said, much more amused to think how Mr. Scarlett's dread of him had disappeared than alarmed at any possible danger to myself.

For the rest of the morning and afternoon we kept a good look-out, in case the Afghans made any move; though, except for a few small foraging

## parties, they simply slumbered or smoked at the foot of the walls,

shifting round with the shade as the sun travelled westwards.

It was a great temptation to stir them up with a few shells; though, if we had done so, we should only at the best have driven them out of range and out of sight, and once out of sight we should not have been able to observe their movements. There was another reason--a much more pressing one: we had none too much six-pounder ammunition.

An hour before sunset Mr. Fisher made a signal that he wanted to see me again, and he came down to the beach to meet me. The Afghans had sent a messenger in to say that they would attack at dawn next morning with twice as many men as they had had yesterday, and he wanted my advice.

"Of course it's only bluff," he said nervously; "but I want you to persuade my wife and Miss Borsen to go aboard the _Bunder Abbas_."

On the way up to the door in the loophooled wall he took me along the trench to see how well his people had been working. They had filled in about a hundred yards of it, and were still busy. Those wretched huts, however, still stood there, right in the line of fire.

"Why the dickens don't you burn them?" I said, really angry, and he was muttering a half-apology when some noise behind me and a warning shout made me turn round.

Not ten yards from me stood Jassim. I knew him at once--how could I forget him?--his face flaming with hatred, the veins of his neck standing out; and in his hand he held a Mauser pistol levelled at me.

He fired, and instinctively I ducked, seized a spade which was lying at my feet, and dashed at him. Mr. Fisher drew a revolver from his pocket and I heard him fire. Then I felt something hit my chest on the right side. It tumbled me over like a rabbit; but I was up again on one knee in time to see Mr. Fisher fire a second shot and Jassim stagger back. He still had those awful eyes fixed on me, glaring death, and as he raised his pistol again I rolled into the trench to escape being hit a second time.

Something filled my throat, and I spat up a lot of bright blood, and felt dazed and foolish. I was trying to get to my feet again when Mr. Fisher came to me with a face as white as a sheet, jumped into the trench, and made me lie back.

"There!" I said, spitting up more blood; "he got me there," and I put my finger where the bullet had hit me.

I felt no pain whatsoever--only a peculiar half-drunk feeling--and tried to sit up again; but this only brought on more coughing, and Mr. Fisher pressed me down.

Then I knew that I should be no more use--only a burden to everyone.

I looked up at him apologetically.

"Get me aboard the '_B.A._'; I shall be all right soon:" but the effort of speaking forced more blood into my mouth, and I had to stop.

With a frightened expression on his face he bade me stop talking and lie still.

"I'll have you carried down," he said; "wait till we can get a stretcher."

By this time there was a whole crowd of people round me, though I seemed hardly to notice them; someone put my topee over my eyes, to shield them from the slanting sun.

Presently, as if in a dream, I heard Mr. Fisher's voice.

"He's shot through the lung--the right side, thank God!" and someone touched my wrist very gently; and although I could not see her, on account of the topee over my face, I knew it was Miss Borsen's hand. My mouth filled with blood again, and everything became quite dark and peaceful.

I opened my eyes, feeling most horribly weak, and not knowing what had happened or where I was.

Opposite me were two parallel streaks of white light, and these seemed to hypnotize me. I could not move my eyes from them for a long time; but gradually my brain pulled itself together, and my sense of surroundings came back. I was in a square room with shutter-closed windows all round it. Deep shadows on the whitewashed walls seemed to come from a lamp behind me, and I was lying on a little trestle-bed. Presently I realized that those two streaks of light were made by the moonlight forcing its way in through cracks in one of the shutters, and just below them I saw something white resting on a chest of drawers, and recognized my own topee.

I noticed that I could hardly breathe; something seemed to be squeezing my chest, and I put up one hand--very shakily--to find out what it was. As I did this there was a rustle behind my shoulder, and a very small white hand took hold of mine and put it back where it had lain, and Miss Borsen's voice, sounding ever so far away, told me to lie absolutely still and not attempt to speak.

I felt so extraordinarily weak--just as if I had lost all control of myself--that I obeyed without the slightest effort to resist. I did try to turn my head, but it seemed to be wedged on each side with pillows, and a finger she placed on my forehead stopped me immediately.

I lay quite still, staring at the ceiling and the round patch of light thrown on it by the lamp, until all that had happened came back to me. I looked at my topee to make sure, and the hard luck of being knocked over just when there was so much to be done made me so miserable that I could not help groaning.

"You must not make the least noise or speak; you must not move your hands or feet; it's your only chance," Miss Borsen said, speaking from the head of the bed: and her voice had such a soothing, hypnotizing effect that I closed my eyes and seemed to float away into space almost immediately.

When I woke again Mr. Fisher was sitting by my bedside. He turned quickly when my eyes opened, and he too said the same thing: "Lie absolutely still, and don't speak."

He saw by my face that I wanted to ask him something, and guessed what it was.

"Jassim is dead," he said. "I shot him."

"Poor devil!" I thought, and was sorry.

He then went on to tell me that Mr. Scarlett had been informed of all that had happened, and had come ashore to see me whilst I was asleep, and make all arrangements for the night in case the Afghans attacked.

"We are all ready. Your two men (the signal-man and the man you sent with the Maxim) and I are taking it in turn to keep watch down by the fence all through the night. The signal-man is there now, and half my fellows and twenty of the coolies are lining the wall, so they can't take us by surprise. The greater part of the trench is filled in, and there is nothing more to be done until daylight. I've wired to Muscat to tell the political agent about everything, and of you being wounded, and have asked him to inform the _Intrepid_, but she is not back yet.

"It's nearly midnight now, and my turn for the wire fence. Keep absolutely still, and try to go to sleep until I come back."

He rose--his shadow was thrown on the wall as he bent over to lower the lamp--and I heard him go out.

But sleep was now impossible; my chest was so tightly bandaged that I could hardly breathe, and though I counted all the cracks in the shutter through which the moonlight was showing, counted them time after time until it was almost maddening, sleep would not come.

It seemed ages before I heard a very soft footstep creeping towards me, and the lamp threw the shadow of a woman on the wall, and for a moment the silhouette of Miss Borsen's face.

For a second I had a great longing to ask her if she would forgive me, but I still seemed to be under the spell of her orders not to speak or move, and, fearful of seeing her, I closed my eyes.

She felt my pulse, lowered the lamp the slightest degree more, and I heard her go out as noiselessly as she had entered.

After that the night dragged on somehow. I seemed to be rather delirious, and fancied all sorts of strange things. At one time the shadows on the wall took on the shape of old Popple Opstein, and I thought we were sitting yarning on the little deck outside the cabin; and at another they turned to Jassim, and I thought he was "coming" for me again. Then I thought I was once more trying to carry Miss Borsen down to the dinghy, but my feet would not move, and Jassim was after us. It was horrid.

With the first streaks of daylight I came to my senses again, and waited and waited to hear the sound of firing and the yells of the Afghans charging up to the loopholed wall. I strained my ears to catch the noise of the six-pounder, but all was still. Gradually the light grew stronger, people began moving about in the house, and presently, when it was quite daylight--even though the shutters were closed--Mr. Fisher came in with a joyous expression on his face.

"They've thought better of it," he said. "They're still down there, but aren't making a move.

"Don't talk," he added as he saw I wanted to ask him something, and he brought me a block of notepaper and a pencil. He held the note-paper whilst I wrote in a very shaky way: "Thirsty", for I was most terribly dry.

He gave me some beef-tea of "sorts", holding the cup to my lips. My aunt, but it was good! I could have drunk a bucketful.

I pleaded with my eyes for more, but he shook his head. "Acting under orders--Miss Borsen's orders; can't," he said, and, thinking to relieve my mind, told me that his men were already at work on the trench.

He could only spare me a very few moments, but came in every now and then throughout the day.

Ellis and Hartley occasionally put their heads inside the door to tell me that everything was quiet, and Mr. Scarlett paid me a visit during the afternoon. He was fearfully apologetic about my wound, and seemed to think it was his fault entirely. In case I wanted them he had brought me a clean uniform and my dispatch-box with all my letters.

"I've been down the slope, sir, to have a look for that chap, Jassim," he said, "but I'm hanged if I can find him."

I was too weak to worry about this.

Mrs. Fisher visited me once and tried to read to me, but the effort was too great for her nerves, so she did not stay very long. Miss Borsen never came near me, and it was the old butler or head boy who was my most constant visitor, bringing me beef-tea and jelly, feeding me, and trying to make me comfortable.

About sunset Hartley came in to tell me that several large bands of Afghans could be seen winding their way down from the mountains in our direction, and when Mr. Fisher came later to confirm this, I wrote on the note-paper block: "Send women to _B.A._," because I fully expected that the great attack must come next morning.

With very great difficulty he at length persuaded his wife to go aboard the _Bunder Abbas_, but nothing would induce Miss Borsen to accompany her.

"She's got the idea into her head that she's responsible for the two Eurasians and yourself, and is not going to leave any of you till you're on your legs again," Mr. Fisher told me hopelessly.

That night was even more unpleasant than the first, but it did at length pass, and as the daylight crept through the shutters no attack was made--not a rifle was fired. It was very strange, and I could not understand it.

Perhaps an hour later Mr. Fisher came in, looking ghastly.

"We are isolated!" he cried. "They've crept round by the rocks during the night to the cable-house, cut the cable, and must have had a boat helping them, for we cannot find the sea end. I dare not send people out to look for it; they'd never pick it up."

I wrote: "Try. _B.A._ will help," and wrote a signal to Mr. Scarlett to get up steam and go round to the east bay.

Mr. Fisher promised to try, but did not see how they could succeed, as they had no proper grappling gear.

The cutting of the cable seemed to determine him to follow my advice about preparing his house for any emergency. All day I heard people lumbering in and out, and the old butler, looking scared, told me that they were putting sand-bags round the veranda and filling the upper rooms with stores, the most portable of the telegraph apparatus, and ammunition. They even carried sand-bags through my room and piled them up on the balcony outside.

Ellis and Hartley supervised these preparations and kept me informed of what the _Bunder Abbas_ was doing; and when, later on, I heard a good deal of rifle firing and one or two rounds from her six-pounder, they told me that the Afghans were sniping at the boat whilst it was trying to grapple the end of the cable.

I could not help wondering whether this was very soothing to Mrs. Fisher's nerves, and I pictured her in the cabin with that six-pounder going off just below her, and wishing that she had remained on shore. At sunset they reported that the boat had returned, unsuccessful, and that the _Bunder Abbas_ had steamed round to her former anchorage.

I now had not spoken for forty-eight hours, and had lain like a log all the time. I felt distinctly stronger, and no blood had come into my throat and mouth since the early morning.

I slept fairly well that third night, and was awakened from a nightmare by real shrieking and yelling, by the firing of hundreds of rifles beneath the windows, and the tut-tut-tut-tut of the Maxim on the roof above me. A moment later came the comforting sound of the six-pounder and the noise of the other Maxim aboard the "_B.A._".

Not a soul could I hear stirring in the house, and the feeling of being left quite alone, without knowing what was happening and how things were going, was almost insupportable. A bullet, splintering a shutter, flattened itself against the wall over my bed and dropped with a thud on the floor, a shower of plaster following it, and some dropping on my face. Outside the wall of the room there was a sound as if men were hammering on the stonework, and I gradually realized that these were bullets, not hammers.

The horrid noises seemed to be drawing closer, and I thought that they were growing louder away to the right, where those huts stood.

*