The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (32 page)

“Now,” I said, “lead off smart for the Winston before those Dutchmen get over on this side of the cove.”

I turned to Geels, who stood, still gesticulating, in the entrance.

“Get that bridge up, right away!” I shouted. “If you need help, ask Alice. Tell her I said she would give a hand. I’m trusting you, Geels, to do nothing to-day that would displeasure me or my father. God be with you!” I said, and began to run after the others, who were already gone forward a hundred yards or more.

VI.

We came up on to the downs among the Winston rocks at the back of the Winston in about half an hour, and in that time we saw not a single Dutchman; only, across the cove, from the direction of Sir Beant’s place, we could hear far-off cries and shouts coming through the still air.

In the shallow gully, where lay the landward entrance to the cave, we found everything undisturbed and the cave in order, with the two long, grim guns staring down silent out of the shadows of the cave into the cove.

I had the lads unload the stuff smartly, and dump it just within the cave; for I wished to have the guns above safely spiked and the round-shot in our possession. As soon as the trolly was empty we set off up over the landward shoulder of the Head until we came to where the gun platform lay, with the three guns on it and the mounds of shot stacked up snugly in piles on each side of the guns, the whole very nicely surrounded by sturdy oak palings, which my father had put up to keep the children from playing on the guns or rolling the shot down the hill.

“Now,” I said, as I unlocked the door in the palings with my father’s key, “smartly all of us, and get this shot into the trolly. I’m glad we brought the two mares, for it will weigh a deal. There’s some powder, too, in the locker here with the rammers that we’ll take down with us.”

“Can’t we fire the guns once, Jerry?” asked my brother. “Father would like to think they were used once against the frigates.”

I thought a moment, and made up my mind.

“Quick, then!” I said. “We’ll fire a shot each. Larg, give Jack and me a hand here with the guns. Go on loading the trolly, you others.”

In ten minutes the trolly and the guns were loaded.

“Start down with the trolly,” I said to the others. “Get the shot into the cave as quickly as you can. Then drive the trolly out on to the downs, and unharness the mares and let them run. Here, Larg, and you, Jack, give me a hand to get the three guns all bearing on the outside frigate. They won’t depress enough to touch the inside ship.”

As we finished training the guns my brother called out suddenly:

“Look! They’ve fired the Hall! The brutes! And see, down there, below the oak-woods, there’s about a hundred of them on the way to our place! Fire the guns, Jerry! Do something to stop them!”

As he spoke there came the far-away bang of a musket from the lower Head across the cove.

“They’ve sure a man there keepin’ a watch as sees us, Master Jerrold,” said Larg. “Fire off the guns, do ’ee, an’ let’s away down to the cave an’ start with the big guns.”

“Here!” I said, as a sudden idea came to me. “Slue this gun round. I’m going to send a shot among that lot going up to our place.”

“You’ll never hit—not a one of ’em,” said Larg.

But both he and my brother worked eagerly with me to get the gun round. I knocked out the wedge, and elevated the gun to about twenty-five degrees, for the shot was a long one for a small piece.

“Now, watch!” I said, and set the tow, which Larg had lit, to the touch-hole.

The powder flashed up into my hair, singeing it, and there was a great belch of fire from the muzzle and a stunning report. The three of us ran to the side to watch the effect of the shot. And truly, so great was the distance, we seemed to wait half a dozen seconds before a sudden burst of white splinters from a young oak-tree on the near side of the road showed where the ball had struck.

The tree was about opposite to the middle part of the long line of men marching along the road, and Larg cried out that two of them were down, struck with the splinters; but neither Jack nor I could be sure of this, only that there was certainly some confusion in the ranks, near where the shot had struck the tree.

“Look at ’em in the frigate!” said Larg.

I turned and stared down at the two powerful war vessels, and saw that a file of men were drawn up across the quarter-deck of the nearer one, with an officer, who was pointing up at us. Immediately afterwards there came a dozen little flashes and puffs of smoke, and an irregular volley of bullets went all round us, sounding like the drone of a swarm of hornets. A most uncomfortable sound! One bullet struck the muzzle of the middle gun, and flew off, with a strange pinging sound, but not one of us was hit.

“Quick, Larg!” I shouted. “Spike the fired one!”

And I jumped to the breeches of the two loaded guns, and clapped the burning tow to the touch-hole of each, one after the other. There were two large, bright bursts of flame, and two heavy bangs, and, under the smoke, as I stared down at the decks of the far frigate, I saw a curious thing. One of the upper-deck guns had jumped clean on end with its muzzle to the sky. And a shower of splinters was spraying out in a great fan from the mainmast.

“Good!” shouted Jack, slapping his thigh. “Oh, good! You’ve knocked the breech clean off one of the guns, and you’ve gouged a piece right out of one of their masts, and made a hole clean through the deck. Father will be pleasured.”

“Quick, Larg!” I called. “They’re sending a boatload of men. Look out! They’re going to shoot again!”

We dodged down, as the ripple of flashes came from the near frigate; then, as the bullets whoozed by, over us, we sprang up, and Larg spiked the two other guns, by driving a brittle piece of iron into the touch-holes, and breaking it off short.

“That’ll sure take a mint o’ drillin’ out, Master Jerrold,” he said. “Look at yon men on the other frigate! They’m like bees as you’ve prodded.”

VII.

When we reached the cave, we found that they had already done as I told them, and the bushes and creepers were dropped back again over the entrance, hiding it perfectly. One of the Bowden boys was inside, behind the growths, standing guard with his musket, and when we had entered, he rearranged the creepers, while we ran through to the guns.

“We must, get them going,” I said, “as quickly as possible, to bring them back from attacking the house. Open out the gear, quick, Larg; open one of the powder-barrels; roll it well back from the guns. James Bowden, give me a hand here with these bombs. Harry Cartwright, light Larg’s hand-forge. We left it up here when we finished mounting the guns. It’s in one of the recesses there, up to the left. There’s wood and small coals there, and the flint and steel’s on the top of the bellows.

“Jack, you and Tom Cartwright get the rammers down and wipe out the guns, and dip some water out of the tubs into the buckets, ready for sponging them out.”

Ten minutes later we were all furiously busy. In the heart of the forge fire there were two cylinders of solid iron, that Larg had forged out to fit the bores of the guns, and now we were heating them red-hot; for I meant to fire them down through the decks of the frigate. Larg was busy ramming down a charge of powder, and on the top of it a great wail of torn-up blanket. Then he passed in a length of the chain I had brought; first putting a knot in each end. Afterwards he rammed home a bucketful of broken flints, and then stepped back and primed the gun.

“It’s all ready for laying, Master Jerrold,” said Larg. “Shall us run her out a bit?”

“Yes,” I said; and we all went over to give him a hand with the tackles. “That’s right,” I said. “No, don’t wedge her up. It’s his rigging I want to cut up with the chain and stones. Get on with the other gun. Give her a full measure and a quarter of powder, then a wad, and three of the twelve-pounder shot, with earth round each one, rammed hard. Soften that beeswax over the forge-fire, Harry; and, John, go on filling those bombs with powder, then stuff in one of the cut lengths of fuse into each, and fill in the hole solidly with beeswax. Right, Larg, give me the tow and stand to the side.”

I spied along the big gun, aiming at the maintop of the nearer frigate. Then I touched the burning tow on the priming and jumped to the side as the great gun roared down at the frigate.

“By George, Master Jerry!” said the oldest of the Cartwrights, “you fair cut clean through all her riggin’ on the starboard side o’ the main! Her can never go to sea till her’s rigged up preventers, or her’d lose the whole stick.’’

The fisherman had said right, for the length of chain had hit the rigging on the starboard side, just below the bolsters, and smashed them as clean away as a great knife might have done. The chain itself had ripped a gouge in the mast, for the scar showed plainly. For the rest, there was a good matter of flying ends of the running gear both to starboard and larboard; for the broken flints had spread like shot from a fowling-gun.

My brother and the rest had run to the mouth of the cave to see the damage, and Jack pointed across the cove.

“Look!” he said. “They’ve set the whole village on fire. Look, there’s your house, Cartwright, near the jetty; they’ve just fired it, and Bowden’s house has got the thatch alight.”

Jack was right; the Dutch had fired the village, as was their way in these small wanton raids that the Government would never bother to take any notice of; and now the brutes, after having killed a number of harmless villagers, would retreat to their ships and get away. But I vowed aloud that they should never leave the cove unharmed; and Bowden and Cartwright swore in the simple, brutal fashion of their class, to split the two warships asunder, or sink them.

There was the crash of a volley, three hundred feet below us, and splinters of stone flew in all directions from the rock of the cave-mouth. I stepped forward a pace, and stared down. The file of men across the quarter-deck of the nearer frigate were reloading, and the officer was staring up at the cliff.

On the deck of the frigate farther out there were a number of men clustered round one of the long stem-chasers—a sixteen-pounder, I supposed it might be, by the look of it at that distance.

“They can never get the elevation,” I said. “All of you haul in the gun. That will do. Now, Jack, sponge her out. All of you get to work again. Larg, I will help you load.”

“There’s two boatloads of Dutchmen coming out to the ship,” said my brother, with the sponge-stick in his hand. “Hark to the musketry firing from above Sir Beant’s oak-woods. It’s our house, Jerry! They’ve not come back. They’re—
 
Look at the smoke over the trees!”

“We can do nothing,” I said; “only we can smash up their ships, and then they’ll have to recall all hands. Keep on with your work.”

“I got ’arf a doz’n of them bomb things filled, Master Jerrold,” said Bowden. “Will you take a look at ’em to see if they’re as you want ’em?”

I took a bomb to the light and found he had packed it solidly with powder, and inserted a fuse, and then rammed sand and melted beeswax in all round the fuse, hiding the powder completely.

“Perfect!” I said. “Let me have what you’ve done, and go ahead with the others.”

“She’s loaded,” said Larg, as he threw down the rammer. As he spoke, there came the thud of a heavy gun in the cove, and then a dull blow sounded somewhere below us.

“They’m shooted at us!” said Larg, “and they’m hit the cliff, near two hundred feet down. Do ’ee let ’em have this dree-shotted charge, an’ show ’em what for, Master Jerrold.”

“All of us on the tackles!” I called out; and we hauled out the gun that Larg had just loaded with three twelve-pound shot. “The handspike!” I said. “Heave her round. Right! Now depress!”

It took us maybe ten minutes to get the big gun laid, for we lacked practice, and a long thirty-two-pounder is a monstrous big gun to move.

“Now,” I said, “stand by the tackles to snub her.”

As I spoke, there came a second far-oft crash of musketry that made me set my teeth, for I knew they must be firing at our home. Then there came a heavy volley of small arms from both of the frigates, the musket-balls striking the cave-mouth in scores of places, and chipping off pieces of rock; but not one of us was touched.

As I took a final sight along the gun, I saw that many of her men had already come off from the shore, and the whole of the stern part of her was taken up with a swarm of men working at some contrivance to obtain a sufficient elevation for their stern guns to be able to bear on us.

There came again the rolling of heavy musketry firing from above the woods, and I clenched my teeth as I lifted the burning tow.

“Now!” I said, standing to the side and clapping it to the touch-hole.

The heavy gun literally jumped clean off her two front wheels, and reared up, almost on end, with the effect of the recoil; for Larg had exceeded my instructions, and put two measures of powder, and his packing of the round-shot had been done with savage vigour.

Even before the cloud of smoke that rolled and eddied over the cave mouth had cleared, I knew I had done some surprising damage, for there were shouts and a terrible screaming of injured men, and a strange, crashing sound, all of it rising up strangely blended.

“By George, Master Jerrold, you sure hit ’em hard that time!” said Larg.

And we all crowded nearer to the cave mouth to try to see through the smoke; even the younger Bowden running from his place (on guard behind the creepers over the land entrance) to ask what execution had been done. But I sent him back on the instant, with a sharp reprimand for leaving his post.