All except Ko Dali's daughter. While Kutebar was roaring and I was chanting "For we are jolly good fellows," she was barking shrill commands at the men on the frame, having them swivel the pipes round for a shot at the Obrucheff—trust women to interfere, thinks I, and strode over.
"Now then, my dear, what's this?" says I, pretty short. "I'll decide when we leave off shooting at our targets, if you don't mind. You, there -"
"We have hit one, angliski—it is time for the other." She rapped it out, and I was aware that her face was strained, and her eyes seemed to be searching mine anxiously. "There is no time to waste—listen to the firing! In a few moments they will have broken through Yakub's line and be upon us!"
You know, I'd been so taken up with our target practice, I'd almost forgotten about the fighting that was going on outside. But she was right; it was fiercer than ever, and getting closer. And she was probably right about the Mikhail, too—with any luck that fire aboard her would do the business.
"You're a clever girl, Silk One, so you are," says I. "Right-ho, bonny boys, heave away!" And I flung my weight on the frame, chanting "Yo-ho", while the gleeful niggers dragged up more rockets—they were loving this as much as I was, grinning and yelling and inviting God and each other to admire the havoc we had wrought.
"Aye, now for the steamer!" shouts Kutebar. "Hasten, Flashman bahadur! Fling the fire of God upon them, the spawn of Muscovy! Aye, we shall burn you here, and Eblis will consume your souls thereafter, you thieves; you disturbers, you dunghill sons of whores and shameless women!"
It wasn't quite as easy as that. Perhaps we'd been lucky with the Mikhail, but I fired twenty single rockets at the Obrucheff and never came near enough to singe her cable—they snaked over her, or flew wide, or hit the water short, until the smoky trails of their passing blended into a fine mist across the bay; the go-down was a scorching inferno of choking smoke in which we shouted and swore hoarsely as we wrestled sticks and canisters into pipes that were so hot we had to douse them with water after every shot. My good humour didn't survive the twentieth miss; I raged and swore and kicked the nearest nigger—I was aware, too, that as we laboured the sounds of battle outside were drawing closer still, and I was in half a mind to leave these infernal rockets that wouldn't fly straight, and pitch into the fighting on the beach. It was like hell, outside and in, and to add to my fury one of the ships in the bay was firing at us now; the pillar of cloud from the go-down must have made a perfect target, and the rocket trails had long since advertised to everyone on that beach exactly what was going on. The smack of musket balls on the roof and walls was continuous—although I didn't know it then, detachments of Russian cavalry had tried three times to drive through the lumbered beach in phalanx to reach the go-down and silence us, and Yakub's riders had halted them each time with desperate courage. The ring round our position was contracting all the time as the Khokandian riders fell back; once a shot from the sea pitched right in front of the go-down, showering us with spray, another howled overhead like a banshee, and a third crashed into the pier alongside us.
"Damn you!" I roared, shaking my fist. "Come ashore, you swine, and I'll show you!" I seemed to be seeing everything through a red mist, with a terrible, consuming rage swelling up inside me; I was swearing incoherently, I know, as we dragged another rocket into the reeking pipe; half-blinded with smoke and sweat and fury I touched it off, and this time it seemed to drop just short of the Obrucheff—and then, by God, I saw that the ship was moving; they must have got steam up in her at last, and she was veering round slowly, her stern-wheel churning as she prepared to draw out from the shore.
"Ah, God, she will escape!" It was Ko Dali's daughter, shrill beside me. "Quickly, quickly, angliski! Try again, with all the rockets! Kutebar, all of you, load them all together before she has gone too far!"
"Cowardly rascals!" I hollered. "Turn tail, will you? Why don't you stand and fight, you measly hounds? Load 'em up, you idle bastards, there!" And savagely I flung myself among them as they hauled up the five rockets—one of 'em was still half off its stick, I remember, with a little nigger still wrestling to fix it home even as the man with the match was touching the fuse. I crammed the burning remnant of my match against a vent, and even as the trail of sparks shot out the whole go-down seemed to stand on end, I felt myself falling, something hit me a great crack on the head, and my ears were full of cannonading that went on and on until the pain of it seemed to be bursting my brain before blackness came.
I've reckoned since that I must have been unconscious for only a few minutes, but for all I knew when I opened my eyes it might have been hours. What had happened was that a cannon shot had hit the go-down roof just as the rockets went off, and a falling slat had knocked me endways; when I came to the first thing I saw was the firing-frame in ruins, with a beam across it, and I remember thinking, ah well, no more Guy Fawkes night until next year. Beyond it, through the smoke, I could see the Mikhail, burning quite nicely now, but not exploding, which I thought strange; the ketch was well alight, too, but the Obrucheff was under way, with smoke pouring from her funnel and her wheel thrashing great guns. There was a glow near her stern, too, and I found myself wondering, in a confused way, if one of the last salvo had got home. "Serve you right, you Russian scoundrels," I muttered, and tried to pull myself up, but I couldn't; all the strength had gone from my limbs.
But the strangest thing was, that my head seemed to have floated loose from my shoulders, and I couldn't seem to focus properly on things around me. The great berserk rage that had possessed me only a moment since seemed to have gone and I felt quite tranquil, and dreamy—it wasn't unpleasant, really, for I felt that nothing much mattered, and there was no pain or anxiety, or even inclination to do anything, but just lie there, resting body and brain together.
And yet I have a pretty clear recollection of what was happening around me, although none of it was important at the time. There were folk crawling about the go-down, among the smoke and wreckage, and Kutebar was thundering away blasphemously, and then Ko Dali's daughter was kneeling beside me, trying to raise my head, which was apparently swollen as big as a house. Outside, the fight was raging, and among the shots and yells I could hear the actual clash of steel—it didn't excite me now, though, or even interest me. And then Yakub Beg was there, his helmet gone, one arm limp with a great bloodied gash near the shoulder, and a naked sabre in his good hand. Strange, thinks I, you ought to be out on the beach, killing Russians; what the deuce are you doing here?
"Away!" he was shouting. "Away—take to the water!" And he dropped his sabre and took Ko Dali's daughter by the shoulder. "Quickly, Silk One—it is done! They have driven us in! Swim for it, beloved—and Kutebar! Get them into the sea, Izzat! There are only moments left!"
Ko Dali's daughter was saying something that I couldn't catch, and Yakub was shaking his head.
"Sahib Khan can hold them with his Immortals—but only for minutes. Get you gone—and take the Englishman. Do as I tell you, girl! Yes, yes, I will come—did I not say Sahib Khan is staying?"
"And you will leave him?" Her voice seemed faint and far away.
"Aye, I will leave him. Khokand can spare him, but it cannot spare me; he knows it, and so do I. And he seeks his wife and little ones. Now, in God's name, get out quickly!"
She didn't hesitate, but rose, and two of the others half-dragged, half-carried me to the mouth of the go-down. I was so dazed I don't think it even crossed my mind that I was in no case to swim; it didn't matter, anyway, for some clever lads were cutting loose the lighter that swung under the edge of the go-down, and men were tumbling into it. I remember a fierce altercation was going on between Yakub Beg and Kutebar, the latter protesting that he wanted to stay and fight it out with Sahib Khan and the others, and Yakub more or less thrusting him down into the lighter with his sound arm, and then jumping in himself. I was aware that one wall of the go-down was burning, and in the glare and the smoke I caught a glimpse of a swirling mass of figures at the doors, and I think I even made out a Cossack, laying about him with a sabre, before someone tumbled down on top of me and knocked me flat on the floor of the lighter.