CHAPTER III
HARD PRESSED
Towards daylight next morning a tremendous fire opened suddenly, andNita dressed hastily and ran out. Running up to the walls, she saw thata large number of men were approaching the gate, covered by a rain ofbullets from the mosque and village, and that, as it seemed to her, anequally strong attack was being made from the other side. The Punjaubiswere hard at work, and from the number of dead that covered the groundbehind the enemy, she felt how accurate their fire had been. This timethe Afridis seemed to have worked themselves up to a pitch of fanaticalbravery. Two or three times they halted for a minute, but their leaderscame to the front, and, waving their flags, led them forward again. Atlast, in spite of the fire of the twenty-five men on that side, theyreached the gate, at which they began to hack with their heavy knives.
Half a dozen men now ran down from the wall, and, climbing up thebarricade, opened fire through the loopholes on the mass below,causing terrible destruction among them. The men who could not get atthe gate opened fire at these loopholes, and it was not long beforetwo of the defenders fell, shot through the head. Nita at once wentup and took the place of one of them. The two men who had been killedwere lying next to each other. Taking a careful aim from one loopholeshe fired--a man dropped; then she shifted her place to the next vacantloophole, and fired from that. Sometimes she lay still for two orthree minutes, and then fired several shots in rapid succession fromthe loopholes; sometimes using one and sometimes the other, and thusavoiding the storm of bullets that followed each shot. She had no senseof fear now. She was proud of doing her share of the work. That she wasdoing a share she knew, for scarcely one of her shots missed the mark.
Presently the men before the gate began to sneak off, and in fiveminutes more all was over, the Afridis suffering heavily as theyretreated across the open. Then Nita went down into the courtyard. Asshe did so, she saw Carter run across the court to the other side,where the combat was still raging. She mounted the wall a shortdistance away. The enemy had each brought up a great faggot, and thrownit down against the foot of the wall, giving a slope almost to thetop. Up this they had again and again rushed, only to be beaten backeach time by the Punjaubis. Fortunately the faggots were insufficientto reach quite to the top of the wall, and the Afridis had to helptheir comrades up the eight feet between the crest and the top of theparapet, only to see them fall back shot or bayoneted. The arrival often men from the gate turned the tables. With thirty rifles playingupon them the Afridis felt that no more could be done, and retiredsullenly, taking advantage of every bit of rising ground or bush to liedown and fire.
"Well, Miss Ackworth, _that_ affair is over. I saw you standing at adistance, and was thankful that you did not come up to join us."
"I did my fighting on the other side," she said with a smile. "You knowyou said that--"
"You did!" he said angrily. "I shall have to put you under arrest, MissAckworth, for disobeying orders."
"Thank you! but it happens that I did not disobey orders. Youparticularly said that I might fire through the loopholes of the gatewhen it was seriously attacked, and I took advantage of the permissionto get possession of two holes where the defenders had been killed, andI flatter myself I did some good. I fired thirty shots, and know enoughof my shooting to be sure that there were not many of them thrownaway. The circumstances were exactly what you pointed out. The gate wasvery seriously attacked, and it was therefore open to me to do a littleshooting on my own account."
"It was really wrong of you, Miss Ackworth. The attack was serious,but I never thought for a moment that they would take the gate, and itcertainly never entered my mind that you would expose yourself to beingkilled in this way."
"I took every precaution, Charlie, and fired sometimes from oneloophole and sometimes from another; and as I must have accounted forquite twenty-five men, I honestly believe that I, at least, did as muchas any of your soldiers, and probably a good deal more."
"That is all very well," he said; "I don't say that you did not do goodservice, and I admit that my orders did give you some sort of license;however, this must not occur again, or I shall consider it my duty toorder you to keep your place in the hospital, and shall have to put asentry at the door to prevent you from coming out under any pretencewhile fighting is going on. You must remember that I shall have toaccount for your safety to the major when he returns, and that wereanything to happen to you the blame would fall upon my shoulders, andwould not be put down to your wilfulness. However, should the timeever come when we are driven to our last corner, I shall then authorizeyou to use your pistol."
Glad to have got off so easily, Nita went down to the hospital. Therewere but few wounded, and these, as before, had been hit principally onthe head and shoulder. Lieutenant Carter came in shortly afterwards:"Let me have a look at your patients, Miss Ackworth; I have gonethrough the St. John's ambulance course and am pretty good atbandaging. I see that you have taken great pains with the men, but Ithink that I can possibly make a little improvement here and there.Besides, in some cases, I may be able to get the balls out. It willbe more than a week before the surgeon is back with your father, andextracting a bullet might make all the difference between life anddeath. I have brought in a case of instruments the doctor left behindhim. Do you think that you could help me?"
"Certainly I could," she said; "I think my first attack of weaknesswill be my last."
"Well, then, let us set to work."
With two or three of the patients the ball had penetrated toodeeply, but where it had lodged comparatively close to the surface,Carter managed to find its position with a probe, and in four caseshe succeeded in getting it out. The patients behaved with heroicfortitude, and although the operation was necessarily painful, bore itwithout a murmur. When the work was done and the wounds bandaged again,he said: "Now, Nita, a little fresh air would do you good; come withme up to the ramparts. I am going to try the effects of an explosion.It is certain that the enemy are all gathered now in the mosque andvillage, and possibly after their defeat of this morning such a blowwill disconcert them altogether, and send them to the right-about."
"I should think it would," Nita agreed. "What loss did they suffer thismorning, do you think?"
"I should say at least a hundred and fifty of their bravest men."
They went together to the spot where the train of gunpowder ended. "Yougo on to the walls," he said, "and watch. I will run up as soon as Ihave lighted the fuse. We calculated that it would last five minutesbefore it fires the train of gunpowder."
Nita ran up to the wall and a minute later was joined by the officer.He took out his watch and counted the minutes as they went past. "Now,Miss Ackworth," he said, putting his watch into his pocket again, "thefuse ought to be done in forty seconds, but we must allow a minute ortwo for miscalculation in its length."
Two minutes passed, then there was a deep roar; the mosque came downlike a house of cards, and many of the dwellings collapsed from theshock of the explosion. Timbers and stones flew up high into the air.There was a moment's pause, and then an outburst of wild yells andscreams. "I think that ought to frighten them a bit," the lieutenantsaid; "unless their leader has great power over them, and is a man ofiron nerves, they will be off. The worst of it is, they won't like toreturn home to face their women after the disasters that they havesuffered, and without having obtained some great success. The menscarcely know what nerves mean, and they may very well make up theirminds to try one last attempt. You may be sure it will be a formidableone if they do, and they will probably adopt some entirely new scheme.We shall have to be doubly cautious for the next two nights."
Although a sharp look-out was kept, there was no sign of the enemyretreating. Towards evening a scattered fire was opened from thevillage against the gate, but otherwise the night passed quietly.
"I don't like it," Carter said the next morning; "the enemy have notgone yet, and they have not renewed the attack. I
have no doubt thatthe beggars are up to something. I wish I knew what it was. It worriesme."
"It does seem strange," Nita said; "but perhaps they have been buryingtheir dead, which would keep them pretty well occupied all day.However, as we have beaten them off twice with the loss to ourselves ofonly six killed and eight wounded, I suppose that we shall be able toresist them again."
"I am sure we shall if they attack us openly. It is only the unknownthat I am afraid of. I was on the walls the whole night, but except fora continued random fire from the village they were quiet. I wish we hada moon. In that case we could make them out comfortably at a hundredyards, whereas on these dark nights one can't see twenty."
The officer's prevision of danger told upon Nita, and when she reachedthe bungalow that night she dressed herself in Carter's uniform, cuther hair carefully close to her head, and lay down in readiness to leapup at the first alarm.
Had anyone been keeping special watch in the courtyard, they wouldhave seen a number of dark figures clustering between the wall and thehospital. During that and the preceding night a party of Afridis hadgathered at the foot of the wall, crawling forward, one by one, ontheir stomachs. They were armed only with spear and knife, and withthese had attacked the wall noiselessly, working the stones out one byone, unobserved and undreamt of by the watch on the wall above. Thefirst night they had almost completed their work, and by three in themorning on the second had made an opening through which two men couldpass abreast; then one had gone back to the village, and presently astream of men were passing through the wall.
When all was ready they burst out with triumphant yells. They were,however, ignorant of the position of the various houses, and scatteredmiscellaneously. A moment later the bugle sounded, and twenty men inreserve at once made a rush to the mess-house. The defenders of thewall came running down the various steps leading from the battlements.Many of these were cut down on the way, but twelve of them managed tojoin their comrades at the mess-house.
Nita sprang up when the first yell broke out, seized her revolver anda box of cartridges, and had reached the mess-house just as the partyin the yard came in. The door was kept open until the last fugitiveentered, desperately wounded, and followed by a mob of the exultingAfridis, who, however, were prevented from entering the building.
Each man had been instructed as to the place he should occupy incase they were driven from the wall, and the Punjaubis took up theirpositions in stern silence.
"Where is Lieutenant Carter?" Nita asked. "Has anyone seen him?"
"I am here, Miss Ackworth, and, thank God, you are here too. I was oneof the last to come in, for I hung round your bungalow to help you ifnecessary."
Candles and lanterns had been placed on the table, and Nita took amatch-box from her pocket and lit several of them.
"Hullo, Miss Ackworth, is that really you?" said the astonishedlieutenant as soon as a light was struck.
"Really and truly," she said; "you rather scared me yesterday by yourtalk, so I got into your uniform before I lay down."
"You did well," he said; "and I should certainly take you for a lad whohad just joined the regiment. Well, I must not stay here. The firstthing is to go round and rearrange the posts, for we have little morethan half our original number now. I shall only leave three or four menon this floor at present, and shall at once open fire from the upperwindows. I shall be much obliged if you will stay down here."
"Certainly I will do so. I will place myself near the main door, andwill let you know if the enemy seem to be collecting for an attack uponit."
"You are a brave girl," he said, "and I wish I had two or three dozenlike you."
The Afridis at once pulled down the barricade from the front gate, andthe tribesmen swarmed in. Very soon, however, they were obliged to takeshelter in the various buildings, for the galling fire from the windowsof the mess-house rendered it impossible for them to stay in the open.
At daylight firing ceased altogether and refreshments were servedout to the troops, and the lieutenant and Nita sat quietly down tobreakfast.
"There is no disguising it," he said, "our position is a very criticalone. In the first place, have you any idea how these rascals got intothe fort?"
"I have no certain idea at all, Charlie, but I think that in the darkthey must have somehow cut a hole through the wall.
"I should think that it was something of that sort; they certainly didnot get over it, they could not have done so without being seen bythe sentries. That they should have got in has certainly changed ourposition greatly for the worse. They have shown themselves amazinglydetermined and enterprising. I have no doubt they will fill every housewhose windows bear on ours, and keep up such a fire that we shall notbe able to show ourselves. Under cover of that fire they will attackus. We may kill a great many of them, but I fear that in the long runit will come to the same thing. Our only hope, I think, lies in thechance that the major has received news of the attack upon us, andhas abandoned all idea of the expedition and is hurrying back to ourrelief. God grant that he may arrive to-day, or at latest, to-morrow.It is no use our shutting our eyes to the fact that our position is avery grave one."
Nita herself had already seen this, and yet she turned a little pale ather companion's words. "Well," she said, "I am glad indeed that I puton your uniform. One can but be killed once, and if they fail to killme I shall do it myself. The only thing that troubles me is the thoughtof father returning and finding me dead;" and her eyes filled withtears.
"It is awful; I can say nothing to comfort you," he said sadly, "but wemust keep up each other's courage till the last. There will be no greatoccasion to keep up yours, though, for you are the pluckiest girl thatI ever saw. As for my own courage, I am in command here, and must keepup a brave face, no matter what I may think."
"I am afraid that I am not so brave as I seem to be. It is as much as Ican do really to keep myself from breaking down and crying."
"That is only natural, Nita, and if you would like to have a good cry Iwill leave you to yourself for half an hour."
"Oh no, I don't mean that I am going to, for if I began to cry I don'tknow when I should stop; and," she added, with an attempt at a smile,"that would shake my hand, and I shall want it to be as steady as Ican. I think that I can promise that every shot shall tell this time. Idare say it seems horrid to you that I should be so bloodthirsty, butI hate them all so for coming down and attacking us like this that Iwould kill them all with one blow if I could."
"I wish you could, very heartily," he said with a smile. "You have beena great friend to me," he went on, taking her hand; "your high spiritshave kept me up, and I don't know what I should have done without you.It was you that thought of blowing up the mosque, which I should saymust have accounted for a great number of them, not to mention thoseyou brought down with your pistol. You have forgiven my speaking sosharply to you, I hope?"
"I have never thought of it since; you were quite right to blow me up,and I felt that at the time. Yes, we have been great friends, and Ihave told myself scores and scores of times what a little fool I was tohave thought that you were rather stupid because you talked so littleand didn't seem to care much for entering into the amusements of theothers."
"No, I know that I was not what you call a good comrade, but I couldnot help it. I fancy I was shy, and I did not care much for any oftheir sports; besides, I knew that they regarded me rather as akilljoy, and that kept me from mixing with them much."
"Well, you have had your turn now, Charlie, and no one could have comeout of it more splendidly. You will be a great soldier some day, if--"and she stopped.
"If I live, yes. I hoped some day to have got a chance ofdistinguishing myself. And the chance has come, but, as you say, it isunlikely that it will ever come again. But, as you also said, one canbut die once, and at least I hope that I shall die with credit, and asoldier can wish no more. But I would give all the few hours I may haveleft to me to know that you would escape."
"That is all nons
ense, Charlie; I am only a girl, and a girl's lifeis not worth anything. If it wasn't for my father I should be fairlycontent."
"Well," he said, "it is no use talking. We shall have to do the best wecan when the time comes. I must go round and see after the men."