Read Online Guns to the Far East by V. A. Stuart - Free Book Online Page A

smashed most of her port-side oars to matchwood and Captain Cochrane yelled out an order to head and take her. Phillip’s boat won the race, his men pulling their hearts out in their efforts, and he came alongside with a jolting crash among the shattered oars, seeing above his head the junk’s lower gun-ports open yet robbed of menace, since the angle was now too steep for the gun muzzles to be depressed so as to bear on the launch. A frantic pounding of bare feet on the main deck told him that her crew were about to abandon her and, seizing a dangling rope, he led the rush to board her.
    It was—as he had earlier imagined it would be—a novel and exhilarating experience to leap on to the deck of an enemy ship, cutlass in hand and six eager seamen at his back, all cheering wildly as they prepared to secure their prize. But … He drew in his breath sharply. Not all her crew had sought refuge in flight. Three or four were grouped round a swivel-mounted gingall, feverishly trying to slew it inboard to ward off the attackers, and a huge fellow with a pock-marked face, armed with a sword, rallied some of his people about him with the clear intention of making a fight of it.
    Thankful that he had left young Lightfoot in charge of the boat, Phillip made for the big Chinaman, ducking a vicious slash from his sword and only dimly conscious of the shots whistling above his head as the crew of the gingall brought their cumbersome weapon into action at last. His pock-marked opponent parried his thrust and struck at him again but this time he went in under the man’s guard, warding him off with jabbing blows as the Chinese attempted to kick the blade from his grasp. He was surprised and not a little disappointed when his adversary screeched something in his own language and, turning swiftly, dived over the junk’s wooden guardrail into the river. The remaining members of his crew instantly followed his example, leaving their weapons behind them, and Phillip halted, breathless.
    â€œSir!” O’Brien seized his arm. “Watch out!” He pointed to a train of greyish-black powder laid along the deck. It had been ignited but hastily laid and Phillip could hear it hissing—or imagined he could—just behind him and there was scarcely need to look to ascertain in which direction it led. He yelled to his boarding party to get back to their boat and, fearing that they would not make it before the spluttering powder train reached its destination, started desperately trying to stamp it out. O’Brien joined him and he had barely time to repeat his order to return to the boat when the junk’s magazine exploded with a dull roar. The force of the explosion flung both of them off their feet. Phillip picked himself up, bruised and shaken. With water pouring into her shattered hull, the junk took on a heavy list and, the deck canting steeply under his feet, he went in search of his coxswain, groping blindly in the black, choking smoke which, now ominously tinged with flames, was rising from the lower deck.
    He had almost given up hope of finding the missing seaman when he stumbled over the prostrate body and heard O’Brien cursing dazedly. He dragged him up and together they staggered to the rail. The launch was below them, the boarding party safely inboard, and Lightfoot was standing up, waving furiously.
    â€œJump!” he managed thickly and, to his relief, O’Brien did so. Minutes later, the boat’s crew picked both of them out of the water, O’Brien shocked into full consciousness by his immersion and swimming strongly. They paddled clear of the junk before she sank in a welter of smoke and flames.
    â€œWe’re licking them, sir,” Midshipman Lightfoot offered consolingly, as Phillip slumped down beside him on the sternsheets, dripping and breathing hard. “Just look, sir—they’re all on the run! And the Commodore’s not going to let any of them get