Читать книгу Fort in the Jungle - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 12

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My work finished, I threw myself down on my string-and-frame bed and instantly fell asleep. I had intended to think out the problem of my line of conduct, and decide what should be my next step; but I must have been asleep by the time my head touched the bag of straw that was my pillow.

When I awoke it was evening. I had slept all day. Going out into the court-yard and walking round the fort, I realized that nothing had happened.

There was the tidy grave as I had left it. There were the little heaps of kerosene-soaked torches lying on the cat-walk beneath each embrasure of the wall, just as they had been left, all ready for use at night. The bamboo ladders were in place, and so far as I could see, neither man, beast nor bird had crossed the wall.

Having climbed the cat-walk and slowly circumambulated the fort, carefully studying the green wall of the jungle as I did so, I returned to the chambrée for a meal.

As I boiled the water for my coffee, I realized that I must come to a decision and stick to it.

Once I had made up my mind, there must be no shilly-shallying; and I must make it up soon.

I must decide whether to go or to stay.

My earliest inclination had been towards the former course.

Certainly I must stay, otherwise what should I be doing but deserting my post?

That, at first, seemed obvious. Just as the garrison of yesterday would have remained where they were and defended the fort to the last, so must I. The principle was the same, whether the garrison consisted of a hundred men or of one.

But would Lieutenant Jacot, had he known what was happening, have remained here, in view of the fact that all three outposts on the far side of the Meh-Song River must be cut off, and were of necessity abandoned to their fate, by reason of the fact that big rebel armies were between them and their base?

Since the little outposts must inevitably go, need their tiny garrisons perish with them?

I came to the conclusion that, had it been possible to withdraw and retire, he would have done so.

Once we were surrounded by a hundred times our number, he had no choice but to remain.

My position was different. The siege was raised; the enemy gone; and I, a single individual, might very well be able to make my way back along the route by which the compagnie de marche had come from Houi-Bap, should I decide to do so.

And what good could I do by remaining? Obviously I couldn’t defend the place. And though fine phrases about Keeping the Flag Flying and Defending the Place to the Last sounded very well, the flag would fly by itself all-right, and I couldn’t defend the place for five seconds if the returning hordes attacked it.

Nor would anything be gained by giving the impression that the place was once more fully garrisoned. Even if the ruse were successful, it would not impress the Black Flags in the least. They knew perfectly well that they could take the place, as they had done before, by sheer weight of numbers; and the question of the strength of the defending force would not interest them in the least.

No; one man could do nothing at all in Fort Houi-Ninh. He would be absolutely useless.

If I stayed, I should be completely idle and worthless if the place were not attacked, and promptly killed if it were.

And there was another consideration. If I stayed there alone in that haunted place, I should go mad.

Summing up the pros and cons, I came to the conclusion that the sensible thing to do was to go where both I and my information would be of some value, and not to remain where both would be perfectly useless.

The decision made, I started to put it into execution.

I would rest until my head felt better, eat and drink plentifully of what provisions the looters had not taken or destroyed, and regain strength for the long march that I was going to undertake to rejoin my Company at Houi-Bap, if I might do so.

I could there give an account of what had happened on the far side of the Meh-Song River, and resume my place in my Company....

Having rested, I would tidy the place thoroughly, leave it all ship-shape, lock up and fasten the gates, let myself down over the wall, and march off.

Unfortunately I could not do so with the honours of war, carrying arms, drums beating, and flags flying. I had no arms to carry, the dacoits having, of course, taken every rifle and bayonet with them. There was no one to beat the drum; the honours were doubtful, as my side had been defeated; and the only comfort was that the flag still flew over the fort.

And, curiously enough, it was a real comfort. It seemed to promise that we should return, and that my comrades, advance-guard in the Army of Civilization, would not have died in vain.

Apart from the fact of being unarmed in enemy country, and passing through a jungle swarming with dangerous beasts and more dangerous savages, it was extraordinary how lost I felt without my rifle. I really think I could have marched better with my right hand occupied and encumbered with its familiar weight.

On the other hand, I was for the first time in my marching experience, glad of heavy extra weight—that of food—as, before lowering myself and dropping from the fort wall, I had thrown over as many tins of meat and sardines, and as much biscuit as I thought I could carry in addition to the mass of cold boiled rice with which I had stuffed a haversack to bursting.

I had also filled a couple of bidons with half a gallon of wine. Of water there would be no lack.

It was a nightmare march. Time after time I was terrified almost to death, especially in the hours of darkness when unseen forms moved about me in the jungle; when I heard the sound of following feet; when twigs cracked under the weight of approaching man or animal; when I saw the gleam of twin orbs and momentarily expected to be smashed to the ground by a springing leopard.

By day things were not so bad. Time after time I dived from the track into dense jungle, and lay hidden, as parties of men who might have been villagers, pirates, wayfaring pedlars, dacoits, scouts, brigands or wandering Chinese soldiers, came in sight.

Over the greatest fright of all, I still smile.

One morning I awoke, stiff, aching, foot-sore and miserable, from a short dawn sleep among the roots of a great tree.

Rising to my feet, I was about to force my way through the undergrowth on to the path, when I was alarmed by a most terrific crashing clatter. It was so near, so loud and so intimidating that my heart stood still. It was a strange noise too, for I had heard nothing quite like it, and could assign it to no known and reasonable cause. It was almost as though all the slates were falling off a house on to the stones of a court-yard—which was a quite impossible phenomenon in that uninhabited green hell. It was as though coolies on a ship were slinging stacks of crockery down on to a quay, which was equally absurd. It was as though a thousand small boys were shattering cakes of toffee with hammers, an improbable event in the heart of the Annamese jungle. And the sound seemed to come from all round.

Hastening to escape, I came upon the cause of it. Two gigantic tortoises were fighting on the path.

Really, a dozen men armed with swords and shields could hardly have made more noise. With the anger of fright I cursed the beasts from the bottom of my heart. They were not noticeably affected thereby.

And one day I heard distant rifle-fire. Not only the sustained din, rising and falling, of independent firing, but the regular crashes of the tir de salve or volleys; and knew that I was within a short distance of French troops.

Scouting forward with the utmost care, I found, to my unspeakable joy, that a compagnie de marche of Tirailleurs Tonkinois was skirmishing with a band of Black Flags into whom they had bumped on patrol.

Luckily for me, I was on the flank of the Black Flag force, and could make my way past them to within shouting-distance of the opposite flank of the French firing line.

Luckily also, I was in full Legion uniform, otherwise I should have run an excellent chance of being shot by my own side.

A French non-commissioned officer of Tirailleurs Tonkinois having briefly questioned me, took me to his officer who, having heard my story, offered me his congratulations on my escape, it having been assumed at Houi-Bap that there were no survivors of the three forts on the far side of the Meh-Song River.

To my great pleasure, my friend Doi Linh Nghi was on this patrol, his task being the gathering of information from the villagers. These could be divided into two classes, those who feared the French more than they did the Annamese General, De-Nam; and those who feared the Annamese General De-Nam more than they did the French authorities.

Of the former but few were left alive in this area; and of those who were, the majority were homeless fugitives. It was from these that the Doi got his information concerning the movements of the rebel parties.

Those whose terror of General De-Nam was greater than their fear of us, had saved their lives and their villages, by giving the rebels every assistance in their power; rightly arguing that, whatever punishment the French might inflict upon them for this, it would not be wholesale slaughter after hideous torture.

Some of the sights I saw in the villages that had not been amenable to the dacoit leader were horrible beyond telling. I did not imagine that human beings could be such bestial brutish devils as those must have been who had so tortured and mutilated the victims they were about to murder.

The principal leader of the band operating in this particular part of the country was a former ly-truong, or sub-prefect, named De-Nha of whom much more anon.

With the patrol I returned to Houi-Bap, reported to Captain Bonnier of my Company, and was taken before the Officer Commanding the garrison, now a small Brigade consisting of a battalion of the Legion; a battalion of Tirailleurs Tonkinois; a mixed battalion of the Biff, as we called the French regular troops of the line; a company of Infanterie de Marine; and a battery of mountain artillery.

Somewhat to my relief, this officer took the view that I had done a sensible thing in endeavouring to rejoin my Company, and that it would have been merely foolish to sit down and do nothing in an empty and abandoned fort until I starved to death, went mad, or died of fever.

In point of fact, he said, orders had been sent to the officers commanding all three posts, to blow them up and retire, but the orders had never reached them. So swift and sudden had been the incursion of the Chinese bands, the assembling of General De-Nam’s pirates and dacoits, and the universal uprising of the “pacified” districts, that all patrols, pickets, and outposts had been cut off and destroyed.

Being an emaciated fever-stricken wreck, a poor pitiable object, looking far worse than I felt, I was sent to hospital and then put on light duty.