Читать книгу Fort in the Jungle - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 4

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The jungle fort of Houi-Ninh, its back to the swift and mighty river Meh Song, its front and flanks to the illimitable Annamese jungle, stood like a little rock, almost submerged beneath a deep green sea.

Behind it, a theoretically pacified land of peaceful if resentful villages, set in rice-field, forest, plain and swamp; before it, the unconquerable jungle, its dank and gloomy depths the home and defence of fierce swift jungle-men, predatory, savage, and devilishly cruel.

And beyond that vast uncharted sea of densest forest and impenetrable swamp, a further terra incognita; and then China, inimical, enigmatic and sinister.

The little jungle fort was strong, the foundations of its walls great boulders of stone, the walls themselves dried mud and great baulks of mahogany, its vast and heavy iron-wood gate secured by huge steel bars which were lengths of railway-line.

Within the square of walls was the low oblong white-washed caserne containing the chambrée in which the men slept, the store-room, the cook-house, the non-commissioned officers’ quarters, and the office-bedroom of the Commandant.

The fort was besieged. Hordes of flat-faced, slant-eyed warriors, half brigand, pirate and dacoit, half mandarin’s irregular soldier, swarmed about it in the gloom of the jungle just beyond the tiny clearing that surrounded its walls. From lofty iron-wood trees, a galling and decimating fire had been kept up for days, by the Möi, Tho, Muong and Chinese sharp-shooters armed with Sniders, Chassepot and Gras guns, as well as excellent Spencer carbines and Remington repeating rifles, reducing the garrison to half its original inadequate numbers, and inflicting upon it the loss not only of its Commandant, Lieutenant Jacot, but of its half-dozen non-commissioned officers as well.

It was now commanded by an ordinary soldat première classe, the Légionnaire Paladino, senior man present, and readily-accepted leader.

The last official communication from the outside world had been a suddenly-ended heliograph message, the concluding sentence of which had been ominous.

“Those about to die, salute ...”

It had come from another fort set upon a hill some twenty-five li^[1] distant.

[1]	Li = about 600 yards.