Now, you who know me may find what I’ve just written, and what I am about to tell you, extremely strange, coming from me at such a time. But as I’ve said before, there’s nothing in these memoirs that isn’t gospel true, and you must just take my word for it. My memory’s clear, even if my understanding isn’t always perfect, and I’m in no doubt of what happened on that day, or on the night that followed.
I went striding back down the valley, then, singing “A-hunting we will go”, if I remember rightly, and was just in time to see Yakub and Kutebar return from their meeting with Buzurg Khan in a fine rage: the overlord had refused to risk any of his people in what he, the shirking recreant, regarded as a lost hope. I couldn’t believe such poltroonery, myself, and said so, loudly. But there it was: the business was up to us and our five thousand sabres, and when Yakub jumped on a pile of camel bales in the valley market, and told the mob it was do or die by themselves for the honour of Old Khokand, and explained how we were going to assault the beach that night and blow up the powder-ships, the whole splendid crowd rose to him as a man. There was just a sea of faces, yellow and brown, slit-eyed and hook-nosed, bald-pated and scalp-locked or turbaned and hairy, all yelling and laughing and waving their sabres, with the wilder spirits cracking off their pistols and racing their ponies round the outskirts of the crowd in an ecstasy of excitement, churning up the dust and whooping like Arapahoes.
And when Kutebar, to a storm of applause, took his place beside Yakub, and thundered in his huge voice: “North, south, east, and west – where shall you find the Kirgiz? By the silver hand of Alexander, they are here!” the whole place exploded in wild cheering, and they crowded round the two leaders, promising ten Russian dead for every one of ours, and I thought, why not give ’em a bit of civilized comfort, too, so I jumped up myself, roaring “Hear, hear!”, and when they stopped to listen I gave it to them, straight and manly.
“That’s the spirit, you fellows!” I told them. “I second what these two fine associates of mine have told you, and have only this to add. We’re going to blow these bloody Russians from Hell to Huddersfield – and I’m the chap who can do it, let me tell you! So I shall detain you no longer, my good friends – and Tajiks, and niggers, and what-not – but only ask you to be upstanding and give a rousing British cheer for the honour of the dear old Schoolhouse – hip, hip, hip, hurrah!”
And didn’t they cheer, too? Best speech I ever made, I remember thinking, and Yakub clapped me on the back, grinning all over, and said by the beard of Mohammed, if we had proposed a march on Moscow every man-jack would have been in his saddle that minute, riding west. I believed him, too, and said it was a damned good idea, but he said no, the powder ships were enough for just now, and I must take pains to instruct the band of assistants whom he’d told off to help me with the rockets when we got to the beach.
So I got them together – and Ko Dali’s daughter was there, too, lovely girl and so attentive, all in black, now, shirt, pyjamys, boots and turban, very business-like. And I lectured them about Congreves – it was remarkable how well I remembered each detail about assembling the firing-frame and half-pipes, and adjusting the range-screws and everything; the excellent fellows took it all in, spitting and exclaiming with excitement, and you could see that even if they weren’t the kind to get elected to the Royal Society for their mechanical aptitude, their hearts were in the right place. I tried to get Ko Dali’s daughter aside afterwards for some special instruction, but she excused herself, so I went off to the grindstone merchant to get a sabre sharpened, and got Kutebar to find me a few rounds for my German revolver.
“The only thing that irks me,” I told him, “is that we are going to be stuck in some stuffy go-down, blazing away with rockets, while Yakub and the others have got the best of the evening. Damn it, Izzat, I want to put this steel across a few Ruski necks – there’s a wall-eyed rascal called Ignatieff, now, have I told you about him? Two rounds from this pop-gun into his midriff, and then a foot of sabre through his throat – that’s all he needs. By gad, I’m thirsty tonight, I tell you.”
“It is a good thirst,” says he approvingly. “But think, angliski, of the countless hundreds infidel pigs – your pardon, when I say infidels, I mean Ruskis – whom we shall send to the bottom of Aral with these fine ra-kets. Is that not worthy work for a warrior?”
“Oh, I daresay,” I grumbled. “But it ain’t the same as jamming a sword in their guts and watching ’em wriggle. That’s my sort, now. I say, have I ever told you about Balaclava?”
I didn’t know when I’d felt so blood-lusty, and it got worse as the evening wore on. By the time we saddled up I was full of hate against a vague figure who was Ignatieff in a Cossack hat with the Tsar’s eagle across the front of his shirt; I wanted to settle him, gorily and painfully, and all the way on our ride across the Kizil Kum in the gathering dark I was dreaming fine nightmares in which I despatched him. But from time to time I felt quite jolly, too, and sang a few snatches of “The Leather Bottel” and “John Peel” and other popular favourites, while the riders grinned and nudged each other, and Kutebar muttered that I was surely bewitched. And all the way the Silk One rode knee to knee with me – not so close that I could give her a squeeze, unfortunately, and silent most of the time, although she seemed to be watching me closely. Well, what girl doesn’t – especially when she’s just had her first taste of Flashy? I recalled it fondly, and promised myself I would continue her education, for she deserved it, the dear child – but not until I’d satisfied my yearning for slaughter of Russians. That was the main thing, and by the time we had trotted silently into the scrubby wood that lies a bare half-mile from Fort Raim, I was fairly dribbling to be at them.
It took a good hour in the cold dark to bring all the riders quietly into the safety of the wood, each man holding his horse’s nostrils or blanketing its head, while I fidgeted with impatience. It was the waiting that infuriated me, when we could have been down on the beach killing Russians, and I spoke pretty sharp to Yakub Beg about it when he emerged out of the shadows, very brave in spiked helmet and red cloak, to say that we should move when the moon hid behind the cloud bank.
“Come along, come along, come along,” says I. “What are we about, then? The brutes’ll be sounding reveille in a moment.”
“Patience, blood brother,” says he, giving me a puzzled look, and then a grin. “You shall have your rockets at their throats presently. God keep you. Kutebar, preserve that worthless carcase if you can, and you, beloved Silk One –” he reached out and pressed her head to his breast, whispering to her. Bully for some, thinks I: wonder if you can do it on a trotting horse? Have to try some time – and then Yakub was calling softly into the dark.
“In the name of God and the Son of God! Kirgiz, Uzbek, Tajik, Kalmuk, Turka – remember Ak Mechet! The morning rides behind us!” And he made that strange, moaning Khokand whistle, and with a great rumbling growl and a drumming of hooves the whole horde went surging forward beneath the trees and out on to the empty steppe towards Fort Raim.
If I’d been a sentry on those walls I’d have had apoplexy. One moment an empty steppe, and the next it was thick with mounted men, pouring down on the fort; we must have covered a quarter of a mile before the first shot cracked, and then we were tearing at full tilt towards the gap between fort and river, with the shouts of alarm sounding from the walls, and musketry popping, and then with one voice the yell of the Ghazi war-cry burst from the riders (one voice, in fact, was crying “Tally-ho! Ha-ha!”), five thousand mad creatures thundering down the long slope with the glittering sea far ahead, and the ships riding silent and huge on the water, and on to the cluttered beach, with men scattering in panic as we swept in among the great piles of bales, sabring and shooting, leaping crazily in the gloom over the boxes and low shelters, Yakub’s contingent streaming out to the left among the sheds and go-downs, while our party and Sahib Khan’s drove for the pier.
God, what a chaos it was! I was galloping like a dervish at Kutebar’s heels roaring “Hark forrard! Ha, ha, you bloody foreigners, Flashy’s here!”, careering through the narrow spaces between the sheds, with the muskets banging off to our left, startled sleepers crying out, and everyone yelling like be-damned. As we burst headlong onto the last stretch of open beach, and swerved past the landward end of the pier, some stout Russian was bawling and letting fly with a pistol; I left off singing “Rule, Britannia” to take a shot at him, but missed, and there ahead someone was waving a torch and calling, and suddenly there were dark figures all around us, clutching at our bridles, almost pulling us from the saddles towards a big go-down on the north side of the pier.
I was in capital fettle as I strode into the go-down, which was full of half-naked natives with torches, all in a ferment of excitement.
“Now, then, my likely lads,” cries I, “where are these Congreves, eh? Look alive, boys, we haven’t got all night, you know.”
“Here is the devil-fire, oh slayer of thousands,” says someone, and there sure enough was a huge pile of boxes, and in the smoky torchlight I could see the broad arrow, and make out the old familiar lettering on them: “Royal Small Arms Factory. Handle with Extreme Care. Explosives. Danger. This side up.”
“And how the deuce did this lot get here, d’ye suppose?” says I to Kutebar. “Depend upon it, some greasy bastard in Birmingham with a pocketful of dollars could tell us. Right-o, you fellows, break ’em out, break ’em out!” And as they set to with a will, I gave them another chorus of “John Peel” and strode to the sea end of the go-down, which of course was open, and surveyed the bay.
Ko Dali’s daughter was at my elbow, with a chattering nigger pointing out which ship was which. There were two steamers, the farther one being the Obrucheff, three vessels with masts, of which the Mikhail was farthest north, and a ketch, all riding under the moon on the glassy sea, pretty as paint.
“That’s the ticket for soup!” says I. “We’ll have ’em sunk in half a jiffy. How are you, my dear – I say, that’s a fetching rig you’re wearing!” And I gave her a squeeze for luck, but she wriggled free.
“The firing-frame, angliski – you must direct them,” says she, and I turned reluctantly from surveying the bay and listening to the war that was breaking out along the beach – hell of a din of shooting and yelling, and it stirred my blood to action. I strode in among the toilers, saw the firing-frame broken from its crate, and showed them where to position it, at the very lip of the go-down, just above the small boats and barges which were rocking gently at their moorings on the water six feet below our feet.
Putting up the frame was simple – it’s just an iron fence, you see, with supports both sides, and half-pipes running from the ground behind to the top of the fence, to take the rockets. I’ve never known my fingers so nimble as I tightened the screws and adjusted the half-pipes in their sockets; everyone else seemed slow by comparison, and I cursed them good-naturedly and finally left Ko Dali’s daughter to see to the final adjustments while I went off to examine the rockets.
They had them broken out by now, the dull grey three-foot metal cylinders with their conical heads – I swore when I saw that, as I’d feared, they were the old pattern, without fins and needing the fifteen-foot sticks.43 Sure enough, there were the sticks, in long canvas bundles; I called for one, and set to work to fit it into a rocket head, but the thing was corroded to blazes.
“Now blast these Brummagem robbers!” cries I. “This is too bad – see how British workmanship gets a bad name! At this rate the Yankees will be streets ahead of us. Break out another box!”
“Burst it open! off with the lid, sons of idleness!” bawls Kutebar, fuming with impatience. “If it was Russian gold within, you’d have them open fast enough!”
“They will open in God’s time, father of all wisdom,” says one of the riders. “See, there they lie, like the silver fish of See-ah – are they not pretty to behold?”
“Prettier yet when they strike those Ruski ships of Eblis!” roars Kutebar. “Bring me a stick that I may arm one of these things! What science is here! Wisdom beyond that of the great astronomer of Samarkand has gone to the making of these fine instruments. I salute you, Flashman bahadur, and the genius of your infidel professors of Anglistan. See, there it stands, ready to blow the sons of pigs straight up Shaitan’s backside!” And he flourished the stick, with the rockethead secured – upside down, which made me laugh immoderately.
I was interrupted by the Silk One, tugging urgently at my sleeve, imploring me to hurry – I couldn’t see what all the fuss was, for I was enjoying things thoroughly. The battle was going great guns outside, with a steady crackle of gunfire, but no regular volleys, which meant, as I pointed out, that the Ruskis hadn’t come to order yet.
“Lots of time, darling,” I soothed her. “Now, how’s the frame? Very creditable, very handy, you fellows – well done. Right-ho, Izzat, let’s have some of those rockets along here, sharp now! Mustn’t keep ladies waiting, what?” And I took a slap at her tight little backside – I don’t know when I’ve felt so full of beans.
It was a fine, sweaty confusion in the go-down as they dragged the rockets down to the firing-frame, and I egged ’em on, and showed them how to lay a rocket in the half-pipe – no corrosion there, thank God, I noted, and the Silk One fairly twitched with impatience – strange girl, she was, tense as a telegraph wire at moments like this, but all composure when she was at home – while I lectured her on the importance of unrusted surfaces, so that the rockets flew straight.
“In God’s name, angliski!” cries Kutebar. “Let us be about it! See the Mikhail yonder, with enough munitions aboard to blow the Aral dry – for the love of women, let us fire on her!”
“All right, old fellow,” says I. “Let’s see how we stand.” I squinted along the half-pipe, which was at full elevation. “Give us a box beneath the pipe, to lift her. So – steady.” I adjusted the ranging-screw, and now the great conical head of the rocket was pointing just over her main mast. “That’s about it. Right, give me a slow-match, someone.”
Suddenly there wasn’t a sound in the go-down, apart from me whistling to myself as I took a last squint along the rocket and glanced round to see that everything was ready. I can see them still – the eager, bearded hawk-faces, the glistening half-naked bodies running sweat in the stuffy go-down, even Kutebar with his mouth hanging open, quiet for once, Ko Dali’s daughter with her face chalk-white and her eyes fixed on me. I gave her a wink.
“Stand clear, boys and girls,” I sang out. “Papa’s going to light the blue touch-paper and retire immediately!” And in that instant before I touched the match to the firing-vent, I had a sudden vivid memory of November the Fifth, with the frosty ground and the dark, and little boys chattering and giggling and the girls covering their ears, and the red eye of the rocket smouldering in the black, and the white fizz of sparks, and the chorus of admiring “oohs” and “aahs” as the rocket bursts overhead – and it was something like that now, if you like, except that here the fizzing was like a locomotive funnel belching sparks, filling the go-down with acrid, reeking smoke, while the firing-frame shuddered, and then with an almighty whoosh like an express tearing by the Congreve went rushing away into the night, clouds of smoke and fire gushing from its tail, and the boys and girls cried “By Shaitan!” and “Istagfarullah!”, and Papa skipped nimbly aside roaring “Take that, you sons of bitches!” And we all stood gaping as it soared into the night like a comet, reached the top of its arc, dipped towards the Mikhail – and vanished miles on the wrong side of it.
“Bad luck, dammit! Hard lines! Right, you fellows, let’s have another!” And laughing heartily, I had another box shoved under the pipe to level it out. We let fly again, but this time the rocket must have been faulty, for it swerved away crazily into the night, weaving to and fro before plunging into the water a bare three hundred yards out with a tremendous hiss and cloud of steam. We tried three more, and all fell short, so we adjusted the range slightly, and the sixth rocket flew straight and true, like a great scarlet lance searching for its target; we watched it pass between the masts of the Mikhail, and howled with disappointment. But now at least we had the range, so I ordered all the pipes loaded, and we touched off the whole battery at once.
It was indescribable and great fun – like a volcano erupting under your feet, and a dense choking fog filling the go-down; the men clinging to steady the firing-frame were almost torn from their feet, the rush of the launching Congreves was deafening, and for a moment we were all staggering about, weeping and coughing in that filthy smoke. It was a full minute before the reek had cleared sufficiently to see how our shots had fared, and then Kutebar was flinging himself into the air and rushing to embrace me.
“Ya’allahah! Wonder of God! Look – look yonder, Flashman! Look at the blessed sight! Is it not glorious – see, see how they burn!”
And he was right – the Mikhail was hit! There was a red ball of fire clinging to her timbers just below the rail amidships, and even as we watched there was a climbing lick of flame – and over to the right, by some freakish chance, the ketch had been hit, too: there was a fire on her deck, and she was slewing round at anchor. All about me they were dancing and yelling and clapping hands, like school girls when Popular Penelope has won the sewing prize.
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.
Somehow they must have poled the thing off, for when I had recovered my breath and pulled myself up to the low gunwale, we were about twenty yards from the go-down, and drifting away from the pier as the eddy from the river mouth, I suppose, caught the lighter and tugged it out to sea. I had only a momentary sight of the interior of the go-down, looking for all the world like a mine-shaft, with the figures of miners hewing away in it, and then I saw a brilliant light suddenly glowing on its floor, growing in intensity, and then the rush-rush-rush sound of the Congreves as the flames from the burning wall reached them, and I just had sense enough to duck my head below the gunwale before the whole place dissolved in a blinding light – but strangely enough, without any great roar of explosion, just the rushing noise of a huge whirlwind. There were screams and oaths from the lighter all around me, but when I raised my head there was just one huge flame where the go-down had been, and the pier beside it was burning at its landward end, and the glare was so fierce that beyond there was nothing to be seen.
I just lay, with my cheek on the thwart, wondering if the eddy would carry us out of range before they started shooting at us, and thinking how calm and pleasant it was to be drifting along here, after all the hellish work in the go-down. I still wasn’t feeling any sense of urgency, or anything beyond a detached, dreamy interest, and I can’t say even now whether we were fired on or not, for I suddenly became aware that Ko Dali’s daughter was crouched down beside me at the gunwale, staring back, and people were pressed close about us, and I thought, this is a splendid opportunity to squeeze that lovely little rump of hers. There it was, just nicely curved within a foot of me, so I took a handful and kneaded away contentedly, and she never even noticed – or if she did, she didn’t mind. But I think she was too preoccupied with the inferno we had left behind us; so were the others, craning and muttering as we drifted over the dark water. It’s queer, but in my memory that drifting and bum-fondling seems to have gone on for the deuce of a long time – I suppose I was immensely preoccupied with it, and a capital thing, too. But some other things I remember: the flames of the go-down and pier seen at a distance, and a wounded man groaning near me in the press of bodies; Ko Dali’s daughter speaking to Yakub Beg, and Kutebar saying something which involved an oath to do with a camel; and a water-skin being pressed against my lips, and the warm, brackish water making me choke and cough. And Yakub Beg saying that the Mikhail was burning to a wreck, but the Obrucheff had got away, so our work was only half-done, but better half-done than not done at all, and Kutebar growling that, by God, it was all very well for those who had been loafing about on the beach, building sand-castles, to talk, but if Yakub and his saunterers had been in the go-down, where the real business was …
And pat on his words the sun was suddenly in the sky – or so it seemed, for the whole place, the lighter, the sea around, and sky itself, were suddenly as bright as day, and it seemed to me that the lighter was no longer drifting, but racing over the water, and then came the most tremendous thundering crash of sound I’ve ever heard, reverberating over the sea, making the head sing and shudder with the deafening boom of it, and as I tried to put up my hands to my ears to shut out the pain, I heard Kutebar’s frantic yell:
“The Obrucheff! She has gone – gone to the pit of damnation! Now whose work is half-done? By God! – it is done, it is done, it is done! A thousand times done! Ya, Yakub – is it not done? Now the praise to Him and to the foreign professors!”