I remember seeing Mr. Hoffman lying flat on his back, with his face turned up and his eyes looking at me, and remember speaking to him; but he didn’t answer. Sally wasn’t there either, and I stepped across him, and somehow or other found myself stumbling up the ladder into that room, and heard Sally sobbing in a corner. I was shivering, and my teeth were chattering, and that horrid sick feeling came on again.
Just as I got to the bottom of the ladder a stream of fire shot up across one of the windows, and I heard a rushing noise, as if it were a rocket; but I didn’t take any notice of it, for everything seemed to be going round and round People crowded up after me, and pushed me aside, and began firing out of the windows, and the room felt stuffy and full of powder smoke. Sometimes someone would give a cry, and once someone fell across my legs, and I tried to pull them from under him, but couldn’t, and let them stop there, and remember that the weight was pulled away presently, and I was pushed nearer the wall, and someone gave me some water.
The next I remember was recognizing Miller’s voice; it sounded muffled and cotton-woolly and very far away. He was saying: "The Chinese Lootenant wants to know if you can take in Morse[#], sir. The _Vigilant_ is signalling. We fired a rocket an hour ago to let ’em know that the _Huan Min’s_ men were ’ere, an’ we’ve been tryin’ to take in their signal."
[#] Morse code for signalling at night by means of long and short flashes of a lamp.
"I can’t take in flashing lamp," I told him, trying to make my brain work.
"It ain’t flashing lamp, sir; they’re adoin’ it with a searchlight, and very very slow, sir, an’ the Chinee signalman what came along with ’im, sir, is dead, sir. You’ll ’ave to come along pretty quick too, sir; there’s a ’orrid fog been shuttin’ everythin’ out ever since, but it’s just cleared off for a time. The wind’s gone round to the south, and it ’as been as thick as pea soup."
I told him that I would try, and got him to help me up. I knew that I could read it if it was slow enough, and my brain would only remember properly. We had to go to the other end of the house, and I don’t know how Miller got me down that ladder. I know that I slipped and was caught at the bottom, and my left arm was wrenched again. The pain seemed to wake me up, but I had to grind my teeth and sing out.