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Updated: June 27, 2025
This made assurance a certainty, every man-jack of the crew being cock- a-hoop with excitement, when, after a lot of signalling between the two cruisers, and the Merlin's gig bringing her captain alongside, he being junior to `old Hankey Pankey, the two of us sailed off in company just before sunset.
We did not need the advice, however, as the Arabs themselves could have borne testimony to, for with a wild rush, that carried everything and everybody before it, we drove our foe back into their stronghold, and recovered `old Hankey Pankey, who was at once hoisted triumphantly up by a couple of marines.
"Now then, Gresham," said `old Hankey Pankey, drawing himself up to his full height, and looking every inch what he was, an officer and a gentleman ay, and a sailor too, as plucky as they make them "I think we'd better begin, or those beggars will get too far ahead, and a stern chase, you know, is a long chase. Bugler, sound `man and arm boats'!"
It must have been pretty lively for the Arabs: too warm after a bit to be pleasant! So `old Hankey Pankey' appeared to think; and, when our guns had fired about a couple of rounds each all round, the bugle sounded the `cease fire, and he came aft and hailed us.
The boats of the Merlin left their ship at the same time as we did ours; the two lots making for the land in two columns abreast, `old Hankey Pankey' leading our line in the launch, with the first and second cutters and the whaler trailing on behind, while Captain Oliver led those of the Merlin.
`Old Hankey Pankey' got us all ashore the same afternoon the admiral's orders came; and, early the next morning, nearly four hundred strong now, just double our former strength, we marched off up country towards the scene of our defeat at the hands of the Somali chieftain Abdalah, on the occasion of our previous trip inland.
All our preparations being thus complete, `old Hankey Pankey' arranged for us to break camp at four o'clock the next morning, and move off to where the Somalis and their allies were said by the natives to be intrenched in strong force, so as to take them in the rear while the admiral made a front attack.
This was the signal for a ringing cheer from all hands in our boat, as well as from those in the second cutter and whaler, which had been likewise cast off from the tow-rope; while `old Hankey Pankey' himself jumped up into the rigging of the Mermaid as we started away, and led a return cheer from the ship as the three of us raced in line abreast towards the dhows inshore.
These instructions were acted on immediately by `old Hankey Pankey' to the letter, parties of seamen and marines from each ship in turn landing and patrolling the outskirts of the settlement, in front of which our little fleet of three vessels was anchored; and so we `marked time, so to speak, for the next few months, waiting for the ships belonging to the West African squadron to come up with the admiral himself, as not until then would we be able to resume active operations against the foe, whose defeat of us before their stockade at Wooromoloo we were burning to avenge.
He was not licked yet, though; for, as Larrikins stooped over him to lift him up, `old Hankey Pankey' got his arm round his neck and climbed up on to him pick-a-back, Larry highly delighted at the job, he and the captain then advancing again to the assault.
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