When we reached the tents there was hail already half a foot deep underfoot where the wind had blown it into drifts, and the next flash of lightning showed one tent--the bimbashi's own--split open and blown fluttering into strips.

The bimbashi rushed out with a blanket round his head and shoulders and tried to kick men out of another tent to make room for him, and failing to do that he scrambled in on top of them.

Opening the tent let the wind in, and that tent, too, split and fluttered and blew away.

And so at last they saw us coming.
They saw us when we were so close that there was no time to do much else than run away or surrender.

Quite a lot of them ran away I imagine, for they disappeared.