Halfhyde on the Yangtze Read online

  “It would save time, Captain, if you would tell me what you already know.”

  “About Chungking?”

  “The situation there, yes.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “That is what I said, Mr Bloementhal. I know my orders and nothing more.”

  “Your orders being to bring out all Europeans—this much I also know, Captain. It’s not going to be easy.”

  “The officers and men of Her Majesty’s Fleet are not deterred by difficulties, Mr Bloementhal.”

  “Indeed not,” Bloementhal said earnestly, and at once became more American in Watkiss’ eyes. All Americans were earnest. “No offence intended, Captain.”

  “I trust not. What do you wish to tell me? I repeat, I have been many hours upon my bridge, and I wish to sleep while I can. It’s not much to ask,” Captain Watkiss added on a note of angry pettishness.

  “I’m sorry, Captain. What I wish to do is just simply to inform you of the diplomatic background so that when you meet with the Chinese authorities, as you will, you won’t put your foot in it.”

  Americans were also rude. And perhaps after all he was a genuine American: he had said meet with—Americans always used unnecessary words. He went on at some length and most of it, in Captain Watkiss’ opinion, was rubbish. When at last the American had gone and left him in peace, Watkiss undressed and turned into his bunk. The night passed peacefully: no alarums or excursions. After breakfast next morning, Watkiss sent for Halfhyde to come to his cabin.

  “Bloementhal, Mr Halfhyde,” he said. “Blasted fellow kept me awake half the night. Kindly deflect my fan away from me. Air blowing upon one spot leads to neuralgia. He said nothing of much importance, the gist being what I already knew—that war must not be provoked.”

  “Nothing more pointed than that, sir?”

  “Well. Yes, there was something. There’s a squarehead there, a Hun. I dislike Huns…this is an important one, I gather. Count Hermann von something, Furstenberg, that was it. He sounds well-connected, but apparently he’s not to be trusted.”

  “Is he one of the people in the Consulate?”

  Watkiss shook his head. “No. He’s friendly with the Chinese authorities…there’s a lot of jiggery-pokery going on between him and the local mandarins, and apparently the Empress-Dowager’s involved—not directly, but through intermediaries. According to Bloementhal, there’s a treaty in the air. The Huns want to get a footing ahead of the blasted Russians, and it’s not going to suit the United States whichever of those two concludes an agreement with the Empress.”

  “And us, sir?”

  “D’you mean Whitehall?”

  “Yes. Will a treaty with the Germans or Russians be unwelcome to Whitehall as well?”

  “That’s scarcely Bloementhal’s business, Mr Halfhyde, is it? Frankly, I don’t know, but I would assume any such agreement to be possibly against our British interest, and I have no doubt that is why I was selected to lead our mission.”

  Halfhyde stared. “Our mission, sir, is surely to cut out the Europeans and sail with them to Shanghai—that alone, with no outright involvement in diplomacy suggested or desired?”

  “Circumstances alter cases, my dear Halfhyde, do they not?” Watkiss said with dignity. “I am resilient and shall not be found wanting if my services should be required beyond the expressed orders.”

  Halfhyde offered no comment, but reflected that his Captain’s total dislike of foreigners was likely enough to cause any diplomatic situation to deteriorate sharply. Watkiss’ effect would be like that of a bull in a china shop, and he would best be confined to the straightforward duty of rescue and removal. Watkiss, however, having had time to ponder, and as a result having thought himself into expansion of his duty, was starting to preen; and in that lay much danger.

  “CAPTAIN, SIR.”

  Lord Edward Cole’s tones, coming down the voice-pipe from the navigating bridge, woke Mr Beauchamp from pleasant dreams of confirmed command. He seized the voice-pipe and applied the flexible tube to his ear. “The Captain speaking,” he said.

  “A signal from the Senior Officer, sir.”

  Respectfully, Beauchamp sat up in his bunk. “Yes, Lord Edward?”

  “Cockroach has Chungking in sight, sir, and reports sounds of gunfire. As a matter of fact, sir, I can hear them myself.”

  “Yes. You should really have informed me earlier, Lord Edward, but never mind. I shall come to the bridge at once.” About to replace the voice-pipe, Beauchamp heard further sounds and put the thing back against his ear. “What was that?”

  “I said it’s awfully exciting, sir.”

  “Yes, indeed, very.” Beauchamp clambered out of his bunk and dressed quickly, sweating into his white uniform the moment it met his body: the nearer they came to Chungking, the hotter grew the temperature. Chungking was a nasty place, Mr Beauchamp had always heard, desperately hot and very, very rainy. As yet unshaven, he proceeded to his bridge and returned the salute of his First Lieutenant. He heard the gunfire, something rather heavy interspersed with the sharper crack of rifles. He fancied he heard yells, and undoubtedly he saw the smoke of fires as though the whole city was being sacked. A wateriness came to his stomach; as Lord Edward had said, it was exciting, but within the next fifteen minutes or so he, Beauchamp, was going to be put to the test; the test not of battle but of possibly being ordered by Captain Watkiss to take his ship alongside the wharf, a manoeuvre for which he had never yet, as a commanding officer of very recent appointment, been wholly and personally responsible. To make a shambles of it would be disastrous and Captain Watkiss would not mince matters afterwards. However, his anxieties were to be relieved: in due course another signal came from the leader, general to all ships, indicating that they were to anchor in the stream upon the executive signal from Cockroach. To bring a ship to an anchor was easy.

  Mr Beauchamp pulled at his jaw. “Watch for the executive, Yeoman. Lord Edward, pipe the cable party, if you please, and then stand by on the fo’c’sle.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “I DON’T like the look of it, Mr Halfhyde.” Watkiss lowered his telescope and steadied his white-clad stomach against the forward guardrail. “I’ve half a mind to beat to quarters,” he went on, as though commanding a sailing line-of-battle ship. “But I shall not. We must not exacerbate the dagoes.”

  “Suppose they attack, sir?”

  “Oh, they’ll not do that! They’ll not take the risk of firing upon the White Ensign, Mr Halfhyde, that’s fact, I said it. Of course, once we go ashore, it’s a different matter and we’ll have to be ready for ’em—but the buggers won’t try anything against the British flag.”

  “I don’t see the difference between attacking British uniforms and attacking the British flag, sir.”

  Watkiss clicked his tongue. “Oh, balls and bang me arse, Mr Halfhyde, if you can’t see the difference that’s your misfortune, not mine. I’m lying off in the stream precisely because they won’t dare attack and I intend to handle all this with tact and diplomacy. Where’s that man Bloementhal?”

  “Below, sir.”

  “Good. Probably can’t tear his bottom away from the heads I shouldn’t wonder. Listen to that din.”

  Halfhyde listened: somewhere, and it was probably the British Consulate, was under heavy attack. He remarked as much to the Captain, who gave a sage nod. “Yes, you may well be quite right, Mr Halfhyde. I had formed the same conclusion. I think I’ll make a signal.”

  “To whom, sir?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t always think of the difficulties,” Watkiss said irritably. “I suppose they have a mayor or something, a headman, or possibly there’ll be a Chinese general, I really can’t be expected to know. Yeoman!”

  “Yessir?”

  “Make a signal by lamp: ‘General from Senior Officer of gunboat flotilla. The fighting is to stop instantly or I shall bombard the town.’” Watkiss turned impatiently upon his First Lieutenant. “Yes, what
is it, Mr Halfhyde, and if you’re going to say the dagoes won’t understand English I shall reply that I certainly can’t speak Chinese. Someone will pick up my signal and someone will translate it.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Kindly don’t argue with me, Mr Halfhyde, I detest argument and consider it insubordinate.”

  Halfhyde shrugged; he had been about to draw the Captain’s attention to an inconsistency between the wording of the signal and his expressed intention of using tact, but really it was not worth the waste of breath. The yeoman of signals began clacking out the message on his Aldis lamp and peering vainly through the smoke for an acknowledgement, and Halfhyde, alternately watching his chart and the leading marks upon the shore, announced that Cockroach was now coming up to her anchorage.

  “Executive, Mr Halfhyde.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” The flag hoist was brought down on the halliards, giving the executive signal to the ships astern, and simultaneously the slips were knocked away upon all the fo’c’sles and the anchors went down with a rush and a splash into the murky waters of the Yangtze. As they did so a tremendous explosion came from beneath the Gadfly, a vast spout of water shot skywards and dropped back in drenching spray, and the gunboat began to settle gently in the water. Captain Watkiss, blown flat and dripping with filthy water, scrambled to his feet, his face redly furious. He shook both fists in the air, one towards the shore, the other towards the sinking Gadfly. No heavy gunfire, so much he knew, had been directed at the ships by the Chinese.

  “That fool Beauchamp—he must have dropped his blasted anchor smack on a blasted bomb or mine!”

  Chapter 4

  “YOU ARE a damn disgrace, Mr Beauchamp, a damn disgrace!”

  Beauchamp was like a jelly, a jelly that wrung its hands. “There were no casualties, sir. All hands have been brought off—”

  “But not by you, Mr Beauchamp—by the rest of my ships’ companies!” Captain Watkiss shook a fist in Beauchamp’s forlorn face. “I repeat, you’re a damn disgrace to the service and the Queen and you’ve lost me a valuable ship—”

  “But I wasn’t to know, sir! It was—it was wholly fortuitous. You could have done the same thing yourself, sir.”

  Watkiss opened his mouth and closed it again. Then he said, “That’s impertinent, Mr Beauchamp, the facts are that when there is a mine or bomb on the river bed, you, not I, have to go and drop your blasted anchor on it and detonate it. Nevertheless, you have raised a valid point: there may be others in the vicinity. We must all walk warily. How loathsome dagoes are. We might all blow to kingdom come at any blasted moment. Mr Halfhyde?”

  “Sir?”

  “Warn all hands throughout the flotilla: nothing is to be cast overboard and when boats are lowered, they are to be lowered gently. If there should be wind enough to cause us to drag our anchors, God help us all. Mr Beauchamp?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You may consider yourself in open arrest for hazarding and losing your ship. I shall ask for court martial proceedings on our return to Hong Kong.” Captain Watkiss called to the yeoman of signals. “Has there been any acknowledgement of my signal, Yeoman?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What a useless lot foreigners are.”

  ALL THE COs came aboard for a council of war called by Captain Watkiss. Together with Halfhyde and Lieutenant Sankey commanding the marine detachment, they assembled in Cockroach’s wardroom, cramming it to capacity. From the head of the table Captain Watkiss surveyed his subordinate commanders with the aid of his monocle, and began a dissertation, which was interrupted by the arrival of Mr Bloementhal.

  Watkiss stared rudely and said, “I am in conference with my officers, Mr Bloementhal, and shall be most obliged if you’d make yourself scarce.”

  “I must remind you, Captain, that I’m concerned in—”

  “Diplomatically. Not militarily.”

  “The two go hand in hand. I must insist on a seat at your conference, Captain.”

  “You will insist on nothing, my dear sir, when aboard my ship. Kindly leave.”

  Bloementhal shrugged and lifted his palms. “If that’s your order, naturally I have no alternative. But it’ll be my duty to report to Rear Admiral Hackenticker, and,” he went on in a voice loud enough to drown some derogatory remarks about Rear Admiral Hackenticker, “to my legation and yours as well, and if subsequently, matters do not go as hoped, then the absence of my counsel will be noted in the highest quarters. However, you do not wish me to remain, so I’ll go.”

  “You will not leave without my permission,” Watkiss snapped, “and it so happens I have changed my mind and require your presence. Kindly sit down.”

  “No chair,” Bloementhal said sourly.

  “Stand then. Now, gentlemen.” Watkiss cleared his throat, making an important sound of it. “We all know what we have to do, and that is, to relieve the unfortunate people in the British Consulate, bring them back here and hold them safe.”

  “Easier said than done, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Mr Bloementhal, I am well aware of the difficulties of my task. If you’ll allow me to proceed, I shall make known my plan of campaign. It is simple.” Lifting his telescope, Captain Watkiss pointed it through the scuttle on the ship’s port side. “Over there, so my chart tells me, is a wharf, currently obscured by the blasted drifting smoke. I propose to use that wharf as my assembly point. The entire ship’s company of Gadfly, thanks to Mr Beauchamp, will be available for the landing-parties, and fifteen men from each of the remaining ships of my flotilla, together with your marines, Mr Sankey, will join me ashore to make up the complement. Rifles and bayonets, one hundred rounds of ammunition per man in cartridge belts, gaiters of course for the seamen and stokers, petty officers to be armed with revolvers and cutlasses, officers with revolvers alone. Drums to be provided by the marines. Also fifes. You have fifes, Mr Sankey?”

  “I have, sir. Four fifes, two drums.”

  “They shall give heart to my men.” Captain Watkiss drew out a turnip-shaped silver timepiece and gazed at it for a few moments. “It is now a little past five bells. At eight bells all hands are to be ready to land and the boats in the water. When all my commanding officers have reported their state of readiness, I shall make the signal to proceed inshore. This signal will be four long blasts from my steam siren. All boats will then head inshore, independently, for the wharf. One man will remain to tend each boat, the remainder will fall in immediately upon disembarkation…yes, what is it now, for God’s sake, Mr Halfhyde?”

  “Two points, sir. One, the boats. Gadfly’s boats have been lost, and since we also have to land the marines—”

  “Yes, yes, yes, what a fuss you always make, Mr Halfhyde, to be sure. I was about to add, had I been given time, that the boats will return for more men when they have shed their first loads. Your other point, Mr Halfhyde?”

  “With great respect, sir, I’ve not yet finished with my first one. There will be a period of danger when an inadequate force is left to kick its heels on the wharf while they wait for the others to be put ashore.”

  “Yes indeed, but I shall be there with them, and the dagoes will think twice before offering violence to a Post Captain of Her Majesty’s Fleet, Mr Halfhyde, so fiddlesticks. Your second point?”

  “It can be left, sir.”

  “Oh no, it can’t, you’ve raised it, so kindly make it.”

  “Very well, sir. The question of what happens if—when—we are able to bring the besieged persons off to the flotilla.”

  “I’m glad you changed if to when, Mr Halfhyde, very glad. Well?”

  Halfhyde said, “I noted your earlier remark, sir, that they would be held safe.”

  “Certainly.”

  Halfhyde coughed into his hand. “There seemed to be an indication that you didn’t intend weighing and proceeding at once to Shanghai, sir.”

  “Precisely. Do you object, Mr Halfhyde, do you perhaps fear the animosity of the blasted dagoes?”

  “No
, sir. I am merely bearing in mind the orders from the Commodore.”

  “Which are not your concern, I am the officer in command here. In any case, there’s no need for decision at this moment and I think you are being premature in raising a stupid point just now, Mr Halfhyde. I may sail for Shanghai, I may not. Time will tell. The Commodore spoke, did he not, of a need for tactful handling? If I feel that my presence may be of help in a situation which is not yet clear, then I shall remain in Chungking. What a damn nuisance you sometimes are, Mr Halfhyde, as bad as Beauchamp.” Captain Watkiss hoisted his long shorts and looked disdainfully towards the American. “Have you lost your tongue, Mr Bloementhal? Scarcely a word has emerged from you after all the fuss you made about joining my conference!”

  Bloementhal smiled; an oily smile, thought Watkiss, and somehow untrustworthy. “My tongue’s safe and sound, Captain. I wished only to be an observer at this stage.”

  “Just to make sure,” Captain Watkiss asked tartly, “that I didn’t do anything wrong?”

  Another smile. “Your words, Captain.”

  “I think you sound impertinent.”

  “Sorry.”

  The conference broke up, the officers going out on deck to return to their commands and prepare the landing-parties. The sound of fighting was heard still, but more distantly; there was sporadic rifle fire and many yells and cries, and the smoke hung over all, filled with menace and with the red glow of the burning buildings. It was an angry and tricky situation but Watkiss had seemed confident; he always did. Halfhyde was not so sanguine. The might of Britain, of the British Navy, was respected throughout the world, it was true, and bombast could go a long way, but to place total reliance upon it could be unwise. The full strength of the landing-parties would amount to no more than a hundred and twenty officers, petty officers and men, the marines included. Such a force could and would give a good account of itself, but it would be opposed by a number of Chinese as yet unknown but which would all too likely amount to many thousands: Chungking contained a population of more than a hundred thousand souls and the rabble-rousers would presumably have been at work for some while. As Halfhyde looked out towards the teeming city he was assailed by raindrops. He shrugged; some heavy rain might well dampen both fires and hotheads, and if so would be welcome. He had turned away to have words with the gunner’s mate in regard to the equipping of Cockroach’s contribution to the landing-parties when Lord Edward Cole ex Gadfly laid a hand on his arm.