Raging Sea, Searing Sky

by Christopher Nicole

  The dirt and dilapidation included the train. When they stopped at a station where there was a large number of people gathered, and quite a young woman was solemnly carried on board as if she were either an invalid or queen, the richness of her attire and the enthusiasm of her servants and relatives seemed from another world.

  ‘The lily foot,’ commented the only other passenger in Lew’s compartment. He was an European, Lew had already decided, and now he realised the man was probably English from his accent — but with his short beard and his somewhat grubby whites he could have been any nationality in the world — save Chinese. Now he introduced himself. ‘John McIntyre.’

  ‘Lewis McGann.’ Lew shook hands.

  ‘United States Navy,’ McIntyre commented. ‘Lieutenant-Commander. Are you replacing Hallstrom?’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Captain Hallstrom. He’s S.N.O in Shanghai, for your navy.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ Lew muttered. He had not thought to ask who would be his commanding officer, and the admiral had obviously never heard, or forgotten, about what had happened fourteen years ago.

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘No,’ Lew said. ‘I am not replacing Captain Hallstrom. May I ask what you meant by the lily foot?’

  ‘One of those damned foolish Chinese notions. When a big wig has a daughter, her foot is bound up at birth, and kept that way, until it is so deformed she cannot walk. Thus she has to be carried everywhere, as you saw.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell me why they do that, Mr McIntyre.’

  ‘Why, so that she can display to the world that she has never had to work, even at domestic tasks, in her life.’

  ‘Rather an extreme way of proving a point, isn’t it?’

  McIntyre shrugged. ‘China is rather an extreme country, Commander. I imagine you’ll find that out, if you spend any time here.’

  The train was slowing to stop at the European station. Here there was a platoon of Japanese soldiers, standing to attention and in the smartest possible contrast to the Chinese Lew had seen earlier, with their white peaked caps and gaiters, and their blue and white uniforms. Their commander scrutinised everyone who got off the train, and when two Chinese coolies disembarked from the third class carriage, he pounced on them and an altercation followed, everyone shouting incomprehensibly, while the train waited, until the officer summoned half a dozen of his men and the two Chinese were bundled back into the carriage, with a good deal of kicks and cuffs.

  ‘Should we interfere?’ Lew asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t, old man.’

  ‘But this is China, right? And those are Japanese manhandling Chinese.’

  McIntyre shrugged. ‘The Japs reckon they own the country. Well, I suppose down here they do. Do you know, every nation has some troops stationed in the Concession. We have a battalion of highlanders, for example. A battalion. The Japs have forty thousand men in and around Shanghai.’

  ‘And this fellow Chiang Kai Shek doesn’t do anything about it?’

  ‘Can’t, old man. On the one hand he’s busy fighting the Communists to the south, and on the other he’s trying to hold back the Japs in Manchuria. While in between he’s trying to cope with the various warlords who regard themselves as independent. He doesn’t have a man or a penny to spare.’

  ‘But if he is already fighting the Japanese in Manchuria, then these fellows are his enemies in any event.’

  ‘It’s not quite as simple as that. There is no war between China and Japan, officially. They are “co-operating” in settling internal disorders in Manchuria; that every time a Jap sees a Chinese soldier he blows his head off, and vice versa, is one of those unfortunate mistakes. Chiang cannot risk a proper war with a nation as powerful as Japan. One day, perhaps...one day. Shall we share a taxi into town?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lew said. He had a lot to think about.

  *

  They were stopped at the gate and their credentials examined, by a squad of French Foreign Legionnaires; Lew gathered the various nations operated the guard in rotation. From the station they had been able to see, not more than a couple of miles away, the walls and the teeming rooftops of Shanghai itself, but once through the gates they found themselves in a most pleasant modern town, a place of bungalows set in spacious grounds, with a busy shopping centre, while McIntyre pointed out the race course and the library, and Lew looked at the docks, and saw, amongst the several naval vessels moored there, two flying the United States flag. One would be his new command, he thought, with curious excitement.

  McIntyre dropped him at the United States Embassy. ‘Perhaps we’ll see each other again,’ he suggested. ‘It’s been a pleasure.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lew agreed, for the man had been most interesting. It was only when he was out of the cab that he realised he had not ascertained what the fellow did for a living.

  The marine guard saluted him and then hurried forward to carry his bags, and he went up to the naval office. ‘Holy Jesus Christ,’ Hallstrom commented. ‘What the fucking hell are you doing here?’

  He was, Lew estimated, getting quite close to retirement, but apart from the streaks of grey in his hair and a slight tendency to paunch, he had hardly changed since 1918. Certainly his manner had not.

  ‘Maybe you’d better read this,’ he suggested, and held out the admiral’s letter.

  Hallstrom took it suspiciously. Obviously he assumed he was being recalled. But his brow cleared as he read. ‘You sure live a busy life, McGann,’ he said.

  Lew pointed. ‘Everything in that letter is confidential, Captain.’

  ‘Oh, sure. But there are gonna be questions asked. A lieutenant-commander, especially one with your reputation, taking command of a gunboat? Hells bells.’

  ‘They’ll just have to ask.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Hallstrom said thoughtfully. Then he pointed in turn. ‘I’m the boss here, McGann. So I’ll be glad to be back up to strength. But I’m the boss. You remember that.’ He got up. ‘Let’s go look at the ship.’

  *

  The USS Tombstone had been launched in 1908 and was therefore, by any criteria, an old ship. She was also by far the smallest vessel on which Lew had ever served, for she displaced a mere eight hundred tons. Armed with only two one-pounder quick-firing guns, and capable of making but twelve knots, her great advantage was her eight foot draft, to enable her to operate in shallow water. To offset this, she was both broad in the beam and shorter than usual overall, but this was also part of her designed capability to tackle the often sharp bends to be found up-river.

  She had a crew of seventy officers and men, and Lew was introduced to Ensign Fulton, his executive officer, and Engineer Petty Officer Cohen. They had both heard of him and were suitably impressed, if totally mystified, to have him as their commanding officer.

  Hallstrom accompanied him on a tour of inspection, then into the tiny, hot, captain’s cabin. ‘Know anything about river work?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Lew told him.

  ‘Well, use Fulton. He’s experienced. Charts don’t do much good, because the sandbanks shift. It’s water colour and more important, water movement, that counts. You’ll learn. Now remember, you’re here to show the flag, and remind these Chinks that Uncle Sam is watching over his. You’re not here to start a war. Get that clear and strong, McGann. Your beat is up-river as far as Hankow, and no further. Just above Hankow the river bifurcates, and the northern branch becomes the Han Kuang. That’s the southern border of the territory controlled by the warlord, Chang Huang Lu. Officially he’s a supporter of the Nationalists, the Kuo Min Tang. Realistically he’s just about independent, and he don’t like the Stars and Stripes. So you don’t ever give him an excuse to start shooting. These yellow bastards are all trigger happy, even down river from Hankow. Chances are they’ll bang away at you from time to time, from the shore. But you don’t ever shoot back, unless instructed to do so by me, right?’

  ‘Aye-aye,’ Lew said. ‘What circumstances will dictate that, Captain?’r />
  ‘Imminent danger to American life and property. Nothing else.’

  ‘But my gunboat and my men do not count as American life and property.’

  ‘Not in my book. Hell, I thought you enjoyed being shot at. Now, how soon can you take this craft up-river?’

  ‘Ten minutes from now.’

  Hallstrom grinned. ‘Tomorrow morning will do. Shit, you’ve been at sea a couple of weeks. Don’t you want to socialise?’

  *

  Lew had not the least desire to socialise, but Hallstrom was determined to show off his famous new subordinate, and there was a call on the ambassador, and a drink with the ambassador’s wife and daughters, and then a call at the Club, where he was introduced to some of his brother officers — there were four gunboats maintaining a United States presence on the river — as well as a variety of other people, of several different nationalities, including Captain Osawa, Japanese naval attaché.

  ‘Commander McGann,’ Osawa said, bowing very deeply. ‘But I have heard much of you, from my friend, Hashimoto Kurita.’

  ‘You know Hashimoto?’ Lew cried in delight.

  ‘But of course. We have served together. Does he know you are in Shanghai?’

  ‘Well, no, sir. The decision to send me here was rather sudden.’

  ‘Ah.’ Osawa considered. ‘You mean it is a secret.’

  ‘No, sir, I did not mean that. I meant it was sudden. I will be writing Captain Kurita.’

  Osawa smiled. ‘Why, so will I, Commander,’ he said. ‘So will I.’

  ‘You want to watch the Japs,’ Hallstrom muttered as they went out for dinner. ‘They hate our guts.’

  Lew wasn’t prepared to accept that, but he didn’t want to argue.

  ‘Now,’ Hallstrom said after the meal. ‘You want to sample some Chinese talent? We don’t have to go into the city. We let them run a couple of houses here in the Concession. Good girls, too.’

  ‘Some other time, Captain,’ Lew told him.

  ‘Yeah, well stick to the whores when you get randy, McGann. Stirring the pot in the Concession leads to scandal, and you have enough on your plate, right?’

  Lew didn’t argue with that, either, because he still didn’t know what he was going to do about his situation. He was not a deeply practicing Catholic, but he still took his religion seriously enough, and apart from that, he did not actually want the hassle of a divorce. Certainly not until he had come to a decision about his attitude towards the children; in any event he had no intention of ever marrying again — right this minute he had no intention of ever finding himself in bed with a woman again. Not even a Chinese whore.

  But there was Dad to be considered, and told, and a host of other problems. He was happy just to take Tombstone up the river and forget about his personal life for a while.

  Because the river, winding its way through a vast plain, with mountains always rising in the distance, passing ancient cities such as Nanking, the old capital of China and the current capital as well, of Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalist government, and tumbledown villages, and, at Chin-Kiang, the southern exit of the Grand Canal which his pilot book told him had been built some two thousand years before, needed more concentration than he had ever found necessary before. As Hallstrom had warned, charts were useless where the bottom and the flow changed so unpredictably and often drastically, and he did indeed rely on Ensign Fulton’s expertise. He learned to study the water ahead, to understand that regardless of what the chart might indicate, the depths of water had to be estimated by the surface formation, and to avoid anywhere with ripples, even of the slightest corrugation.

  He learned too not to be alarmed when the ship occasionally touched, or even on the odd occasion when she was gripped fast by the mud. Tombstone’s engine was by no means new, and had to be treated with loving care, an art at which Cohen was also an expert, but this did mean that occasionally they were stuck on a bank for several hours, waiting for the next freshet to take them off. These were the occasions when they were most likely to be potted at from the shore, and Lew soon learned to follow the example of his crew and keep out of sight, however galling it might be, and listen to the clangs of the bullets striking the superstructure, until it either grew dark or they floated off. The bullets seldom did much damage, and where they did penetrate the carpenter simply plugged the holes when the firing stopped.

  No one seemed certain who was doing the firing. When they tied up at some village, or occasionally even a large town, they were accorded a respectful welcome by the local mandarins, who, according to their political tastes, referred to brigands or Communists marauding along the river banks. There were also river pirates, Lew was told, but the parade of junks and sampans they passed on the water never interfered with the American warship, even if, from the way both crew and passengers glowered at the Stars and Stripes, they were not particularly pleased to see them.

  The people they were supposed to protect were certainly happy to see them. Both missionaries and merchants usually visited the ship at each stop, but more, Lew surmised, to make him quite sure they were there than as an act of courtesy.

  The work was tedious, but the concentration required prevented boredom, as did the constant changes of season, from viciously cold in the winter, through the spring floods which made navigation on the river truly hazardous, into the burning heat of summer, where the water level was just sufficient to enable the gunboats, with some difficulty, to reach Hankow. It was a world of widely varying uniforms, too, from the traditional dark blue of winter to the whites of summer, while in the hottest months correct wear was white shorts and shirt, white stockings and white shoes, for the officers; the enlisted men continued to wear white longs and jerseys, with their matching white pork pie hats. Equally absorbing were the brief glimpses to be gained of life as it had to be lived by the Chinese. Lew could understand the emphasis placed by Hallstrom on the limitations of his duties and responsibilities, because the temptation to interfere was sometimes overwhelming. Apart from the very evident poverty, which was exacerbated by either too much or too little rain, which resulted alternatively in floods and drought, and also by the repeated raids of those bandits who were either Communists or brigands, there was the Chinese attitude to life and death, which fatalistically accepted the most revolting mistreatment. Public execution, by decapitation, was still common, and even for minor offences there was the bastinado, or the cangue, a huge wooden collar which the unfortunate miscreant, his wrists secured to the underside, had to carry with him wherever he went. Yet Lew far preferred being up the river than in the International Concession, where life, with its bridge parties and cocktail parties and dinner parties and horse racing was very reminiscent of Pearl, complicated by the international factor. The level of both conversation and behaviour varied from the commonplace to the banal and there were strict social rules. As a United States officer he was acceptable at every gathering; when he asked after McIntyre, Hallstrom was appalled. ‘That guy?’ he demanded. ‘He’s a fucking missionary, up at Wu-Yang. That’s Chang Huang Lu’s capital. McIntyre is a crumb.’ Apart from being British, of course.

  As distressing as the limited society, the luxury enjoyed by the foreigners contrasted badly with the fate of the average Chinese. Unfortunately, it was necessary to return to Shanghai at the end of each cruise, and even more unfortunately, he had not been in China more than a month before the news of his domestic problems became fairly widely known. Hallstrom had actually been as good as his word and had kept the contents of the admiral’s letter strictly private, but officers in Hawaii had written friends and acquaintances in China, and the word filtered through, followed by various letters of commiseration. Even Hashimoto wrote to say how sorry he was, and how he hoped to see his old friend and comrade in Tokyo one of these days. But from, or of, May, there was no word.

  ‘You want to do something about that,’ Hallstrom declared; by force of circumstances the two men had become, if not friends, to a certain extent intimates.

&
nbsp; Lew shrugged.

  ‘She’ll make sure everybody knows her side of the story,’ Hallstrom warned.

  ‘Whatever side of the story she tells, it’s hardly likely to be the truth,’ Lew told him. ‘And that suits me down to the ground.’

  Father wrote to commiserate, carefully refraining from any suggestion of ‘I told you so’, although he was concerned that Lew should have found it necessary to take a sideways and slightly backwards step in his career. Lew was only upset that he had not heard from any of the children. But then, he had not written them, and presumably May had not exactly encouraged them to go chasing behind their father. What was even more upsetting was how, once the story became general, he suddenly became the most eligible man in the Concession, bombarded with invitations to parties at which he always found himself tête-à-tête with the hostess’s invariably plain and unmarried daughter. Did any of these despairing matrons really suppose a man who had shared a bed with May Gerrard would ever look twice at any other woman?

  With one exception. He had been on the Shanghai station more than two long, lonely years when, with his usual reluctance, he accepted an invitation to a dinner party thrown by an American businessman, and found himself gazing at Brenda Walsh.

  *

  For a moment Lew couldn’t speak. Brenda would be about thirty-five, he recalled, and she had filled out a little. But only a little. She remained tall and slim and elegant, dressed in a white evening gown into which she might have been poured. Although longer hair was back in fashion, she still wore hers short and upswept, but a hasty glance revealed a gold wedding band on the third finger of her left hand. Now why, he wondered, did he feel a sudden sense of deprivation?

  ‘Commander,’ she said, her voice quietly contented.

  ‘Mrs Lloyd says you and she are old friends, Commander McGann,’ said his hostess, Bridget Pierce.

  ‘Yes,’ Lew said. ‘Old friends.’