She remained silent, effectively forcing him to say more.
“In fact, lady, I know the answer. I need to be the best at something, and it comes easy to be the boldest… I like to hear the jacks behind me, telling each other that if I can do it, so can they. I know that they follow my example rather than their own inclination…”
He chuckled, self-deprecating, shaking his head.
“Carter tells me that they call me Mad Maggy – and refer to themselves as mad to follow me, and then laugh and say they can be crazier than the whole of the fleet if need be. I know that they will make a nuisance of themselves in the bars in the next few days for claiming to be the best fighting men from the best ship in port and challenging all comers to prove them wrong. Poor Captain Parker will be kept busy, I fear, trying to tidy up from the mess they will leave for him. I saw an American and a German flag flying along the ships tied up to the bund – they will be fighting with them, for sure.”
“I chose to marry a sailor, my lord. I am glad I did. This is part of being a naval wife, the bit that is not revealed to outsiders. Are all officers as you, Magnus? Must all stand forward and defy the bullet?”
He thought for a few seconds before nodding.
“Almost all, my love. I have met many officers who I disliked – some for being morally dishonest, others for being uncaring for their men, a number for a ruthless willingness to stab every back to attain promotion. I can hardly think of any who I suspected of cowardice, of almost none who would weigh up the risks of death and choose a different course of action for not liking the odds, except they were truly terrible. It might be argued that as a group, we tend to be too uncaring of our lives, too willing to make a wild charge rather than a thinking assault from cover, for example – but that is the way of the Service. There may be better ways of knocking down a wall than battering it with our heads, but any man who builds a wall against us knows that it needs be a strong one!”
“God help us all! They say that naval wives are a unique breed – I had not imagined just how much they need be! Enough, my lord – bedtime!”
He still felt apologetic in the morning, returned to Obelisk wondering if he was not unreasonably selfish.
Perhaps it was not possible to be a naval officer and a married man – there was an inevitable choice of loyalties, it was not possible to give all to each. Jervis, Earl St Vincent, one of the hardest-shelled of all naval officers had been adamant that sailors should not marry, should eschew female company; his contemporary, Nelson, had, of course, had other views about women.
Magnus decided that history gave no solution to his problem; he also knew that he would not be single again if he had the choice. But… that did not mean that he must alter his conception of his duty… the more because he had only recently come to understand what that duty was.
He squared his shoulders and ran aboard, smiling brightly and carefully not hearing the lower deck speculation on why he had a grin on his face.
“Harbour routine, Number One! Square everything away and get the paintbrushes out today and tomorrow. Shore leave to commence. Midshipmen to report to my cabin.”
The three surviving midshipmen appeared at the run, twitching their uniforms into order, anxious at the unexpected summons.
“Well, young gentlemen? This is Shanghai. The most wicked city on Earth, bar none! You are old enough to make fools of yourselves, and I have no doubt you will manage to do so. I will not order you to behave yourselves. I will simply ask you why I was appointed to this ship just a very few weeks ago. Do you know why?”
They did not – the reason for Magnus’ predecessor leaving had been kept quiet.
“The pox, gentlemen. The officer was so unwise as to be taken by a particular illness – one that is by way of being incurable. An officer discovered to be so infected cannot remain in the service. I presume you would not wish to be sent home to explain to your parents why you were dismissed from the Navy?”
They stared in mute horror. All had enjoyed their visit to Hanshan, their introduction to the adult world, and had every intention of broadening their experience in Shanghai. They had not considered the potential risks and none of them were rich.
“I thought not. You must be careful! I will not say keep away from female company – here more than anywhere else you will ever go ashore, that is impossible. But do not allow yourselves to be solicited in the street. Do not fall into the company of the cheap and drunk. Provided you patronise only the more expensive and clean houses, you will be safe. If you enter a cheap brothel, you will not come out undiseased – the women there are cheap for good reason. My advice to you is never to leave the ship on your own – keep in company so that you can look after each other. One man may make a foolish mistake; three together should not.”
They found their voices, assured him they would be good.
“I’m not telling you to be good. Just be careful!”
They managed, just, to smile at that.
“That said, gentlemen, I have every expectation of mustering a shore party, an expeditionary force to go to the relief of Peking or of the inland mission stations when the country blows up, as it is expected to in three or four months. You will be part of the force, provided you are competent to join it. I wish to be told by your officers that you are capable of using a rifle and a revolver; that you are fit and healthy; that you are obedient to command and are able to give commands. I will need to be told that you know by name every man of your division, and that you are respected by those men. Be very sure that you can read a map and set a course on land. Ensure that you have good marching boots – you will be of no use hobbling along with blistered feet.”
They nodded silently, drinking in his words. They wanted to be chosen, to take the opportunity of action. They had been denied the chance to go to war in South Africa, wanted urgently to see action in China.
“Finally – you will be expected to take a part in the social round here in Shanghai. Dances at the Club; shooting parties in the marshland; dinners and receptions in the homes of the leaders of local society. I will expect you to accept invitations, showing the presence of the Navy. Many, most in fact, of the people you will meet in Shanghai will be wealthy – and almost all will be self-made. Many will have daughters - pretty girls, very often. Their fathers might well like a naval officer to bring status to the family. You three are too young to marry yet.”
They showed horror at the prospect – marriage was for old men, ancients like their captain.
“I am wed to a lady of Shanghai, as you must know. I am very pleased to be. Five, or perhaps ten, years from now you might well be too. But not yet! Be careful! Fall in love by all means but make no proposals. Be very sure that if you do offer marriage, I shall see you posted within the week, or sooner. There will be no married or engaged midshipmen on this ship, and little left of a career for any man who is so foolish as to consider matrimony at your age.”
He dismissed the three, hoping that his words might have done some good. It was a captain’s duty to give such lectures to his young men, though embarrassing to both parties.
“Coffee, Carter. Poor little objects – have you ever seen faces so red?”
Carter chuckled, commented that it might do them some good, with luck.
“Only boys yet, sir. Like all officers, except the ones what comes from the engine room, sir. Grows up slow, they all do. If they was working for their living, on shore in a factory, say, they’d be men and on their own, most like, making their own way and maybe with a missus already. If they was apprentices, they’d be looking forward to coming to the end of their time and making journeymen’s money and maybe starting up their own little business. But midshipmen ain’t much more than schoolboys, sir. Young lieutenants the same. The Navy keeps ‘em that way. The Army too, from what I’ve seen. Pain in the arse, sometimes, shouting and running around like kiddies at their age, getting drunk and breaking things – but that’s the way it’s done, sir. Do ‘em good to be told w
hat’s what, the way you did just then, sir.”
Magnus had never considered that the lower deck might consider the officers to be immature. He was not at all sure that they had any right to judge their betters in such a way. He was forced to agree that the little he had seen of junior Army officers had left him with some distaste for the breed, but that was because they were lesser mortals by their very nature, not being sailors. Add to that, the Army came from Sandhurst, the new college which was no more than an extension of public school, not a real training institution such as Dartmouth.
Thinking on it, Carter was wrong – his perceptions were skewed because of his job. Working with senior officers led him to expect too much of the young men, no doubt.
“Still, Carter, it was a little hypocritical, don’t you think? Sending them ashore at Hanshan and knowing what would happen and then telling them not to do much the same in Shanghai.”
“Good thing you did, if you asks me, sir. Otherwise poor Mr Hartley wouldn’t never have found out what’s what before he died.”
That was something Magnus had not considered – if the boys were old enough to be killed in action, they were of an age to have known a woman.
“Difficult, ain’t it, Carter? Good thing there’s no chaplain aboard Obelisk. Might have made a fuss about Hanshan.”
“Almost was, sir. There was going to be a chaplain on every cruiser, sir, but they didn’t have enough of them sent out from England. Last year, that was, the buzz came round. I know they had to come out from England, sir, because I heard from Admiral Seymour’s man that there was a big upset with the Bishop, sir.”
It was wrong to listen to lower deck gossip, but any captain with a loyal personal steward knew what was actually happening on station, rather than the official announcements of what should be going on.
“What was that all about, Carter?”
“The Bishop, sir, reckoned every ship should have its services twice on Sunday, and all the men should go to them confirmation classes. Only way for that was if every ship had a chaplain, and he was given a church room on the messdecks.”
“Not bloody likely, Carter! No space, not even on a battleship.”
“So the Admiral said, sir. Add to that, no room for a passenger on a destroyer or a sloop, sir. On top of it all, the Bishop says that he’s got plenty of ordained men for the job. His local seminary has been turning them out for five years, he says, with their collars on backwards, all proper-like.”
“You mean back in England, in his diocese there, Carter?”
“No, sir. Local, like in Hong Kong, sir.”
“Christ! You mean Chinks, Carter?”
“That’s it, sir. Most of ‘em. There’s some are half-caste, as well, sir. Quite a few, in fact. Spare bodies, most of ‘em, from the mission stations where they were taken in as ‘waifs and strays’, sir. So they say, anyway. Saves any arguments, that way.”
“And the Bishop wanted them taken into naval wardrooms as Ship’s Chaplains?”
“So ‘e said, sir. Old Plonker Cox, what was the Admiral’s steward until he took ill last year, said as how the Admiral came close to apoplexy, sir.”
“Hardly bloody surprising, Carter! Did he have the Bishop thrown off the ship?”
“No. He was in his shore office at the time, sir so he couldn’t. But he didn’t invite the Bishop to the annual official dinner that year, sir.”
That was grounds for scandal and no doubt had led to intervention at the highest level. The Colonial Office might well have become involved, attempting to paper over the cracks. The Bishop was an important figure in the colony and must always be included in the assembled ranks of the great and the good when they were on public display.
“I never heard a word of that, Carter.”
“Wouldn’t have, would you, sir. They wouldn’t want word of that getting out, the Admiral coming close to raising a fist to the Bishop. Would have been a good scrap, that one, sir, because they reckon the Bishop was a boxer at University. Got one of them blues, they reckon.”
Magnus was impressed – that was the first good word he had ever heard of any bishop.
“Only sort of Boxer I want to know about, Carter. Chances are we shall be going ashore hunting them come the middle of the year.”
“That’s what I’ve been told, sir. I was just talking over a pint last night with Captain Parker’s man and he was saying that the Captain spent the afternoon yesterday working up a plan for an expeditionary force from the Shanghai ships. Him in command and you as number two, sir. Three officers from Obelisk and the mids, and a hundred and fifty men, sir. Same sort of numbers from the other ships on station, sir. Leave Obelisk and two of the sloops here in Shanghai with skeleton crews and set a gunboat and the destroyer to patrol the river, making up their crews from Obelisk and the sloops. Take over a passenger steamer as a trooper to bring the force up to the fleet off the Taku Forts, out in Pechihli Bay, sir.”
That seemed to be one of the most foolish plans Magnus had ever heard of. Better far to set the gunboat and destroyer to patrol the river with their original complements, who knew their own ships, and take Obelisk and the three sloops up north to the scene of the action, where they would be available at need to carry landing parties to the north or south if need arose. They would also be at hand on the off chance that the Chinese Navy took action.
“Where is he going to find the money from to charter a big steamer, I wonder?”
“He ain’t, sir. Commandeer what’s in port.”
“I might just have a word with Mr Blantyre, Carter.”
Carter grinned, able to guess what that word might be.
“Useful to know, Carter. Thank you.”
Mr Blantyre was not best pleased by the proposal to commandeer a passenger steamer except as an instant reaction to a sudden emergency. He called a meeting of the senior heads of the hongs in Shanghai and they took their objections to the Council. Another day and the Governor was interviewing Captain Parker and explaining the nature of government and decision taking in Shanghai. He also pointed out that nothing in the city remained a secret for as much as a day – the Chinese knowing all that occurred and selling that information to any taker for the price of a packet of cigarettes.
“We may commandeer a civilian ship, if the need arises, when that need arises, and not as a planned response, Captain Parker. If transport becomes necessary, then use the largest naval ships to hand, sir!”
The reworked plan was issued later in the week, demanding that Obelisk should discover how she was, with one or two sloops in consort, to carry not less than five hundred of a landing force to the Gulf of Pechihli.
“Thank you, Carter.”
“My pleasure, sir. Need to purchase another pair of boots, sir – spares always come in handy when there’s walking to do.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Earl’s Other Son Series
Chinese Whispers
Obelisk made a number of cruises along the river, most of them no more than training exercises but twice picking up parties of missionaries fleeing from inland. By the end of May it was clear that there was unrest amounting to civil war in the north and west and that there was a concerted plan to destroy the missionaries, although the bulk of other foreigners were at worst permitted to escape with their lives.
Magnus discussed the evidence with Empingham and they concluded that there was a genuine popular uprising against the Godmen that was being used by a separate and far smaller political grouping to meet their own ends, which would offer little to the starving peasants who made up the Boxers. It was the Great Game, they decided, being played out between the imperial powers and using whatever was conveniently available.
They passed their conclusions to the Senior Naval Officer, who pointed out to them that he was a post captain and therefore knew far more about such matters than they conceivably could.
Captain Parker reminded them of the plans he had made while suggesting they would be unnecessary – there was a l
ot of fuss but little action that he could see, no more than the missionaries inflaming the natives, which was a risk of their trade.
Magnus slept in his house but was aboard ship for first dawn every morning.
“Destroyer, sir, making full speed, sir.”
Obelisk did not mount lookouts when in harbour and it was fortuitous that Lieutenant Pattishall was exercising the stern four point sevens and facing in the right direction.
Magnus found his glasses and turned them down river, seeing the great cloud of coalsmoke and then the white of a tall bow wave.
“Twenty-five knots, at least, Mr Knowles. Someone is in one hell of a hurry. Can you read her flag hoist?”
“Not a chance, sir, making too much wind for them to show, sir. Flags are fore and aft – can barely see them at all.”
“We shall all have this wireless telegraph thing, in a few years, Mr Knowles. An end to flag signals, and not before time. We can assume some sort of emergency – the Boxers up, I would imagine. What’s the time?”
“Seven bells in the forenoon watch, sir. Thirty minutes to dinner.”
“Convenient. Feed the men as normal. Do not permit shore leave until we know what’s happening. If that destroyer does not slow down soon, there is going to be one hell of a wave along the Bund, and that will not be popular.”
The Yeoman of the Signals suddenly gave a shout.
“Hoist, sir, on SNO’s yardarm. ‘Speed of no more than five knots permitted approaching the Bund’, sir.”
Magnus watched with interest – the destroyer’s reaction would reveal whether she had a passenger aboard senior to Captain Parker.
“Second hoist, sir. ‘Berth astern of sloop Gannet’, sir.”
Gannet was at least a quarter of a mile distant from the office. There was a berth vacant ahead of Obelisk, far closer.
The destroyer was reducing speed, her bow wave noticeably falling away, but she was still making at least fifteen knots, barely two thousand yards distant.
Chinese Whispers Page 25
