02 Shanghai Dreams (The Earl’s Other Son #2)

by Andrew Wareham

  Mason was not pleased by that conceit, having no wish to be the random victim of a loony.

  “What are we to expect, sir?”

  “Anything! If Otvajni goes into mutiny then she may try to slip her moorings in the night and disappear out to sea. If she goes, then we must spot her as she moves and raise the alarm in the hope that Poltava will stop her. That will require Poltava to be able to proceed to sea under her own steam from the dock where she is undergoing repairs, and that is unlikely, in the extreme. For the cruiser, one is told that she will not move for a month, some or all of her boilers being down. Captain Erskine will therefore volunteer Racoon to deal with the affair. That will almost certainly take some little time, the two navies actually having to talk to each other, so we will have a stern chase, with an overtaking speed of perhaps three knots. Each hour that we are behind her will take four or five hours to catch up if she can make her full speed, and we can reach ours. We will need a good idea of where she is actually bound, of course.”

  “An action at sea, sir.” Mason actually rubbed his hand together in relish. Actions between naval vessels were rare and offered a good chance of promotion and medals. “Should we add more HE to our magazine, sir? We are primarily shrapnel for land use, you will recall.”

  “No. Apparently, the Russians will want her back. We are therefore to take her.”

  “That sounds like a good trick, sir.”

  “I know. I tried to get Captain Erskine aboard, so that he could be blamed if worst came to worst, but he wasn’t having any of that!”

  “Pity!”

  Mason went away to sit in his own little cabin and try to discover how to defeat and take a ship without risking sinking her. Otvajni was of much the same size as Racoon and carried a similar complement; as mutineers they would expect to die if brought back to trial and would fight to the last. The Russians were in the habit of flogging their criminals to death, Mason recalled; that would give them no incentive to surrender. He wondered just how Otvajni was armed and whether her gun crews were at all trained. He decided to have a word with Brownrigg.

  “She is tied up along the pontoons, Mr Mason. It would be a matter of some simplicity to take a stroll along the Bund with a pair of glasses and take a look at her.”

  “Do that, Mr Brownrigg… No, wait! We should have a word with the captain first. He may be able to discover a way for us to be more discreet in our observation of her.”

  Magnus listened and nodded, spoke to Mr Blantyre that evening.

  “I’ll organise that for thee, my lord. An office on the upstairs of one of the big warehouses along the Bund. Comfortably located inside two hundred yards of the Russki. Anyone will do that for you, giving a hand to the Royal Navy. They’ll be pleased to, no doubt of that. They’d help me out, for sure, but will be even more happy to look after the Navy. More especially, of course, since they know that you put one over the Germans. They don’t all know just what you did, exactly-like, but they’ve all got the idea that we stuffed the squareheads good and proper!”

  “Nothing secret in Shanghai, Mr Blantyre?”

  “Not a bloody thing, my lord. Except one, that is, and that gets announced tomorrow, official-like.”

  “The baronetcy, sir?”

  “Aye, just that, my lord. Pity there’s no son to inherit the title, but that’s not my choosing and I must live with it. The title dies with me, in effect – goes to my brother’s eldest boy, but he has his father’s title already, so it’s just a lesser honour for him and won’t be used.”

  “Ellen’s uncle has his barony then, sir?”

  “Within the month, so I’m told. Keeps us both happy.”

  “And me, sir. May I offer my congratulations on a thoroughly well-deserved recognition of your merits, sir?”

  “Thank you, my lord. You are very kind to me.”

  “Honest, I think, sir. I am glad to have made your close acquaintance, sir – I have learned much that I had closed my eyes to. While I think of it, sir, have you any knowledge of these Russian anarchist fellows?”

  “None. They don’t puff themselves off to folk like me. They’ll be known to the Chinese, must be. They will have to buy their food somewhere; they’ll patronise a laundry perhaps; probably they’ll sit and talk in a bar or café. They’ll be overheard, that’s for sure. I might just pass the word on the quiet to Sia that you are interested, would like to know what’s going on. You never know what might turn up.”

  The patrols were instituted and the extra sentries stood their duties, and the weather turned. It rained all night, every night, and much of the days as well. It was cold and windy with it, the rain blowing into the men’s faces so that they screwed their eyes up and could not see two yards ahead. Their waterproof capes leaked and their sou’wester hats blew off. They came aboard after a four hour watch shaking with cold, chafed raw, their uniforms soaking.

  Magnus cancelled the patrols after the third night – there was no chance of the men seeing anything and if anarchists wished to brave the weather then they might hopefully fall to pneumonia and save them all a lot of worry.

  “What can we knock up by way of a waterproof shelter at the brow, Mr Mason?”

  “Some sort of awnings, sir, extended vertically by extra tarpaulins. They won’t see very much but at least they won’t drown. I have spoken to Mr Buchan, sir, and we are organising hot steam pipes for them to dry their clothing, sir.”

  “Good. Might do something to preserve their health that way. I know there is hot cocoa at the end of each watch. An extra tot might not be a bad idea, if it can be arranged.”

  The Navy tried to maintain a rigorous accounting system for issue rum; the officers of every ship did their best to circumvent it.

  “What about the Russians, sir?”

  “Sod ‘em.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Captain Erskine made no attempt to inspect the arrangements made on Racoon – it was far too cold and wet for him to venture out at night; as far as he was concerned the effort had been made.

  Sia sent a message to Magnus, a long note detailing a dozen Russian agitators domiciled in Shanghai and their current activities, together with the suggestion that he should arrange for an end to their activities.

  Magnus sat at his desk, quickly reading the report and then trying to make his mind up. To ‘end their activities’ obviously meant assassination and he was unwilling to call for the death of men without the certainty that to do so was reducing risk to his own people.

  Three of the named men were pamphleteers, circulating literature in Shanghai, calling for the deposition and death of the Tsar. That seemed ill-mannered perhaps, but hardly dangerous.

  Four were known to be in possession of firearms and to have stated their intention to kill Russian aristocrats in the International Settlement; they had not specified which aristocrats however and seemed to be keener on talking than pulling the trigger.

  That left five who had formed a ‘Committee for the Liberation of the Oppressed’. They had raised money, or at least sent begging letters to wealthy Russian merchants, and had established contact with emigres in Berlin and Zurich and London and were planning a great revolution to take place in Russia at an unspecified but early date. They were known to have laid down that the revolution must begin in the army and navy, must take the form of mutineers converging on the palaces and government buildings of all of the major cities. The first moves must be accompanied by ‘exemplary measures’, by which they apparently meant the killing of as many of the old regime as they could lay their hands on. They were of the opinion that a well-publicised mutiny in the navy must lead to a spontaneous outburst in Russia itself.

  Magnus made his way to Blantyres, Sia’s papers in hand.

  “These five are a menace to good order, sir. They are actively seeking mutiny from all that Sia says. I think it would be wise to remove them from our society, sir. I am worried though that if we ask Sia to deal with them, we place ourselves in his hands to an exten
t.”

  Blantyre agreed that it might be unwise to ask Sia to carry out the killings.

  “He would do so, as goes without saying, my lord. He would be only too pleased to have us indebted to him in that way. Thing is, though, that we have no alternative, no other choice if we want them put out of harm’s way. Any other people we speak to will know that Sia has us in hand; they won’t tread on his toes. If we want them stopped, then Sia must arrange the job for us. If we don’t, well… Sia has gone to an effort to be helpful, might be a little upset that we had ignored his labours.”

  Magnus had not appreciated that.

  “You mean, in effect, that he is more powerful than us, that he is using us for his convenience and that we ought to do as he suggests, sir.”

  “Yes. We have more by way of guns, of course, and could bring in the army if he pushed us too far. It would destroy Blantyres to do so, for the Chinese would not trade fairly with us ever again, but he knows it’s possible that he could create a war. He does not want that. Equally, he could raise a thousand armed men against us tomorrow, a hundred times as many in a month; we do not want that.”

  “So, sir, we scratch his back and he reciprocates and we all get rich… Is that the right way to rule this country, sir?”

  Blantyre shrugged.

  “It works, my lord. We don’t have to like it, but we benefit from it. Now, that is. One day, China will find its feet, will become the powerful nation it should be. But not yet. While the country is weak, we can make fortunes from it. So can Sia, and his master as well. So, my lord, what do we do?”

  Magnus thought a few more seconds and surrendered.

  “Thank Mr Sia for his kind help and suggest that this committee is a menace to good order, one that we would be better off without, sir.”

  “I’ll send the message today, my lord.”

  “Thank you, sir. Better do the job than regret leaving them to be a nuisance, I think, sir. Do we know if they have families?”

  Blantyre thought that to be none of their business – Sia would ensure that they made no fuss.

  “Sia wishes to know whether we want their heads, my lord. It seems that it might be thought desirable to display them, in order to encourage others of their breed to behave themselves.”

  “No. That sort of trophy I can do without. I seem to recall reading of the Cato Street Conspirators suffering that fate at the beginning of the century, do I not? I hope we have moved on from there!”

  Blantyre was interested to hear that, had not realised that England had been so barbarous so recently.

  “Heard of them putting the heads up on London Bridge after the ’45, my lord. Didn’t know they’d tried it again in this century. Who did you say?”

  “Cato Street – some gang of reds, it would seem. From all I remember from the history we learned, which ain’t much, they were set up by a spy and were picked up by Bow Street, the Runners, before they could do anything. Somewhen about 1820, I think. They were intending to kill the Prime Minister and Cabinet, I believe. Never understood what the fuss was about – the country would have been far better off for the death of a few politicians. In any case, there’s plenty more where they came from. A week and it would be impossible to tell any difference!”

  Blantyre nodded gloomily – politicians were all made from the same mould, were effectively interchangeable.

  “If you’re stupid, idle and incompetent, then become a politician. It’s easier than working for a living.”

  “Nothing changes, sir. Getting back to Sia, I don’t think we want the heads sent across to us as a Christmas box. Beg him to dispose of them tidily, sir. Or throw them out to the dogs, for that matter… Just as long as we don’t have to get rid of them.”

  Blantyre nodded; he had no use for them either.

  “All five gone, I presume, sir?”

  “So he implied. The word is, from my own people, that they were picked up at a meeting in the house of the richest, the only one who could afford his own house, and were taken away in chains by coolies dressed up as bannermen, soldiers of one of the Imperial generals. They emptied the house and disappeared, it seems.”

  “Had he a family?”

  “I did not enquire, my lord. None of our business what may have happened to them.”

  Magnus decided to ask no more; he did not want to know the probable answer.

  The rains ended after a week and it was possible to inspect Otvajni and determine her exact armament. Mr Brownrigg had said that she was one of a class of three ships, but their guns varied, mostly depending on what was available in the yards when they were fitting out. He came back from an hour in the window of a nearby warehouse, a neatly made up table in his notebook.

  “An ugly, dirty ship, sir. Single funnel and two pole masts but not rigged. Ram bow – rather old-fashioned, but what can one expect of Russians. Modern enough otherwise, sir, with a bridge over a long central superstructure which encloses the nine inch gun to the fore. The six inch is well to the stern and can fire to either broadside, probably traversing almost three hundred degrees while the bigger gun might not be able to traverse fifty degrees on either beam. As well, sir, mounted high, there are four of three pound guns and four of Hotchkiss one pound revolving five barrel guns; these guns are all in effect unprotected, their gunners almost wholly exposed to fire. There are two torpedo tubes and what looks like mine-laying gear as well.”

  “Revolving, somewhat like a Gatling, I presume?”

  “Very like. Bigger, of course. Practically, firing about thirty rounds a minute, because the loader cannot get more into them. Still able to do a lot of damage with a well-trained, strong man as gunner. They have no power, must be elevated and trained by the gunner, who also must crank the handle to turn the barrels. As I remember from Whale Island, sir, they have an accurate range of ten cables with a good gunner. Apparently almost every Russian ship has them, for torpedo boats.”

  “Could be a nuisance. Inside one cable, no worries, the Maxims will settle their hash. What of the three pound guns?”

  “Much the same as ours, sir, from all I could tell. Shields but no barbettes. The six inch is the same.”

  “Then we must see what can be done, Mr Brownrigg. If the need arises then we shall rely more on the smaller guns, I suspect. I must think out what we are to do.”

  Captain Erskine came aboard, bringing with him orders from Hong Kong.

  “Barfleur will be here in a week, Eskdale. Escorted, as we hoped, by four destroyers and preceded by Gannet sloop. I believe that Gannet is to come some two days before the more modern vessels; she has been in the dockyard and will, hopefully, be available for river work for a year or two. She has a lieutenant-in-command as captain and he is to be replaced in Shanghai; he is to take ship for England, his health breaking down, it would seem. I do not know who is to be promoted into her.”

  Gannet would be a very useful step up for any of Magnus’ lieutenants, apart from Mason who might hope for his promotion to commander as his next move.

  “One can but hope, sir.”

  “Of course. Admiral Seymour has also confirmed our suggestion that if Otvajni should go into mutiny then we should run her down and bring her back. Imperative that she should not be sunk, of course.”

  “In effect, sir, we must take her by boarding. That could lead to some substantial casualties, sir. The crew would not surrender easily, not when facing being flogged to death as the most likely penalty.”

  “Bloody barbarians! They claim to be a civilised aristocracy and yet act like swine in the gutter, Eskdale!”

  “I agree, sir. They shame us all, sir.”

  Captain Erskine was not an aristocrat, did not feel at all ashamed.

  “Quite! Do what you can, Eskdale. I need not tell you that, I know. If Barfleur reaches us in time, then the destroyers will have the privilege of bringing her in if the occasion arises.”

  “Much preferable, sir. They have the speed and will be able to cross her stern repeatedly and a
t close range, rapidly wiping out her gun crews with their short-range weapons.”

  The night patrol was reinstated in the dry weather and reported spotting deserters, or so they presumed.

  “Three men last night, sir, scuttling through the dark and running as hard as they could when they saw us, sir. None coming back the other way, sir.”

  “So, not couriers in contact with the shore and taking messages to and fro. Ignore them, I think, Mr Mason. Certainly do not shoot them. Better not to make them prisoner because we would have to do something with them… The men they saw, ordinary hands or dressed smarter as petty officers perhaps?”

  Mason enquired and received the answer that they were no more than figures in the dark; they could not tell what else they might be other than bare-foot sailors.

  “Pity. If there is to be a mutiny then it would be handy to know of what sort it might be… What I mean, Mr Mason, is that if the conscript seamen simply kill all those senior to them, then they will be able to do little with the ship. If they have a planned uprising led by senior men, then they will be able to sail the ship effectively. The Russian officers rely on the petty officers to do the work – they give orders and the POs produce the action.”

  “So, sir, throw the officers over the side and there will be little difference made to the ship… What about navigation, sir?”

  “Good point. The POs will all know how to hand, reef and steer, but I doubt they will be able to set a course. They would have to stay coastal until they could perhaps take a Chinese steamer and coerce its navigator into service. So… Do they run northabout or south?”