A Chinese Command: A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER NINE.

  ON THE ROCKS.

  Bright and early the next morning Frobisher met Wong-lih on thequarter-deck of the _Hai-yen_, and the admiral announced his plans withregard to both his own affairs and those of the Englishman. Hementioned that he would be detained for some days at Wei-hai-wei makingarrangements for the repair of the ships--each of which had been more orless damaged by the rebel fire during the fight in Prince Jerome Bay--and getting a new ten-inch gun mounted in the _Mai-yen's_ forwardturret, to replace the one which had been dismounted on the sameoccasion. This, he estimated, would occupy about a week; and, when thiswork had been put in hand, there were several minor duties in thedockyard which he reckoned would occupy him for another week, makingabout a fortnight before he would be able to get away to Tien-tsin tomake his report in person.

  It would therefore be necessary for him to send a messenger withdispatches to the Council, giving an outline of what had taken place;and he gave Frobisher the choice of accompanying the flag-lieutenant whowas to carry the dispatches to Tien-tsin--with a letter from himself tothe Council recommending his appointment--or of remaining in Wei-hai-weiuntil he, the admiral, was ready to go to Tien-tsin and personallypresent his protege to the Council.

  To this Frobisher made reply that, if it suited the admiral equallywell, he would much prefer to accompany him to Tien-tsin; for he wasextremely anxious to secure the appointment as captain of the cruiser,and knew--from what he had already learned of Chinese officialdom--thathe would have a far better chance with Wong-lih by his side as sponsor,than he would as the mere bearer of a letter of recommendation from theadmiral. It was accordingly so arranged; and he spent the interveningtime in looking round the port, arsenal, and dockyard of Wei-hai-wei,picking up all the information he could with regard to Chinese Navalmatters, and also managing incidentally to acquire a small--very small--smattering of the Chinese language, which was afterwards of considerableuse to him.

  On a certain afternoon, Wong-lih drove up to the hotel where Frobisherwas staying, and announced that his duties were now completed, and thathe was ready to start for Tien-tsin. There was, luckily, adispatch-boat in the harbour which had just arrived at Wei-hai-wei fromChemulpo, on her way to Tien-tsin; and the admiral had decided to takepassages in her for Frobisher and himself. The Englishman therefore hadonly to pack the few belongings which he had purchased in the town; andfive minutes later the curiously-assorted pair were being conveyed in arickshaw, drawn by a Chinese coolie, down to the dock, where the_San-chau_, dispatch-boat, was lying.

  The voyage from Wei-hai-wei to Tien-tsin is only a short one, of somethree hundred miles, but the course lies across the Gulf of Chi-lih,notorious for its dangerous fogs at this season of the year and thetyphoons which, at all times, are liable to spring up with only thebriefest warning; and about two hours after they had left port, and werepassing the bold headland beneath which stands the city of Chi-fu, itbegan to look as though they were in for one of the latter.

  Wong-lih and the captain of the dispatch-boat held a short consultationas to the advisability of running into Chi-fu harbour for shelter; butas the roadstead was somewhat open, it was finally agreed to push on, attop speed, and endeavour to get clear of the Shan-tung peninsula and theMiao-tao islands before the storm broke. Otherwise, they might findthemselves in rather an awkward situation.

  Steam was therefore ordered for full speed--about seventeen knots--andthe _San-chau_ began to move more rapidly through the water, at the sametime altering her course so as to pass outside the islands instead ofthrough the Chang-shan-tao channel, as had at first been intended.

  The sun set luridly in the midst of a blaze of wild and threateningcloud, and the light breeze which they had so far carried with themsuddenly died away to nothing, leaving the surface of the sea like asheet of oil, through which the _San-chau_ drove her bows as throughsomething solid. The air felt heavy and damp, and so devoid of lifethat Frobisher found it difficult to supply his lungs with sufficientair; and although the weather was intensely cold, the atmosphere stillfelt uncomfortably oppressive.

  About two hours later, while the ship appeared to be steaming through asheet of liquid fire, so brilliant was the phosphorescence of the water,there came, without the slightest warning, the most dazzling flash oflightning Frobisher had ever beheld, followed almost on the instant by adeafening peal of thunder, indicating that the centre of disturbance wasalmost immediately overhead. So dazzlingly bright was the flash thatalmost every man on deck instinctively covered his eyes with his hands,under the impression that he had been blinded; and several secondselapsed before any of them were able to see again distinctly.

  As though that first flash had been a signal, the air at once becamefull of vivid darting lightnings, so continuous that an almostuninterrupted view of the sea, from horizon to horizon, was possible,and the man on the look-out in the bows was therefore enabled to givetimely warning of the approach of a white-capped wall of water ofterrible aspect. So rapid was its rate of travel that the steamer'sskipper had barely time to make a few hasty preparations to meet it, andto shout to the men on deck to "hold on for their lives", when, with anunearthly howl and roar, the storm was upon them. The wall of watercrashed into and over the _San-chau_ with a power that made it appear asthough she had struck something solid; and for a few moments Frobisher,clinging to the bridge rail beside the captain and Wong-lih, could seenothing of the deck of the ship, so deeply was she buried in the wave.The wind, too, wrestled with and tore at ventilators, awning stanchions,and the boats slung from the davits, until he momentarily expected tosee the latter torn from their lashings and blown overboard.

  The canvas dodgers round the navigating bridge, which they had not hadtime to remove, were ripped from their seizings and blown away toleeward, where in the glare of the lightning they showed for a fewmoments like white birds swept away on the wings of the wind. The menthemselves, thus exposed to the full fury of the blast, were obliged tocling to the bridge rails for their very lives, to avoid being torn fromtheir hold and whirled overboard; and when the first lull came theirmuscles felt as though they had been stretched on the rack, so severehad been the strain.

  Then, as though the wind had taken a breathing space to recover freshenergy, the hurricane burst upon them again, almost more furiously, ifthat were possible, than at first; and Frobisher knew instinctivelythat, so far from making headway, the _San-chau_ was being driven backover the course she had just covered, at a rate of probably five knotsan hour, in spite of the fact that her engines were going full speedahead at their utmost capacity. Anxious glances were cast ahead andastern--ahead to ascertain whether there were any signs of the typhoonbreaking, and astern in momentary dread of sighting the distant loom ofthe land toward which, as all knew, they were being slowly butinexorably driven.

  Suddenly the skipper, who had been peering eagerly to windward under thebroad of his hand, turned to Wong-lih and spoke a few rapid sentences inChinese, at the same time pointing in the direction towards which he hadbeen looking. The admiral's eyes followed the outstretched finger, andFrobisher also glanced in the same direction. The captain hadapparently seen, or believed he had seen, something strange away to thewestward.

  A moment later Frobisher knew what it was. Far away, on the edge of thehorizon, appeared a small spark of light which shot rapidly up into thesky, where it hung for a few seconds and then burst into amushroom-shaped cluster of red stars that gradually floated downwardagain, fading from view as it did so.

  "That," shouted Frobisher excitedly to Wong-lih, "is a rocket, sir.There's a ship away there which has been less fortunate than ourselves;she's evidently in distress; and, from her position, I should say thatshe has probably been driven on to the Miao-tao rocks."

  "Without doubt," returned Wong-lih, "that is the fact of the matter; andthere are probably many poor fellows perishing away there, almost beforeour eyes, while we are utterly unable to help them. If a vessel hasreally gone ashore on those rocks I f
ear that her crew is doomed; for noship could long survive in this weather. Get my telescope," he added,in Chinese, to a quartermaster who happened to be on the bridge at themoment; and when the man reappeared with the glass, Wong-lih brought itto bear upon the spot where the rocket had appeared, which he was easilyable to do with the assistance of the lightning, still blazing almostcontinuously.

  "By Kin-fu-tzi!" exclaimed the admiral, a few seconds later, "that craftis very much nearer than I thought from the appearance of her rocket--not more than seven miles away, at the utmost. She is a two-masted,one-funnelled steamer, and, I'm almost certain, is a man-o'-war. Now,what should she be doing just there? Have the Japanese sent a vesselover here for scouting purposes, or is she one of our ships? She looksvery much like--and yet she cannot be, surely,--the ship I intend you tohave, Mr Frobisher--the _Chih' Yuen_, the new cruiser which we havepurchased from Great Britain, and which only arrived out here a fewweeks ago. But I do not understand what she is doing there, if it isshe; for, as I told you, we had no captain in our whole service to whomwe cared to entrust her, which was one of my reasons for asking you totake service with us. I cannot understand it at all," and he began tognaw his moustache perplexedly. "But perhaps," he continued, "I may bemistaken. I must be mistaken; it cannot possibly be the _Chih' Yuen_."

  At this moment another rocket went soaring up into the night sky,followed by another and another; and then the distant boom of asignal-gun came to their ears, borne on the wings of the hurricane.

  "May the spirits of their ancestors protect them!" exclaimed Wong-lihpiously. "We, alas, can do nothing! She will be lying fathoms deep inthe gulf by morning."

  But, as though in answer to the admiral's prayer--so suddenly did thechange take place--there came a lull in the furious wind, and the threemen on the bridge were able to spare a hand to dash the spray from theireyes before the gale struck them again. This time, however, the wildoutburst lasted only a few minutes, then ceased as suddenly as before;the thunder was less loud, and the lightning was far less vivid andterrifying. Then the black pall of sky above them began to break upinto isolated patches, and a few minutes later the moon and stars showedintermittently between the rifts; the storm was dying away almost asquickly as it had sprung up. But, unfortunately, as soon as the winddropped the sea began to rise, until within a very short time there wasquite a heavy swell running.

  The captain of the dispatch-boat lost not an instant in heading his shipdirect for the spot from which the rockets had been seen to rise. Thevessel's search-light was brought into action, and the skipper told offa man to sweep the sea ahead with its powerful beam, so that the exactposition of the wreck might be located at the earliest possible moment;for during the last few minutes no rockets had been sent up, which was avery sinister sign.

  With the cessation of the wind the heavy sea did not very greatlyinterfere with the _San-Chan's_ speed, and she raced through the wateron her errand of mercy at the rate of fully eighteen knots, the bearingsof her engines smoking as the oil from the cups dripped upon theirheated surfaces; and it was not more than half an hour before the man atthe search-light found his object and kept the beam playing on her. Shewas then only a few miles ahead, and stood out, a great mass of silverin the rays of the search-light, against the black background of thenight, with the sea breaking over her. Through the telescope her peoplecould be seen running about her decks, and steam was still blowing offthrough her waste-pipes, so, apparently, the water had not yet reachedher engine-room. Frobisher noticed that no effort was being made to getthe boats out; but this might be because of the heavy sea running.

  At all events, the craft was still above water; and there was littledoubt that her crew could be saved, even though they might not be ableto save the ship.

  In another quarter of an hour--speed having been meanwhile reduced so asto lessen the danger of their running aground--the _San-chau_ arrivedabreast of the other craft, which proved indeed to be a cruiser, andlaid off at a distance of about half a cable's length, her screwrevolving slowly, so as to keep her from drifting down upon the wreck.Then, seizing a megaphone, Wong-lih hailed, and asked the stranger'sname.

  A man in a drenched Naval uniform similar to that which Frobisher waswearing leant over the rail of her navigating bridge and gave a lengthyreply, which the Englishman, of course, could not understand; but fromthe expression on the admiral's face he could see that the news was notat all of a satisfactory character. When the other officer had finishedspeaking, Wong-lih ground out a few tense words that soundedsuspiciously like a Chinese execration, and, turning to Frobisher,exclaimed in tones of the deepest annoyance:--

  "This is most unfortunate indeed, Mr Frobisher. As I almost suspectedthe moment I discovered that yonder craft was a cruiser, she is the_Chih' Yuen_, the ship to which I intended you to be appointed. And nowlook where your future command lies! So surely as either Admiral Tingor I are out of the way, something of this sort inevitably happens.It's those mandarins again, of course, who are at the bottom of thewhole trouble. That fool aboard there who calls himself the captaintells me that, shortly after I sailed, Prince Hsi, who considers himselfan authority on Naval matters, decided that the guns in the forebarbette of the _Chi' Yuen_ were of too small a calibre, and in myabsence he managed to prevail upon the Council to send her toWei-hai-wei to be docked and have her 9.4's replaced by 12-inch guns.Twelve-inch guns in a ship of her size! The man is mad! But I know hisgame. His intention was to have sold the 9.4's, replacing them with acouple of old, out-of-date 12's which I happen to know are lying in theyard, and pocketing the difference.

  "That is the sort of thing that goes on in my unhappy country all thetime, Mr Frobisher--theft, bribery, corruption, all manner of pettychicanery, especially in matters connected with the Army and Navy; andthen they expect us unfortunate officers to do our work with any oldmaterial that the high officials have not thought it worth while topilfer! It is heart-breaking. There, in order to replenish the pocketsof Prince Hsi, lies one of the finest cruisers in our Navy, wrecked, andlikely to be lost entirely if it comes on to blow again. But," he wenton, still more excitedly, "she shall not be lost. I will get her off,and she shall go to Wei-hai-wei to be repaired in dock--but not to haveher guns exchanged. Those in her shall remain there; and his Highnesscan look elsewhere for something to fill his coffers."

  Again seizing the megaphone, Wong-lih entered into a long conversationwith the temporary skipper of the _Chih' Yuen_, during which heascertained that the vessel had fortunately struck only very lightly;and, as she had been considerably sheltered from the seas by the part ofthe reef through which she had somehow managed to blunder beforestriking, she had not bumped to any extent, and was making but littlewater. It was therefore to be hoped that her bottom was not so badlyinjured as Wong-lih had at first anticipated, and that, at the rising ofthe tide, it might be possible, with the assistance of the _San-chau_,to get her safely off again. The admiral intimated to her captain thathe would stand by all night, and would commence salvage operations assoon after daylight as the state of the tide would permit. Meanwhilesteam was to be kept in the boilers, and the pumps were to be kept goingcontinuously, so as to free the ship from water by the time that morningdawned.

  High tide, Admiral Prince Wong-lih ascertained from his almanack, was atabout seven-thirty on the following morning; so before daybreak allhands were mustered and preparations put in hand for running a hawseracross to the _Chih' Yuen_. The sea had gone down during the nightuntil, when the first streaks of daylight came stealing up out of theeast, it was almost as calm as on the previous afternoon before thestorm.

  Frobisher was one of the first among the officers to turn out and go upon deck, and he occupied the time until breakfast very pleasantly inwatching the cruiser's boats running out kedge-anchors. Everythingbeing then in readiness, and both ships being under a full pressure ofsteam, the crews went to breakfast; and directly that was disposed of,the _San-chau's_ boats were sent across to the cruise
r with a lightsteel hawser, Wong-lih accompanying them in person, to see that "thatfool of a captain" did not make any mistakes this time. The lighthawser having been taken aboard the _Chih' Yuen_, the towing hawser,also of steel, was bent on to the end still on board thedispatch-vessel, and was hauled from her through the water on board thecruiser.

  As soon as this was done, the ends of the steel hawser on board bothcraft were backed by several thicknesses of best Manila hemp, in orderto procure the necessary elasticity and guard against the wire-ropeparting when the terrific strain should be put upon it. After this thehemp portion of the tow-rope was secured to bollards on thequarter-decks of both craft, the slack of the hawsers attached to thekedge-anchors was taken up, the skippers stood by their respectiveengine-room telegraphs, and, at a signal from Wong-lih, the _San-chau_went slowly ahead until the towing hawser was taut. Steam was thengiven to the after-winches aboard the cruiser, to which thekedge-hawsers were led, the screws of the _Chih' Yuen_ were sent asternat full speed, while the _San-chau_ went ahead with every ounce of steamher boilers could supply to the engines.

  The great steel cable vibrated until it fairly hummed with the strain,the _Chih' Yuen's_ winches bucked and kicked until Wong-lih, on thecruiser's bridge, momentarily expected them to break away altogether,and the white water foamed and roared under both vessels' quarters asthe screws whirred round. For several minutes it seemed as though theattempt was doomed to failure, and that all the cables would partwithout the cruiser budging an inch; but quite suddenly, as Frobisherwatched, keeping the cruiser's mast in line with a pinnacle of rockabout a quarter of a mile behind her, he detected a slight movement.The vessel's mast appeared to vibrate, as though the cruiser herselfwere pulsing with life, and then it slowly, very slowly, moved backward,until mast and pinnacle were a little out of line.

  "She moves! she moves!" he shouted, waving his cap in his excitement;and then, like a vessel gradually sliding off the stocks when beinglaunched, the _Chih' Yuen_ gathered way, and a few moments later sheslid bodily off the rock with a plunge that caused the _San-chau_ toroll as though in a heavy sea, overrunning her kedge-anchors before her_momentum_ could be checked.

  She was afloat again, however, and Frobisher breathed a sigh ofthanksgiving. He had set his heart on commanding her, and he would havebeen bitterly disappointed if so fine a ship had been lost to him andthe Navy through the despicable cupidity of a mandarin and theincompetence of a Chinese so-called sailor.

  Wong-lih remained aboard the cruiser for another hour or more, until hehad satisfied himself that the leaks resulting from her strained andbuckled plates were not so serious but that they could easily be keptunder by the pumps; and then, having signalled for the first lieutenantof the _San-chau_ to come aboard and take charge of the cruiser, inplace of the incompetent captain, he ordered the latter to accompany himback to the dispatch-boat under arrest, as a preliminary to hisappearance before a court martial at Tien-tsin on the charge ofstranding his ship.

  Wong-lih and the captain having boarded the _San-chau_, steam was rungfor, and presently the two ships proceeded on their respective voyages,dipping their flags to each other as they parted company.

  "It was most fortunate that we saw those rockets last night," observedWong-lih, when he and Frobisher were again standing together on the_San-chau's_ bridge. "Had we not happened to be on the spot at themoment, the Navy would have lost the _Chih' Yuen_, without a doubt. Asit is, I fear she is rather badly damaged, and it will probably mean afew months in dock for her before she is fit for service again--which isall the more deplorable, because we may need her at any moment. At acrisis like this every vessel counts, especially in such a small navy aswe possess. I am afraid you will not be joining your ship just yet, MrFrobisher; but I have not the least doubt that, when we reach Tien-tsin,some congenial service will be found for you which will keep youoccupied until the _Chih' Yuen_ is repaired. There is plenty of work,and very few officers to do it; so you need have no apprehensionwhatever on the score of non-employment."

  "I thank your Highness," answered Frobisher. "I am rejoiced to hear yousay that, for I confess I felt very sore when I saw my ship, or what wasintended to be my ship, cast away on the Miao-tao reef."

  Twenty-four hours later the _San-chau_ steamed past the Taku forts,flying the admiral's flag to announce that Wong-lih was on board, andreceived and answered a salute from the batteries; and shortly afterwardthe anchor was dropped in the middle of the river, opposite the handsomecity of Tien-tsin, upon which Frobisher now looked for the first time.