A Chinese Command: A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER ELEVEN.

  TCHEN-VOUN-HIEN.

  The _Su-chen_ was about five miles away when the fort first came intoview, and for about a quarter of an hour she steamed ahead without anysign of life or of alarm becoming perceptible in the vicinity of thepirates' head-quarters. Frobisher was beginning to hope that fortunewas so far favouring him that perhaps the freebooters might have set outon some buccaneering expedition inland upon this particular morning, andthat he might thus be able to land, seize and destroy the junks, andoccupy the fort during their absence; at the same time preparing anunpleasant little surprise for the pirates when they returned.

  But his hope was doomed to disappointment. Still keeping his eye gluedto the telescope, he suddenly observed a flash and a puff of white smokeleap out from a corner tower of the fort, and a few moments later thedull "boom" of a fairly-heavy gun made itself heard. At the same momenta tiny ball soared aloft to the head of the flagstaff on thebattlements, which ball presently broke abroad and revealed itself as alarge yellow flag of triangular shape, the apex of the triangle, or fly,being circular instead of ending in a point. There was also a design ofsome description embroidered on the flag in the favourite Chinese blue,but what the design represented Frobisher could not imagine. He hadnever beheld anything like it in his life, so he turned to Quen-lung,who was, as usual, standing alongside him, and, handing him thetelescope, told him to take a look at the piece of bunting and say whatthe decoration on the flag was intended to represent.

  Quen-lung obediently placed the eyepiece to his eye, and a few secondslater Frobisher observed the man turn pale and stagger backward, almostdropping the telescope as he did so. The man's eyes were dilated, hisface turned the colour of putty; his lower lip had dropped, and hishands were trembling as though palsied. He presently recovered himself,however, and the colour gradually returned to his face. Frobisher askedwhat ailed him.

  "Oh, sir," he answered, "turn back; turn back before it is too late. Ihave read the design on that flag, and know we can never hope to succeedagainst those who fight under its folds. I may not say--no man whoknows may tell what those characters signify; but the men who belong tothe Society that flies that ensign have never been conquered, and not asingle one among them has ever been captured, although troops have beensent against them time after time. No one has ever returned alive totell what happened; and we can only guess. They have sworn enmityagainst the whole human race, and their numbers are always beingincreased by the addition of men who have wrongs to redress, or believethemselves to have been injured by their fellows; and it is said thatthey always put their captives to death in an unspeakably horriblemanner, although no witness has ever returned to tell the tale. I amsure that, if the admiral had known who the people were whom he wants todestroy, he would never have sent the expedition at all."

  Frobisher looked the man up and down for a few seconds, as though hethought that the fellow's mind had given way. Then he said, sternly:

  "What child's talk is this, Quen-lung? Do I hear a man speaking, or isit a boy, frightened by a bogy? What are you dreaming about, that youtell me I had better return without attacking these pirates? I am mostcertainly going to attack them, and my orders are to exterminate thewhole crew of them; so you will very soon be able to disabuse your mindof the belief that they are invulnerable, as you seem to suppose. Yousay that no man has ever escaped them; but there are two men on boardnow to contradict that statement--the men we rescued from the junk. No,no, my good man; you've been listening to some old woman's tale andallowed it to frighten you. You'll see that you will be quite all rightas soon as the fighting begins; you will do your part as well as thebest of us."

  This he said in the hope of infusing a little backbone into the man, whowas shaking like a leaf; but his words had no effect. Quen-lung wasterrified, there was no doubt of that, and it seemed to Frobisher thathis terror arose not so much, from fear of the pirates themselves asfrom some supernatural power which he appeared to attribute to them.

  "Well, master," he said resignedly, "if you insist on attacking them,you must; but you will not win. I know it; I can see it!" And withoutanother word he walked to the other side of the deck and leant over thebulwarks, his chin resting on the palms of his hands, staring moodilydown into the muddy water.

  By this time the _Su-chen_ had approached to within a distance of abouta mile from the fort and the small bight in the river, inside which laythe five junks, and Frobisher determined to try a sighting shot at thebuilding, to accustom the men to a changing range. He therefore orderedthe men to load the four-inch gun forward, bring it to bear on thesquare tower from which the pirates' signal-gun-had been fired, anddischarge it when ready.

  The gun was loaded and trained, and the gunner laid his finger on thefiring key; there was a deafening report, the boat quivered from truckto keelson, and Frobisher, watching, saw the shell strike and burst fullon the centre of the tower, in which a ragged hole immediatelyafterwards appeared.

  "Good shot!" he ejaculated, laying down his telescope. "Let us try afew more of the same kind, men. That will soon show those fellows thatwe mean business. Where's their invulnerability now, Quen-lung--eh?"

  His words were drowned by a terrific discharge from the fort, the wholeeastern front of which seemed to break out into flame and smoke, while aperfect storm of shot, shell, and small-arm missiles swept the ship,striking down men, ripping up planking and bulwarks, cutting rigging,and generally doing a tremendous amount of damage.

  From all over the decks came the cries and groans of wounded men,mingled with execrations from the unwounded who had seen their friendsshot down. Frobisher himself, when he had wiped the blood out of hiseyes which had flowed into them from a small wound on his foreheadcaused by a flying splinter, was astounded to observe the amount ofdamage and the number of casualties that had resulted from that onedischarge. The pirates had somehow managed to get the range to anicety, and every shot had come aboard. There were no less than ninemen killed and wounded, and the crew of the four-inch gun were all down.Unconquerable or not, the pirates were certainly marvellously clevergunners, and their weapons must be both heavy and modern.

  At the same moment Frobisher observed a movement among the masts of thejunks; and presently, to his amazement, he saw that they were coming outfrom behind their shelter, evidently with the intention of fighting himfrom the river as well as from the shore. Well, he would make shortwork of them, anyway. They were only made of wood, and a fewwell-directed shots between wind and water should send the whole fleetto the bottom in short order. With this end in view, he ordered everygun that could be brought to bear to be fired at the junks, meaning toclear them out of the way before turning his attention entirely to thefort; for he could see that they were crowded with men, and it might berather awkward for his ship's crew if they managed to get alongside.The gunboat's sides were low, and it would be an easy matter to boardher from craft standing as high out of the water as those junks.

  The men sprang to their posts with alacrity, and soon the duel was infull swing. The junks were, like the fort, very heavily armed--muchmore heavily than Frobisher had in the least anticipated--and theiraccurately-aimed shot came ripping and tearing through the _Su-chen's_wooden bulwarks and sides with terrible effect. In addition to solidshot the pirates were using shell, and the air was soon full of flyingpieces of metal, which struck men down in every direction. Only insidethe iron casemates did there seem to be any protection from that deadlystorm, and there the Chinese sailors were serving their guns coolly andwith excellent aim. Shot after shot struck one or other of the junks,and Frobisher could see them actually reel under the impact; but so farno shot had been lucky enough to strike below or on the water line, andso sink any of them.

  The _Su-chen_ was now, he considered, quite close enough to both fortand junks; he therefore rang for half-speed, at which the vessel justheld her own against the current, the junks themselves having anchoredin order to avoid being swept down u
nder the _Su-chen's_ guns.

  So the battle went grimly forward. Frobisher soon discovered that hisbig body was being made a target for small-arm fire, and was shortlyobliged to leave the bridge, in order to avoid being shot. He thereforetook up his post in the forward starboard casemate, from which positionhe could observe the enemy and at the same time encourage his crew togreater efforts. This he was obliged to do by signs, for at thebeginning of the battle Quen-lung had vanished, and Frobisher was unableto catch a glimpse of him anywhere. He had doubtless sought theseclusion of his cabin, in the hope that there he might find safety,oblivious of the fact that the enemy were using such large and powerfulguns that the wooden sides of the gunboat offered little more protectionthan he would have obtained out on deck. Frobisher determined to go andfind him, when he could spare a moment or two from the matter in hand,bring him up on deck, and thus teach him, by the most practical ofmethods, how to stand fire without flinching.

  At present, however, he had more than enough to occupy him, withoutthinking of Quen-lung. The fort had brought all its guns to bear on the_Su-chen_ directly the gunboat became practically stationary, and it, aswell as the junks, was making such excellent practice that Frobisher atlength began to realise that he was in a very warm corner indeed, out ofwhich it would tax his skill to the utmost to extricate himself, to saynothing of carrying out his expressed intention of destroying the piratestronghold. There was, of course, still time to retire, to return toTien-tsin and bring reinforcements, explaining to the admiral that onesmall gunboat was utterly inadequate to undertake so important anenterprise as this was proving to be; and this would doubtless have beenhis wisest plan. But this particular Englishman happened to be one ofthose who do not know when they are beaten, and the mere idea of retreatnever so much as entered his mind.

  He therefore went about from gun to gun, cheering and encouraging themen, sometimes training one of the weapons himself, and all the whileimpressing upon the crew--as well as he could by signs--the necessityfor holing and sinking the junks as speedily as possible, and soreducing to some extent the severe gruelling to which the _Su-chen_ wasbeing subjected.

  At last his constant exhortations began to have their effect. Awell-directed shell from the four-inch gun--laid, as it happened, byFrobisher's own hands--struck the junk at the end of the line nearest tothe gunboat full upon the water line, and exploding, blew a hole in hernearly a yard square; while from the interior of the smitten junk arosea chorus of screams, groans, and yells, proving that the flyingsplinters of the shell had done other work as well. Those on board the_Su-chen_ saw the water pouring into the pirate vessel in a verycataract; she heeled farther and farther over, and in less than a minuteafter the shell had struck, righted herself for a second, and thenplunged below the surface, carrying with her the greater portion of hercrew.

  "Hurrah, boys!" shouted Frobisher, "that's one gone. Repeat the dosewith the next fellow, and we'll soon put the whole crowd of them out ofbusiness!"

  The rousing cheer with which his men responded to words which they couldnot possibly understand, but the meaning of which was sufficientlyclear, was answered by a yell of rage and defiance from the pirates,accompanied by another furious bombardment from their guns andsmall-arms; and Frobisher, gazing at the havoc caused by the discharge,and the bodies with which his decks were strewn, realised that thedestruction of that one junk had but animated the pirates to freshexertions, and that the victory was not yet even half-won.

  Realising that it was imperative to silence the fire from the junks ifsuccess was to be obtained at all, he signed to the gunners to load anddirect all their pieces upon the next junk, firing together, in the hopethat the combined discharge might effect the desired result. And so itdid. The missiles all struck the craft almost on the same spot, and afew minutes later she, too, took herself and her crew to the bottom,leaving only three junks to deal with--and the fort, which was blazingaway merrily and doing a good deal of damage, though not so much as thejunks, the gunners on board which appeared to be specially-trainedmarksmen.

  The enthusiasm of the Chinese sailors at this second stroke of luck wasimmense, and they threw themselves into their work with unabated energy,despite the fact that fully a quarter of their comrades were lying deador wounded around them.

  The cries of the wounded for water were dreadful, despite all that couldbe done to help them. Frobisher had already told off as many men as hecould spare to carry water, but it seemed impossible to quench the poorwretches' thirst; their cry was always for more, even though they haddrunk but a moment previously. The unwounded men appeared to be quiteindifferent, however, both to their own comrades' sufferings and theirown chances of death or mutilation, and went on serving the guns ascalmly as though they were at target practice. Frobisher realised then,as numbers of white men have realised since, that the Chinese soldierand sailor, properly trained and properly led, constitutes some of thefinest fighting material in the world; and that, if a leader everarises, capable of drilling and controlling the vast mass of materialwhich China contains, it will be a very bad thing indeed for the whiteraces. A properly-drilled, well-trained, well-armed, and capably-ledarmy of perhaps fifty million fighting men would be invincible; aninvasion of Europe by such a force could not possibly be withstood.That dreadful day is, however, far in the future, let us hope.

  Frobisher now turned his attention to the third junk, still carrying outhis plan of sinking them one at a time, and determined to lay and firethe four-inch gun again himself, in the hope of repeating his formersuccessful shot. The shell and cartridge were rammed home and thebreech closed and screwed up, and having trained the gun, he pressed hisfinger to the firing key, springing back directly afterward to avoid therecoil. But to his astonishment there was no report: the weapon did notdischarge. He therefore set and pressed the key again, but once morethere was no result. It was evidently a miss-fire. The young man knew,of course, that sometimes a cartridge will "hang fire", and that many agun's crew have been blown to pieces by prematurely opening the breech,but he forgot all about that now in his anxiety, and unscrewed andopened the breech-piece immediately. Nothing happened. There were themarks of the percussion-pin upon the primer of the cartridge, but theammunition had failed to explode.

  Hastily calling for another cartridge, he withdrew the faulty one andthrust in a fresh one, closing the breech and repeating his firstoperation; but again the cartridge failed to explode. Something wasseriously wrong somewhere--but what? Was it the powder that was faultyor damp, or the primer that was ineffective? It was impossible to saywithout examination. Another cartridge and still another were tried,and every time the result was the same, until Frobisher began to feelseriously alarmed.

  Encouraged by the cessation of fire from the _Su-chen_, the junks hadredoubled their own, and the gunboat was rapidly becoming as riddled asa sieve, while men were falling fast in every direction. The ship'sfunnel was as full of holes as a cullender, the shrouds of the foremastwere cut to pieces on both sides, the mainmast had long since been shotaway, and the wooden deck-houses were mere heaps of splintered wood,while the bulwarks were in a perfectly ruinous condition. Clearlysomething must be done, and done quickly, or the _Su-chen_ would be sunkbeneath their feet.

  Ordering his men to leave the four-inch for the time being, and to blazeaway with the smaller pieces and machine-guns, Frobisher ran below tothe magazine to try to discover what was wrong. He found the men therepassing out shell and cartridge quite calmly, unaware that there wasanything wrong on deck, and of course taking no precaution to examinethe stuff before sending it up the hoist.

  Frobisher's first action when he got to the magazine was to examine theoutside of the brass cases, and he soon saw--or thought he saw--what wasthe matter. When the _Su-chen's_ ammunition had been overhauled atTien-tsin, cartridge for the four-inch was one of the sizes of whichthere was a shortage, and Frobisher had had a fresh supply put on board.That fresh supply, he had observed at the time, was stencilled w
ithChinese characters in red paint, while the old stock had been stencilledin black; and he now observed that all the cartridge being passed upcarried the black stencil, and was therefore old stuff--how old he didnot care to think. He at once told the men by signs not to send up anymore black-marked cartridge, but to use only the red-marked; and then,for the second time that day, he received a shock.

  The four-inch gun had been fired more frequently than any other gun, andthe whole of the fresh supply of cartridge of that size had beenexhausted. There was not a single charge left! How bitterly he blamedhimself for not having hove every scrap of the ship's old ammunitionoverboard, and filled up entirely with new! But it was no time forregrets now; the only thing to do was to rectify matters, if possible;and if not, to make the best of them. Perhaps it might be the primersthat were faulty, he thought, and if so, the situation might yet besaved, for there was a supply of new primers on board.

  Seizing one of the cases in his arms, he rushed on deck with his load,and there, under cover of one of the casemates, drew the load,exercising the utmost care, that the powder might not be exposed to anyflying sparks. Then, springing to the gun, he thrust in the empty case,slammed the breech shut, and pressed the key.

  There was a loud, smacking report, and a little thread of smoke curledup from the muzzle of the gun. The primers, then, were in good order,so--good heavens!--it must be the powder that was wrong, and Frobisherfelt the beads of sweat gather on his forehead. He would make quitesure, though.

  Running back to the casemate, he snatched a handful of powder, spread itthinly on deck, well away from the load, and placed a lighted match toit. There was no flame or puff of smoke, no explosion--nothing! Thematch simply burnt up and went out. Then the _Su-chen's_ captain took apinch of the stuff between his fingers and put it in his mouth, tastingit. A moment later he spat it out on deck with a cry of horror andamazement, for what had passed for powder in all those old cartridgeswas nothing but granulated charcoal! Then Frobisher recollectedWong-lih's accusation of peculation on the part of mandarins and otherhigh officials who filled their pockets at the expense of their country,and how the admiral had said that it would be a bad thing for China ifshe had to go to war under conditions such as then obtained.

  This, then, was one of the results of such peculation. Some contractoror official had been paid to provide powder, and he had providedcharcoal, pocketing the difference.

  Frobisher ground his teeth and muttered several very bitter things.Here he was, engaged with a vastly superior force, handicapped mosthorribly for want of ammunition--for possibly the rest of the supply,intended for the smaller guns, was in the same condition. What wouldhave happened if he had not had the forethought to examine superficiallythe contents of the magazine at Tien-tsin, and order a fresh supply onhis own responsibility, he hardly dared to think. There wouldundoubtedly have been not a single cartridge capable of beingdischarged, and the _Su-chen_ and her crew would by this timeundoubtedly have been the prize of the pirates. And all this that somepampered mandarin or contractor might have a supply of unearned moneywherewith to buy luxuries that he neither deserved nor needed. It wasdisgraceful!

  But there was nothing to be gained by repining, he reminded himself.Fortunately the cartridge for the smaller guns seemed to be holding outsatisfactorily; and while Frobisher had been investigating the matter ofthe larger cartridge his men had made so good practice with them andtheir rifles that the third junk was already in a sinking condition.Even as he looked she disappeared like her consorts to the bottom, in aswirl of broken water, dotted with the forms of struggling pirates.

  The one big gun being now useless, and the _Su-chen_ herself in a veryparlous condition, it was obviously out of the question to think ofattempting to conclude the fight by means of the light guns andsmall-arms alone; the ship would not float long enough for that. Someother plan of action must therefore be adopted, and Frobisher gave hisattention to the idea for a few minutes. Then he resolved upon a schemewhich, though extremely hazardous, seemed to offer the best, if not theonly, hope of success. It was a case of either destroying the piratesor being destroyed himself together with his crew; and of the two henaturally preferred that the sufferers should be the pirates. Toexplain his intentions it would be necessary, however, to call in theassistance of the interpreter, otherwise he could never hope to make themen comprehend exactly what was required--and his every hope of successhinged upon this.

  He therefore went in search of Quen-lung, whom he eventually found,after a prolonged hunt, hiding, in an almost fainting condition,underneath the bunk in the first lieutenant's cabin, and dragged himforcibly on deck. He was obliged to give the terrified man a stiff doseof raki to bring him to a condition to understand what was being said tohim; then, the fellow finally coming in some degree to his senses,Frobisher explained to him the plan of campaign, and ordered him totranslate it to the men.

  There being now but two junks left, it was the Englishman's intention torun the _Su-chen_ up stream and in between them, firing as she went.Then boarding parties, headed respectively by himself and the firstlieutenant, were to leap on to the decks of the junks, drive the crewsoverboard--not below--cut the cables, fire the vessels, and send themadrift down stream with the current. The _Su-chen_ would then be freeto turn her entire attention to the fort. She would anchor in the berthvacated by the junks, and endeavour to silence the fire of the fort withher remaining guns. If this could be done, a landing-party was to bethrown ashore who would carry with them a number of powder-bags forblowing in the gates; after which the idea was to enter the fort andcarry it by storm. If the guns could not be entirely silenced, then asmuch damage as possible was to be done, and the assault was to beattempted in any case.

  The men signified their comprehension of the plan with a cheer; thenrifles were loaded, bayonets fixed, cartridge-pouches refilled, andcutlasses brought up from below and belted on. Frobisher gave the word,and the _Su-chen_ went ahead at full speed for the junks. The men onthe latter at once understood the move, and did their utmost to preventit coming off, but all to no purpose. The gunboat crashed in betweenthem, grapnels were hove aboard each junk, and the two parties ofboarders, with Frobisher and the lieutenant at their head, scrambled upon the decks of the junks, where a desperate hand-to-hand struggle atonce commenced.

  The pirates, knowing that they could expect no mercy, showed none, andno quarter was given on either side. Frobisher, at the head of his men,strove to cut his way forward, driving the pirates ahead of him andoverboard; but he soon realised that this was going to be an exceedinglydifficult task. The desperadoes were splendidly armed, and seemed notto know the meaning of the word fear. Men found revolvers flashing intheir very faces, and spoke no more in this world; the air scintillatedwith the gleam of whirling steel and vibrated with the hoarse shouts ofthe combatants and the cries of wounded men; while, to add to the horrorand confusion of the scene, the guns of the fort opened fire murderouslyupon friend and foe alike.

  Twice the pirates had given way slightly, but each time they hadrecovered their ground, and however many of them were killed, othersseemed to appear from nowhere to take their places; and so the fightraged with unabated fury. Frobisher picked out a man who appeared to beone of the chiefs, and made herculean efforts to reach him; but time andagain a whirlwind of men swept in between him and his prey, so that thefellow seemed unapproachable.

  Then, suddenly, there arose a roar of exultation from the pirates, and,turning, Frobisher saw the other boarding party give way, and, seeminglystruck with panic, go tumbling back on board the _Su-chen_, defeated.Frobisher, forgetting that he would not be understood, shouted to hismen to redouble their efforts, and to those on the gunboat to go backand try again.

  But there was worse to come. The Englishman was at the head of his men,plying his cutlass with terrible effect, when he felt a slight jar, andlooked round just in time to see a man on board the _Su-chen_ throw offthe last grapnel, and the gunboat begin to gather ste
rnway down thestream. He uttered a shout of rage, and strove to hew his way to theside of the junk; but even as he did so, he realised that he was toolate. There were already fathoms of water between junk and steamer, andthe bitter conclusion was forced home upon him that he had been desertedby his crew, and left alone with a mere handful of men in the midst of acrowd of howling, murderous pirates. The end of all things for himseemed very close at that moment.