A Chinese Command: A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

  FROBISHER CAPTURES THE "SATSUMA."

  Several months had passed since the moment when Frobisher stood staringin the face of death in the Formosan clearing, to be saved in the verynick of time by a well-directed shot from a Japanese officer's revolver.Now he, together with Drake and all that remained of the crew of the_Chih' Yuen_--twenty-three seamen only, out of her complement of overthree hundred--were crawling slowly and carefully, on hands and knees,down a steep jungle path, not half a mile from the scene of the rescue,on their way to the beach. How they come to be in this position,creeping along and keeping cautiously within the shadow cast by themoon, can soon be told.

  Immediately the cannibals had been slain by the Japanese volleys, andthe officer and his men had cast loose the cramped and stiffened formsof the prisoners, the wounded Formosans--of whom there were very few--had been executed by the orders of the Japanese captain, who said thathe could not afford to take any savage prisoners. But he courteouslyinformed Frobisher that, although he was delighted and honoured athaving been the means of succouring the "honourable captain" and his menin their extremity, he would be obliged, as the two countries were stillat war, to make him and all his men prisoners until such time as theycould be exchanged. If, however, Frobisher would give his parole forhimself and his crew, he would be very glad to give them all a passageto Japan when the transports returned thither; otherwise, he should beobliged to keep them with him on the island until he was relieved or theJapanese garrison withdrawn.

  Frobisher and Drake, after consulting, decided that they would not givetheir parole. They were both eager to get away from Formosa and back totheir duty as soon as possible, and they believed they might be able toform a plan by which to bring this about, if they were not sent toJapan.

  He therefore informed General Oki of his decision. That officershrugged his shoulders, and ordered the two Englishmen and thetwenty-three Chinese to be closely guarded until a building could beerected as a prison for them. This was soon run up, and the twenty-fivemen placed therein, with sentries stationed at the doors night and day.

  They were well treated, but very strictly guarded; and it was a longtime before even a glimmering of an opportunity to escape occurred. Thegunboat had convoyed the transports back to Nagasaki; and as escape wasimpossible without the assistance of a ship, it became necessary to waituntil another returned, as she was expected to do, in about threemonths' time, with stores.

  It was longer than that, however, before she appeared, and provisionswere becoming exceedingly scarce when one day everybody awoke to findone of the latest and finest Japanese torpedo-boat destroyers lying offthe beach, and with her an old tramp steamer laden with stores. It wasthen that Frobisher and Drake decided to attempt putting into executionthe scheme matured by them months previously, and which had beensimmering in their brains ever since the departure of the gunboat andtransports.

  This scheme was nothing less than the capture of the war-vessel whichwould certainly accompany the storeship; but the question now was, Howwas the scheme to be carried out with so small a number of men?Twenty-five to a hundred and ten--which would be about the complementcarried by the destroyer--was very long odds; but Frobisher and Drakebetween them evolved a plan that they thought might meet with success.

  They had observed--at the time when the Japanese were first landingtheir stores, after the troops had been disembarked--that the crews oftransports and war-ship had been allowed to come ashore in detachmentsto stretch their legs after the voyage, being permitted also to go intothe woods at the back of the cliffs with rifles, after tigers and othergame, provided always that they went in large parties, so as to avoidany danger of being cut off by the cannibals. They had also made a noteof the fact that, when the gunboat's crew had taken their turn at shoreleave, fully three-quarters of the men had arranged to do so at the sametime, so that a _battue_ on a large scale might take place, leaving onlya few men behind to look after the ship. This _battue_ had proved sucha tremendous success that the crews of the two transports had followedthe example of their Service comrades, and had likewise had excellentsport.

  The reports of these successes, Frobisher felt sure, would becommunicated to the crews of the ships which were to bring the nextconsignment of stores; and it was upon the possibility of the majorportion of the destroyer's men coming ashore together, leaving the shipvery indifferently manned, that the Englishmen had built their plan. Ifthe Japanese did not follow their predecessors' example, then anotherplan would have to be thought out after the ship's arrival, when itcould be seen what arrangements were actually in force.

  But, fortunately for the success of Frobisher's scheme, everything hadfallen out as he had hoped. The storeship's crew came on shore first,and met with splendid success; and, as the destroyer and her consortwere making but a brief stay, the war-ship's crew had arranged to holdtheir _battue_ the following day. Frobisher had therefore warned hismen, directly he became aware of what was intended; and it was withmingled feelings of delight and apprehension that he saw and heard thelaughing Japanese tars making their way into the bush, as twilight fell,to take up their posts for the moonlight "shoot."

  The prison had been built at some distance from the storehouse and thebarracks, close to the edge of the jungle, and not far from the strip ofbeach where the _Chih' Yuen's_ boats had landed. The other twobuildings just referred to were more than half a mile away, at the topof the cliff, where a signal-station had also been established. On thenight selected for the attempt, the crew of the store-ship happened tobe holding a "sing-song", to which the officers on shore and a number ofmen from the barracks had been invited; and it seemed as though fortuneherself were on the side of the conspirators.

  Frobisher gave the hunters half an hour in which to make a good"offing", as he phrased it, and then, when the shades of evening hadwell set in, passed the word to his men to be ready.

  There were two sentinels on guard, night and day, over the prisoners,and these had been changed half an hour before the time the attempt wasto be made. Frobisher could hear them pacing slowly up and downoutside; and he whispered to one of the sailors, who could speakJapanese, that the moment had arrived.

  The fellow immediately shouted, at the top of his voice:

  "Help! help! I have been bitten by a snake!" and, acting on Frobisher'sinstructions, the remainder of the men began to raise a tremendoushubbub, as though trying to find the reptile to kill it, while the"bitten" man, altering the tones of his voice, called wildly to thesentries to bring their rifles to shoot the thing.

  The plan worked to perfection. The prisoners had always been quiet andwell-behaved, and had never made any attempt to escape, so no suspicionsnow suggested themselves to the guards. They hastily unlocked the doorsand dashed in, with rifles held ready to shoot--and the next moment theywere on the floor, with half a dozen men on the top of each of them, andtheir rifles in the hands of Frobisher and Drake respectively.

  They were bound and gagged in less time than it takes to tell; and fiveminutes later the little band were in the situation in which they werediscovered at the beginning of this chapter, crawling cautiously alongthe jungle path toward the beach.

  Once there, in the shadow of the cliffs, they hastened to the spot wherethe arms and stores from the _Chih' Yuen_ had been concealed when theyfirst landed, some of which had been left there when they went to buildthe fort. If the Japanese had not discovered them, they should be therestill; and there they were soon found.

  Frobisher distributed a rifle and cutlass to each man, saw that therifles were loaded and that the remaining cartridges were distributed asfar as they would go, then gave Drake a cutlass and revolver, and tookone of each himself. Then the little band crept quietly along towardthe place where the Japanese boats had been pulled up.

  Nothing of this kind having been anticipated, it had not been deemednecessary to leave a guard over the boats, and the fugitives had thingsall their own way. Oars were muffled
with pieces of the men's clothing,and the boat was carried bodily down to the water's edge and placedcarefully in the water to avoid the noise created by running her downthe beach. There might be sentries on the destroyer and the store-ship(although in the case of the latter this was not very probable, owing tothe concert proceeding on board); but if anyone should be watching onthe destroyer Frobisher hoped that his crew would be taken for a partyof the hunters, returned early for some reason, until it would be toolate to offer resistance. If there were no sentinels on guard--well,attention to the fugitives would not be attracted by any unduedisturbance.

  Quietly but quickly the men slid into the boat, and were soon on theirway toward the destroyer, lying about half a mile from the store-ship.They were within a few yards of her when, to their astonishment andmomentary dismay, they were challenged--there was a sentry on watch,after all!

  The Japanese-speaking seaman replied to the challenge with a statementthat they had "returned early, as the sport had turned out to be poor";and before the sentry could make up his mind whether or not herecognised the voice, the boat's crew were on deck, and he had noopportunity to rectify his mistake. He was silently overcome, gagged,and bound in a trice, and in less than ten minutes the remainder of thedestroyer's men--most of them captured while enjoying a well-earnednap--were in irons and confined, with a sentry over them, in their ownvessel's forecastle, the scuttles of which were closed and screwed homewith a spanner, so that no outcry of theirs could reach the other ship.

  The fires were banked and the steam pressure was low, but by anextravagant use of oil a working pressure was soon raised. Frobisherwisely waited until he had a full head of steam before slipping hiscable, lest he might be chased by the store-ship before he had power forfull speed; but at the expiration of an hour all was in readiness. Theword was given, the cable slipped through the hawse-pipe with a roar,the screw revolved, and the _Satsuma_ swung round in a circle and headednorthward for Wei-hai-wei.

  The sound of the cable running out alarmed the crew of the store-ship,and the concert ceased abruptly. But that craft might as well havehoped to catch a streak of lightning as the _Satsuma_, when once she waswell into her stride; and two days later the destroyer, now flying theChinese flag, steamed proudly into Wei-hai-wei.

  But, alas! pride soon had a fall, for the harbour was full of Japanesewar-ships! Matters had been progressing while Frobisher was a prisonerin Formosa, battles had been fought on land and sea, and China had beenhumbled in the dust. Her men, both in the Navy and the Army, had foughtlike heroes; but, alas! it was always the same tale. Victory, dearlybought, but still victory, would have been theirs in nearly every casebut for the peculation of the mandarins and other high officials, whosupplied everything of the poorest to the unfortunate men whose duty itwas to do the fighting. Poor weapons, poor food, cheap boots andclothing, faulty ammunition were the cause of China's downfall--nothingelse.

  The remnant of her fleet, under Admiral Ting, had fought anotherbravely-contested naval action, and had been destroyed, with theexception of one ship, the _Chen Yuen_, which had been captured. Hersouthern fleet had been bottled up by another Japanese squadron, andAdmiral Wong-lih had gone to Tien-tsin to see whether he could be of usethere. The army in Korea had been crushed by an enemy superior innumbers and in everything else but bravery; and at the moment ofFrobisher's return the peace envoys were in the act of concluding thetreaty of Shimonoseki.

  The higher Chinese naval officers, broken-hearted at disgrace which wasnone of their own fault, had one and all committed suicide, and theDragon's teeth were drawn, his claws pared.

  Would he ever rise again, Frobisher wondered, under men worthy of theheroes who were only too willing to fight his battles? Time alone wouldshow.

  There is little more to add to the present history of Captain MurrayFrobisher.

  The captured destroyer was, of course, claimed by Japan, and Frobisherhimself remained a prisoner for one day, until the treaty was signed.Then, being free, he sought Admiral Wong-lih, who had refused to followhis comrades' example and destroy himself. The Englishman obtained fromhim the loan of an old gunboat, armed and manned her at his own expense,went up the Hoang-ho, and settled an outstanding account with certainpirates and an individual by the name of Ah-fu.

  Then Drake and he revisited the ruined palace, and brought away GenghizKhan's hoard, which the two men shared and brought to England, wherethey arrived about Christmas time.

  Frobisher was now an immensely wealthy man, and a famous one, too, forhe found that the account of his services with the Chinese Navy hadreached home, and that his name was in everybody's mouth.

  He was surprised, on the day following his arrival, to receive a visitfrom Dick Penryn, who, after the first warm greetings had passed, handedhim a document intimating that the former sentence of the court martialhad been reversed; that Frobisher had been reinstated in the BritishNavy, with the rank of captain; and that a ship was waiting for him assoon as he cared to take command.

  He had, however, a little business of his own to transact first; and thenature of it became apparent, a little more than a year later, whenCaptain Murray Frobisher, of Her Majesty's cruiser _Dauntless_,presented to a grateful and astonished country no less than foursplendid battleships of the latest design, built in the mother countrywith part of the proceeds of his share of the hoard of the ancient"Conqueror of Asia". He did not intend, he said to the deputation whowaited upon him to thank him, that his country should ever be exposed tothe danger of the fate that had overtaken China. If China had had moreships she might have come off victorious in her war with Japan, in spiteof the manifold disadvantages to which she had been subjected. Thesewere disadvantages of a kind to which Great Britain, he knew, wouldnever be exposed; but he wanted his beloved country to possess a good"margin of safety."

  After this generous and unparalleled gift, will it surprise readers verymuch to learn that the lieutenant who was once cashiered from the Navyfor losing his ship is now Captain Sir Murray Frobisher, Baronet,holding the rank of post-captain on board one of the battleships whichhe himself presented to his country?

  THE END.