China Seas

by John Harris

  Willie had never been inside an aeroplane before, let alone flown in one and he wasn’t very certain. But aeroplanes were the coming thing and the British had used them to watch the troubles in Shanghai. It occurred to him if he let the part go without him, it might get misplaced or lost and, after all the trouble he’d taken to acquire it, that would be a pity.

  ‘How safe is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Couldn’t be safer,’ Biggit laughed. ‘We’ve got every kind of safety equipment on board you can think of. Radio-direction finding gear, even an inflatable dinghy because we’re flying over a lot of sea. Byrd had one when he flew the Atlantic.’

  Willie didn’t know much about flying, but he’d heard of Byrd and knew that the Atlantic and the Pacific had been flown non-stop and that the world’s skies seemed to be packed with both men and women in aeroplanes, all trying to break records between one place and another.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

  Two days later, the second passenger turned up, a British businessman called Crittenden who had flown as a passenger in England and, wanting to get to Canton in a hurry, couldn’t resist the temptation of a trip.

  The flight from Sydney was smooth and easy enough to quell any fears Willie had felt. With the spare shaft bearing lashed down in the middle of the aircraft where it couldn’t affect performance, the machine lurched into the sky. Despite the extra weight it seemed not to be affected and the refuelling stops fell behind them without trouble one after the other and they landed at Singapore well ahead of time. If this was flying, Willie felt, there was nothing to it and he began to see himself using aeroplanes more and more. The flight would mean that the Dunnose Grange would be under way two months before she would have been had the part been delivered by coastal steamer progressing through the islands, dropping cargoes here, picking up cargoes there.

  It was hot at Singapore with a humid heat that made them sweat. All four of them helped with the refuelling, Biggit not trusting the local mechanics.

  ‘We got a lot of sea in front of us,’ he pointed out.

  Taxiing the big machine on to the runway, he revved the engines for a final test, received the green light and proceeded to the take-off. The machine was half-way down the runway building up speed when a tyre blew. As the plane swung right, heading for one of the airfield sheds, Biggit throttled back and jammed the rudder to the left in an attempt to swing the tail into a ground loop. They came to a screeching halt that flung up dust and grit in a shower, and shot things off tables with a clatter of falling objects.

  It meant spending another night in Singapore, but Biggit and Simpson were confident the machine had not been damaged. They had spent until darkness checking everything about it, and were quite satisfied they could take off again the following morning. To Willie it was a disturbing reminder that flying wasn’t quite as simple as it had seemed. At first light they climbed into the aircraft again, and were quickly airborne. They had been flying about six hours when Willie, waking from a doze on the floor of the cabin near his spare part, became aware of some sort of trouble forward, where the two Americans sat. Biggit was leaning to his left to peer downwards, his eyes narrow, his face taut and concerned. As he did it again and again, Willie noticed that the movement took place every time a dark spot appeared on the surface of the sea beneath them. It always turned out to be a cloud, and he realised that what Biggit was looking for was an island and it dawned on him they were lost.

  ‘Sweet suffering J,’ he muttered to himself.

  There was nothing beneath them to indicate where they were, but, judging by the absence of islands, it seemed to Willie that they were somewhere in the middle of the South China Sea midway between Borneo or the Philippines and Indo-China.

  ‘What are they looking for?’ Crittenden asked.

  Willie studied the chart he’d bought to follow the route and came to the conclusion that what Biggit was seeking was one of the Paracel Islands close to Hainan and directly south of Hong Kong.

  ‘I guess we ought to get some bearings, Sam,’ Biggit said to Simpson. ‘Try calling Hong Kong.’

  By this time, staring nervously at the sea, Willie was seeing one island after another, all of which turned out to be nothing but shadows. The distance seemed endless. His charts showed islands ahead of them and he assumed they were bound to hit one sooner or later. Then all they had to do was get down. But – the thought occurred to him with a start – the island didn’t have an airfield, that in itself was going to be a problem. Flying suddenly seemed very different.

  An hour later, when they still had seen nothing, he knew they were in grave danger. Simpson and Biggit were arguing quietly but furiously and he heard Simpson suggest that his octant might have been damaged when it fell from the navigator’s table after the flawed take-off at Singapore. If that were true, even Willie could see, every reading he had made would have been wrong. They could be hundreds of miles off course.

  By this time, Biggit had cut one engine and the remaining two were running on the leanest mixture possible and he was making no pretence that all was well.

  ‘Send out an SOS,’ he said. ‘Somebody will pick it up.’

  But nobody did and that, Willie realised, meant that if they came down in the sea nobody would know where they were.

  At Biggit’s suggestion, they started lightening the aeroplane. Out went the small cot where Willie had been resting, with the blankets, Willie’s coat, suitcase and briefcase. As he watched them spinning down out of sight it occurred to him that it might have been better to rely on a ship after all, because, if they had to land on the sea, the aeroplane would sink and that would be the end of the shaft bearing he’d acquired at so much trouble and expense. They couldn’t even throw it out to lighten the machine because it was too heavy to move, and Willie made sure of a position well to one side in case the crash tore its fastenings loose and sent its two and a half hundredweight of dead metal skating forward.

  They placed the few rations they carried on one side with water and a flask of coffee, and started preparing the life raft for ditching. Noticing that Biggit was slipping his shoes off, Willie did the same, then he noticed Crittenden had removed his jacket and trousers, too.

  ‘For swimming,’ he said sheepishly.

  Willie decided that if he were going to die he was going to die with his trousers on and remained fully clothed.

  Time was running short. The sea was coming closer and he saw that a long swell was running. Biggit was bringing the machine down parallel to the lifting sweeps of water, hoping to land in a trough, when one of the engines fluttered and died. The other engine cut almost immediately afterwards and they were in a sudden aching silence. No one spoke.

  As they hit the sea, a heavy piece of equipment in the tail of the machine broke loose and smashed forward, sending chunks of aeroplane flying in all directions. There was another violent crash and then the sea water poured in. They had already loosened the door and, as it was torn off, they began to scramble out.

  ‘Look slippy,’ Biggit roared. ‘She won’t float long.’

  Not likely, Willie thought, not with the solid weight of the shaft bearing carrying her down.

  The aeroplane had settled by the nose under the weight of the engines, but they were able to climb on to the wing. For a moment, they thought Crittenden was missing but he appeared in the water alongside. The raft was afloat, the rope held firmly by Willie, who didn’t fancy swimming all the way to Hong Kong without help.

  There was blood in the sea and Willie saw that Crittenden had cut his arm to the bone on a ragged piece of metal. The swells were around ten feet high and, as they scrambled into the lifting dinghy, it dawned on them they had left their few rations behind, together with the water and the coffee.

  ‘We ought to go back and fetch them,’ Willie said.

  ‘Don’t be goddam silly,’ Biggit said. ‘She’s going to sink any moment.’

  In fact, the machine stayed afloat for almost ten minutes before the
tail lifted and remained there for a second before sliding out of sight, taking with it the spare shaft bearing for the Dunnose Grange, according to MacFee the last one in the world. The result would be the end of the Dunnose Grange as a working ship so that, like the Ladywell Grange, she would probably end her days as a rubbish dump before being scuttled out at sea. Curiously the only thing that crossed Willie’s mind as the tail fin slid out of sight was ‘Thank God it’s not the Lady Roberts.’

  The raft was sloshing with water and Willie started to bail with his hat. Crittenden was in a lot of pain with his arm, but they managed to wriggle around until they all had a space inside the inflated sides of the raft. There were a pair of paddles, but they were broken and they could see no alternative but to throw them away.

  As they drifted away from the spot where the aeroplane had disappeared, Willie noticed a long shadow in the water and then a triangular fin broke the surface.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ Simpson said. ‘Sharks! That’s all we want.’

  Riding up and down in the steep swells brought seasickness, and to Crittenden, who was a poor sailor, it was miserable. Sunburn was also a problem and out of the four of them only Willie was fully clothed, even to his hat which, though sodden with the sea, still managed to shade his face.

  As night came, a mist settled in a low sheet over the water as the moon rose, a mere glow through the silver of the mist, and it became wretchedly cold because they were all wet through. This, Willie thought, isn’t what I expected and it looks as though I’m going to die. But then he thought, someone would be sure to look for them because their time of arrival had been radioed ahead. Crittenden was already moaning and muttering in a half-sleep and it occurred to Willie that it was going to be a case of fighting for survival. Anybody who gave up trying was going to die.

  During the night they felt a bump against the thin rubber bottom of the raft and Crittenden woke immediately. ‘Sharks,’ he said.

  The bumps continued all night as they huddled together, painfully cold. The sun was well up next morning before it broke through and dispersed the mist and by that time they were all practically rigid with the chill. The wind had subsided a little and the sea had quietened down, so that the raft was motionless. But as the sun rose higher it began to burn. Using his hat, Willie sloshed water over himself and the others to cool them down. Crittenden was in the worst condition and his bare legs began to grow pink and look sore while his torn arm continued to ooze blood.

  As the salt water dried in a white crust over everything, they began to discuss their position, but they couldn’t agree where they were. The long day passed, leaving them weak from the sunshine and glad when it disappeared, only to start wishing it were back when the cold started to make them shiver. Though Biggit and Simpson had been careful to load the plane with every kind of device, the only one of any use was the raft; all the others had gone down with the machine.

  Bodily functions became an agony until finally, hungry and thirsty, they stopped altogether. The dead calm continued and, during the night, the mist disappeared so that the next morning when the sun rose, almost at once it became torture, burning the skin red, then blistering it to leave it raw and bleeding. Willie was still better off than anyone with his hat and his suit, but Crittenden was in torment. They shared the hat and Willie’s jacket, but being unable to change positions made things much worse and the slightest movement of the raft was enough to make their wet skin raw as they chafed against each other.

  The day seemed endless and was followed by another and then another. Unable to keep the raft bailed, they began to get fresh sores from the salt water. And, as they blistered and burned and ached with thirst, all around them were miles of cool water. During the day they could see each other, talk and discuss their predicament, though curiously nobody blamed Biggit or Simpson. The nights were much worse because then they were alone with their thoughts, unable to see anything.

  Willie began to see things, beautiful and sinister things. Once it was Ab and another time it was Nadya. Then somehow he began to think that Zychov or Emmeline Wishart was responsible for his predicament. Crittenden began to babble about drinks – long, cool drinks such as they served at the Shanghai Club – and Willie began to think of his mistakes, the things he had not done, the things he had done and ought not to have done. They tried to catch a seagull and failed dismally, but then, as the bird flew off, it occurred to Willie that birds like that didn’t live miles out over the ocean.

  ‘We can’t be all that far from shore,’ he said.

  The others were too weak by this time to be concerned with his optimism, but he refused to give way, certain he’d be rescued. There was no reason why he should be so sure, he knew, but he continued to hope, knowing that if he gave up he was old enough to die.

  Suddenly it started to rain. Willie was the first to smell it, then the heavens opened and they revelled in the falling water as it washed away the encrusted salt. They had nothing to collect it in except Willie’s hat, so they took it in turns to drink from it and then they filled it and held it carefully. By the time the squall vanished they had all drunk as much as they could hold and Willie’s hat held another pint or so.

  The next night, however, Crittenden died. It seemed to happen when no one was looking and Biggit looked up and said, ‘I think he’s dead.’

  He had been terribly burned by the sun and, though they had tried to shelter him with Willie’s jacket, they’d been able to do very little for him. At first they didn’t know quite what to do because none of them wanted to pronounce him dead with finality. But by the next dawn it was obvious Crittenden was feeling nothing any more. He was cold and they could find no heart beat. Even then, they hesitated to get rid of the body, until eventually they realised their chances would be better without it taking up room in the raft and they rolled him over the side. For a long time the body floated alongside until finally with a sudden jerk from below that brought it abruptly upright, it disappeared from sight

  The sharks which had torn Crittenden down were still with them. During the next night they must have drifted across a shoal of smaller fish and as the sharks ravaged the school, the fish began to jump. Three of them landed in the raft and they pulled them to pieces and ate them raw.

  It helped, but not much, and the next day they seemed hardly able to move. Biggit was lying with closed eyes, Simpson leaning against him. Willie watched them with a haggard stare, wondering why his ears were humming. Then it dawned on him that what he heard wasn’t a sound inside his head but came from a searching plane. He woke the other two and they waved and shouted as if they could be heard, but the machine passed clean over them and disappeared. As it vanished, they sank back and Willie found he was having to blink back bitter tears.

  But two hours later another plane flew over them. Once again the crew seemed not to see them, but towards the evening just before it began to grow dark, they saw a spot on the horizon that grew larger and continued to grow until they saw it was a ship and that it was heading for them.

  ‘Holy Jesus Christ and all his shining angels,’ Willie breathed. ‘I think we’re saved!’

  For the first time since they had ditched he allowed himself to relax.

  When he awoke he was in a hospital bed staring at the mosquito net above him. At first he thought he was dead after all and that the mosquito netting was the mistiness that came from being in Heaven. He couldn’t hear any heavenly music, however, and as his head turned quickly in alarm, wondering why not, he found himself staring hazily at someone who was sitting alongside the bed.

  ‘Where’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘The hospital.’

  ‘Not Heaven?’

  ‘No, William darling, Hong Kong.’

  The words and the way they were spoken brought him back to earth. His vision cleared and he wondered if it had been impaired by the ordeal in the raft.

  ‘Am I safe?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, you’re quite safe.’

  ‘I think
in future,’ he said slowly, ‘I’ll stick to shipping.’ His vision cleared as he blinked and he saw he was looking at Nadya.

  ‘Is it really you, Nadya Alexsandrovna,’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, it is. I thought that this time you’d gone for good. It was in all the papers. Your name. Everything. They said you couldn’t possibly be still alive.’

  ‘Takes more than that to kill me.’ Willie’s cracked lips opened in a grin that hurt his mouth. ‘I’m back from the dead. So why don’t you marry me, while you can?’

  She smiled. ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that since you’ve already used up eight of your nine lives, I’d better, before it’s too late.’

  Eight

  Willie was flattered when his family turned up – first Thomas from Shanghai with Fan-Su, then Edward and Polly, arriving together. Edward’s ship had been in Singapore, and, the first to hear of the rescue, he had telegraphed his brother then picked up Polly and taken a ship north. Willie hadn’t thought he meant that much to them and he was surprised to find they seemed to be pleased to see him alive, so he tried on them his news about Nadya and, to his delight, his sons were even enthusiastic.

  ‘I think,’ he said to Nadya, ‘that they’re frightened of having to look after me when I’m an old man.’

  Since the whole family was there, they decided to marry at once and the whole business was carried out at the hospital, with the clergyman and the family clustered round the bed. Only Polly was unable to accept it. She tried to explain and he tried to understand. She had always been close to Abigail and he realised he must wait for time to have its effect.

  As soon as he was on his feet again, he began to think of closing the house in Shanghai and moving down to Hong Kong. It would mean allowing George Kee and Da Braga to take over completely the operations in Shanghai, and he tried on them the idea of buying him out completely. They were all for it because they knew they were getting everything far more cheaply than they would otherwise and the thing went through without a hitch.