Halfhyde on the Yangtze

by Philip McCutchan

  “Beg pardon, zur, but I be a mere passenger aboard—”

  “And I’m in arrest, Mr Bodmin, and should I break out, no matter what the reason, I fear it would go ill with me. At once, Mr Bodmin!”

  “Ar, zur, I’ll do as ee says, zur.” Bodmin pushed open the door of the deck store and came out, as he had expected, into the rain. He went as fast as he could for the bridge ladder, noting as he moved the immense speed of the Cockroach in the grip of the fierce torrent that propelled her on for the Chutang Gorge. Grasping the handrails he climbed the ladder and emerged on to the bridge.

  “Cap’n, zur!”

  Captain Watkiss, standing with his stomach wedged against the forward guardrail as though he were his own figurehead, did not turn. “Go away, Mr Bodmin, I am conning my ship and the river is full of danger.”

  “But, zur, Mr Beauchamp, ’e—”

  “Mr Beauchamp’s in arrest and doesn’t exist. Kindly make yourself scarce.”

  “Zur, zur, I—”

  “Go away, Mr Bodmin, or you’ll be in arrest too.”

  “But zur, there was a shot—”

  “Oh, hold your tongue!”

  It was no use; that there Watkiss, he was as stubborn as a mule, as stubborn and foolish as Bodmin remembered him being as a midshipman—no real change, he’d just worsened with the passing years. Sulkily, Bodmin turned to go back down the ladder and when he was half-way down there came the sound of rifle-fire–several shots from somewhere near the Captain’s cabin as he judged, right below where he stood poised on the bridge ladder. He went down in a brace of shakes, very nimble for an old man. Watkiss had had his chance, and now Mr Bodmin had other things to do, and one of them was to see to the physical safety of Song Tso-P’eng.

  Chapter 14

  THERE WAS quite a crowd at the head of the Captain’s alleyway when Bodmin reached it: men and women, seamen, marines, and that Lord Edward Cole. Farther into the alley Bodmin saw Hackenticker, who seemed to be taking charge. Bodmin tried to push through, but was prevented by Lord Edward.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you, Mr Bodmin. There’s a lot of blood. It’s awfully messy, and you’ll only be in the way.”

  Bodmin quivered. “Blood did you say, my lord?”

  “Yes, but don’t worry, your good lady’s perfectly all right thanks to Admiral Hackenticker. And the sentry.”

  “That be an immense relief, zur.” Mr Bodmin brought out a huge handkerchief of spotted red silk and mopped his face. “And the blood, my lord?”

  “Bloementhal’s. I don’t know yet what happened, Mr Bodmin, but it appears Bloementhal was attempting to Bodmin your good lady, and Admiral Hackenticker, who was in pursuit, called to the sentry to stop him, and the sentry very sensibly shot him.”

  “I see, zur, my lord. Now I’d like to go through and comfort Mrs Bodmin, if you don’t mind—”

  “Oh, I’m sure Admiral Hackenticker will do that, Mr Bodmin, and you needn’t worry—”

  “No, zur, young fellow-me-lad, you don’t understand, and I’m not ’avin’ no Hadmiral ’Ackentickers comfortin’ Mrs Bodmin. I’m about to go through, zur, my lord, don’t you try an’ stop me.” Mr Bodmin thrust at the back end of the crowd and burrowed his way vigorously in, shouting out aloud in the stentorian voice that he had used when, as a boatswain on the active list in days long past, he had hazed the common seamen aloft to the masts and yards of a sailing line-of-battle ship.

  “THANK YOU, Admiral Hackenticker, you’ve done well, and I’m obliged.” The American’s report of the shooting rendered, Captain Watkiss remained staring belligerently ahead, four square beneath the drenching rain, looking in his sou’wester and obliterative oilskins like a miniature Buddha set immovably in unlikely surroundings. However, the time for consultation and movement had in fact come, and he turned to Halfhyde.

  “Mr Halfhyde, I am now required to attend to urgent matters of state. We are at last well on course in the river, and the banks will prevent wandering.” This was true: the banks had deepened as the run-in to the Chutang Gorge began, and the Yangtze was now contained, but rushing along at an even greater pace than before now that it was channelled again. “Kindly take over my ship, and report when you have the gorge in sight, Mr Halfhyde. I shall be in the wardroom.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Watkiss turned away and preceded Hackenticker down his bridge ladder. Coming forward along the upper deck was Beauchamp, eyes wide and earnest, with Pumphrey behind him.

  “Captain, sir!”

  “Good heavens, Mr Beauchamp, what’s this I see? What the devil are you doing out of the deck store, may I enquire?”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Go back in this instant. Mr Pumphrey, I shall have words with you later, when you shall give your reasons why you allowed Mr Beauchamp to emerge contrary to my orders.”

  “Sir,” Pumphrey said, “Mr Beauchamp had important matters to communicate.”

  “What matters?”

  “It was I, sir,” Beauchamp said eagerly, “who sent Mr Bodmin to report to you—”

  “Bodmin, Bodmin. I was not aware of any report, and you should know better than to send messengers to your Captain, Mr Beauchamp, it’s not done when you can come yourself—”

  Beauchamp broke in desperately, “I was in arrest, sir!”

  “Yes, you were and are.” Watkiss lunged towards him with his telescope. “Kindly stop all this chatter and get back to the deck store.”

  “But I heard what was taking place below in the paint store, sir, and I thought—”

  “Never mind what you thought, Mr Beauchamp, I have been informed of events already by Admiral Hackenticker and your thoughts are superfluous.” Captain Watkiss turned his back and went below to the wardroom, where he cast his sou’wester from his head and sat down. “Now, Admiral. Some filling-in of detail would be in order, I fancy.”

  Hackenticker nodded. Bloementhal, he explained, or whatever his real name might prove to be, had gone berserk when he, Hackenticker, had faced him with the fact that there had been a Bloementhal attached to the Legation staff in Peking but that he was not that man: the inference had been plain enough for all present to see—the real Bloementhal had been disposed of somewhere along the line, which taken to the extreme could implicate the fake Bloementhal in murder. When this had been put to him, Bloementhal had hit back in no mean fashion. He had hurled himself upon Hackenticker, who had drawn his revolver, but had been unable to use it before Bloementhal’s movement had brought down a large number of paint cans and the putty, most of which, in fact, had fallen upon Count von Furstenberg. Much angered, the German had retaliated upon the deluge of cans by snatching Hackenticker’s revolver and firing it at Bloementhal, by which time the sentry on watch outside had entered the paint store and had his rifle torn from his grasp by von Furstenberg’s bullet, which had missed Bloementhal. Hackenticker had managed to seize his revolver back and having done so had struck Bloementhal hard upon the back of the neck with the barrel; the fake Bloementhal had gone down gasping, but had quickly got up again and sped out of the door, knocking down the sentry in the rush, whilst von Furstenberg, taking a gallon can of paint on his head, had fallen heavily upon Hackenticker, pinning him down for a while. Hackenticker had caught up with his adversary as he was running for the Captain’s cabin and had shouted ahead to the sentry. Bloementhal, whose name, in fact, was Kurt Schmultz, was now dead; and he had been a German.

  “I had a word with von Furstenberg,” Hackenticker said. “He saw no reason not to come clean since it was all blown anyway.” He added with a grin, “He’s turning what you might call Queen’s evidence in your country, having an eye to the main chance for himself, of course!”

  “Of course,” Watkiss said distantly. “I always knew Bloementhal was not an American, I might add.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.” Watkiss glowered at the note of astonishment but preened himself upon his perspicacity. He recalled duty not dooty, coffee not carffee, and a lack o
f nasality. “I never trusted the man, don’t you know. Shifty. And not very efficient, moreover—he must have learned his English in England, not America. He spoke quite well. It didn’t take me long to see through that. But what about that Hun?”

  “What about him?”

  “I suppose I’d better see him. You say he’s in a mood to talk—that may not last.” Watkiss reached out for the voice pipe to the bridge. “Where is he at this moment, Admiral?”

  “Back in the paint locker, Captain, and under arrest again. I wasn’t taking any chances!” He paused, lifting an eyebrow. “I trust I didn’t intrude on your prerogative?”

  “Oh, no, no, no, that’s quite all right.” Watkiss sounded huffy nevertheless. He blew down the voice-pipe. “The Captain speaking,” he said. “Mr Halfhyde, kindly send your bridge messenger to fetch Count von Furstenberg to the wardroom under the guard of the marine sentry to be found on the paint store.” He put the tube back in its clip. “There! In a few moments, I shall be in a position to make my plans, Admiral Hackenticker.”

  “To which I shall need to be party, Captain, since United States interests are concerned as much as those of Great Britain—and we have still to remember the Russians.”

  Watkiss gave an irritable grunt and jerked his monocle from his eye. He had not forgotten the Russians, but they were a fairly tinpot country when set against the Empire; they were always seething with discontent, and discontent always sapped the guts of a nation. Also, they were dreadfully backward, like all peasantries. Surging towards the Chutang Gorge upon a tide of floodwater and victory—for had he not successfully brought out all the civilians and Consulate staff?—Captain Watkiss was in the full flush of bounce. When Count von Furstenberg entered the wardroom ahead of the marine sentry’s rifle and bayonet, Watkiss felt in a fine position of dominance. He pointed at a chair. “Be seated, if you please, Count.”

  Ungraciously, the Hun thumped into a seat. The whisky had subsided a little now, and he announced that nothing had changed in regard to the wishes of his Kaiser.

  “What do you mean?” Watkiss demanded.

  “Because of the man Schmultz, alias Bloementhal.”

  “Yes, yes. But the wishes of your Kaiser! For whom do you work, Count—for your Kaiser, or for yourself?”

  Von Furstenberg glared and answered stiffly, “Captain, I think you speak in most insulting terms. Never have I, never would I, act against the interest of my Kaiser. In all I do, my thoughts and my duty are for my Kaiser. I am an honourable man.”

  “I see.” Watkiss was looking flummoxed: the German’s words had somehow held the ring of truth.

  “But I think you do not see, Captain. I think you doubt what I say. At Shanghai you will learn different, and I say this, that if you have behaved improperly towards me, then the wrath of your Queen will fall upon you!” Count von Furstenberg raised a beefy fist and brought it down with a crash upon the wardroom table. “Already you have insulted me with arrest—”

  “That was Admiral Hackenticker,” Watkiss said, sounding smug.

  “The second time yes, the first time no. The first time the arrestor was you, Captain Watkiss, but it matters not who did it. It is the principle. Gentlemen,” von Furstenberg went on passionately, “I represent my Kaiser, who is an honourable—”

  “Ha!”

  “—and peace-loving Emperor—”

  “What balls!”

  “—and for him I do my duty as you do for your Queen and President respectively. This is fair and aboveboard, and though perhaps we try to outwit one another, we should have respect for each. No?” Von Furstenberg sounded hopeful, and when agreement was reached upon, the point, he went on, “I believe you are being too much swayed by lies told to you by the renegade Schmultz. Has this man told you that I, Count Hermann von Furstenberg, act against my Kaiser?”

  Hackenticker lowered an eyelid fractionally at Watkiss. “Yes, that’s what we understood from—”

  “And you believed him?” There was amazement in the German’s expression, and in his tone. “Why was this? A man of Schmultz’ type and class, to be believed before a Count of the German Empire, a Prussian, one of the German officer corps? What madness is this?”

  Watkiss’ face was a deep red, and he squirmed in his chair. He had been guilty of not behaving as a gentleman, perhaps. He had believed scandal too readily in the first place, as a result of the utterances, the repeated utterances, of that blasted missionary. Yes! The blasted missionary! He cleared his throat and began to eat humble pie. “My apologies, Count. The word of the cloth, don’t you know…should I take it that you were the genuine dealer, and Bloementhal-Schmultz–the one who was seeking personal gain at his Kaiser’s expense?”

  “But of course, of course!” Once again, the fist crashed down. “A case of wrong identity! You speak of the cloth. Do I take it you mean that ragbag missionary who drinks whisky like fishes?”

  “Yes, yes—”

  Von Furstenberg gave a roar of deep belly-laughter and again smote the table, an action that was beginning to irritate Captain Watkiss, who was financially responsible for the good maintenance of ship fittings and furnishings. “You are such damned fools, such idiots! In the cloth of that man there is little guile, little dishonesty as such, truly, but always he sells his wares to the one who bids the highest in whisky bottles! Oh, such fools, such idiots!”

  The German rocked, holding his sides. Tears ran down his face. He laughed for a full two minutes, and then was brought up sharp by a question from Hackenticker. “Tell me, Count, why did you not turn Schmultz in earlier if you knew what he was about?”

  “Aha,” von Furstenberg said, sounding cunning, “because we have still to face and outwit the Russians! It was for me better that you should believe Schmultz to be Bloementhal until we were past the Russian danger, do you not see?”

  “Why so?” Hackenticker asked. “I don’t see it.”

  The German wagged a finger. “I am still against you, as my duty dictates—this you are men of the world enough to understand. I foresaw a greater chance of success in dealing with the Russians if you believed me to be a featherer of personal nests, for I could so easily prove that I am not, and the Russians would know you to be liars after that—”

  “But my dear sir,” Watkiss broke in angrily, “that presupposes that there is some intent upon our part to deal with the Russians, does it not, whereas that is not my intention at all events! I can’t speak for Admiral Hackenticker. I consider my own duty to be done—or that it will be the moment I have steamed through the blasted Russians and taken my flotilla out to sea!”

  “But the diplomatic considerations, Captain—”

  “Oh, balls to the diplomatic considerations,” Watkiss said loftily. “I’m a British seaman, not some damn—some damn dago,” he finished lamely, having intended to say Hun. The blasted German! He looked like a sausage, but a sausage that he, Watkiss, could do little about now. Watkiss was a very angry man inside; Halfhyde had said, had he not, that the missionary’s information could prove to be false and that Erskine and Bloementhal could have been hand in glove—Halfhyde had been right again! Captain Watkiss ground his teeth. However, all was not lost, and someone could be made to suffer. As bitter thoughts revolved in his head, Captain Watkiss became aware that the German was addressing him again.

  “What is it now, Count?”

  “I am no longer in arrest? I am now discharged?”

  Watkiss glared. The bugger, he felt sure, was laughing up his blasted sleeve. “Oh, go to the devil!” he snapped rudely, and bounced out of the wardroom, back to his bridge. Reaching it he found, to his immense pleasure, that the rain was at last stopping, the clouds were rolling away, and the sky was blue though now tending towards night.

  “Just in time, sir,” Halfhyde said.

  “For what, may I ask?”

  Halfhyde pointed ahead, and Watkiss placed his monocle in his eye. Ahead now lay the great pale orange limestone cliffs of the Chutang Gorge. Watkiss rub
bed his hands together and nodded. “Excellent, Mr Halfhyde. First, however, there’s another matter: send a messenger to find that missionary, Erskine.”

  “He’s still where he was, sir—in a hammock in the stoker’s mess deck and he’s still drunk.”

  “Just as I expected. Have him sent for, if you please, Mr Halfhyde, and muster the side party with hoses. Before I talk to him, Mr Erskine’s to be hosed down and rendered sober.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  ERSKINE WAS not extracted from his hammock until it was too late for an immediate hosing down: the Chutang Gorge appeared to be rushing to meet them at breakneck speed, and Captain Watkiss gripped the guardrail ahead of his stomach and stood with chin thrust forward as he entered the narrows like a charioteer and about as fast. With the engine now put full astern in an attempt to check her way, the Cockroach was gripped by a torrent that seemed entirely disrespectful of engines whether they be put ahead or astern and sent surging into the gap between the cliff faces. Captain Watkiss remained aloof and left the handling of the ship to Halfhyde. The speed was tremendous, but the much-increased depth of water gave the vessels safety, protecting them from the scattered boulders that sat dam-like across the riverbed to ensnare voyagers at times of normal depth. The principal danger was that they might be swung across, beam on, if the head should fall off, and then they could be smashed willy-nilly against the sheer sides of the cliffs that formed the gorge. But the hands of the quartermasters were steady on the wheels, and Halfhyde in the lead kept his own ship on an iron-set course as if by exercise of his will alone. All three gunboats came through in record time and unscathed, and rushed on towards the thirty miles of the Wu Gorge not far ahead, the gorge that would lead them out of Szechwan province and into Hupei. Hawks flew above, wheeling high, as the mighty current swirled the flotilla into the grip of the next array of cliffs. The passage of the Wu was behind them within some ninety minutes, leaving only the Hsiling yet to be traversed; and some three and a half hours from the first entry into the Chutang, all the gorges had been safely navigated, and they were steaming out into the Central China plain for Ichang. So strong was the current still that they emerged almost like a champagne cork into more uncontained floodwater spewing from the Hsiling Gorge.