Chinese Whispers

by Andrew Wareham

  The Earl’s Other Son Series

  BOOK THREE

  Chinese Whispers

  ANDREW WAREHAM

  Digital edition published in 2019 by

  The Electronic Book Company

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  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This ebook contains detailed research material, combined with the author's own subjective opinions, which are open to debate. Any offence caused to persons either living or dead is purely unintentional. Factual references may include or present the author's own interpretation, based on research and study.

  Chinese Whispers

  Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Wareham

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents:

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  By the Same Author

  Introduction

  Chinese Whispers: Magnus is sent as an attaché to the Legation in Peking where rumours of an uprising are rife. He is then sent on an unusual quest inland to rescue missionaries. When his wife becomes pregnant, and deciding that dangers lay ahead in Peking, he travels with her to Shanghai where he is ordered to take command of a larger vessel and search for a gunrunning ship. Later in the book there is a confrontation with a Chinese cruiser that comes to an unexpected resolution.

  Best read in series order

  Chapter One

  Editor’s Note: This book was written, produced and edited in the UK where some of the spellings, punctuation and word usage vary slightly from U.S. English.

  The Earl’s Other Son Series

  Chinese Whispers

  “How much longer will your wound leave continue, Magnus?”

  Commander Lord Eskdale, RN, stretched out idly in bed and proceeded to discover just how much movement he had in his injured arm; his lady wife squeaked and wriggled out of his reach.

  “Perhaps that answers my question, my lord – you evidently have use of your arm, and hand.”

  He grinned and reached out again, receiving no objection at all.

  Later, he answered Ellen’s query.

  “I must report to Captain Erskine later this week, to inform him that the medical chaps have decided that I am fit for duty. That means I must see the doctors first, but they will raise no objections – too pickled in gin to see whether I can use the arm fully. As far as they’re concerned, if one can stand then one is fit, provided one informs them that such is the case. Five weeks since I was wounded, that will be, which is time for a first report to have reached the Admiralty and the Foreign Office by wire, and for them to have flapped and consulted St Petersburg and received a sensible reply and then have sent a cable out to Hong Kong. I would expect to see Centurion at the Bund this week and Admiral Seymour ready to inform me of my fate. Better I should be fully uniformed and active, ready to scurry off about my next duty, whatever it may be.”

  “Will you be sent away, Magnus? Given orders for England, perhaps?”

  Magnus shook his head – whatever happened, the Admiralty would not want him visible at home.

  “No. The business with my late brother is too recent, for one thing. From a service point of view, Their Lordships will not want me in range of the cameras of the newspapers. ‘The Naval Hero who took a mutinous Russki warship and brought her back to her duty’? They would not love such a headline in the Mail, or even the Telegraph – not tactful, Tsar Nicky might think. The Foreign Office would have conniptions, too. No, better that the new Lord Eskdale shall stay distant from London for a few years yet. They won’t want me as Naval Attaché at any of the European embassies for the same reason. I shall be patted on the head and told I am a good boy, and they will give me a meaty bone for my services. Commander of one of the battleships, quite possibly, second in command and a very senior position and one that is followed by promotion to post captain within a few years, as a general rule. It is also a job that holds one out of the public eye, and very busy; excellent for keeping a man out of mischief.”

  “So, Hong Kong, you think?”

  “Possibly – it depends on whether they want me to remain in sight of the Russians. It might be wiser, in Their Lordships’ eyes to send me to a ship based out of Singapore or Cape Town – far distant from the scene of my recent activities. In that case, we would be separated for a few months until I could organise quarters.”

  She could not regard that as a desirable prospect.

  “So, they will give with one hand and take with the other.”

  “That is the Admiralty, my love. No such thing as an unmixed blessing, as far as they are concerned!”

  The Medical Board was all that Magnus had expected - two Surgeon Commanders, one hungover at eleven o’clock in the morning, the other already part-way to being drunk.

  They stared at Magnus and asked whether he felt fit.

  “Wholly, sir. My arm is no longer painful; the wound is entirely closed; I have almost full movement and it is getting rapidly better.”

  They debated whether they could face the strain of making a physical examination of the offending limb. It was too much effort. If a Commander thought that he was fit for duty, who were they to say they knew better?

  “Returned to duty, sir. Thank you.”

  One doctor pointed in the general direction of the door while the other filled two glasses from the gin bottle partially concealed behind his desk. Magnus left, shutting the door considerately – had he let it slam the shock might have been terminal for their systems.

  There was a Leading Writer sat at the front desk, evidently the intelligence of the department.

  “I am found fit for duty. What do I do next?”

  “One moment, sir. I must fill in this form and send a copy for your personal file, to tidy everything up, sir. You will require the top copy, sir, for your Commanding Officer. Just a few seconds while I stamp it and have it signed.”

  The rubber stamp thumped down on the form; Magnus craned his head to see that it gave the name and rank of the senior doctor. The Leading Writer selected a fountain pen filled with blue ink rather than his standard issue black and signed the form in the doctor’s name and handed it across.

  “Quicker that way, sir. Was I to put in his In-Tray it would be untouched for a month at least and then he would sign it in the wrong place. All done, sir.”

  Magnus made his thanks and left; he wondered who performed the surgery when that was necessary. He made his way to the office of the Senior Naval Officer, Shanghai.

  Captain Erskine was present and, he said, delighted to hear that Magnus was returned to duty.

  “Could hardly be better, old chap! The Admiral will be here towards the end of the week and he will be more than happy to see you on your feet. Promotions and postings for several of us, you know. I must be coming towards the end of my time in Shanghai – been here four years now. Might do another year or two, could be posted away to freshen me up. Can’t think I’ll be sent to sea, though. Pity!�
�

  Magnus gravely agreed that a command at sea must be every sailor’s desire, knowing that Erskine would hate nothing more. Naval Attaché in Paris would be Erskine’s ideal – no work and fleshpots almost as sophisticated as those of Shanghai, Paris being the world’s second most wicked city.

  “I don’t know what the future holds for me, of course, sir.”

  “A plum of some sort, Eskdale. The Foreign Office will be very pleased with you. Britannia triumphing where the Russians have burned their fingers? Nothing they will like better.”

  That sounded very fine, but one man’s plum might be another’s prune – the Admiralty had its own little ways and answered to no authority short of the Almighty. There was also the problem that most admirals were convinced that they were God.

  “Well, sir, we must just wait and see. Have you duty for me at the moment?”

  “No. No sense your taking Racoon again, not to stay for three or four days. Besides that, she’s up at Hankow the while. Enjoy yourself for the rest of the week. The Russians have both sailed, repairs complete, and the city is civilised again.”

  The officers of the Russian battleship and cruiser had tended to be rather noisy when enjoying themselves in the clubs and bars of Shanghai and had been outrageous in the brothels – no concept of what was or was not done in public. Magnus had heard the stories and had almost regretted being a staid married man and unable to see for himself; he had listened to the reports, however.

  “Not quite the thing, these Russians, sir. When all is said and done, and despite their titles – Prince This or Count That, every last one of them – they’re not quite white men, you know!”

  “Well said, Eskdale.”

  Both were quietly convinced that ‘Wogs began at Calais’ – a recent saying but expressing the truth, they knew. The only true White Men were to be found in the British Isles, and by extension in parts of the Empire, and some of the United States, which had had the great good fortune to be settled by the British.

  “One can hardly compare the Tsar to Her Majesty, sir. The Russians must be aware that their royalty, so-called, is really rather second-rate.”

  Erskine agreed, dolefully.

  “Word from London is that Her Majesty is increasingly frail, Eskdale. A year or two at most, it is said. Won’t be the same world without her, you know.”

  Victoria had been Queen for sixty years – they could not envisage a different monarch.

  Neither would say anything about her successor, her unsatisfactory son. No loyal naval officer should comment publicly on their King-to-be, they believed.

  “Well, enough of that, Eskdale. You won’t have heard the news in from Port Arthur. The Russkis have dealt with the people from Otvajni. Published the details of their punishment in an order to their fleet, so that the rest of the lower decks will know the rewards of mutiny.”

  “Savage, I presume, sir? Of course, there must have been two score of murders committed in the process – they must execute any identified killers. We would, for sure.”

  Captain Erskine could accept that but pointed out that the Navy would hang only those identified as having wielded a knife or pulled a trigger.

  “The Russkis said they were all guilty by association – every last one of them to die. They hanged them in batches, apparently, apart from those who were fingered as having planned the mutiny or taken violent part in it. They used the knout on them – flogged them to death, in front of the crews of every ship in port. The knout is unlawful in Russia, was banned by the Tsar fifty years ago, but it’s still in use. They included two seamen who were no more than boys – one of them twelve years old, so the report I received said.”

  “Good God, sir!”

  “Rather poor, don’t you think, Eskdale?”

  “Appalling, sir. I can almost have sympathy for those who would mutiny against such people, sir. Mind you – we did see those few of the officers’ corpses which did not go into the river. Nasty bloody business, that was.”

  “Hard to find virtue on either side, Eskdale. Not to worry – it wouldn’t happen to us. We haven’t had the like in a century, men killing officers, not since Hermione in the West Indies in the Revolutionary War.”

  “True, sir. Not our way of doing things – not of officers or men.”

  They considered their world in smug self-satisfaction. It was a fine thing to be British, and even better to be an officer of the Royal Navy.

  “Very good, Eskdale. Report to this office when you see Centurion make port. Until then, make the most of your time, sir!”

  Magnus returned to his house, gave Ellen the news that she had her husband at her side for a few more days.

  “Old Fatty Erskine knows nothing of what will happen when the Admiral gets here, so we wait in idleness.”

  “’Fatty’, Magnus? Hardly a delicate name for your superior.”

  Magnus had chosen not to acquaint her with Captain Erskine’s full nickname; the first half was sufficient.

  “The man is expanding to Tweedledum proportions, my love. Sitting in his office overlooking the Bund is doing his figure no favours. Three meat meals a day and supper besides, and probably half a bottle of Scotch to wash it down, is reducing him to rotundity. Actually, it is increasing him, of course. He says he wishes to get back to sea – but he would be so much out of place on a bridge – it is inconceivable.”

  “Do you wish to go back to sea, Magnus?”

  “I must, one day, if I am to have a naval career… I doubt I will be given a ship this time, however. Difficult to place me as a Commander, you see, Ellen. I have had a third-rate cruiser and am to be rewarded, but I cannot be given a larger cruiser except as post captain, and that promotion is not possible in peacetime, highly unlikely at least, given my record and length of time in the rank. There is a chance I might be sent to a battleship, but, thinking on it, that might be seen as a back-handed compliment and I can’t imagine that either of those permanently on this station would want me. Odds are, I suspect, that Erskine will be bumped out of the way and I shall be sat in his office as Senior Naval Officer Shanghai.”

  “A medal, as well?”

  “No. None to hand that makes sense. Might be given a Mention in Despatches, but that has no ribbon to go with it. Won’t get a second DSO – don’t happen except in a bloody war. Taking Otvajni wasn’t hairy enough to justify a Cross, and, in any case, young Mr Ping showed the bulk of the heroics there. No, I shall be told what a brave boy I am and that will be that. The newspapers will be given a story but nothing more than that.”

  She was rather disappointed, had hoped for more public recognition for her own hero.

  “Shall we go to the tea dance at the hotel, Magnus?”

  “An excellent idea, my love.”

  Magnus escorted his wife with the greatest of pleasure, dancing and exchanging light conversation with their acquaintance. He was entertained by imagining his own reaction of just two years before if he had been told that he would be seen at a tea-dance, of all things, and that he would be enjoying it.

  “How are the mighty fallen, my dear – and how many times have I made that comment? Perhaps I was not quite as mighty as I thought I was.”

  For three days he attended dinner parties, and was sober and polite, and showed himself in his wife’s drawing room when ladies of the gwailo community came to call and spend half an hour uttering nothings in the most social fashion.

  “They are bored, Magnus. Idle, because the servants do everything and the amahs bring up the children. They have to fill in the vacant hours, somehow. Most of them are swigging at the port decanters by the age of forty. I feel sorry for them. The few who know how to read do not enjoy the pastime; one or two perhaps are skilled at embroidery, and much like to sew and produce some very fine pieces; most have nothing to do, literally.”

  “What of you, my love?”

  “Too few hours in the day, husband! Reading – there are so many books I have not touched, more than I can possibly devour i
n a lifetime of doing nothing else! As well, I try to follow the political world away from Shanghai, and that is not an easy task. I hope to discover the place of a countess in the modern world – for I must not let you down when we eventually are seen in London. Then there is the matter of business – commerce, that is, for I will in effect be part-owner of the hong when my Papa passes on. I must at least be able to read the managers’ reports and know when they attempt to defraud me. They will do so, of course, for not believing that a woman can conceivably understand their world; I shall bring the first who try it up very short, see if I don’t! Their successors will probably be more careful, as a result.”

  Magnus did not doubt her ability to do exactly as she said. He believed that Blantyres would be left in good hands.

  “I am no man of affairs, as you know, Ellen. I do not doubt, however, that there will be many who assume that I will be the guiding light, permitting you to act as figurehead from doting kindness. Despite the example of the Empress Cixi here, and of Her Majesty at home, there are so many who do not accept that a lady can possess and use a brain!”

  She agreed, knowing already that he was honest in that comment. She was pleased, she found, that she had wed a man who could actually accept that a woman could be able in public life. She wondered if there was another naval officer of like belief; she doubted it.

  “What does the Senior Naval Officer in Shanghai actually do, Magnus? If you are given the post, what will be expected of you?”

  Magnus laughed scornfully.

  “If one’s name is Erskine, then one does as little as is possible. The post can demand nothing, if one is willing to let it. Ensure that there are stocks of bunker coal and that the officers posted to Shanghai do their jobs – keep the dockyard awake and check that the Quartermaster is alert. That can take an hour a day, if one wishes. That allows time for a breakfast and then a snack at eleven, followed by a luncheon and an afternoon siesta before four o’clock tea which leads one inexorably to dinner and a bottle thereafter. For such as Erskine, there are too few hours in the day to allow for all the meals that are essential to one’s well-being.”