A Chinese Command: A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER TWENTY.

  ON SPECIAL SERVICE.

  For the first few days after the return of the fleet to Wei-hai-weieverybody was very fully employed, including even the admiral himself,who, despite his deep and painful wound, insisted on being about thedockyard, his head tied up in a bandage, superintending the refitting ofthe shattered ships. Nothing was mentioned with regard to Prince Hsi.That arch-villain had not even been seen; and Frobisher supposed it wasTing's intention to send him, as soon as he could spare an escort, toTien-tsin to stand his trial--a procedure which the Englishman wasinclined to think very likely to end in a farce, since, once among thecircle of his rich and powerful relatives and acquaintance, the man waswily and cunning enough to be able to extricate himself even out of sucha predicament as that in which he was now plunged.

  Frobisher had, however, forgotten a certain promise which Ting had madeat Wi-ju, at the mouth of the Yalu, when Prince Hsi had been so verynearly discovered in communication with one of the enemy's destroyers--the promise that, if he actually caught the Prince red-handed, so thatthere could be no possible doubt about the matter, not all the influenceor powerful relations in China should save him from the fate he would sorichly deserve.

  There could be little doubt that it was due to the signals sent thatnight by the Prince to the destroyer that the Japanese had learned thestrength of the Chinese squadron and its destination, and had thus beenenabled to come up in full force, as they had done, and practicallyannihilate the northern squadron. This was not the first nor the secondtime that Hsi had played the traitor, although until now there had beenno actual proof of his treachery; he was strongly suspected, forinstance, of having brought about the disaster to the transport_Kowshing_, when she had been sunk by the Japanese cruiser _Naniwa_,with over a thousand Chinese troops on board.

  Admiral Ting had not allowed his oath to slip his memory, and the oldfellow, gentle, kindly, and courteous though he was to his friends,could be very vindictive when it came to dealing with evil-doers,especially criminals of the hardened, remorseless type which Prince Hsihad proved himself to be. He was only biding his time, as events werevery soon to prove.

  One evening Frobisher received a polite message from the admiral thathis presence would be required on board the flagship at ten o'clock onthe following morning, and so did the other captains and firstlieutenants. Consequently, at the hour named, Captains Foster, James,Frobisher, and Quen-lung, of the _Chen Yuen, Shan-si, Chih' Yuen_, and_Hat-yen_ respectively, together with their first officers, foundthemselves assembled in Admiral Ting's cabin on board the flagship, eachof them attired in full-dress uniform and wearing their side-arms. Theadmiral himself was also present, dressed in the fullest of full dress,and wearing all his various Chinese orders and decorations; while thecabin door was guarded on each side by a Chinese sailor with drawncutlass.

  The room had been cleared of most of its usual furnishings, and a plain,long and narrow oak table had been placed in the centre, with chairssufficient to accommodate the little party of officers assembled. At ashort distance from the table there was placed another chair, standingby itself, the use of which was to be discovered presently.

  As soon as the last officer had arrived, Admiral Ting explained thatthey were met together to sit in judgment on the person of Prince Hsi, amember of the royal house of China, and lately captain of the battleship_Ting Yuen_, the said officer being accused of treachery to his country,mutiny, and desertion to the enemy during the time of battle. Theaccuser was, for official purposes, the first lieutenant of the _TingYuen_, an officer of high birth and proved integrity, who had also beenstruck down and confined below by Prince Hsi's mutinous sailors.Admiral Ting himself intended to act as Judge Advocate; and the othercaptains and officers made up the court, their opinions as to the guiltor innocence of the accused to be taken after the hearing of the case,beginning with the man of lowest rank present, the idea of this being toprevent the younger and less experienced officers from being influencedby the decisions of their superiors.

  On the table, with its point directed toward the Judge Advocate's seat,lay Prince Hsi's sword, which had been taken from him at the time of hisarrest.

  The officers having taken their seats in the order of seniority, AdmiralTing declared the court open, and directed the prisoner to be broughtin. A few seconds later the door opened and Prince Hsi entered, guardedby two sailors with drawn swords, and himself wearing his full-dressuniform, with all his orders displayed across his breast. He looked,Frobisher thought, a trifle pale, but was otherwise cool and collected,and his face wore its usual expression of cold and haughty resentment.With him entered another officer belonging to Admiral Ting's staff,whose duty it would be to act as the prisoner's "friend", a positionsomething similar to that of counsel for the defence at a civiliantrial.

  Having bowed to the assembled court, the Prince, in view of his rank,was permitted to seat himself in the chair provided, and the trialcommenced. From the first it was quite evident that Hsi believed hisjudges would never dare to proceed to extremities, for his replies werealways careless, and often flippant; but Frobisher could see that thecourt was very much in earnest, and that the Prince was deceivinghimself very badly.

  It began to dawn on the prisoner, after a time, that his accusers weremaking out a very serious case against him--as, indeed, they could nothelp doing, in face of the evidence they possessed; and he madedesperate efforts to justify his conduct and to excuse his actions,though, in face of the facts, he was attempting an utter impossibility.

  At the expiration of an hour the accusation and defence had been heard,and the Prince was ordered to be removed. Admiral Ting then summed up,and asked the verdict of the court, commencing with the youngestlieutenant present, and working up until the last pronouncement restedwith the captain of the _Chen Yuen_.

  Every officer gave it as his conscientious conviction that the Princewas guilty, and Hsi was then recalled. He started violently as he sawthat his sword had been reversed and that its point was now toward,instead of away from, him; for he knew by that token that he had beenfound guilty, and that all that now remained for him was to hear hissentence, which even yet, it was clear, he did not believe would be atall severe.

  It was, however, the most severe that could be passed. The sentence ranthat Prince Hsi, having been found guilty by a court composed of hisfellow officers of the charges preferred against him, should be strippedof his decorations and have the insignia of his rank torn from hisuniform in presence of the assembled officers and crews of the Chinesefleet, and that thereafter he should be shot upon the quarter-deck ofthe flagship _Ting Yuen_.

  When this terrible sentence was pronounced Prince Hsi was observed tostagger and turn deathly pale. Such ignominy as this he had neverdreamed of; and to lose his life into the bargain--

  With a lightning-like movement, and before his guards could prevent him,Hsi placed the back of his hand to his mouth, held it there a second,and then, with a groan of deepest agony, reeled backward and fell uponthe cabin floor.

  When they picked him up he was quite dead, and the cause of his deathwas revealed by the large ring which he wore on the third finger of hisleft hand. It had been made hollow, with a tiny hinged cover, andconcealed in the hollow there had evidently been a minute dose of anextremely powerful poison which, from the odour of almonds that filledthe cabin directly afterward, Frobisher recognised as being prussicacid, one of the quickest and most deadly poisons known to science.

  With a solemn, courteous gesture Ting dismissed his officers, and theytrooped silently out of the cabin, leaving the admiral alone with thedead. A little later in the day the body was enclosed in a coffin andplaced on board a ship bound for Tien-tsin, with directions that itshould be delivered to the Prince's relations.

  Thus perished a man who bad used his high position to attain his ownbase ends at the expense of his country and the lives of his countrymen.Nemesis had overtaken him at last, as it sometimes does evil-doers; andthe hi
gh-born Prince Hsi died miserably, a condemned criminal.

  Frobisher returned to his own ship from the court of justice saddenedand disheartened. True, the Prince had richly deserved his fate, andChina could never have known safety while he remained alive; but itseemed a dreadful thing that a young man like Prince Hsi, with alllife's infinite possibilities to one of his standing before him, shoulddeliberately imperil and finally forfeit those possibilities for theequivalent of a few thousand English pounds, in order to be able topractise vices which had originated in the first place simply throughthe possession of so much money that he felt he had to get rid of itsomehow, and so adopted the quickest means available.

  But the young English captain had very little time in which to moraliseover Hsi's miserable end; for shortly after his return to the _Chih'Yuen_, while he was changing into his undress uniform, a messenger cameaboard with a request that he would wait upon the admiral againimmediately.

  Wondering what was now in the wind, Frobisher went across to the _TingYuen_, to find the admiral anxiously pacing the deck awaiting him; andhe soon learnt what it was that his superior required him for.

  It appeared that a ship had come in but a short time previously,bringing important news, which her captain had just communicated toTing, to the effect that the Japanese had resolved upon the seizure ofthe Chinese island of Taiwan, or Formosa, and that they intended todispatch an expedition thither under General Oki, in two transports,each conveying twelve hundred men; and as the intended invasion of theisland was believed by the Japanese to be a dead secret, it was proposedto send only one gunboat or small cruiser to convoy the transports.They evidently considered that, the Chinese northern fleet being stillunder repair at Wei-hai-wei, and the southern fleet away in southernChinese waters, they had little or nothing to fear, and that a verysmall measure of protection, or even none at all, would suffice. Howthe man had obtained his information he declined to say; but he solemnlydeclared that the news was genuine, and spoke so convincingly that hequite satisfied the admiral of the need for taking immediate action.

  Ting therefore asked Frobisher whether it was true that the repairs tohis ship were all but completed; and on being informed that anotherday's work would suffice to render the _Chih' Yuen_ ready for sea, ifher services were urgently required, he ordered the young Englishman toexpedite matters as much as possible, get his stores and ammunition onboard, and sail at the earliest moment for Kilung, at the north end ofthe island of Formosa, at which spot it was reported that the Japaneseintended to disembark their troops. This disembarkation, said Ting,must be prevented, if possible, and the gunboat and transports were tobe destroyed, or captured, as circumstances should decide. This ought,he added, to be an easy task for the _Chih' Yuen_; and it would prove avery adequate reprisal for the sinking of the transport _Kowshing_ andsome of her attendant ships by the Japanese squadron some weekspreviously.

  This was just the kind of commission that appealed to Frobisher, who hadstill a great deal of the boy left in him; there was nothing that heliked better than to be able to get away on special service. Hetherefore assured Ting that he would return on board, hurry hispreparations forward, and get away at the very earliest moment.

  The morning but one following, therefore, found him steaming out of theharbour of Wei-hai-wei, with Drake, almost as eager as himself, standingon the bridge beside him. There had been very little prospect of activeservice for either of them until Wong-lih could join forces with thenorthern fleet, and that might possibly not be for some time; thereforeboth men were in the highest spirits at the thought of getting tohand-grips with the enemy again so quickly, and it was with a lightheart indeed that the young captain ordered the admiral's salute to befired as the _Chih' Yuen_ swept seaward out of the harbour.

  The distance from Wei-hai-wei to Kilung, at the north end of Formosa, isclose upon a thousand miles, and Frobisher reckoned that it would takehim some seventy hours to do the trip. On the other hand, the distancefrom the nearest Japanese port, Nagasaki, to the same spot was onlyabout seven hundred miles; therefore if the proposed invading expeditionsailed at the time when the _Chih' Yuen_ left Wei-hai-wei, theprobability was that the Japanese would be there first, in which casehis task would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Once letthe soldiers get ashore, and he, with his small force, would be quiteunable to turn them out. It was only by meeting the transports andgunboats at sea that he could hope for success; and he did not sparecoal, or his engineers' and stokers' feelings, in his eagerness to reachthe scene first. Of course, there was always the possibility that,believing their plan a secret, the enemy would not greatly hurry to getto Kilung; but Frobisher was not taking any chances, and he drove hisship through the short, choppy seas at the full power of her engines.

  He had an additional incentive to haste in the aspect of the sea andsky; for there seemed to be another typhoon threatening, and he waskeenly anxious to run out of the storm area before the hurricane shouldbreak. When twilight fell that evening, the sun was already envelopedin a peculiar, dun-coloured mist that resembled an enormous pall ofdistant smoke, in the midst of which the orb appeared like a dimly-seen,red-hot iron disk, as it sank toward the western horizon. The darkeningsky overhead and away to the eastward glowed with a dull incandescence,like the reflected glare of an enormous furnace; while the short, choppywaves of the forenoon had given place to a long, oily, sluggish swell,without a single ripple to disturb its surface, through which the _Chih'Yuen's_ stem clove its way like a knife shearing through butter. Theship was rolling heavily; and in the queer, eerie stillness that fellwith the disappearance of the sun, the usual ship-board sounds, theclank of machinery far below, and even the voices of the men, assumed soweird and unnatural a character that Frobisher felt himself graduallybeing overcome by a most unpleasant, dismal sense of foreboding.

  The sea, reflecting the ruddy glow from overhead, looked ghastly in theextreme, recalling to the Englishman's disturbed fancy the old sailor'slegend of the appearance of the "Hand of Satan in the Sea of Darkness".This was precisely the kind of sea out of which such a terribleapparition might be expected to appear; and so strongly did the feelingof menace take hold of him, that he actually caught himself at timesglancing apprehensively over his shoulder, in spite of his resolve tothe contrary.

  About an hour after sunset, puffs of hot wind came moaning about theship from all directions, oppressive, and almost as noxious as the fumesfrom an open furnace door. Indeed, there was a distinctly sulphuroussmell in the atmosphere; and the air was so full of electricity that aquite perceptible shock was to be felt if the bare hand were placed onmetal, especially upon the copper fittings of the binnacle. A feelingof vague uneasiness seemed to have taken possession of every man onboard; and tempers were short almost to the point of acerbity. Thepetty officers could be heard snarling at the men, the officers grumbledat their subordinates, and even Frobisher and Drake had something of apassage of arms up on the bridge, until they realised that their frettednerves were due to the extraordinary weather conditions, and laughed thelittle unpleasantness off accordingly.

  Frobisher now gave orders that all the guns were to be doubly secured,so that they might not break adrift in the event of the ship beingovertaken by the typhoon, the approach of which now appeared mostprobable; and everything that might possibly strike adrift was fastenedand double fastened, in view of what was almost certainly coming. Thecanvas dodgers round the bridge were taken down and put away, and thequarter-deck and forecastle awnings were removed, and the stanchionstaken out of their sockets and placed below. The lashings of the boatcovers were again looked to, and the boats themselves secured morefirmly in their chocks, until finally there remained nothing morepossible to be done for security, and the outbreak of the storm could beawaited with reasonable confidence.

  About eight o'clock in the evening the swell became even morepronounced, and the ship commenced to roll so heavily that it wasnecessary to run hand-lines fore and aft the deck to enable the seamento
go about their duties, otherwise there was great danger of the menbeing hurled right across the decks and sustaining serious injuries.The gloomy, lowering, red light which had suffused the sky at the goingdown of the sun had given place to a dull, copper-coloured glow, mingledwith a kind of brassy glare, all the more ominous from the fact thatthere was no visible source of its origin; for in the ordinary course ofevents it should have been quite dark, except for such light as wasgiven by the moon, the sun having disappeared more than an hour and ahalf previously. So strong was this unearthly light that the horizonwas plainly visible in all directions, save away to the northward, andthere the blackness was intense. Not the faintest glimmer of a star wasobservable through the inky curtain which covered about ten degrees ofthe horizon in that direction, but now and again a sudden dazzle ofwicked-looking forked lightning shot across the face of the bank. Asyet, however, there was no sound of thunder, and the same unearthlystillness prevailed, save when a moaning sound could be plainly heard asthe puffs of hot wind more and more frequently scurried through theship's wire rigging, or sobbed weirdly in the hoods of the ventilators.

  "There is certainly something pretty bad coming, sir," Drake presentlyvolunteered, unable any longer to endure the strained silence. "I havesailed these seas before; and although I have never seen the sky lookingquite so threatening as it does now, there were much the samepremonitions before the great hurricane of 1889, when more than twentythousand Chinamen were drowned, and hundreds of junks, sailing ships,and steamers were destroyed, and their wreckage strewn up and down thecoast. I was in the old _Barracouta_ at the time; and although she wasas well-found a craft as ever I sailed in, I never expected her to livethrough it. It would be a queer state of affairs if we were to dropacross the enemy now, sir, wouldn't it? The men would have a pretty jobserving the guns, and no mistake!"

  "An action, with a swell such as this running, would be an utterimpossibility," was Frobisher's reply. "Before long we shall be havingall our work cut out to take care of ourselves, without troubling toattempt the destruction of the other fellow. And by Jove, Drake! Ibelieve it's coming now."

  Drake glanced apprehensively behind him, and there, _sure_ enough, justbelow the inky curtain of blackness on the northern horizon, which wasnow being rent in every direction by continuous lightning flashes, couldbe seen a long line of whitish colour, which, there could be no doubt,was approaching the ship with more than the speed of an express train.

  Frobisher had scarcely uttered the words before the darkness was rent bythe most terrifically vivid flash of lightning that he had ever seen,while simultaneously the air was shattered by a clap of thunder of suchfrightful volume that the cruiser jarred and shivered from stem tostern, as though she had taken the ground at full speed; indeed, forsome seconds Frobisher was not at all sure that they had not happenedupon some uncharted shoal. And while all hands were still cringinginvoluntarily from the shock, there came another dazzling flash oflightning, apparently within a few yards of the vessel, followedimmediately by peal on peal of thunder, which rolled and reverberatedover the sea as though all the great guns in existence were being firedat the same time within a few miles of them.

  Then the rain came down as it only can in those latitudes--as though thebottom of an enormous tank had been suddenly knocked out; the roar ofthat colossal volume of water beating on the deck being such that,although Frobisher put his mouth to Drake's ear and shouted with all thepower of his lungs, the latter could not distinguish a syllable.

  For only a few brief seconds did this last; then it ceased as suddenlyas though a tap had been turned off. An instant later the line of whitewater appeared, scarcely a hundred yards distant from the _Chih' Yuen's_stern. Frobisher had barely time to yell an order to the men on deck to"hold on for their lives" before the oncoming wave and the attendanthurricane broke upon the cruiser.

  The wave, black, gleaming, and sinister in the sheen of the lancinglightning flashes, and capped with a ridge of phosphorescent foam, sweptover the cruiser's stern, down upon the quarter-deck, and then forward,burying the ship in an instant from stern to stem, so that her captain,up on the navigating bridge, was unable for a few seconds to seeanything of his vessel's decks, the bridge on which he and Drake werestanding--or endeavouring to stand--and the tops of the ventilatorsbeing all of the upper-works that showed above the racing turmoil offoam-covered water. At the same time Frobisher and Drake were literallyjammed against the quivering rails of the bridge and held there,powerless to move, by the amazing force of the wind.

  A perceptible quiver thrilled through the hull of the sturdy vessel as,like a live thing, she endeavoured to free herself from that enormousweight of water, and a few moments later she emerged from the swirl,which poured off her decks in cataracts. Then, rolling herself free ofthe rest of her burden, she was carried irresistibly forward on the backof the wave, like a chip in the current of a mill-race.

  Frobisher gave a big sigh of relief as he saw his ship shake herselffree. "A little longer, Drake, and she would have foundered under ourfeet," he managed to gasp; "if she had not been the sturdy craft thatshe is, she would not have come up again."

  "You're right, sir," replied Drake, wiping the spray out of his eyes;"that was a narrow squeak, if ever there was one. But hark to the wind!It must be blowing at ninety miles an hour, at least. I pray thatnothing may get in our way, for we could not possibly avoid it. Ahair's-breadth out of our course, and the ship would broach to andcapsize with us."

  Drake spoke truth. Although the sea was absolutely smooth--everywave-crest being shorn off by the terrific force of the wind almostbefore it had time to form--the extremely heavy swell that had arisenearlier in the evening was still running. Even the hurricane could notflatten that, and the _Chih' Yuen_, driven forward by her own steam andthe power of the wind behind her, rushed down one steep slope and up thenext with a speed that made even the most experienced seaman gasp. Avery slight alteration of the helm, at the speed at which the ship wasthen travelling, would certainly suffice to send her reeling over uponher beam-ends, aided by the "send" of the sea.

  Looking round him, after the storm's first wild outburst, Frobisher washorrified to observe the terrible damage and loss of life that had beencaused by that first great rush of water. Of the men who had been ondeck at the time, only some half a dozen poor, draggled, half-drownedcreatures, clinging limply to the nearest support, could be seen; whileevery movable object had been swept overboard into the sea, as well as anumber that are not usually considered easy of removal. Severalventilators had been shorn off level with the deck, and the water hadpoured in tons down the openings thus formed; the two quarterboats haddisappeared altogether, and of another boat only the stem and sternposts remained, hanging to the davit tackles by their ring-bolts.Stanchions were either missing altogether, or bent into a variety ofcurious and extraordinary shapes; and even some of the lightermachine-guns mounted on deck had been torn from their tripods, and wereby this time at the bottom of the sea. The havoc was simplyindescribable, and Frobisher's heart was full of bitterness as hesurveyed the shocking wreck of what had, a few minutes previously, beenthe smartest and finest cruiser in the whole Chinese Navy, and thoughtof the poor souls who were perhaps, even now, struggling feebly as theygradually sank to their watery graves.

  All that night both Drake and Frobisher remained on the bridge, notdaring to leave the ship to herself for an instant; and many and many atime during those hours of darkness did each of them think that his lastmoment was come. Yet time after time the cruiser recovered from thestaggering blows inflicted by wind and sea, and rushed from crest tocrest of the swell like a flying-fish pursued by dolphin.

  Several times during the night and the following morning her skippertried to gauge the speed at which his ship was travelling, andultimately he estimated that she must be doing fully twenty knots overthe ground. As the cruiser was travelling at this high speed Frobisherbecame particularly anxious to obtain a sight of the sun at midday, inord
er to ascertain his position; for he was of opinion that he must bevery near, if not actually among, those islands forming the Chu-sanArchipelago; and he feared, every moment, that the _Chih' Yuen_ mightcrash headlong upon some submerged rock. But, unfortunately, theatmosphere was far too thick to render any observation possible; indeed,what with the black, low-hanging clouds, and the dense spindrift withwhich the air was filled, it was as dark at midday as it would havebeen, under ordinary circumstances, half an hour after sunset; and hewas perforce obliged to content himself with the very unsatisfactoryresult obtained by dead reckoning.

  Late in the afternoon the typhoon eased up a little, and Frobisher sentDrake below to secure some rest--for both men were completely worn out--promising to call him and take his own turn after the first lieutenanthad refreshed himself with three hours' slumber.

  At the expiration of that time the wind had dropped so much that he feltquite justified in leaving the bridge; and he therefore had Drake calledto take his place. With the easing of the wind, however, a very steepand heavy sea naturally began to rise, and Frobisher thereforeinstructed Drake to call him immediately should any danger arise to theship. He then went below and turned in "all standing", excepting thathe discarded his boots and his water-soaked oilskins; and he was asleepalmost before his head had touched the pillow.

  It seemed to him that he had been sleeping but a few minutes when hefelt himself violently shaken by the shoulder, and awoke to find Drake,still haggard and worn for want of proper sleep, standing over him inhis dripping oilskins.

  "Hillo! Anything wrong, Drake?" was his immediate enquiry, followed bya request to be told the time, since his own watch appeared to have rundown.

  "Nothing absolutely wrong, sir," was the reply, "but what you can feelfor yourself. The sea has risen very badly; and the ship is notbehaving as well as I should like. The chief engineer, also, has justsent up word that the engines are working a bit loose, and that some ofthe bearings are almost red-hot. He thinks that some parts of themachinery must have been strained when that first wave swept over us; soI thought it just as well to let you know. As for the time, sir, it isnearly three o'clock in the morning."

  "Three in the morning!" ejaculated the captain. "Surely not, Drake! Imust have slept nearly ten hours, in that case. All right! I will beon deck in a few seconds."

  Hardly were the words out of his mouth when there arose on deck afearful outcry, as of men in the extremity of fear and dismay; andbefore Frobisher and Drake had planted their feet on the first steps ofthe companion-ladder, the ship struck heavily, plunged forward, and thenstruck again. At the same moment the electric lights went out, andeverything was in darkness.