China Seas

by John Harris

  ‘I dare bet half those fellers weren’t doctors at all,’ Willie said. ‘They were naval men spying on foreign shipping.’

  Shaiba’s office was on the western shore of the enormous harbour. Willie had been there before and he stared keenly about him at the long bay with its crowded shipping and the hills around broken into deep ridges and long valleys terraced for cultivation. As soon as he and Kee had found a hotel, he sent a card to Shaiba’s office with a note requesting a meeting, and sat back to wait. Within twenty-four hours, it was answered with a request for him to wait at the hotel, where a naval vehicle would collect him.

  Shaiba hadn’t changed much. The stiff black hair had thinned and Willie could see his bald brown pate shining through. Saké was brought in by a naval steward and they sat on opposite sides of Shaiba’s desk beaming at each other.

  ‘Admiral now,’ Willie said.

  Shaiba laughed. ‘And you, I hear, are a business tycoon.’

  ‘Only a little one. How did you hear?’

  ‘I keep my ear close to the ground,’ Shaiba admitted. ‘I still know what goes on in Shanghai.’

  ‘Why do you keep your ear to the ground?’ Willie asked.

  ‘Interest. What brings you to Nagasaki?’

  ‘Business. England needs to sell to pay for the war. Doesn’t Japan?’

  ‘Of course. But why did you really come?’

  For a moment, Willie floundered. It was obvious that Shaiba suspected something.

  ‘No other reason,’ he said.

  ‘Come, Willie–’ Shaiba was still smiling ‘–I don’t believe it. You want to know what we’re up to, don’t you? Your country suspects us of deviousness over Shantung and Kiaochow, doesn’t it?’

  ‘No, it’s not that at all.’

  Shaiba’s smile became a grin. ‘You must come clean, as the Americans say. If that’s what you want, I’ll tell you. We are not hiding what we are aiming at.’

  It seemed pointless to dissimulate any further, and Willie gestured. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘What are you aiming at? There’s a lot of worry.’

  Shaiba smiled again. ‘We have declared war on your side. How much worse if we’d come in on the Germans’ side.’

  ‘What are you after, Yuhitsu?’

  Shaiba rested his elbows on his desk. ‘I’ll come clean,’ he said. ‘It’s clear that England and France have too much on their hands at home to concern themselves with this part of the world, and the United States is concerned only with staying out of the struggle. They wish to neutralise the Far East because they themselves have all they want from it, but we disagree with that attitude, and our alliance with Britain gives us an excellent excuse for intervention of a particularly satisfying kind. More saké?’

  They drank and Shaiba continued. ‘The Shantung Peninsula has long since beckoned our generals. It was there we brought China to her knees in the war of 1898. But we let our grasp slip and it was the German Kaiser who entrenched himself there with leases at Tsingtao and Kiaochow and grabbed the railways and mineral rights. We have decided that now is the time to take them back. We sent the Germans an ultimatum requiring their surrender and when it was ignored we declared war. The Chinese Government in Peking has attempted to limit the scope of the hostilities by designating a certain specified area in the region as a battle zone.’ Shaiba laughed. ‘Typical Chinese naivety. Who ever fought a war within a limited area? “Let us go into this field, sir, and knock each other’s heads in with clubs. Being careful, of course, not to damage the crops in the field next door.” War isn’t like that. It is our intention to regain Tsingtao and Kiaochow and, what is more, to ask aid from your country to see that the German leased territories are freed and ultimately returned to China.’

  ‘China?’

  ‘We wish to protect China’s interest.’

  Willie didn’t believe him and his face showed it.

  ‘That is what we say,’ Shaiba insisted.

  ‘Is it what you mean?’

  Shaiba didn’t answer and Willie tried a new tack. ‘Will you pull it off?’

  ‘With your country’s assistance, of course.’

  ‘And then?’

  Shaiba shrugged. ‘We had better have another drink,’ he said.

  Shaiba had been honest, but Willie had a feeling his honesty wasn’t total. It wasn’t difficult to prove it, though, because the Japanese could see a wider future opening up for them, and the businessmen he talked to were in a state of euphoria about the war and the opportunities it offered their country. Nevertheless, he managed also to exchange enough ideas about imports and exports to satisfy them and at the same time do enough business for himself to provide some sort of excuse for his visit. He had a feeling he was being watched all the time, however, so he tried to be as open as he could, talking frankly about British fears and asking point-blank questions about Japanese intervention. He was rarely disappointed.

  By the time he returned to Shanghai the request from the Japanese for British assistance in the investment of Tsingtao and the attack on Shantung and Kiaochow which Shaiba had mentioned had already been made and troops were being readied in India.

  Mallinson turned up in Willie’s office, as languid as ever.

  ‘All this about protecting Chinese interests,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe them, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Willie agreed. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘They won’t pay the slightest regard to China. What are they after?’

  ‘I think,’ Willie said carefully, ‘that they’ll occupy the railway between Kiaochow and Tsinan and grab the mining regions nearby. After that, I think they’ll expect to obtain all the rights the Germans had in Shantung and a few more besides. They’ll want the lease of Port Arthur and Dairen, and they’ll flood the place with their nationals and start grabbing land and minerals throughout South Manchuria as far as Mongolia. They’ll also grab any big industrial concerns they fancy – or at least make ’em Sino-Japanese operations with the Japanese in control, of course – and they’ll demand that China doesn’t lease coastal areas, harbours or islands to anyone but them. Removing the Germans will aid the Allies because it clears the threat to our eastern seaboard trade, but, of course, it will immediately raise another.’

  Mallinson blinked and smiled. ‘I think, Mr Sarth, you’re in the wrong job. I could use someone like you. That’s quite a lot. How did you find it all out?’

  ‘They make no bones about it. The businessmen know what the army and navy are planning and the army and navy know what business and industry want. Before you know where you are, they’ll be demanding a hand in the government of a lot of places where we don’t want ’em and expect to supply the Chinese army with weapons and military advisers.’

  ‘Any more?’

  Willie grinned. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ he said. ‘But I’ve heard this from people in touch with what’s going on. They’ll demand the option on the construction of railways and the development of mines and harbours.’

  Mallinson sighed. ‘I believe you, Mr Sarth. It sounds a lot, but the Japanese are a greedy people and they’re determined to have a place in the sun. As a matter of fact, I gather some hint of all this has already been passed to Peking. I think we shall have to ask questions – officially, this time, because I suspect we shall have to stop them. They’re getting too big for their boots.’

  Willie frowned. ‘I don’t think they’ve even started yet,’ he said.

  Two

  Though war was raging throughout the whole of Europe and across every stretch of sea on the surface of the earth, as Willie had prophesied, Shanghai remained in the background. This didn’t mean that Shanghai remained passive and indifferent, but events in China itself were holding all their attention. When Yuan Shih-K’Ai announced his intention of taking over the Chinese throne and forming a new dynasty, it was obvious that such a step depended on the support of his generals, but it was also clear that those generals were having second thoughts.

  Willie summed it
up to Da Braga over the brandy bottle. ‘It’s dawned on them that they’ve got the soldiers and the guns,’ he pointed out. ‘And, therefore, they, not Yuan, hold the power.’

  Yuan disappeared from the scene, leaving it entirely to the commanders of his armies, and, as they grasped the opportunity with both hands, the country outside Shanghai began to drift into chaos. Within weeks, it was obvious that the warlords were exploiting the peasantry. Taxes were being demanded for years into the future, paper money was printed which immediately became valueless as the warlord who printed it was removed, by agreement or bribe, or by defeat, which was rare because, for the most part, the generals fought with silver bullets – money. China had suddenly become the sport of the military and, though there were authorities both in Peking and in the south, both assuming the name of government, both were really controlled by their own generals, and the generals backed or betrayed for money whichever government they represented. Organising the opium trade, they sold positions and filled their own pockets until they could finally retire to Japan or Singapore with immense fortunes. With the peasants oppressed and the soldiers more like bandits, the whole of China had become a battlefield.

  The first indication of what was happening came when Da Braga telegraphed for instructions from Yangpo. A general by the name of Li Chi-Sao was controlling the area around the town and, while he was hesitating to demand taxes from the Europeans, who had gunboats and powerful backing, he was at least expecting squeeze – bribes to prevent him causing trouble.

  Behind its carved lions, the Shanghai Club, many of whose members had interests along the Yangtze, was loud in its protests of indignation. Willie listened without saying anything, because it had occurred to him that what was being said in Shanghai, all the defiance and threats, meant little in the upper reaches of the river. Even the gunboats’ authority extended only to the river banks, yet business interests always passed beyond that point to the interior.

  ‘Pay up,’ he telegraphed to Da Braga.

  It was obvious he was setting a precedent and Gerald Honeyford of Mason and Marchant’s was quick to complain, but he soon noticed that other businessmen were doing the same thing and that Mason and Marchant’s were quick to follow.

  Because their hold on power was precarious, the warlords were not interested in long-term investment and looked first and foremost for quick profits, and for security to their troops. None of them had much skill, but, judging the value of their armies by their size, they press-ganged the wretched peasants, dressed them in ugly cotton uniforms, gave them ancient weapons and, making no attempt to drill them, counted on their numbers to frighten off their rivals. By the middle of 1915 there were almost a million men in some sort of uniform and, as they made alliances between themselves, huge, ungainly and totally unskilled armies began to march and countermarch across the countryside. When Da Braga telegraphed that General Li had concluded a deal with his rival, General Ching So-Fan, from the other side of the river, who apparently had more soldiers, Willie didn’t hesitate.

  ‘Transfer squeeze,’ he telegraphed.

  1917 entered in a curious mood of apathy. Shanghai still much affected, apart from the photographs that appeared in the newspapers of men who had gone home and been killed in the Somme offensive. But the tragedy in France was beginning to reach out to them at last and there was a mood of sullen obstinacy, a feeling of being resigned to the war, of hating it, of seeing no end to it, of wishing to God they could get the thing over and return to normality.

  It was obvious by this time that the war they had expected to end in months was going to last for years. The Shanghai Militia wore uniform, looked important and drilled with the old Japanese rifles that had been acquired through Willie’s good offices via Shaiba, but Willie refused to have anything to do with them, preferring to sit in his office and listen to George Kee’s descriptions of their muddled manoeuvres. Even the old Lady Roberts had acquired a 4-inch gun on her stern.

  ‘We’ve got a warship in the family,’ Willie said.

  As Shaiba had prophesied, Japan had gone into Shantung and Kiaochow, somewhat startled at the objections to their plans from Britain, France, Russia and the United States, and the inevitable wave of anti-Japanese feeling swept across Shanghai. It failed to stop China having to accept many of the demands that Willie had prophesied would be put. But while they held their own on the shores of the China Seas, to the north Russia was in sore travail. One offensive after another had failed dismally, largely because of inept general-ship and a lack of weapons. On his last visit to Vladivostok Willie had been conscious of a growing feeling of hatred for Tsar Nicholas’ form of government and when Mallinson reappeared, requesting him to deliver rifles to Vladivostok, he was indignant.

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ he said. ‘Nobody’s fighting anyone in Vladivostok. Why do they want guns?’

  ‘They can be transported to the front,’ Mallinson argued. ‘There’s the Trans-Siberian Railway.’

  ‘Nearly six thousand miles of it,’ Willie pointed out. ‘And mostly single track. Have you ever travelled on it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have. Not far, thank God. It would take months to get those weapons to the front.’

  Mallinson frowned. ‘I have to admit,’ he said, ‘that that was my view, but the deal’s been forced on me. However, we’ve had requests from Russia that someone should visit them to offer advice and deal with questions of military co-operation and supply. Lord Kitchener was on his way, as you know, when his ship was torpedoed and he was drowned. Now I think you should go to Vladivostok, deliver the rifles yourself and let us know what the feeling is there.’

  ‘I’m nothing but an unpaid ambassador,’ Willie complained as he started to pack his bags again. ‘When they’ve nobody spare they send me and, what’s more, they expect me to pay for the trip myself with a bit of business.’

  Abigail laughed. ‘All the same, Willie,’ she said, ‘it’s an honour, isn’t it? There are a few people I know who’d love to be asked. I met Mrs Honeyford yesterday and she’s green with envy because it wasn’t her husband who was asked. Will you see your friend Nadya again?’

  ‘Your friend, too, Ab, I hope. Yes, I shall. That’s the idea. I’m on business. And she wants more of our goods, and we want more of hers. Besides, she’ll probably have things for you.’

  Abigail gave him a shrewd look, but made no comment. Her business had fallen by the wayside a little with the war and the demands of family and home, but she still did well at it and was always in demand as an expert. In addition, poised, confident and elegant now, she was always available to give a hand with Willie’s affairs because responsible Europeans in Shanghai, who were not already occupied, were growing harder to find since so many had paid their passages home to get into the European war.

  So Willie went to Vladivostok. He took with him the old Russian revolver he had had ever since Peking. He had often thought of changing it but never had, and it was big enough to frighten off the pirates operating in the Yellow Sea. Only recently, one of his ships, the newly acquired Shamarah, had been called by a signal to a small Chinese coaster apparently wallowing in distress close to the coast of Shantu, only to discover it was an ambush. Fortunately, the trap had been sprung too soon and the captain of the Shamarah, a Shanghai Chinese, had managed to swing away and pile on steam before he could be stopped.

  Vladivostok seemed much the same as before, dull, grey drizzly, with frosts at night that left ice everywhere the drizzle had touched, and the same smell of wet wool, leather and fur, the same muddy streets, the same leaden sea.

  The character of the place had changed. The onion-shaped domes were still there – the churches, the shabby façades, the muddy streets – but now the town was full of old penniless refugees and indescribable beggars from European Russia. It was a hotbed of crime. Inflation had hit the place and on every street were Jewish moneylenders in shabby frock coats. There were Russian soldiers, a few British soldiers, hundreds on hundreds o
f Czechs, who had opted in 1914 to fight for Russia to free their country from Austrian domination; Levantines; Mongol horsemen in fur caps on shaggy ponies; Balkan adventurers; even a few German and Austrian prisoners of war. There was also a significant number of Russian officers, most of them members of the aristocracy, still arrogant, still haughty, but now with a hint of nervousness beginning to show through their demeanour. According to the captain of the Shamarah, the overcrowding had brought every disease imaginable.

  Willie delivered his rifles to a Russian colonel, who appeared to regard them with some disdain, and decided the best way to get the feel of the place was to call at once on Nadya Alexsandrovna Kourganova.

  She greeted him delightedly and immediately told her clerks she was going home. In the house on the Marizliyevskaya overlooking the sea, she took his hands in hers and gazed at him with sparkling eyes.

  ‘Oh, Willie Sarth,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect you.’

  ‘Always turn up,’ Willie smiled. ‘Like a bad penny.’

  ‘You must stay for a meal. We shall manage.’

  Willie’s ears cocked. ‘Are things bad, Nadya?’

  ‘Yes, they are,’ she admitted. ‘And they’re getting worse all the time.’

  Food was short and it was known there had been riots in St Petersburg – now known by the Russian name of Petrograd – where, for a change, Cossacks had refused to fire on the rioters. There was immense dissatisfaction with the Tsar for taking over the position of Commander-in-Chief, because everyone – even the most fervent royalists – knew he was a weak character with no knowledge of strategy, tactics or logistics.