China Seas

by John Harris

  By this time, the authority of Chiang’s Nanking government was undisputed from the Yangtze to the Amur. But the southern half of China was still far from pacified and the Communists there were still masters of a sizeable slice of territory, while beyond them were the Kwangsi warlords, as active as ever and always ready to encourage troublemakers. Another split was the signal for the exodus of more politicians to Canton and the bewildered country found it had yet another brand-new government, quite separate from Chiang’s. It made little difference, however, because that autumn the first shots were fired in a war between China and Japan.

  Never fools even if they were oppressed, the Chinese had retaliated to the Japanese seizure of the Manchurian ports of Dairen and Port Arthur by diverting traffic to other harbours, and the resentful Japanese were beginning to be restive again. Willie was far from being a political animal but he seemed to see much further ahead than many people in Shanghai, most of whom were still chiefly concerned only with making money and unable to believe that their way of life could ever come to an end. Grimly he started shifting his capital again.

  Though Japan was busy with the subjugation of Manchuria, she was nevertheless finding it hard to digest the enormous areas of China she had acquired and her writ ran in effect no further than the towns in which her troops were garrisoned, so that she was having to fall back on terrorised Chinese puppet administrators. There was a great deal of talk at the Council in Shanghai and more at the League of Nations, but, while their recommendations were received by the Japanese with politeness and appropriate ceremony, they had little effect on the situation.

  By this time, the Sarth Line offices and agencies in Hong Kong, Singapore, Mindanao, Sydney and Auckland were going concerns and the Sarth Line ships continued to waddle their unobtrusive way round the Far Eastern waters. Like Shanghai itself, Chinese politics left Willie untouched and he preferred to spend his time keeping an eye on what Emmeline Wishart was doing with Mason and Marchant’s, never his friends and always eager to undercut Da Braga-Kee’s.

  ‘She’ll bankrupt ’em,’ he suggested to Da Braga. ‘As she bankrupted Wishart’s.’

  Zychov seemed to have disappeared again and they learned he was engaged somewhere in the west, remodelling part of Chiang’s army. Then George Kee said that the Balalaika had reopened and that Zychov had been seen there and Willie knew at once he was back, safe under the protection of Chiang K’Ai-Shek.

  He still had no proof that Zychov had been involved with Yip in the attempted sacking of the Tien Quan. All Yip’s papers had disappeared in a mysterious fire in his office soon after his death and it was Willie’s belief that it had been started by Zychov. But with their disappearance he could never be accused of involvement – even if he were involved.

  His reappearance in Shanghai put Willie on his guard and then Da Braga announced that he’d seen Zychov in Mason and Marchant’s and the old enmities suddenly took on an entirely new look. Somehow, Willie knew, Zychov had heard of Emmeline’s hatred, and Emmeline had heard of Zychov’s and, like filings to a magnet, they had come together.

  Occasionally Thomas appeared with news of what was happening politically. The Japanese aggressiveness and the struggle against the Communists had enhanced the importance of Chiang K’Ai-Shek as Commander-in-Chief of the Nanking-Canton armies and he was fully occupied now with attempts to halt Japanese forward movements and with opposing the Communists. Chou, Thomas’ old friend, was now part of the main political committee of the Communist Party, having survived a number of political storms and contrived a niche for himself, and he was devoting himself these days to the organisation of the urban proletariat.

  ‘Which means what?’ Willie asked.

  Thomas shrugged. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that when the revolution comes – as I suppose eventually it will – they’ll be ready.’

  ‘What are their plans for Shanghai?’

  Thomas smiled. ‘The same as their plans for the rest of China. They want it back. They don’t consider it an international city. They consider it part of China.’

  ‘What will they do with it when they get it?’

  Thomas laughed. ‘Ruin it, I suspect,’ he said. ‘They don’t have the know-how to use it.’

  ‘So what will happen to it?’

  ‘I expect it will be badly run-down within ten years, but ten years after that they’ll have acquired the know-how they lack and eventually it’ll take its proper place in the world again.’

  ‘What will you do then, boy?’

  Thomas smiled. ‘I’ve always sympathised with the Chinese, and I’ve never seen eye to eye with the moneymakers here. Chou knows my position. I’ll be all right.’

  Willie frowned. ‘Don’t be too bloody sure, lad,’ he advised.

  The next few years were as happy for Willie as his years with Abigail had been. His feet still itched and he was always restlessly on the move. Occasionally he was in Singapore, but he never called on his daughter. She hadn’t kept in touch and he accepted that she preferred it that way, and that, anyway, she was probably too busy as the wife of the head of Wissermann’s Far East Trading, Incorporated. His own business was developing well in the Dutch East Indies and Australia, where he had taken over a bankrupt shipping company consisting of two elderly freighters, and he was regularly aboard one of his ships, sometimes accompanied by Nadya, en route to one of the outlying islands – Bali, Fiji, Papeete, Samoa. The unease over the future that was obvious in Shanghai was reflected in the South Pacific.

  ‘What the hell’s goin’ on up there?’ MacFee, the Australian marine engineer who had helped salvage the shaft bearing from the Ladywell Grange for him, was indignant. ‘Why don’t someone clobber those Jap bastards?’

  There wasn’t really any answer. The whole of the Far East had been kept in a turmoil by Japanese aggressiveness for years and Willie could only put it down to the fact that the loss of the best men in the British Empire in the monstrous hecatombs in France between 1914 and 1918 had led to the years of fumbling politics, because exactly the same was now happening again in Europe. Few of the men in charge in London had served in the trenches and those who had were not prepared to risk it again. With the most intelligent, forthright and courageous vanished on the Somme and at Passchendaele, the men who were left had not the courage to make a stand.

  As Brassard had suggested, it seemed to Willie that the world was shaping up for another confrontation and more than once he suggested to Da Braga and George Kee that they should sell.

  ‘It isn’t just Mason and Marchant’s who’re angling for the firm now,’ George Kee said. ‘It’s Zychov from the Balalaika.’

  ‘Same thing,’ Willie said shortly.

  ‘What does he know about the business?’

  ‘He doesn’t have to know anything,’ Willie said. ‘He’s the front man. I’d advise getting the highest price you can and get out.’

  ‘Out of Shanghai?’ Kee seemed startled.

  ‘I got out.’

  The Japanese appetite for territory increased with every bite she took out of China, but Chiang, his attention concentrated on his political enemies, the Communists, rather than the national enemies, Japan, remained imperturbable, showing his friendship towards the Japanese by savagely suppressing anti-Japanese demonstrations.

  ‘It deludes nobody,’ Da Braga said. ‘He’s thinking of himself, not of China.’

  The hostility towards Japan brought about a national solidarity of a sort, but, after the massacre of their supporters in Shanghai, the Communists were now openly hostile to the regime, which meant that one half of China was always in open disagreement with the other, and it brought little peace to the European businessmen.

  ‘There will be trouble with Japan,’ Da Braga said. ‘And Soviet Russia won’t object. She denounces imperialism with one hand but with the other shows a marked disposition to profit from the rights acquired by the Tsars.’

  Willie had always regarded Da Braga as a calm man well able to work out the pat
h of coming events. More than once when Willie had wished to rush into some project, Da Braga’s wiser counsels had held him back.

  ‘There’s constant tension in the north,’ the Portuguese was saying. ‘Because Japan’s always watching for an opportunity to increase her boundaries. Things will happen soon because it’s like sitting on a powder keg with the fuse lit.’

  His prophecy proved correct. The killing of a Japanese officer by the Chinese gave them the impetus, and the exploding of a bomb on the railway outside Mukden – said to have been planted by the Japanese themselves – gave them the signal. More tracts of land passed into their possession, and there was another bout of nervous worrying by the Europeans because, despite the fact that the fighting was all taking place in the north, Shanghai didn’t come out of the business unscathed. The city was rocked by demonstrations, strikes and an intensification of the boycott on Japanese goods. Then, when a Buddhist friar was killed in a brawl, a Japanese naval flotilla, which included an aircraft carrier, appeared off the Shanghai waterfront. The Mayor of Shanghai virtually had to go down on his knees to apologise and promise indemnities and the punishment of the culprits.

  On business near Frenchtown the following day, Willie saw a crowd of Japanese women and children boarding ships. He noticed the ships were new and fast and he guessed there must be a good reason for the exodus. Heading for George Kee’s office, it took him no more than a few minutes to discover they were bound for Nagasaki.

  ‘Nagasaki?’ he said slowly. ‘There must be something in the wind, George.’

  ‘I think there is,’ Kee said. ‘The boundaries of the International settlement are being manned. Each nation to be responsible for its own sector.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Japanese, I hear.’

  ‘What are they up to?’

  ‘The trouble between them and China. They’ve been authorised to push their troops outside the settlement to occupy a portion of Chinese-administered territory.’

  ‘Who’s given them the authority?’

  ‘A committee representing all the powers with interests in Shanghai.’

  ‘Did they inform the Chinese?’

  ‘I haven’t heard so.’

  ‘They must be barmy, George. The Chinese will think a war’s started. They’ll resist.’

  Willie was dead right and fighting started almost immediately, and when, as a major property holder and businessman, he was asked to join the protest that was to be sent to the Chinese, his reaction was one of disgust. Old Honeyford, who had been sent to see him, received a blast of anger that rocked him back on his heels.

  ‘No,’ Willie snapped. ‘No! And no again!’

  ‘But it’s been decided that the Japanese should go outside the boundaries!’

  ‘Who decided? The Chinese? Good God,’ Willie snarled in fury, ‘the bloody arrogance! It’s their country, not ours!’

  Honeyford looked indignant, as though Willie had failed to grasp something which should have been quite clear.

  ‘For Heaven’s sake, man,’ he said angrily. ‘The Japanese will be protecting British nationals. That’s important.’

  Willie stared at him contemptuously. ‘I’m sick to God’s green death of you lot posturing about the sanctity of British lives,’ he snorted. ‘The only thing you’re thinking about is your own bloody interests and nothing else!’

  Honeyford’s face went red. ‘The Japanese are our allies!’

  ‘Don’t be bloody silly!’ Willie’s rage made Honeyford back away. ‘The only people the Japanese are concerned with are the Japanese! Japan’s looking after Japan – not you!’

  Willie’s anger remained with him all day. It was clear the decision to allow Japanese troops to push beyond the perimeter of the settlement had infuriated the Chinese. Posters appeared on walls and there were protest meetings, the students as usual well to the fore to proclaim China’s national identity. If the taipans weren’t clear on the subject, they were.

  The Japanese menace was spreading. It had been with them, Willie decided, ever since the turn of the century, when Shaiba had been spying on the Russians in Peking. Even that bloody half-wit, Kaiser Wilhelm, had spotted it as early as 1914 with his warnings to the world of what he called the Yellow Peril. But, because of fear, greed, envy and the demands of national interests, nobody had ever done anything about it, and now, here it was, fully grown, the ugly little lizard become a dragon.

  He was still brooding over the stupidity of people like Honeyford when a message arrived that the old Kum Kum Kiuw had appeared in the Whangpoo from the Philippines with sugar and molasses, and he decided to get rid of his bad temper by going down to meet her. He liked to keep in touch with his captains and their crews and the company launch took him upstream. Being small and unimportant, the Sarth vessels usually dropped anchor near Nantao, where Chinese-owned vessels lay, and the Kum Kum Kiuw was lying among a whole cloud of small vessels surrounded by barges, lighters, sampans and junks.

  Climbing on board, he nodded to the mate, pulled the leg of the old Chinese bosun who had been with the company since its formation, and headed for the captain’s cabin. He was sitting in an armchair discussing the ship’s next move over a Jossman gin when there was a shout from on deck. As his head jerked round, the shout came again, this time full of alarm.

  Bursting on deck with the captain, he saw one of the Chinese crewmen staring at the sky and, following the pointing finger, he saw a line of small black dots beyond Pootung change to the shape of aeroplanes as they swung in the sky to run in over the city.

  ‘Who the hell are they?’ he said.

  Then, as the aircraft banked, the sun caught the insignia on their wingtips and he saw the solid red circle the Japanese used on their machines, the red blob the Americans had started calling a meatball.

  ‘What the hell are they up to?’ he snapped.

  The machines came low over the buildings, their engines howling, heading for Chapei. As they crossed the river he saw black blobs detach themselves and begin to fall towards the Chinese quarter of the city.

  ‘Bombs!’ he roared. ‘For Christ’s sake, they’re dropping bombs!’

  For a moment, he stood on deck with the captain of the Kum Kum Kiuw and his crew, bewildered by what was happening but not afraid, then a second wave of aircraft followed the first, clearly aiming at the shipping in the river.

  The Japanese pilots knew exactly where the Chinese-owned ships were lying and it dawned on Willie that they were too close to the Kum Kum Kiuw for the old ship’s safety.

  ‘Get this bloody thing moving!’ he roared.

  The Chinese bosun ran for the winch, followed by the mate, and the clank of the anchor cable being hauled in began to fill their ears.

  By this time, columns of smoke were lifting over the building to the north and they could hear what sounded like a solid cry of protest coming from every Chinese in the city. It was compounded of honking horns, the bells of fire engines and ambulances, screams and wails, and the shouts of frightened or injured people – as if everybody ashore was giving tongue.

  A neighbouring ship, the Chinese freighter Ting Fee, had been hit and was sinking and not far away a three-decked ferry was on fire. A junk, her masts removed by blast, was drifting past on the tide, her slatted sail draped over her side, her decks covered with dead men. The anchor cable of the Kum Kum Kiuw was upright and the hook had just come out of the mud of the river bottom so that she was actually beginning to make way when she was hit.

  The bomb struck her amidships, blowing out the side of the vessel. Metal fragments began to clang down and stokers came tumbling up the ladder from below, staggering through the smoke and dust followed by clouds of white vapour and showers of soot from the funnel. The noise of escaping steam hurt the ears and the ship, which had already started to list to port, began to slow down and drift towards the blazing ferry. By a miracle they scraped past the ferry’s stern, the rails screeching, metal on metal, as they were buckled by the ferry’s overh
ang, then, with the last of the steam in the boilers, the old ship was driven into shallow water where she settled on the bottom until only her upper works were visible.

  By this time the Japanese aeroplanes had disappeared, but there were several damaged ships in the river, more than one sinking on her anchor, and the whole sky was filled with black smoke from burning buildings. Soaked to the skin and blackened by the smuts from the funnel, his suit saturated and smeared with oil, Willie struggled ashore, spluttering with fury, to find a cab and head into Shanghai.

  He found the representatives of the Western powers in a panic. Having set the thing in motion, they had lost their nerve as the bombing opened to them a brutal view of the future, and they were already struggling to bring about an armistice.

  ‘Whoever expected the bloody Chinks to start fighting?’ old Honeyford complained.

  ‘Why shouldn’t they?’ Willie snarled. ‘If someone set his dogs on you, wouldn’t you try to kick them off?’

  ‘They never have before.’

  ‘Jesus Christ and all his shining angels, you lot never learn! Didn’t the idea of finding out first what might happen ever enter anyone’s head? Didn’t a single bloody soul think it necessary to tell the Chinese what was happening to their own territory? It just shows how the International Settlement thinks. I suppose you thought there was more to be made from the Japanese than the other side, so it would be all right.’

  The moves to halt the fighting were already too late and, with the bit between their teeth, the Japanese refused to listen. People had climbed to rooftops to watch the battle and the Chinese, endeavouring to retaliate by bombing Japanese shipping, hit the Palace Hotel instead, killed hundreds in the packed Chinese quarter, and turned Tibet Road into a litter of human limbs and torsos. Only when they had inflicted what they considered an undeniable defeat did the Japanese consent to a cease-fire.