Halfhyde on the Yangtze

by Philip McCutchan

  “True. And now, sir? Time presses, and we should be away to the gunboats.”

  “I still dislike retreat, Halfhyde. The attack may not come, you know.”

  “But I believe it will, and I must make the assumption that it will. My orders were to evacuate the Consulate and escort all personnel to my flotilla—this I am bound to do.” Halfhyde responded with sympathy to the Consul’s dejected look. “You’ll be back, sir, when all this is settled and times become happier.”

  “I trust so, Halfhyde. I’ve spent much of my career in Chungking…it’s a sad business.” Carstairs gave himself a shake as though to clear away morbid thoughts. “Well now, gentlemen, remember what you’ve heard. It’s to be passed on by any one of you should I be unable to report. That apart, keep it under your hats.” He caught Cole’s eye. “Yes, Lord Edward, you’ve something to say?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s awfully underhand, isn’t it? Count von Furstenberg, I mean. It’s not British, is it?”

  “Er…no, it’s not.”

  “But it’s all awfully exciting, sir. Stinky and I used to get up to all sorts of japes, but nothing quite like this, really.” Suddenly Lord Edward flushed, looking contrite. “I shouldn’t have said that—I’m awfully sorry, sir. I shouldn’t have sneaked on Stinky and I hope you’ll forget it, sir.”

  Gravely, the Consul nodded.

  “MR BODMIN! Mr Bodmin!”

  Bodmin broke off in full Chinese spate and turned. “Ar, zur?”

  “You are taking a devil of a long time over a simple order, Mr Bodmin. Just tell the buggers what I want, and leave it at that.”

  “Ar, zur, but I can’t, zur.”

  “Can’t? Why can’t?” Watkiss rose to his feet and bounced towards the cage bars. “No such word as can’t, the Duke of Wellington said so, or was it Napoleon.”

  “Ar, zur.”

  “What? What d’you mean? I didn’t ask a question; I made a statement.”

  “Ar, zur, it were.”

  Watkiss blew out his cheeks. “What was?”

  “Napoleon, zur. I remember the superintendent o’ the foundling ’ospital, ’e—”

  “Oh dear, dear, dear, does it matter, Mr Bodmin?”

  “No, zur.” Bodmin seemed hurt. “Point be, zur, they Chinamen won’t do what ee want. I asked ’em—told ’em like,” he added quickly, “but they say no. I tried to argue like—”

  “Good, good.”

  “But they won’t pay ’eed, zur, not to me.”

  “Oh, balls and bang me arse, Mr Bodmin, they certainly won’t pay heed to me since I don’t speak their blasted lingo. Try again.” Captain Watkiss, not wishing to compromise his dignity by being stonewalled by dagoes, turned his back and retreated to sit upon the plank bed and Bodmin tried again as ordered. There was much talk but no success, and the former boatswain approached Watkiss to render his nil report.

  “There be bad Chinamen and good Chinamen, zur, and these be bad. They threatened me, zur, that they did!”

  “In what way?”

  Bodmin wiped the back of a hand across his nose and looked indignant. “They said, zur, if I went on like, they’d take it out on the old woman. Mrs Bodmin, zur.”

  “I see.” Watkiss paused, then said stiffly, “Your first duty is to the Queen, of course.”

  “Of course, zur. But not afore Mrs Bodmin, zur.”

  “Oh, balls, that’s a contradictory statement if ever I heard one! Don’t be browbeaten, my dear Bodmin—try again!”

  “No, zur.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “No, zur. A man’s wife is a man’s wife, zur.”

  “Yes, yes, I appreciate that, of course, but duty—”

  “And I don’t be in the Navy now, zur. And I tell ee summat else an’ all, zur: Mrs Bodmin, you said yourself, she be a British subject now, zur, and you ’ave your duty as well as me, zur, and yours be to all British subjects in Chungking, and that includes Mrs Bodmin.” Bodmin stood with arms folded and a look of total obstinacy on his leathery old face. “You can’t ’ave it both ways, zur.”

  “Oh, hold your tongue and don’t argue, Bodmin, I detest argument.” Avoiding Bodmin’s eye, Captain Watkiss glowered belligerently towards the bars of his cage.

  IN THE British Consulate Halfhyde made his preparations for breaking out, taking charge over Carstairs as the sole fighting representative of the Queen. All the occupants were mustered with their arms and given explicit orders to stick together in a bunch, with the women and children in the centre; the men, including Mr Erskine, would form the guard and escort under the command of Halfhyde and Cole.

  “I propose to leave from the rear of the premises,” Halfhyde told the assembly. “The streets appear more or less quiet now, and we haven’t far to go to reach the wharf. We’ll not be unmolested, we must expect that, but no one is to use his weapon except under my orders. I shall try not to exacerbate the Chinese—my hope, frankly, is that they’ll be glad enough to see us go and won’t unduly hinder us. It’ll look like defeat for the British, but I assure you that will be only temporary. In any case, my orders are simply to extract all of you and embark you safely aboard the flotilla. Nothing else. I am not to be concerned with buttressing the British position. Are there any questions, ladies and gentlemen?”

  “Yes,” Erskine said. “May we take it that transport to the boats will be waiting at the wharf?”

  “I doubt it,” Halfhyde answered, “and our arrival there will be the tricky part. There will be a wait while Captain Watkiss sends away his boats to take us off, and we shall need courage and patience and steady tempers if the mob gathers, which I’ve no doubt it will. Now—” He broke off. A single shot had come from the back of the Consulate. Into the tense silence that followed, rapid fire broke with terrifying effect, and then a long-drawn scream was heard.

  Halfhyde, with Cole behind him, ran for the exit into the garden.

  Chapter 8

  FROM BEYOND the wall at the garden’s end, a spatter of rifle fire came as Halfhyde appeared. Bullets zipped into the ground immediately outside the door from the kitchen quarters. Halfhyde stepped back quickly into cover and ordered Cole to get back upstairs at the double and organize return fire from the rear windows. Outside, in the lee of a large and spreading tree, a man was trying to drag his wounded body along towards the building. He left a trail of blood and was crying out in pain, unintelligibly; by his clothing, he was a Chinese. Halfhyde waited tensely until the rifles were heard from the windows, then, bending his tall frame low, he made a dash for the wounded man. Bullets were still zipping across from the wall, but they died away under the impact of the return fire just as Halfhyde reached his objective. He lifted the man and took him in his arms and made back as fast as possible to the doorway.

  Inside, he laid the Chinese gently on a kitchen table and put rolled-up towels beneath the head. Joined now by Cole, he sent his First Lieutenant back to fetch some women to tend the wounded man. “Bring Carstairs too,” he added. “He speaks Chinese.” As Cole went off, the Consul appeared in the kitchen doorway, and Halfhyde said, “A Chinese, sir, who must have come for a purpose.”

  Carstairs approached. “Is he alive?”

  “He breathes yet. Ask him quickly why he came.”

  “I know him,” Carstairs said. “His name’s Jing Bang, one of the Consulate servants. I was surprised when he deserted with the rest…but these people are always subject to many pressures, of course.”

  “Quickly, if you please, sir!”

  “Yes.” Carstairs bent, and smoothed the man’s forehead. There were a number of wounds in the body and the skull was bleeding freely. Carstairs spoke in rapid Chinese; the response was low and feeble. Carstairs seemed to be asking for a repeat, and for a moment, as if with a supreme last effort, the voice came clearer and stronger. Carstairs spoke again, and again there was an answer, and then, very suddenly, the body jerked grotesquely and the head fell aside with the mouth open and the eyes staring. Carstairs felt for the heart, t
hen looked up.

  “Dead?” Halfhyde asked.

  Carstairs straightened. “I’m afraid so. Poor fellow…he was loyal after all. I’m glad of that…it’s a kind of testimony, as though my efforts haven’t been all in vain!”

  “Yes, indeed. And his message? Were you able to get that?”

  “Yes. Quite clearly. Your Captain Watkiss has been taken, along with Bloementhal and Rear Admiral Hackenticker and poor old Bodmin. Taken by the Chinese authorities, not by the mob.”

  “For what purpose, sir?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Did Jing Bang say where they were?”

  “Yes. In the town gaol, under lock and key. It’s a pretty filthy place for anyone to be,” Carstairs added, “let alone British and Americans.”

  “Then I can sense my Captain’s present feelings, sir. What’s to be done now? Can some official complaint be laid?”

  “At whose door?” Carstairs asked rhetorically. “I’m afraid not, Halfhyde. I am the only British authority in the area, and I’m by way of being out of office to all intents and purposes. Likewise the Americans, and the French. We could appeal only to the mandarins, and they’re against us to a man.” He ran a hand distractedly through his hair. “This complicates the situation beyond all measure, I fear…I take it you’ll not leave Chungking with your Captain in Chinese hands?”

  Halfhyde gave a grim laugh. “One way of dealing with this would be to wait for Captain Watkiss to make such a nuisance of himself that the Chinese will hand him back thankfully and with apologies…but you’re right, of course. I shall not leave without him.”

  “On the other hand, your orders are for the safety of British subjects, especially the women and children.”

  “I know my orders, sir.” Halfhyde turned away, his face set hard, and stalked up and down the kitchen with his revolver still in his hand. What the Consul had said was, in fact, the simple truth. Watkiss himself might well say that the women and children came first, that the Commodore’s orders, which derived from Whitehall, must take priority no matter what happened to the officer in command of the expedition. The decision was entirely Halfhyde’s, and he would have to stand or fall by it. He was about to utter when another diversion came: a pane of glass smashed, splinters flew about the kitchen area, and a heavy stone, heavy enough to have needed the cast of a sling from the garden perimeter, banged against the opposite wall. Tied to the stone was something wrapped in oiled silk. With long strides Halfhyde reached the stone and picked it up. Inside the silk was a parchment carrying Chinese characters, which he handed to Carstairs. The Consul studied it, his face hardening as he did so. “It’s a threat, Halfhyde,” he said, “and a nasty one.”

  “Of what nature, sir?”

  “I’m called upon to surrender…I’m to throw out all arms first, and then evacuate with everyone in the Consulate.” Carstairs glanced through the window and across the garden: rifles and bayonets were seen atop the perimeter wall, and Chinese faces stared back through the downpour. “They’re ready for us now—there’ll be more in front, no doubt.”

  “If you refuse to surrender, the attack will be mounted—is that it?”

  “Not quite,” Carstairs answered grimly. “No, the four men in custody—Captain Watkiss and the others—will be publicly executed outside the Consulate. I am given until midnight to decide.”

  Halfhyde sent out a hiss of breath. “Good God! I fail to understand…why not an attack?”

  “They know we’re well armed, my dear fellow, and will give a good account of ourselves. We might even hold out—and “face” is vital to the Chinese character.”

  “We’d not last long against artillery!”

  Carstairs gave a humourless laugh. “Even they don’t trust their guns, Halfhyde. More “face” would be lost by an explosion in their own ranks. They’re strictly for show only, except in the very last resort.”

  “I take your point.” Halfhyde remembered the ancient, trundling gun that had been ranged before them on the inward march that morning: that had had an antique look, and had given the impression that parts had dropped off it from time to time over the decades.

  Carstairs said, “I suggest we keep our heads down for a while, Halfhyde, and consider the position carefully.”

  IT WAS, it seemed, rain without end, without the smallest respite. Water sheeted down in angry torrents, hissing and drenching. The world, to Mr Beauchamp, was made up entirely of water and water was turning into his most vicious enemy. The terrible floodwaters swept down still from the upper reaches of the river, and all Beauchamp’s worst anticipations seemed about to take him over and swamp him and his command. There was a most threatening and alarming sound from the fo’c’sle as the darkness descended over China, the sort of sound never heard in the friendlier purlieus of Portsmouth or Devonport or Chatham or even Haulbowline in Ireland where things were never quite as they were in other ports of the naval command in home waters, the Irish being a funny bunch. Funny or not, their harbours didn’t make the anchor cable hum angry songs, or scrape viciously in the hawse-pipe, or tug with steely fingers at the Blake slip and the stoppers. Clump, clump, yee-eeee, bang.

  Mr Beauchamp shook beneath his oilskins and raised a cold wet hand to finger his jaw. Decisions, decisions…really it was no wonder that Captain Watkiss was short-tempered! Command was hard, a thing of much anguish. Mr Beauchamp turned for advice and comfort to his sub-lieutenant, a youth only just out of his midshipman’s time.

  “It’s getting very nasty, Mr Pumphrey.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very nasty indeed. Do you feel a slight dip, Mr Pumphrey, as though we’re down by the head?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. Would that happen, do you suppose, sir?” The voice was earnest, hopeful of learning something. “I mean, sir, wouldn’t the anchor break ground if there was all that much strain?”

  “Yes, I dare say it would, perhaps. Yes. However, we must be watchful. Kindly report at once if you notice any such inclination, in case I should miss it, Mr Pumphrey.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Mr Beauchamp, as a lieutenant of more than eight years’ seniority and thus a wearer of the extra half stripe of rank, was a demi-god to a sub-lieutenant and was, moreover, a much kinder and less officious person than any lieutenant of more than eight years’ seniority so far encountered by Mr Pumphrey, who liked him and wished to be of help. So Pumphrey diligently watched and felt for any dip of the bows even though he did not, in fact, expect to find a dip, being certain that, instead, the anchor would break clear of the mud as he had suggested. However, in due time he was confounded: Nemesis appeared to have struck after all. The bridge took a slant forward, almost imperceptibly at first, but it soon became quite noticeable as the bows of HMS Cockroach began to sink lower in the water, this being evidenced not by the tilt of the bridge alone but also by segments of filth that began to slop over on to the fo’c’sle to be seen clearly in the light from the anchor-lamp on the forestay.

  “Sir!”

  “Yes, Mr Pumphrey, what is it?”

  “Sir, I think we’re now being drawn to the anchor, sir!”

  They were indeed, and Mr Beauchamp had begun to notice it, but had prayed that it might go away again. Now he could delay no longer. “Oh, dear me, Mr Pumphrey, pipe at once for the carpenter’s mate, if you please. I fear we must take action immediately.”

  “Yes, sir. What action, sir?”

  Mr Beauchamp fingered his jaw. “I shall await a report from the carpenter’s mate, I think.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” The order was piped for the carpenter’s mate and cable party to muster on the fo’c’sle. The men were there quickly and, watched anxiously from the bridge by Mr Beauchamp, the carpenter’s mate, a wizened and taciturn petty officer, felt the cable with an expert hand, almost palpating it with a medical man’s tenderness.

  “Singing, sir,” he reported in a shout.

  “I know, Petty Officer Thoms. What do you suggest?” />
  “Well, sir, the cable’s out to its fullest extent, and I’m surprised she ain’t dragging by now.” The carpenter’s mate turned his back upon the bridge and continued diagnosing, peering over the side as though attempting visually to penetrate the murky, rushing Yangtze water. The river was dappled with pits and spouts as the wicked rain drove down. Debris went past at great speed; so fast was the current moving that a small bow wave was giving the anchored Cockroach quite a bone in its teeth, and the groaning cable was stretched as taut as a triatic stay. The carpenter’s mate scratched his nose, upon which the brim of his sou’wester was pouring a stream of water.

  He turned back towards the bridge. “Captain, sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “I reckon the anchor’s fouled an obstruction, sir.”

  “Oh, dear. That’s why it’s holding fast, I suppose?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We can’t shake it free?”

  Petty Officer Thoms sucked at his teeth and wondered if some officers ever learned. “No, sir, not without putting divers down, and we haven’t any divers and—”

  “Yes, quite. I understand,” Beauchamp called back, his heart in his sea boots. “What do you suggest, then?”

  “Let ’er go, sir. Knock away the pin in the joining-shackle on deck, and then the slip. All right, sir?”

  “Just one moment, Petty Officer Thoms, just one moment.” Beauchamp, now sweating like a pig beneath his oilskins, was almost frantic with worry and indecision. Suppose the obstruction was being caused by another mine or bomb, and he blew up Captain Watkiss’ own command in succession to his own? But it couldn’t be that, surely; all the straining and tugging would have detonated it already. Mr Beauchamp turned to the sub-lieutenant. “Mr Pumphrey, I really don’t know. It seems sensible, even inevitable perhaps…but the Rate Book value of an anchor and its cable must be high, I’m sure.”

  “Yes, sir, I expect it is, but the angle’s increasing all the time, sir.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear!” Beauchamp paced the small bridge; the Rate Book value of a gunboat was certainly higher than that of an anchor and cable, but he could scarcely bring himself to believe that the vessel could actually founder. God alone could say what the obstruction might be if it wasn’t a mine or bomb: a cable laid along the bottom, a sunken sampan or junk, even some sort of boulder perhaps; not that it made any difference, except that Captain Watkiss would demand a full and detailed report and was never pleased when an officer had to confess he didn’t know all the answers. And if he should jettison unnecessarily…it didn’t bear thinking about. Already he was hovering on the brink of re-arrest, his return to duty was merely temporary, and with another charge hanging over him…really, he didn’t know what to do. Quite apart from anything else, an anchorless vessel carried a built-in hazard both to itself and other shipping upon the river, being unable to pull up sharply by letting go in an emergency. He might fall back upon Bee or Wasp or both and then two if not three of Her Majesty’s ships of war would become seriously damaged…