The China Station (The Earl’s Other Son Series, Book 1)

by Wareham, Andrew

  Magnus called Mr McGurk to the cabin, had the interpreter repeat his information.

  “What will you load, Mr McGurk? High Explosive or Shrapnel?”

  “Shrapnel, sir; the Nordenfelts and Maxims to deal with the soldiers in the marketplace, the guns to handle those more distant. It will be point blank range, I must imagine, sir, well within the cover of the machine guns. Will we be landing men, sir?”

  “Some, but there should be an army from Hanshan, Mr McGurk, to deal with mopping up after the guns.”

  “Very good, sir. I shall, sir, with your permission, spend some part of tomorrow checking the ready-use lockers to ensure that the charges are in good condition.”

  The five-inch guns used separate ammunition, a shell followed by a silk bag of cordite as the propellant, an igniter inserted into the breech with each round. It slowed the firing rate, but for a bombardment that was unimportant. Magnus did not much fancy a single-ship action using those guns, but the possibility of that was very slight.

  The silk bags were unsatisfactory to the minds of modern gunners. They were a direct descendant of the flannel powder bags of the old muzzle-loading days, designed to be more robust but still liable to tear or sweat in storage. They had been superseded by brass cartridges, which stored far more reliably, for the smaller guns. The great battleship and cruiser guns still used separate charges, but they were stored in modern magazines in safer conditions – the charges never permitted to become overheated.

  The greatest single problem was that there had to be ready-use charges to hand. It typically took two or three minutes to open a magazine and run charges and shells to the guns on deck, and that was far too long to wait in sudden battle. Lockers were installed on deck, immediately beside the gun mountings, holding eight or so of charges and shells, the first to be loaded in less than a minute. Those ready-use lockers were exposed to the tropical sun and the charges cooked in their bags and sweated. Sometimes they would not fire at all; occasionally they exploded at a feather-light touch on the silk; normally they functioned as they should, but gunners were always nervous of their ready-use, which made the rate of fire lower than it might have been.

  “Do not check the charges until we are clear of Hanshan, Mr McGurk – we can dispose of the faulty over the side once we are out in the river, but we might not be popular if we threw them into the harbour.”

  “Oh, no fear of that, sir. We sell them to the fireworks manufacturer here, sir. He will collect them and use the cordite for his fire-crackers. His factory is only a few yards away, sir, over by the temple there.”

  The temple was located next to a large market, thousands, literally, of buyers and sellers congregating through the day and evening.

  “Is that not dangerous, Mr McGurk?”

  “The Chinks don’t care, sir, so why should we? Plenty more where they come from – if a hundred or two die, they won’t be missed. Anyway, sir, he pays well and the wardroom fund benefits. We all eat and drink better for the fireworks maker, sir.”

  Magnus shrugged – if that was the way of life here, then so be it. He was not about to tell the Chinese that their habits did not jibe with his prejudices.

  Chapter Fiv

  e

  The China Station

  Bustard made revolutions for five knots against the current, leadsman in the chains, calling the depths every minute, a routine precaution rather than an urgent necessity, Mr Whyte said.

  “If there are heavy rains back in the hills, sir, and floodwaters, then the channel can shift. Mud bars form unpredictably, but that does not happen at this season, or rarely, and Ping Wu would be aware and would inform us of the need for caution. He wants our guns, sir, cannot gain from seeing us run aground and useless. Typhoons can also cause flooding, for backing the seas inland, and that will again cause the channel to alter, but there has been no great storm on this precise stretch of coast for five years, sir. Of course, that may mean that one is overdue. They are unpredictable in their course and landfall, but this is not the season for them, however.”

  “What do we do if we find ourselves in the way of a typhoon, Mr Whyte?”

  “If we are at sea, sir, make our way out to deep water and point our bows into the wind and batten everything down. Unpleasant, but Bustard is more than capable of riding the storm. If we are in port, sir, then double or triple the mooring wires, as is possible, and, again, batten down. The real worry might come if we were on a river, unable to make a sheltered harbour and with no searoom – the river banks in effect a lee shore.”

  Magnus realised that they must certainly run aground in that case. The chances were that their anchors would drag in river mud and there would be little alternative available.

  “Our fate in the hands of God in that case, Mr Whyte – there would be little we could do.”

  “Little indeed, sir.”

  The river narrowed to a cable or so soon after leaving harbour and wound its way lazily inland, every inch of land on both banks under cultivation.

  “Rice lands hereabouts, sir. We keep to low speed so as not to produce any great wash that might overflow the banks and harm the fields.”

  “Quite right that we should, Mr Whyte. This is what they call ‘padi’, is it?”

  “Yes, sir. You will see the fields to be separated by earthen banks, some very wide; they call them bunds in the local lingo, which provide paths for the workers as well allowing them to be flooded and then drained at the appropriate times. You will observe that the fields climb up the hills in terraces. As we penetrate further inland, sir, you will see the terraces more clearly as the hills come closer to the banks. A very different agriculture to ours in England or Scotland, sir. In some ways poor, sir – the people must live close to starvation. Yet they seem not too miserable, sir. It is very strange.”

  Magnus was used to Scottish ways – the poor of the Highlands were close to the breadline at all times, he knew. He thought that the Chinese he could see in the distance here might be no worse fed than the bulk of crofters on his father’s lands.

  “Would there be a risk of attack if we tied up to the bank here, Mr Whyte?”

  “Possibly, sir. On this river, with this warlord, perhaps not, sir. On other rivers, very definitely so. Much depends on the missionary presence, of course, sir. Where there are God-Men, then the people can be very unpredictable. Those close to the mission station may be very friendly to us gwailos, while those five miles distant might have no love for us at all – it varies from place to place. There are no stations on the river here, sir. There are missionaries up in the hills, but kept at a distance from the bulk of the lands hereabouts. I believe Ping Wu has taken some care to play one denomination off against another and to permit none to alienate any of his rich rice lands. He can do so for having sent his son to London to learn how to play the game, I believe.”

  “That is the interpreter boy, is it not?”

  “It is, sir. He is observing Mr McGurk at the Maxims at the moment, sir. He is watching all that Mr McGurk does and I have no doubt that he will know how to field strip, load and fire a Maxim by the end of the day.”

  “Is that desirable, Mr Whyte?”

  Mr Whyte shrugged – it was inevitable, he implied.

  “It does perhaps make it more important that the young man shall be kept favourably disposed to us, sir. The Chinese Navy is rebuilding following its almost complete destruction by the Japanese, sir, and there will be many officers and men who are familiar with our guns, of all sorts. I doubt that the young gentleman will be too great a menace in his own right.”

  “This you say of a ‘Chinese Navy’, Mr Whyte – are you talking of armed junks, or something more Western in its style?”

  “Steamships, sir, made of steel in British yards, the intention. There is a discussion of ordering torpedo boat destroyers from Britain, four of them initially, and then protected and possibly armoured cruisers to follow. There has been no discussion of replacement battleships, sir – for them being far
too costly to purchase and then to maintain. Perhaps fortunately, sir, much of the money allocated to the Chinese Navy has been diverted to more necessary uses, such as the rebuilding of the Summer Palace.”

  “Truly, Mr Whyte?”

  “Yes, sir. When one allows for the salaries and necessary expenses of the Chinese Admiralty, or its equivalent, and the expenditure on appropriately grand buildings to house them, then little of that which remains is available to buy ships, and even less to pay for sailors. But one must have a sense of priorities, sir. It is more important that one is impressed by the power implicit in rich buildings than that there should be anything behind that façade. China is governed by show, sir, not by reality.”

  Magnus nodded, slowly, trying to make sense of what he had just been told, and all that he had so far seen.

  “China is, or should be, a rich country, a powerful empire. It is not, because its way of government does not allow it to be. I am here, bringing an out of date gunboat up this river, because the Chinese choose to be even less modern. They have weakened themselves, you say… What happens if they ever change?”

  Mr Whyte chuckled in the most self-satisfied fashion.

  “They are incapable of change, sir. Their religious ways hold them back so that they cannot join the modern world. They worship their ancestors, sir! Thus, all that is old is good, and nothing that is new can be trusted.”

  “Yet you tell me that the young Mr Ping, the interpreter, has been educated in England.”

  “Yes, sir. A few will wish to break the dead ties of the past, but they are powerless, there are not sufficient of them to do so. Add to that, sir, they fight the missionaries – and only the missions can break the power of the old religion and bring in Western ways.”

  “Perhaps, Mr Whyte. I hope you are right, in fact. There must be ten Chinese for every one of us in Britain. If they join the modern world, where will we be?”

  “Still richer than them, sir, for having the mines and shipyards already, and making a profit from building new for them.”

  “Good point, Mr Whyte, but I had still rather be bringing a more modern ship up this river just now. A modicum of armour plate and four six-inch guns in twin barbettes would make me happier, you know, with a dozen broadside pieces of six and twelve pounds and Maxim guns as well. Bustard is all very well, but I had rather have something bang up to date, even to bash a few Chinks with.”

  Mr Whyte smiled condescendingly – when the new captain had experienced the reality of dealing with the Chinese, he would come to realise that all that was needed was a confident air – they crumbled under the face of Western superiority!

  “A battery of Krupp guns could be an annoyance, Mr Whyte.”

  “Nothing to fear, sir. Prussian guns, yes, but in Chink hands, sir. Incapable of aiming straight, even assuming that they stay long enough to fire them, sir. They’ll be gone, sir – just a cloud of dust on the far horizon, sir – that’s all we’ll see of those gunners, sir.”

  “Perhaps, Mr Whyte. Nonetheless, we shall prepare properly for battle. On a different tack, Mr Whyte. Is the river normally this empty of traffic?”

  “Depends on the season, sir. When there is a rice crop coming in, which is twice a year, hereabouts, there are sampans by the score going down loaded to the city, coming back with whatever they can pick up as well. In between times, little happens in the way of trade, and if there is a foreign army just a few miles north, well, the boats will keep out of harm’s way.”

  They continued upriver for the whole day, Magnus seeing no sign of trouble on the banks – no refugees fleeing invaders, as he would have expected if they were pushing south.

  From mid-afternoon they passed detachments of what Mr Whyte assured him were soldiers, shambling north along the bank in groups of two or three hundred together, some carrying rifles, others bamboo spears, almost all with parasols raised against the sun.

  “Umbrella Men, sir! Hardly the sort of foeman to fear.”

  “They are marching in the right direction, Mr Whyte.”

  “For the while, sir. It will be interesting to see which direction they travel in when they actually see their enemy.”

  Mr Whyte was determined in his contempt for the Chinese, Magnus saw. Perhaps he had reason; he would delay before he made his own judgement.

  They passed a small detachment of horse-soldiers and the interpreter asked for a boat, to go ashore to speak to them, ask of their knowledge of the local situation. An hour and he returned to say that the invaders were progressing very slowly downriver, rarely as much as ten miles a day, taking and looting the villages as they came.

  “Do we know their numbers, Mr Ping?”

  “Some thousands, sir. Not a great army. They have guns, sir, of a certainty. Six of them, pulled by coolies. Carts as well, carrying shells. At night, they still place them together in the market, on the widest bund, with soldiers carrying rifles as guards. They sit at fires overnight, sometimes with drink and women, depending on what they have been able to catch. Mostly the peasants flee into the hills, sir, the invaders having no horsemen to catch them. Some run too slowly, or try to carry too much.”

  “Poor souls.”

  “Foolish, sir. They should know better.”

  “As you will. Where is the army?”

  “Some four miles from here, sir, around the next big bend. It would be well to stop, sir, at the next village, where there is a solid bund at which the ship might tie herself to the shore.”

  Magnus agreed, for lack of any alternative.

  “Warn the leadsman, Mr Whyte. Lookouts to watch for any activity ashore. Mr McGurk to the quarterdeck.”

  McGurk appeared within ten seconds, had been waiting the call.

  “We shall tie up overnight, Mr McGurk. Two Maxims, those to starboard, shoreside that is, crewed and alert, relieved at two hourly intervals. Crews to half of the Nordenfelts and five inchers to be on deck but allowed to sleep at their posts. Nominate a landing party of thirty men, rifles and sixty rounds issued and at two minutes readiness, wearing boots.”

  Seamen still normally worked barefoot on deck.

  “You will remain aboard, Mr McGurk, in command of the guns, selecting targets with full discretion after I have given the command to open fire.”

  McGurk was pleased with those orders – the captain retained all the responsibility, but he was free to act as he considered correct.

  “Hawkes, Roberts and Prosser to me, Mr Whyte.”

  The three appeared from the wardroom.

  “Landing party, if called for, will be under my command. Mr Hawkes, you will be my runner, as necessary. Mr Roberts, remain aboard as number two to Mr Whyte. Mr Prosser, on this occasion, you will join the landing party as my second. On any future landing, you will exchange functions, gentlemen, so that you each get a fair chance. Mr Whyte, you will have the ship on this occasion. Revolvers, gentlemen, and reloads, of course.”

  “Swords, sir?”

  “Good question, Mr Prosser. Yes. Mr Hawkes, you will carry a cutlass, not the midshipman’s dirk, which is a useless, ceremonial sort of object.”

  Hawkes was a little upset – he had a very pretty dirk, well-polished and with a lanyard he had carefully braided himself.

  Mr Whyte asked the necessary questions, as was part of his job.

  “Beg pardon, sir, but do we know what exactly we are to do?”

  “Take or destroy the battery, supposedly of Krupp guns, which is expected to be in the marketplace. I would prefer to take the guns, and present them to the warlord, thus enabling him to defend himself in future. Decision will be made at the last minute. If a landing is not sensible, then we shall bombard the guns at point-blank. I would wish to come ashore at the bund, covered by the Maxims and Nordenfelts, to take the battery and the limbers and load them aboard Bustard before casting off and discovering the remainder of the army and subjecting them to bombardment as necessary.”

  “Have we any knowledge of the leaders of this army, sir?” />
  “None. The interpreter has said that they are unknown. He may be telling the truth. They may be led by German or Russian ‘mercenaries’, actually in pay of their governments. If they are captured by the Chinese, none of our business; if you take them, then they will be an embarrassment if they are Westerners.”

  They thought that through, frowning, realised it would be better by far that they did not capture any mercenary. Any they might accidentally come across could be given into Chinese custody, they supposed; they would warn their petty officers that they did not want white prisoners.

  “You say, sir, that we are not to see anything that the Chinese choose to do?”

  “We must not give cause for war to the Germans or Russians. Should there be Frenchmen, well, they are less of a worry but it is easier if we do not see them. There might be a problem with Americans, but, again, the best course is never to become aware of them.”

  “What if they have civilians with them, sir?”

  “I do not see that they can have, Mr Whyte. In fact, I can state as an absolute certainty, there will be none.”

  The captain’s word was law.

  They tied up to the tiny wharf at last light, single wires at bows and stern, ready to slip in a minute if need arose and with sentries alert at the brow.

  “None to go ashore, Mr Whyte, except the interpreter, if he finds the need.”

  The young man took advantage of the opportunity to confer with his father’s military commanders, came back towards midnight, begging to meet with Magnus.

  “Captain, sir, the general says that the foreign invaders are following their habit of sleeping in the last captured village. He has not observed the guns, but thinks they will be kept at the market, as is their wont. He says that he has two full regiments of soldiers, mostly with guns, and will put them into line to stop the invaders. If you attack, then so will he, the sound of your guns the signal to advance.”