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

by Wareham, Andrew

  “Yes, sir. I think, however, that I should not add starting a war to my list of failings.”

  “You are a philosopher, I find, Lord Magnus. A useful trait in a man in your position, of course, sir. A word to the wise, Lord Magnus – you have never been in action, almost none of us have, very quiet the last few decades have been. I have smelt powder a couple of times and must recommend you to forget the philosophy when the guns fire – action is everything then, weight up the pros and cons afterwards. Nelson said that no man could be wrong who laid his ship alongside the nearest Frenchman – the same principle applies now. If once the shooting starts, then end it in the most vigorous fashion possible with a solid and clear-cut victory. It might be the case that the causes of the fight are, shall we say, less than irreproachable, in which case, all the more necessary to come out on top. The winner is always in a better position than the loser. A dead pirate or slaver, or whatever, finds it very difficult to argue a case afterwards.”

  Magnus smiled and agreed.

  “Difficult to plead in court through the services of a medium, sir. I shall hold dear your words, sir. If in doubt, kill the opposition – an easy motto to remember, after all.”

  “Preferably without witnesses, Lord Magnus.”

  “Indeed, sir – one must kill any onlookers as well. I shall bear your recommendations in mind, sir. May I quote them at my court-martial?”

  “Take your ship to sea, Lord Magnus, and do your damnedest to avoid any court of any sort.”

  Magnus placed his cap on his head, saluted, and left, not allowing a smile until he had passed the sentry on the front gate.

  Life was easier, he reflected, when promotion was so very unlikely – he could say almost anything he wanted. He wondered whether he should send his papers in; it might not be impossible to find a place with one of the merchants in Hong Kong. The bulk of the traders seemed little more than averagely clever – he could shine in their company, with a modicum of application. Five or ten years of hard, unremitting work and he could be a rich man. Just how much did he want to be rich?

  He strode out, returning salutes almost absently, trotting to his quarterdeck and up to the bandstand.

  “Sailing stations, Mr Whyte. ‘Permission to sail’ will be granted any moment. Has Magnificent raised steam yet?”

  Mr Whyte pointed across to the four great funnels of the armoured cruiser, all throwing out black clouds.

  “Admiral ordered her away ten minutes ago, sir. She is singled up and has the flag flying.”

  “Good. Follow her out, provided we have permission to sail.”

  The Yeoman of the Signals gave the word just three minutes later.

  “Bustard’s number on the Admiral’s signalling mast, sir. Permission to sail, sir.”

  “Acknowledge. Ship is yours, Mr Whyte. Two cables clear of Magnificent, saluting all senior ships.”

  Magnus looked about the harbour, saw it unusually empty, Centurion the sole large naval vessel present.

  “The flotilla is cruising, sir. Gunnery practice.”

  “Thank you, Mr Whyte. Mr McGurk to my cabin, please.”

  “Gunnery practice, Mr McGurk. Are you satisfied with your crews, sir?”

  No gunnery officer could ever be satisfied, Magnus knew. Anything short of perfection was unacceptable.

  “Not wholly, sir. The men prefer the new guns to the old five-inch, sir, and are working well with them. They can attain five rounds a minute on a sustained basis, sir. The Maxim crews are at home with their guns, sir – they require more of initiative than the big guns, sir, for having to take an aim at the gun. The Nordenfelts are what they are, of course, neither modern nor old-fashioned and best suited to a sensible pair of men who can make their own decisions.”

  “And your new gunner’s mate?”

  “Mr Sheldrick is an acquisition to the ship, sir. The best that Whale Island can produce, sir. We shall see him commissioned before many years have gone by, sir. I have it in mind, sir, that in ship to ship action, he should take charge of the forward guns while I have all of those aft.”

  “Had you considered one of you to the machine guns, the other to the quick-firers?”

  “Thought of it, sir, but it might be easier to have each of us within easy shouting distance of all of our guns. In a battle with, say, a half a dozen of little torpedo boats, then we could assign targets the more easily and ensure that all of the guns did not aim at the same one boat.”

  “Your decision, Mr McGurk. What of boarding parties?”

  “Mr Ayres to command one boat. If a larger party is required, more boats, then one of the lieutenants to take charge. Better to use the midshipman, sir, and keep Mr Sheldrick and myself on the guns.”

  Magnus listened to what was unsaid – the midshipman had much to learn and needed to be given responsibility as well. A boarding party was excellent practice for command.

  “Has Mr Ayres been given training with the revolver, do you know?”

  “Dartmouth, sir?”

  “We used the rifle there, certainly, but I never shot a pistol.”

  “I could arrange practice for all officers, sir?”

  “Me included? Do so. It would be very silly if any of us was to find that we could not use the weapons we must carry. When are the Lee-Enfields to arrive?”

  “They should be on the high seas now, sir. I would expect them to reach Hong Kong any month now, sir. They will be a vast improvement on the Lee-Metford, sir, from all I hear.”

  “Do you know if they compare to the German rifle, the Mauser, I presume?”

  “Better, sir. The small-arms instructors at Whale Island had no doubt about that, sir. The word I was given, sir, was that the German army will seek to equip itself with machine guns rather than rely on the power of its riflemen. Each battalion is to have two or more of Maxim Guns, or of a newer and better design. The word was that the British army will rely on professionals – men who expect to serve for twenty years and who will practice their musketry year after year; the German army will be essentially a conscript force, the men no more than two years before the colours and hence limited in skills with the rifle.”

  “Logical, Mr McGurk. It will be interesting, one day, to discover who is better advised.”

  They cruised slowly towards French waters, busily training with their guns, rather enjoying the change from peace-time routine.

  “On deck, starboard bow at ten thousand yards, sir, in company, one steamer, one of barquentine-rigged and three lorchas, sir.”

  “Lorcha, Mr Whyte?”

  “European hull, sir, both for speed and for cargo-carrying, with junk rig, so as to demand a smaller crew, sir. Common throughout the whole of Asia now, sir, almost always belonging to the bigger merchants, sir, for the European hull having to be built in a larger yard, with the knowhow.”

  “Unusual mix of vessels?”

  “Most, sir. One might almost suspect the steamer to be acting the part of an escort.”

  Magnus called back to the lookout, demanded to know more detail of the steamer.

  “Two-funnelled, three or four thousand tons, sir. Scruffy, sir – rust on the paintwork. Bit of white in the smoke, sir. Making speed, sir, shifting position in between us and the other four, sir.”

  White in the smoke said steam leaking, for any of several reasons but all pointing to poor maintenance and incompetent engineers.

  “Run the telescope up to the foremast, Mr Ayres. Inspect the steamer’s deck. Action stations. Mr McGurk, main battery to target the steamer. Machine guns to the sailing ships. Boarding party to make ready. Note the orders in the log, Mr Whyte. Revolutions for fifteen knots. Turn towards.”

  In a larger ship the Captain’s Secretary would maintain a record of all orders and their times as soon as action stations was called. In a sloop it was the responsibility of whoever had a pencil and piece of paper to hand.

  “On deck, sir!” Mr Ayres managed a very respectable shout for his age. “Steamer has a deck cargo, si
r. Wooden boxes, sir, six of them, on the centre line, sir, three forward, three aft, sir. New wood, sir. Large crew, sir, many of them by the boxes, sir.”

  Magnus could not make a lot of sense of that report. He had years before been told that when in doubt he should assume the worst.

  “Mr McGurk, all guns that can bear to load HE and make ready. No warning shot, aim to hit. Mr Whyte, course to open our beam to the steamer, crossing her track.”

  “On deck, sailing vessels altering course, sir. Making towards Hainan Island.”

  They were perhaps five miles offshore of the island, outside of territorial waters.

  “Raise the battle ensigns, Mr Whyte.”

  Clouds of smoke came from the funnel as Engineer Lieutenant Burton worked Bustard up to full speed.

  “Can’t see a bloody thing, Mr Whyte. Bloody nonsense to work a steam ship from the quarterdeck! Ten degrees of starboard wheel, get us across the wind.”

  The ship turned to port and the smoke shifted to the side, restoring visibility.

  “Closing at the better part of twenty knots, sir. The other ship must be making not less than eight knots.”

  The steamer was a conventional three island merchant ship with the bridge set in the central island, immediately forward of the funnels. Eight knots and her speed was increasing judging by the white water at her bows. This was unusual for a tramp steamer, and she did not bear the house flag of one of the big lines.

  “What do you make of her officers, Mr Ayres?”

  It would be possible to see if they were wearing a uniform, perhaps. Ayres called down saying he couldn’t yet see any who appeared to be officers, but would continue looking.

  “Range, Mr McGurk?”

  “Six thousand yards, sir.”

  Well within the accurate range of the quick-firers, but Magnus could not order the guns to fire without reason.

  “Signal steamer to heave to and identify herself.”

  The International Flags rose to the yardarm. They were ignored and the steamer continued to close the range. Mr Ayres suddenly shouted.

  “On deck! Steamer is breaking down the deck cargo. Crates are false, sir! They have guns concealed. Pivots, sir. Aiming, sir.”

  “Open fire!”

  Magnus raised his new binoculars, Hong Kong’s best copies of Zeiss, and very clear.

  “Four-inch breech loaders, at a guess, Mr Whyte. Firing now.”

  Magnus’ voice was lost in the repeated crashes of the five quick-firers that could bear. He watched as the shells burst around the steamer and then hit her repeatedly.

  “Good shooting, Mr Whyte.”

  There was an explosion off Bustard’s bow and another very close amidships; it sent water crashing onto the deck and shell splinters whistling across the vessel.

  “Also good. Those ain’t bloody pirates, Mr Whyte. That’s trained gunners. Mr McGurk, use the machine guns. Silence their guns but do not sink the steamer, if it can be avoided. Report casualties, if any.”

  Bustard’s guns had shields which, hopefully, would have protected their crews.

  Fire ceased from the steamer, hit by more than a dozen shells in less than two minutes.

  “Close the steamer. Mr McGurk, bring the sailing vessels to, if possible. Sink them if unavoidable.”

  “Extreme range, sir.”

  “Chase them ashore, if possible.”

  The quick-firers opened on the new targets, caused them to spread more sail and head directly inshore.

  “On deck, crew of the steamer carrying rifles and blades, sir.”

  Bustard closed within two cables of the steamer; there were rifle shots.

  “Nordenfelts and Maxims, Mr McGurk. Suppress all fire.”

  The one-inch volley guns were old-fashioned, but still effective in their slow way, hosing a steady stream of solid rounds across the deck and chewing up the superstructure. The Maxims, with a far faster cyclic rate, made the decks untenable.

  “Never seen machine guns in actual use before, Mr Whyte. Very unpleasant to be on the wrong end of them, I must imagine.”

  Magnus gave the machine guns a good three minutes, called the cease fire and waited for a response.

  “Come down, Mr Ayres.”

  Mr Whyte borrowed the binoculars, tried to see if there was any movement on the steamer.

  “White flag, sir. From the bridge. More like a shirt or a towel, sir.”

  “Boarding party away. Mr Roberts, take a second boat, if you would be so good. I want information. Officers, if any survive. Papers, if she has any. Identify those guns – I want to know what they are before she sinks. Take command of her, if it is practical. Bustard will examine the sailing vessels, if possible. If you can bring the steamer under command, come up under our lee. Mr Whyte, leadsman to the chains, close the sailing vessels, with all necessary caution.”

  The boats reached the steamer and the boarders climbed up to the decks, rifles ready; they didn’t appear to meet any resistance.

  “Did Mr Ayres have anything to say about the ship’s officers, Mr Whyte?”

  “No uniform, sir, but white men.”

  “Pirates by very definition. Let us trust that some remain alive and able to talk.”

  “One can hardly force them to talk, sir.”

  “I fully agree, Mr Whyte, one cannot. If need arises then we shall call at Hanshan and speak to Mr Ping and his father. I do not doubt their ingenuity in such matters.”

  Mr Whyte was reduced to silence. He was aghast that Magnus might be proposing to hand white men across to Chinese torturers.

  “Those scoundrels had it in mind to destroy us using concealed guns, Mr Whyte. It was purely a matter of luck that we were awake to them. Had the steamer been unaccompanied, then we would have had no suspicions of her and her deck cargo. I will be very interested to discover just what loads those lorchas and the barquentine are carrying.”

  “In range of the sailing vessels, sir.”

  “Warning shot, Mr McGurk. If no response, then aim at the furthest to windward and destroy it.”

  The starboard bow quick-firer gave its bark and a high explosive shell detonated barely fifty yards ahead of the starboard lorcha. She dropped her sails and turned her head into the wind, showing surrender; no wooden ship could live two minutes under the shell fire of modern guns. The other three vessels copied her.

  “Close to four cables, if depth of water will allow. Mr Hawkes, take a boat and put a petty officer and four men aboard each of the sailing ships, each to be brought immediately under the machine guns. Rummage the holds.”

  Magnus turned his glasses on the steamer, stopped and sinking, he thought. She was down by the bows and listing; he could see one hole in her plates, suspected there were others, one at least now underwater by the speed with which she was going down. He could see men using ropes to take to the two boats he had ordered across; he presumed her own boats had been destroyed in the brief but violent action.

  “Mr Whyte, we must close the steamer, to rescue her crew, but not until the sailing ships are safely in our hands.”

  “Aye aye, sir. I shall just note the order in the log, and its time, sir.”

  Magnus nodded – Mr Whyte could make exactly as many log entries as he wished, to save his own neck in case of a Court Martial on the action. Some of the steamer’s crew would die because of the delay in bringing Bustard to their rescue, but it was more important to discover what they were doing than it was to preserve the lives of pirates.

  “Signal from starboard lorcha, sir. Petty Officer Evans, sir, semaphoring, ‘crates, broad-arrow, rifles’.”

  “’Broad-arrow’? Official stores? Rifles?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The broad-arrow was the traditional emblem of the Crown, appeared on all crates of stores and munitions officially supplied to Army or Navy.

  “Bring that lorcha under our guns. All of her crew in irons – though I doubt we have enough for the purpose. Tie them, bring them aboard, keep them safe. Mr Haw
kes to return to Bustard.”

  “Take the lorcha under your command, Sub-lieutenant Hawkes, and sail her to Hong Kong, reporting to Admiral Seymour and taking my despatch to Captain Hawkins as well. Cast off as soon as Mr McGurk has opened one of the boxes and identified its contents.”

  Five minutes saw Mr McGurk at the run.

  “New rifles, sir. Lee-Enfields, still in factory grease, sir. Boxes of ammunition, sir – at least two hundred thousand three-o-three rounds. Spare magazines, sir. Sets of armourer’s tools, sir. The full shipment of the new rifles, I must imagine, sir.”

  “Pirated, and on their way north, it would seem. By whom, to whom, one wonders? There will be some questions asked of the officers aboard the lorchas. What of the other sailing vessels, Mr McGurk?”

  “Mr Whyte says no more than ordinary cargo, sir. Typical of a trader’s wares, sir – textiles and iron goods, and thousands of crates of English beer and whisky, sir.”

  “A normal cargo, but singled out for the rifles, no doubt. I had understood piracy of steamships to be uncommon, Mr McGurk?”

  “I doubt one a year is lost, sir, and those mostly on the coast, not to the south, sir.”

  Magnus wrote a very quick pair of reports and sent Hawkes off under orders to make the speediest possible passage to Hong Kong and to place the documents under the nose of the senior officer in harbour if the Admiral was elsewhere.

  “From steamer, sir, Mr Roberts. ‘Submit steamer sinking, sir. Permission to abandon.’”

  “Permission granted.”

  There was no point to giving Roberts instruction to salvage all the evidence he could lay his hands on – he would have done so, in all probabilities, but must not be ordered to put his life at unnecessary risk.

  “Close the steamer, Mr Whyte. Save lives as possible. Do not relax all caution in the handling of pirates.”

  “Don’t seem to be many of them left, sir. The machine guns must have cut them up rather drastically, sir.”

  “Saves the hangman a job, Mr Whyte. I cannot imagine that any of them will survive, other than those who turn Evidence.”