Guns to the Far East

by V. A. Stuart

  “I’m all right, sir,” he asserted.

  “Very good,” Phillip said. “Obey the Commodore’s signal, Mr Lightfoot.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Lightfoot acknowledged happily. He gave a shrill-voiced order and the men bent to their oars.

  The fleeing junks were well commanded and, even in defeat, they fought back bravely. Some were headed and taken, several blew up or ran aground, but the remainder continued the running battle, hotly pursued by Keppel’s boats. For mile after mile they pulled, the rowers half-blinded by sweat and suffering casualties from the persistent fire of the Chinese stern-guns and gingalls. As a wounded oarsman slumped across his thwart, his place was taken by an officer or a marine and the chase continued, with only six boats in it now, two badly disabled by the enemy’s fire.

  Phillip, serving the battered brass gun in the bow of his launch, realised suddenly that he could see the red roofs of the city of Fatshan coming steadily nearer and found himself wondering whether the Commodore knew how small their force was and, if he did, whether it was his intention to attempt the capture of the city with his half-dozen boats. That the inhabitants feared an attack became evident, a few minutes later, when several hundred of them sallied forth in martial array, ringing bells and beating gongs, their waving banners and brandished swords clearly visible from the river.

  A few shots from Minié rifles and a shower of grape from the bow-gun of the cutter commanded by Captain Cochrane soon scattered them and they retired in undignified haste to the city. Three of the leading junks took advantage of their appearance to make their own escape but five others were caught up with and captured intact, and Commodore Keppel, his coxswain Spurrier lying severely wounded beside him and his boats’ crews exhausted, finally gave the signal to break off.

  “Well done, my brave boys!” he called out, as the boats clustered about him. “I wish I could lead you into the city—with the support you’ve all given me today, I fancy it would be in our hands by nightfall. But never mind …” He shook his fist in the direction of the retreating Fatshan soldiery and added, with a laugh, “We’ll be back, you rascals—and very soon!”

  The men, spent and weary though they were, somehow found the energy to respond with a cheer.

  “Do what you can for the wounded,” the Commodore ordered. “And then we’ll take our prizes back with us.” He looked down at the injured Spurrier, whose hand was clasped in his own, and the flush of elation faded from his cheeks. “Only three of them got away from us … we must have polished off most of their fleet and that’s a good day’s work, by any standard. But now there’s the butcher’s bill to be paid, more’s the pity … still, we saved your dog for you, Spurrier my lad. Although I shall never know how!”

  The little terrier, crouched by the coxswain’s side, wagged his stump of a tail, and Edward Turnour said smiling, “We told you he was our mascot, sir. He didn’t do his job badly, did he?”

  The wounded attended to, the five lately captured junks were taken in tow and the boats paddled slowly but triumphantly down river to where, nearly a mile below the island on which the boom boats had earlier grounded, the Hong Kong and the Starling were waiting at anchor. Phillip supervised the transfer of his two slightly wounded gunners to the Hong Kong and then he and Lightfoot went aboard. It was 3:30 in the afternoon, he realised with some surprise—they had been hard at it for over twelve hours and they were suffering the pangs of hunger and thirst, as well as intense fatigue. But the needs of the wounded had to come first—there were some seventy of them, lying wherever space could be found on the steamer’s deck and below, on the mess deck and in officers’ cabins, many enduring the appalling agony of burns caused by exploding powder in their boats’ magazines. These cases were wrapped in wadding, in the hope of lessening their pain and, on the surgeons’ insistence that to move them to another ship would endanger their lives, the Hong Kong—despite the fact that she had suffered severely from the Chinese roundshot and was in a perilously leaky state—was ordered to convey them posthaste to the Naval Hospital at Victoria.

  Hasty repairs were made and most of the holes plugged and covered with planking but, as she started down river, the vibration of her engines caused some of the plugs below the waterline to work loose and the pumps had to be kept going continuously. Phillip, relieved of responsibility for navigation by the Master of the Encounter—an experienced river pilot who had volunteered his services—managed a glass of lukewarm beer and an attempt at a wash and then, startled by the sound of gunfire, rushed back on deck, expecting to find the ship again under attack.

  In fact she was, but no living gunners fired the shots which sent her reeling; ironically, as she passed through the wilderness of wrecked junks taken during the first attack, it was to find them in flames, their magazines exploding and their guns, which had been left fully loaded, going off spontaneously as they became heated.

  There was no way of avoiding them. The pilot set his teeth and asked for all the speed the engineers could give him and, her paddles churning the flotsam-strewn water to foam, the little steamer ran the gauntlet of indiscriminate but deadly fire, her awning set alight by falling debris and her pumps fighting a losing battle against the water pouring in through her battered planking. Every man on deck, including the slightly wounded, turned-to in an attempt to spare their more helpless comrades from further suffering.

  Phillip, aided by two of the watch, was endeavouring to cut away the blazing awning when a random charge of grape showered down on them from the blindly gaping muzzle of one of the junk’s bow-guns, and he was conscious of a dull sensation of pain in his left arm and shoulder, as if both had been seared by a hot iron. He had stripped to his shirt and trousers and, looking down at his arm he saw—with more astonishment than alarm—that the once-white sleeve was saturated with blood. The pain was slight, the arm itself numb, and when the seaman who had been working beside him, observing his plight, moved to assist him, he shook his head.

  “All right, lad, it’s nothing—only a scratch. You carry on— that awning’s got to come down.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” The man obediently returned to his task but he called out over his shoulder, “You ought to get attention, sir. You’re bleedin’ something chronic.”

  He was, Phillip realised ruefully but, with upwards of seventy other wounded men to attend to, the Hong Kong’s two surgeons had their work cut out, without his adding to the demands on their skill. He pulled back his sodden sleeve, and only when he saw a jagged end of bone protruding from the bloodstained flesh was it borne on him that his wound was a serious one. He cursed it savagely. Devil take the infernal thing … after coming unscathed through the day’s action, it was infuriating to receive a wound which would render him hors de combat, perhaps for weeks, long after the action had been concluded!

  Jim Goodenough, the Raleigh’s First Lieutenant, who had been commanding the Hong Kong during the attack on the junks, came to his side.

  “We’re through the worst of it now, I think,” he said. “But the blasted water’s gaining on us and …” He broke off, staring with red-rimmed eyes at Phillip’s arm. “Good God, Phillip … you look as if you’ve caught it and no mistake!” He assisted in stopping the bleeding, using his own smoke-grimed neck-cloth as a tourniquet. “Sorry if I hurt you—I’m no surgeon, I’m afraid. Were you hit just now?”

  “Yes,” Phillip confirmed bitterly. “I was.”

  “Infernal bad luck,” Goodenough sympathised. “I wonder who gave the order to burn those junks—our people or the Chinese? Whoever it was, they could hardly have chosen a more inopportune moment, could they? While it lasted, that was the heaviest fire we’ve been under all day.” He mopped his brow, adding wearily, “I’d better relieve the men at the pumps or we’ll never make it to Hong Kong. The last report I had was that the water had almost risen to the stokehold firepits—God help us if it does, because we’re leaking like a sieve. You’ll get a surgeon to look at that arm, won’t you? The tourniquet’s a bit a
mateurish and it ought to be loosened after twenty minutes or so, I believe.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll attend to it,” Phillip assured him. “You carry on and thanks for your help, my dear fellow.”

  It was an hour before he found a surgeon free at last of his more pressing duties. Unshaven and dropping with weariness, the doctor subjected the arm to a cursory examination, shook his head glumly and instructed the young assistant who was with him to dress and splint it.

  “You may lose this arm, Commander,” he warned, with brusque honesty. “It’s a nasty fracture. But all amputations will have to wait until we can get our wounded to the hospital ship—they can’t be done aboard this leaking tub. You’ll be transferred of course, and we’ll see how it is then. Your name is … ?”

  “Hazard, Doctor—of the Raleigh.”

  The surgeon noted the name on his pad. “I’ll try and see you again if I can, Commander Hazard. You’ll be a bit more comfortable once the splint is on—I should try to get some sleep, if you can find space to lie down.”

  The arm was still numb, the splinting, even so, agonising enough, although the young surgeon’s mate did his work with skill and deftness, and Phillip was glad, when it was over, to find room to seat himself cross-legged on the forward part of the deck, his back propped up against the rail. He felt oddly light-headed and apathetic. Although he had heard, he had not really taken in the surgeon’s grim warning concerning the possibility that he might lose his arm—that was something for the future and decision would, in any event, be postponed until a proper examination could be made, so there was little to be gained by thinking about it now. There were wounded men all round him, worse off than he, some crying out in delirium, others too far gone even to raise their voices, and one or two— wadding-wrapped burn cases—whose torment was such that they moaned ceaselessly, making sleep impossible for those in their vicinity.

  Phillip did what he could for them. His flask was empty but he shared his slender stock of cigars with those who could smoke and tried to talk to some of the others. Sleep was out of the question, as his earlier apathy was succeeded by anxiety for the safety of the ship, his mind and ears tuned to the shouted orders of Lieutenant Goodenough and the pilot, and to the laboured clanking of the pumps. He was aware from his interpretation of these sounds, that the little steamer was frequently in difficulties and, at times, in actual danger of foundering but, with the coming of dawn, the pumps finally got the better of the inrushing water. More repairs were made, as soon as it was light enough to see where patching was required and, by sunrise, to his infinite relief, the pumps were operating to a more normal rhythm and the ship proceeding steadily on her way.

  A strange silence fell over the crowded deck, as death or merciful unconsciousness brought peace to many whose suffering had become unendurable. Josiah Thompson, the Raleigh’s chaplain, who had worked indefatigably throughout the night, found time to pause for a cheerful word with the less seriously injured, and the off-duty officers and men of the watch below, relieved of anxiety for the ship, came on deck with drinking water and flasks of whisky or brandy for the wounded. The Hong Kong did not carry provisions for the number of men now crowded on board and her cooking fires— extinguished when she had cleared for action—had not been relighted, but her hard-worked crew did the best they could in the circumstances. Pipe tobacco and cigars were handed out and a welcome issue of grog was made, which raised flagging spirits and started the men talking. Wry, foul-mouthed jokes were exchanged, as those who had survived the long ordeal of the night found renewed cause for optimism in the fact that they were still alive and the ordeal almost over, with the whitepainted houses and landscaped gardens of Hong Kong’s British residents in sight on the tree-clad hills.

  Phillip, his own supply long since exhausted, gratefully inhaled smoke from a black cheroot of doubtful origin, pressed on him by one of Raleigh’s midshipmen, and broke his long fast with a handful of ship’s biscuit, which young Lightfoot had thoughtfully soaked in cold coffee, left over from the previous morning’s brew.

  “You must eat, sir,” the youngster advised earnestly. “To keep up your strength.” He eyed Phillip’s arm, swollen and throbbing unpleasantly under its blood-caked dressing, and added, full of concern, “I hope the surgeons can save your arm for you, sir. If you remember, my right leg was broken in two places when I fell from the Huntress’s rigging off Sebastopol in the winter of ’fifty-five. Surgeon Fraser told me it might have to come off but he set it—and my arm, too—and look at me now, sir!”

  “You look a pretty healthy specimen, Mr Lightfoot,” Phillip agreed.

  “Yes, sir, I am. Some more biscuit, sir?” The boy offered the bowl of sodden mush, smiling. “Of course I owe it to Surgeon Fraser—he made a wonderful job of setting the bones—but I owe a lot to that steward of yours, sir. He was Irish and he’d lost most of his teeth … I don’t remember his name but he was quite a character.”

  “O’Leary,” Phillip supplied. “Joseph Aloysius O’Leary.” Memories came flooding back. O’Leary had always had the name of a “Queen’s Hard Bargain” and, when he had come to the Trojan, under Captain North’s taut command, it had been as an able-seaman with eighteen years’ service, whose punishment sheet and crime record ran into several pages and effectively debarred him from promotion. But like many of his kind, O’Leary was a fine seaman, at his best when in a tight corner or when there was fighting to be done and the end of the Huntress’s commission with the Black Sea Fleet had seen him holding—and fully meriting—the warrant rank of Gunner. He had gone home to Ireland on leave after the Huntress paid off and they had lost touch, Phillip recalled, but …

  “O’Leary,” Midshipman Lightfoot went on, “stole the best part of a bottle of whisky from the wardroom and poured it over the dressing on my leg, sir. He swore it would cure me and prevent gangrene! Certainly something did. I …” He paused, eyes bright, “Sir, would you like me to see if I can find some whisky for you? It might help and O’Leary did swear by it, sir. And he was a better hand at surgeon’s mate than that fellow Brown.”

  Phillip shook his head. The Russian army surgeon who had treated him at Odessa and later at Yenikale had shared O’Leary’s faith in the efficacy of raw spirit as a guard against infected wounds, he remembered wryly, but all the same … He sighed. “I shouldn’t imagine there’s a drop of whisky left on board, Mr Lightfoot, so don’t trouble yourself. I’ll be all right.”

  “It’s no trouble, sir,” Lightfoot assured him cheerfully. “I think Padre Thompson has some. I’ll go and ask him.” He scuttled off, ignoring Phillip’s half-hearted protests, to return just as the ship was coming to anchor in Hong Kong harbour, triumphantly clutching a silver-stoppered flask.

  “There’s not much left, sir,” he announced breathlessly. “But it might do the trick and the padre says you’re welcome to it.” He removed the stopper. “Where’s the bone actually broken, sir?”

  Phillip indicated his forearm and braced himself as the boy emptied the contents of the borrowed flask on to his already sodden dressing. The pain was excruciating for a moment or two and he was hard put to bite back the anguished expletive which rose to his lips, but then it faded to a dull ache and he was able to voice his thanks with appropriate restraint.

  Three hours later, he was lying on one of the busy operating tables aboard the hospital ship, again being offered whisky but this time in a china mug, held to his lips by Dr John Crawford, the Raleigh’s competent Scottish surgeon.

  “Dr Anderson fears you’ll need to lose this arm, Commander Hazard,” the surgeon said, as Phillip gulped down the undiluted spirit, wretchedly aware of what, in these circumstances, its consumption portended. “But needless to tell you, I shall save it if I can. Right … over on to your face, if you please, and let’s take a look at you. Easy does it, we’re not in a rush now.”

  His assistant cut away the dressing carefully and Phillip waited in an agony of suspense, as Crawford’s strong fingers probed and palpated
. Finally he said, “Well, you’ve quite a variety of Chinese ironmongery embedded in the flesh of your upper arm and shoulder but I can remove most of it easily enough. In addition you have an open fracture of the radius and normally that would call for amputation. But the wound is clean … in heaven’s name, what did you use to cleanse it?” He bent closer, wrinkling his nose suspiciously. “Whisky, eh? Well, it seems to have done no harm and the bone’s not splintered—indeed, it’s gone back into place quite nicely. I think we’ve a better than even chance of saving your arm, Commander. I’m prepared to take it, if you are.”

  “Most certainly I am,” Phillip returned, without hesitation. He breathed a silent prayer of thankfulness, blessing both Lightfoot and O’Leary in his relief. “That’s the best news you could possibly have given me, Doctor—believe me.”

  “It will take time,” the surgeon warned. “Time and patience. You’ll not be following Commodore Keppel up the Canton River for a good few weeks and nor will the brave Cox’n Spurrier. But I managed to patch him up—and God knows, when I first saw the state he was in, I had my doubts. So maybe I’ll be equally lucky with this arm of yours. We’ll give it a damned good try, anyway. Hang on, now—this will hurt but I’ll be as quick as I can.”