by Damien Lewis
As the aircraft dived to attack, they were met by a fierce barrage of fire put up by a dozen Maxim machine guns, plus four heavier guns threading lines of vicious flak across the sky. The warplanes were forced to abort their sortie, dropping their bombs at random along the river as they raced for the safety of the clouds. But the attacks along the Yangtze were far from over, and the Japanese would turn their aggression next against their foremost future enemy—the Americans.
The crew of the gunboat USS Panay—Judy’s erstwhile kidnappers—had just finished evacuating all remaining U.S. citizens from the besieged capital, Nanking. As a result, the little ship had become the de facto American Embassy in China: she had aboard her five officers and fifty-four crew members, plus four embassy staff and a dozen-odd related civilians. She was escorting three other ships—the Standard Oil tankers Mei Ping, Mei An, and Mei Hsai, which were in the process of evacuating Standard Oil employees from Nanking.
It was early afternoon when a flight of twelve Japanese naval aircraft swooped for a surprise attack. The carrier-based warplanes—two Nakajima A4N fighters, escorting a flight of Yokosuka B4Y bombers—dropped a total of eighteen sixty-kilogram bombs and strafed the river flotilla with 7.7-mm machine-gun fire. The Panay was hit by two bombs and repeatedly raked by gunfire. The gunboat sank rapidly, going down in the shallows.
As the stricken gunboat settled onto the river bottom, the three Standard Oil tankers were hit and set aflame. Many aboard were killed, and the Panay had herself suffered numerous casualties. Two of the Panay’s crew had been killed, an Italian journalist aboard was also dead, and there were forty-eight wounded and injured.
A pair of American news cameramen aboard the Panay had been able to film the early stages of the attack, plus the sinking of the ship once they had reached shore. When their news footage was aired around the world, the scenes of the unprovoked assault would cause widespread outrage. But for now the Panay was lost, and news of her sinking had yet to reach the American high command.
Admiral Yarnell, then commander in chief of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, was the man tasked with keeping watch over the unfolding troubles facing U.S. forces along the Yangtze. Unable to raise the Panay by wireless, the admiral put a radio call through to the Bee, asking the commander of the British fleet to try to locate the missing American ship—last known location just north of Nanking.
The Bee was busy escorting the heavily damaged British gunboat the Ladybird, but she responded to the American request and steamed downriver to investigate. Rear Admiral Holt soon discovered why the USS Panay had fallen silent. Among the still smoldering wreckage that lined the riverbank he discovered the battered but unmistakable superstructure of the American gunboat lying proud above the waters.
The officers and crew of the Bee surveyed a scene of smoke-laden ruin, and at first there appeared to be no survivors. Then a pair of Americans emerged from the bush and began shouting and waving at the British warship. The remaining survivors, many seriously wounded, had been moved inland to the nearest Chinese village. The Bee landed a shore party of twenty-five men, and the survivors, including all the injured, were taken aboard the British warship.
When the rear admiral radioed his American colleague with news of what had transpired, it would shock the world. Reactions from the American and British governments were swift in coming. They demanded that the unprovoked attacks along the Yangtze cease forthwith, that the Japanese officer commanding the forces that had bombed the British and American warships be removed from his post, and that compensation be paid for the loss and damage caused.
The Japanese response was to claim that the attacks on the British ships, plus the sinking of the USS Panay, had been cases of “mistaken identity.” Their pilots hadn’t seen the flags painted on the vessels’ superstructure and had mistaken them for Chinese warships. But they paid the compensation demanded, removed from his post the air force colonel who had overseen the attacks, and promised that there would be no further such incidents.
Just twenty-four hours after the sinking of the USS Panay, Nanking itself fell, and what became known as the Rape of Nanking ensued. As many as 300,000 Chinese were killed in the most horrific ways. This was still an undeclared war: Japan had yet to formally declare hostilities with China. But with news of the Nanking Massacre reaching foreign ears, strong diplomatic protests were lodged—first and foremost by the governments that still had gunboats on the Yangtze and that were receiving eyewitness accounts of the terrible happenings.
In light of the nightmare unfolding ashore, the British and American gunboats continued with their river patrols as best they could, but always in the face of mounting Japanese aggression, particularly against the locals. By March 1938 the Gnat found herself in Kiukiang [now Jiujiang], 400 kilometers upriver from Shanghai. She was there to find out which British residents were willing to evacuate in light of the relentless march of Japanese forces inland.
Typically, a somewhat exasperated Captain Waldegrave reported in his March letter to Rear Admiral Holt that the British residents in Kiukiang were intending to remain where they were “throughout all hostilities.” Mr. and Mrs. Porteous, Miss Rugg, and Miss Luton, all Christian missionaries of the China Inland Mission, were intent on maintaining a very British stiff upper lip in the face of the Japanese invaders.
Of course, the captain of the Gnat was unable to force any British citizens to evacuate. All he could do was have a word with the local British Safety Committee—a Home Guard–like setup formed by the handful of British citizens resident in the area—in an effort to put some procedures in place should the Japanese turn against British nationals when they overran Kiukiang, as they surely would in the next few days.
The sympathies of the British gunboat crews in this unfolding conflict—plus their animal mascots—lay fully with the Chinese. They had Chinese crewmen serving on their ships, they had befriended many locals along the river during the long years spent on duty there, and there were any number of British sailors who had fallen in love with a local girl and stayed behind to raise a family with her.
In fact, the crew of the Gnat—Judy included—had officiated over one such marriage recently, during a stopover in Shanghai. Chief Petty Officer Charles Goodyear served on the Bee, but he was a close friend of both Vic Oliver, the man who had rescued Judy from the Yangtze, and of the dog herself. It was only right that both were invited to his wedding—proof of how love could flourish in the midst of war.
CPO Goodyear’s chosen bride was a Russian barmaid—and widow—then serving in the Pig and Whistle bar in Shanghai. After the wedding the crew of both the Bee and the Gnat had retired to the Pig and Whistle to celebrate the nuptials. An aged Chinese soothsayer with the ability to read a person’s future was persuaded to examine the palms of a number of the sailors. Of course, the groom had to be among them. But when the soothsayer had scrutinized Goodyear’s palm, he’d blanched visibly and refused to say a word.
Most of those present had teased Goodyear remorselessly, but not Vic Oliver. He’d felt a strange conviction that the soothsayer was able to tell the future and that Goodyear and his bride would have little time together in a world about to be torn apart by war. Certainly, if their Yangtze campaign was anything to go by, the forces of Japanese aggression were going to prove nearly unstoppable.
The gunboat men were powerless to act as the Japanese drove the Chinese resistance relentlessly backward. Japanese soldiers took Kiukiang, from which the British residents had doggedly refused to evacuate. With barely a pause they pushed onward toward Hankow—the Yangtze gunboats’ “home city,” the headquarters of the Strong Toppers Club, and the place where only months earlier Judy had dragged the unfortunate Tankey Cooper into the cesspit.
In the face of the bloody conflict, all aboard the Gnat had to strive to remain neutral—including a ship’s dog who had as a young puppy herself fallen victim to the cruelty of the Japanese military. Judy seemed to have been blessed with an unfailing instinct for detecting which
of her two-legged fellows were dog lovers and which were inclined to view her either as a potential tasty meal or as the enemy. And it was to be in Hankow that she would next come face to face with her tormentors. But first there were old acquaintances to renew, plus some sad and heartfelt farewells to be dealt with.
It was early April 1938 when the Gnat found herself again based at Hankow. Hankow being her home port away from home, there was the inevitable local fixer and master of all trades there, one who had made it his business to tend to the crew’s every need. In Portsmouth, the Gnat’s British home port, there had been “Tubby” Greenburgh, a rotund and jolly naval tailor from whom the men could always borrow ten shillings on “blank” days—those immediately prior to payday—interest-free and sealed with nothing more than a handshake.
Here in Hankow, Tubby Greenburgh’s equivalent was Sung. For reasons lost in the mists of time Sung was better known to all who sailed the Yangtze as Joe Binks. A huge bear of a man, Joe Binks would beam with undisguised good humor as the men poured forth from the Gnat intent on some quality shore time, but he reserved an especially warm welcome for the Gnat’s ship’s dog.
Joe Binks was the Gnat’s official Hankow comprador—the man charged with supplying the ship with all the food and other stores she might require. He often brought his wife and four young children with him when doing business aboard the British gunboat, and the children in particular delighted in Judy’s company. In spite of being bred for the hunt, English pointers generally display an instinctive love of children, and Judy adored being in the presence of the Sung youngsters.
Dashing about the ship, hiding in her favorite cubbyholes, and challenging the kids to find her—these were some of Judy’s happiest moments amid all the tension and chaos of the war-torn lower Yangtze. Cries of delight from the children indicated that they’d discovered her, but Judy would rapidly turn the tables by dancing excitedly from paw to paw, then going rigid and seeming to point at the children’s bulging pockets—for the Sung youngsters always came bearing tasty gifts for Shudi, the peaceful one.
Judy’s next-best friend among the locals was known to all simply as Sew-sew. The reason for the nickname was self-evident: she was tasked with carrying out any sewing or other repairs required for clothing or furnishings aboard the Gnat. Sew-sew would spend her time perched on a stool on the open deck, needle and thread flashing in the sunlight as she attached a new white tape to the collar of a formal mess jacket, all the while talking in her soft singsong voice to her chief companion, an enraptured Judy.
But perhaps Judy’s foremost family of friends among the locals was the Amah brood. Amah herself was a woman of fierce repute along the Hankow Bund. Her entire family lived in a small rattan-covered sampan that was tied up on the dockside. Contracted to the British Admiralty, Amah had fought for and won the right for her boat to be used as the British gunboats’ “general use” vessel. She and her children spent their day ferrying men and matériel from ship to shore and back again, or if there was no demand for her ferry services, she’d busy herself touching up the paintwork on a gunboat’s hull.
Judy had grown to adore Amah and more specifically her children. Whenever she got the chance she’d leap from the Gnat into the sampan, and standing proud on the bow she’d oversee operations as Amah ferried a group of sailors to shore. But by far her favorite moment was when she was able to dart beneath the boat’s rattan covering, whereupon delighted squeals and shrieks would reveal that she was having a fine rough-and-tumble with Amah’s children.
Such were Judy’s special friends at Hankow, and via her local family she was doubtless able to get in touch with her feminine side. But on the troubled lower Yangtze in 1938 it was perhaps inevitable that few such extended families would remain intact for very long, not even those aboard the gunboats.
Inevitably, there was a churn among the British crews, as those who had completed their two and a half years of “foreign service” were rotated back to the UK. Many were reluctant returnees. Especially in the middle of a conflict like that currently unfolding, the life of a gunboat man was exciting and fraught with danger, which made it strangely compelling. By contrast, England in 1938 remained a land of stability and peace, offering none of the young sailors the buzz they could expect when patrolling the Yangtze.
But as with all good things, every crewman’s gunboat posting had to come to an end. Sadly for Judy, it was now the turn of her foremost shipmates to be rotated back to England. Vic Oliver, who’d plucked her out of the Yangtze; Tankey Cooper, who’d plucked her out of the Hankow cesspit; and Chief Petty Officer Jefferey, who’d plucked her out of the Shanghai Dog Kennels and chosen her as ship’s dog—all were going home. In light of the loss of so many of her close family, perhaps it was serendipitous that Judy was about to start a family of her own . . .
After heartfelt good-byes between those who were departing and the dog they were leaving behind, replacement crewmen came aboard the Gnat. Among them Judy seemed to take an instant liking to two very distinctive individuals. One was an easygoing giant of a man, Leading Seaman Law. The other, Able Seaman Boniface, better known to all as Bonny, was a real joker and was to become the character of the ship. It was to be Bonny and Law who’d perform the pivotal role in Judy’s forthcoming motherhood.
A French gunboat, the Francis Garnier, had docked opposite the Gnat, with an American vessel, the USS Tutuila, pulling in alongside. At first the arrival of the two Allied gunboats was seen as being a good excuse for some fine-spirited hospitality. The crew of the USS Tutuila was invited aboard the British ship for limited use of the ship’s canteen—in other words, her stock of beer. The beer was expected to last only until April 26, before rationing would again be required.
After a fine evening’s Anglo-American carousing, the crew of the Gnat challenged their Yankee fellows to a rifle match. It was a close-run thing: the British sailors won by one point. But from the Francis Garnier, the Gnat’s crew was about to receive an altogether more unexpected challenge—and very much more than they had ever bargained for.
It was Bonny who first noticed Judy’s odd behavior. He was seated in the crew’s mess, in the bows of the ship, trying to concentrate on the letter he was writing to his sweetheart back in Portsmouth. But whenever he seemed to get the words he was composing in his head just about right, Judy would get to her feet, whine insistently, wander about unhappily, then flop back down again.
Finally, she padded across to the ladder leading to the main deck and fresh air and stared upward with a fixed expression on her features. Then she turned imploringly to Bonny with the most heart-melting look in her eyes that he had ever seen.
Bonny put down his pen and stared right back at her. “How d’you expect me to persuade the barmaid in the Air Balloon that it’s all right for me to take her on holiday without her mom if you keep moaning and fidgeting?”
Judy flicked her gaze back to the ladder, then pinned Bonny once more with that pleading look.
Bonny got to his feet. “What’s up with you? You want to go for a little walk, is that it? Go on, then—up we go!”
Judy had become a fine hand at navigating the ladder, which was set at a thirty-degree angle with wide steel rungs like steps. Bonny followed, and together man and dog hung out on deck for a good few minutes. It was then that Judy took the initiative and led them down the gangway to the Gnat’s mooring, which was next to an old hulk of a merchant ship with all her masts and riggings removed.
Expecting Judy to want to run around and play, Bonny was more than a little surprised when all she seemed interested in doing was parading up and down the bare deck of the hulk. Head held at a proud slant, tail up and flying like a signal flag, she sauntered back and forth in a most uncharacteristic fashion. It was odd. Very odd. Bonny was at a loss to understand what she was doing.
Then he happened to glance across to the far side of the hulk, where the Francis Garnier was tied up. Suddenly the penny dropped. On the French ship’s bridge was a very disti
nctive looking four-legged crew member whose eyes were glued to Judy of Sussex’s every regal move. But what struck Bonny most was this: though slightly taller and broader of chest than Judy, the Francis Garnier’s ship’s dog could have been her brother.
He was an uncannily similar liver-and-white English pointer.
Chapter Six
Bonny stared at the Francis Garnier’s dog in surprise. As for Judy, she seemed to think that her work here was done. With a jaunty shake of her rear quarters she proceeded to turn tail on the French gunboat and her smitten admirer and saunter back up the gangway of the Gnat.
Bonny shook his head in amazement. “So that’s what it’s all about, then. But how like a typical female! She must have known he was there, yet she didn’t so much as look at him. Just showed herself off, then disappeared!”
In no time the courtship became the stuff of legend. In contrast to Judy, Paul, the Francis Garnier’s dog, made no attempt to disguise the fact that he had fallen head over heels in love. Now that he knew the object of his desire lay so tantalizingly close, he was forever breaking free and careering down the French vessel’s gangway, ending up spread-eagled on the hulk in his haste to get close to her.
Unperturbed, he’d bound back and forth across the open deck like a medieval knight in a heavy suit of armor, unaware that Judy would be watching in disdain with bared teeth and curled lip. Finally, in a desperate effort to gain her attention and curry her favor, Paul hammered along the entire length of the hulk at top speed, legs thrashing in a super canine show of male prowess. Unfortunately, he’d miscalculated his stopping power on the smooth deck.
With a despairing wail the French ship’s dog sailed off the bow and ended up in the harbor with a loud splash. Ironically, it was now that Judy finally showed her true feelings. She sprang to the Gnat’s rail, barking in alarm as her beau beat a path through the water toward her. Sensing that he couldn’t scale the sheer side of the British gunboat, Judy raced down the gangway with Bonny close behind. With Judy peering over the edge and continuing to bark urgently, Bonny reached down, grabbed Paul’s thick collar, and hauled him out of the water.