The sailors on board the man-o’-war were anxious not to miss any of the forthcoming action. The boat was lowered so swiftly it crashed into the water with an impact that rattled Kernow’s teeth. The Sans Pareil was still under way. Had it not been for the swift reaction of the pinnace’s crew the boat would have been dragged beneath the water by the speed of the larger vessel.
The crew swore loudly at the careless boat handlers on board the Sans Pareil, but the man-o’-war had already forged ahead, heeling over in a tight turn to cut across the path of the Imperial junk.
Minutes after the warning shot, the junk’s sail was lowered and the high-sided vessel slowed to the speed of the sluggish current.
There seemed to be some dissension among the Chinese crew. When the pinnace had covered no more than half the distance to the junk, the large lop-sided sail was raised once more and the vessel began to forge ahead. At the same time there was a puff of smoke from the small cannon on the junk’s deck and a round shot fell harmlessly in the sea, well to one side of the pinnace.
The shot did nothing to deter the young Royal Marine officer and Kernow called on the crew of the pinnace to pull harder towards the Chinese craft. The sailors responded with every ounce of strength they could muster.
The captain of the Sans Pareil had seen the incident and his action was swift and effective. A thunderous and accurate broadside was fired from the man-o’-war, momentarily hiding the warship from view behind a cloud of pungent gunpowder smoke.
The junk seemed to stagger drunkenly in the water as falling shot churned up the water around the Chinese vessel.
There were as many misses as hits, but when the junk emerged from the spray it had gaping holes in the timber hull and pieces of splintered wood bobbed in the wake of the clumsy vessel.
The crew of the pinnace had rested on their oars when the crash of the man-o’-war’s salvo rolled over them. As they began pulling towards the junk once more, Kernow called, ‘Wait! The Sans Pareil’s coming about. I think she’s going to fire again.’
The young second lieutenant was right. The captain of the British man-o’-war was bringing his ship around in a tight turn. No sooner was the manoeuvre completed than the guns on the starboard side of the ship thundered into action with no less effect than before.
This time the Sans Pareil’s cannon brought down the stricken vessel’s mast and sail. The junk wallowed lopsidedly in a slight swell, its broken mast hanging over the side, a long red and gold Imperial pennant trailing forlornly in the water.
The junk’s list increased as the sailors watched and it was apparent it had been holed beneath the water line by shot from the Sans Pareil.
‘Pull!’ Kernow shouted excitedly. ‘I don’t want the junk to sink before we get to it.’
The pinnace’s coxswain repeated the order, adding a few colourful expletives to add emphasis to the young Royal Marine officer’s words.
The junk was listing badly now, but the side of the vessel was still far higher out of the water than the Sans Pareil’s pinnace. Leading his boarding party of Royal Marines, a sword in his right hand, Kernow found it impossible to climb to the slanting deck of the wallowing vessel until two of the sailors in the pinnace literally pushed him on board.
For a few moments he stood alone on the deck of the Chinese craft. He was prepared to fight for his life, but there was nothing to be feared from the junk’s crew. Two grey-clad seamen lay dead on the deck, killed by the devastating broadsides of the Sans Pareil. No one else was to be seen.
Suddenly the junk began pitching and bucking alarmingly, caught in the wake of the man-o’-war. The Sans Pareil had come about once more and was passing no more than three ship’s lengths away. Only now did Kernow become aware of a sound that sent a chill of horror through him. From somewhere below the deck someone was screaming – and it was the scream of a woman.
Behind the young officer a Royal Marine scrambled to the junk from the pinnace. He was quickly followed by another – but Kernow hardly noticed. A young girl wearing a tight, blood-spattered blue satin dress had stumbled from a hatchway to the open deck. When she saw Kernow and the marines standing before her she screamed anew and tried to return the way she had come, but other blue-clad girls were clambering from the hold, making return impossible.
By the time the last of the marines succeeded in boarding the junk there were seven blue-clad girls standing on the deck, many of them weeping. There were also eleven men, two of them eunuchs, their bright silk clothes looking out of place among the drab grey uniforms worn by the junk’s crew.
‘Do any of you speak English?’
Kernow asked the question more in hope than expectation. The blank stares of the men and women provided an unspoken reply. In the silence he heard a sound from the hold beneath him. It sounded like the whimpering of an animal, but he could not be certain.
‘Two of you come with me,’ he said to the marines. ‘The rest of you stay here and guard these.’
Kernow clattered down the ladder to the hold, the marines behind him. At the bottom of the ladder he was forced to halt, his sword raised defensively until his eyes became accustomed to the gloom.
There was a movement in a corner of the hold and a woman’s voice said in uncertain but defiant English, ‘You come kill us? Then you kill this girl, She-she, number one. Maybe you stop her hurt.’
Kernow could see now despite the poor light in the passenger hold. A girl dressed in a similar fashion to those who had escaped from the hold was kneeling on the wooden deck, supporting the head of another, slightly built girl on her lap. Behind her was a gaping hole in the side of the hold through which he could see an expanse of muddy-green water. There were others in the hold. Bodies. One was that of a young girl, also dressed in blue. The remainder were men dressed in silk, like the two mustered on the upper deck.
‘Is she badly hurt?’ Kernow leaned over the girl held in the other’s arms.
‘Hurt bad. You no touch.’ The girl’s arms closed defensively about her friend.
‘We have a surgeon on board the Sans Pareil…’
Seeing the girl did not understand him, Kernow said in frustration, ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll have you out of here and off the junk as quickly as we can.’
He turned to the marines who had accompanied him to the hold. Pointing to the girl who had spoken, he said, ‘Get her up on deck. I’ll carry the wounded one. We’ll send them back to the Sans Pareil in the pinnace. We’d better take the other women too. Go in the boat with them and tell Captain Hamlyn the junk is sinking. We’ll need to take everyone off. It will probably be quicker if he lowers another boat to help out.’
At first Kau-lin protested when Kernow tried to take the badly wounded and unconscious She-she from her, but the gentle manner in which he lifted She-she succeeded where brute force would have failed.
Kernow picked up the wounded girl, surprised by how little she weighed. The movement brought a gasp of pain from her. As he climbed the ladder, leaning against the junk’s acute list, she opened her eyes momentarily. They were dark eyes, almost black, and they were filled with a pain that made him wince in sympathy for her. In the daylight he could see her more clearly. She was young, even younger than himself. She was also slim, beautiful – and bloody.
Ten minutes later the nine surviving blue dress girls were being rowed back to the man-o’-war in the pinnace while the marines carried out a thorough search of the vessel which was settling ever lower in the water.
Kernow and his marines found a great many official-looking documents on the junk. When another boat arrived they took the documents to the Sans Pareil with them.
By the time Kernow stepped on board the man-o’-war water was washing gently over the junk’s upper deck. The vessel’s all-wood construction made it doubtful whether it would ever sink completely, but it would have been both uncomfortable and dangerous for the blue dress girls and the junk’s crew to have remained on board.
On the Sans Pareil Second Lieut
enant Kernow Keats found he was required to defend his decision to take off the junk’s passengers and crew.
Captain Hamlyn sent for him and when Kernow entered the captain’s cabin he found the commanding officer seated behind a huge, polished desk. The naval officer’s eyebrows were locked together in a frown and his greeting was anything but friendly.
‘Mister Keats, what the devil do you mean by sending those Chinese girls to my ship?’
‘I couldn’t leave them on a sinking boat, sir. They’re … women.’
‘Chinese women, Mister Keats.’ The tone of Captain Hamlyn’s voice suggested they were talking of two different species. ‘You’ve made life damned difficult for me. What’s more, Chief Steward Lu tells me the women belong to the household of the Chief Customs Officer of Canton. They’re concubines. Why, they even have eunuchs with them! Perhaps you can suggest what I should do with them now?’
‘Take them back to Hong Kong?’ Kernow made the suggestion hesitantly, not certain whether he was expected to reply. ‘The wounded girl will probably need to go to hospital there anyway.’
‘At least we’re agreed on that! The surgeon says he has no facilities on board to treat the Chinese girl – and I have no intention of having my ship’s routine disrupted because of a handful of foreign women.’
Captain Hamlyn stood up and began pacing the room. The captain of the Sans Pareil was a bachelor. Rumour had it that he actually disliked women. He had been heard to state that they had destroyed the career prospects of more good fighting men than had the enemy.
Suddenly the man-o’-war’s captain came to a halt in front of Kernow. ‘My orders from Admiral Seymour are to maintain a blockade here, Mister Keats. To intercept Imperial shipping attempting to force a passage through the Bogue. Those are my orders. Now do you see the predicament you’ve placed me in?’
Kernow nodded, but he was determined to defend his actions. ‘I’m sorry I’ve put you in an awkward spot, sir, but I boarded a vessel that was sinking as a result of our action. I found a number of women – albeit Chinese women – on board. I had no alternative but to bring them off. I’m quite sure you, or any other Englishman, would have done the same.’
‘Perhaps, Mister Keats – or perhaps not.’
Apparently unwilling to pursue this line of argument, Captain Hamlyn said, ‘You have presented me with the problem, Mister Keats. I am therefore looking to you to provide a solution. You will take the pinnace and convey these “ladies” you have so nobly rescued to Hong Kong.’
Kernow was taken aback. Taking command of such a small boat presented no problems. Hong Kong was no more than a few hours’ sailing time away. But carrying nine young Chinese women as passengers, one of them badly wounded, was a different matter.
‘Begging your pardon, sir, what do I do with the women when I get there?’
‘I leave that entirely to your initiative, Mister Keats. The wounded girl will need to go to the mission hospital. If you talk nicely to Doctor Jefferies, the principal, the missionaries might accommodate the remainder.’
Captain Hamlyn allowed himself the rare luxury of a smug smile. ‘You possess a chivalrous nature, Mister Keats. I have no doubt you’ll think of something.’
Chapter 6
THE BLUE DRESS girls belonging to Li Hung remained on board the Sans Pareil overnight. Anchored off-shore, the man-o’-war was out of range of the guns of the Bogue, but a sharp lookout was kept against any surprise attack that might be launched against the ship from the mainland, or downriver from Canton.
An even more stringent watch was kept outside the ship’s sick bay, where the nine Chinese girls were billeted. The blue dress girls were used to entertaining Fan Quis and their dark eyes were bold as they lingered on men far younger and more attractive than the merchants they had known in the house of the Canton Hoppo.
Such was Captain Hamlyn’s concern for the mayhem the presence of girls on his ship was capable of creating, he ordered a strong guard to be mounted on the sick bay. It was composed of Royal Marines, officered by a Royal Navy lieutenant, and was changed every hour of the night. In addition, the officer-of-the-watch had orders to visit the guard at least once every hour and enter the visit in the ship’s log-book.
Kernow visited the girls, saying he wanted to be certain the wounded Chinese girl would be capable of making the voyage to Hong Kong by open boat the following morning.
He was accompanied by the officer-of-the-watch, and the ship’s surgeon. The surgeon thought it would make very little difference whether She-she travelled or not, declaring pessimistically she was probably going to die anyway. Whenever she regained consciousness she was in great pain and all he was able to do was keep her opiated.
He voiced this opinion in front of Kau-lin and the Chinese girl rounded on him angrily. ‘She-she not die! I take good care of her. Maybe find Chinese doctor Hong Kong. He make her number one good again.’
‘She’ll die whether or not someone sticks a few pins in her,’ said the ship’s doctor, with heavy sarcasm, referring to the use by Chinese doctors of acupuncture. ‘Her only hope is that Doctor Jefferies at the Mission hospital will spot something that has eluded me.’
Kernow looked down at She-she. The opiate given to her by the ship’s surgeon had sent her into a deep sleep. Her long black hair was lying loose on the pillow, accentuating the pallor and tight-drawn lines of her face.
He remembered the dark eyes that had opened briefly when he carried her from the hold of the sinking junk. He hoped he might see them again, this time free from pain.
It seemed a vain hope at this moment. She had lost a lot of blood. Nevertheless, she was a lovely-looking girl, so slim as to appear fragile, and with a childlike appeal. It would be a tragic loss if she were to die.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said to Kau-lin, with more confidence than he felt. ‘I’ll get her safely to Hong Kong and there’ll be someone there to make her well.’
Glaring at the ship’s surgeon who had sniffed scornfully at Kernow’s attempt to comfort her, Kau-lin returned her attention to the lieutenant and said, ‘You good man. Take She-she Hong Kong quick. No get better here.’
With this judgement on the talents of the Sans Pareil’s surgeon, Kau-lin turned her back on the three men and made a great show of tucking the bed-clothes about her sleeping friend.
Despite the forebodings of the Sans Pareil’s commanding officer, dawn arrived on the Pearl River estuary without any dire calamity having befallen his ship.
As men awoke to face a new day in the cramped quarters of the man-o’-war, Second Lieutenant Kernow Keats was subjected to a great deal of good-natured banter from the other young officers who occupied the gun-room quarters. All secretly envied him the mission for which he had been detailed.
Kernow’s orders were to take four marines with him as an escort for the nine young women he would be delivering to Hong Kong. Once there he needed to ensure they were suitably accommodated and provided for before returning to the Sans Pareil.
During the voyage to Hong Kong he would be in sole command of the pinnace. True, it carried no more than a twelve-man crew, but the boat mounted a twelve-pound howitzer and flew the ensign of the Royal Navy. It could be loosely classified as a fighting vessel. Furthermore, there would be no censorious senior officer peering over his shoulder during the voyage.
Although the task had been given to Kernow as a ‘punishment’ for bringing the Chinese women on board, there was not a young officer on board the ship who would not gladly have taken his place.
Kernow was aware of the problems he would face when he reached Hong Kong with the Chinese girls, but before that he intended enjoying the five-hour voyage to the harbour as commander of the Sans Pareil’s pinnace. It was an opportunity that occurred all too seldom for young naval or Royal Marine officers.
Kernow and his ‘cargo’ were given a noisy send-off by the ship’s company of the man-o’-war. The men clung to the rigging and waved from open gun-ports. When the ribald calls t
hreatened to get out of hand Captain Hamlyn sent his officers among them with the threat of public floggings.
In the pinnace, Kernow gave the order to raise the sail. Within minutes the Sans Pareil, tugging impatiently at her anchor rope, was left behind. Second Lieutenant Kernow Keats was taking Li Hung’s blue dress girls to Hong Kong and an uncertain future.
When a steady course had been maintained for some time and the man-o’-war was no more than a dot on the horizon, Kernow made his way from the stern of the pinnace to where She-she occupied a stretcher placed just in front of the mast. Kau-lin sat beside her, holding her friend’s hand. She-she had been opiated on board the Sans Pareil, but the effect of the drug was wearing off.
‘Is she all right?’
Kernow put the question to Kau-lin but he smiled at She-she as he talked. Her expressive dark eyes were open today and he was very much aware of them staring up at him.
‘Her name She-she. I Kau-lin. You speak name. She-she say hurt too much.’
Kernow’s face expressed his sympathy. ‘I’m very sorry about that. Tell She-she I’ll get to Hong Kong as quickly as I can. There’ll be a good missionary doctor there to take care of her.’
The young Royal Marine smiled down at She-she once more, but she seemed not to be reassured. Her eyes opened so wide she appeared almost occidental for a moment or two.
At that moment the coxswain of the pinnace called to Kernow from the stern, ‘There’s a junk dead ahead, sir. Some way off yet, but coming up fast. It seems to have a couple of banks of oars, like that pirate ship we chased off Formosa a couple of weeks back.’
The Blue Dress Girl Page 4