The First to Land (1984)

by Reeman, Douglas

  He could have waited for passage in a warship, but the Cocatrice was faster if only because of her lack of armament.

  He touched his bare skin with his fingers. It was almost dusk and yet he was still damp with sweat. It had been another long, hot day in the Indian Ocean, ninety degrees of blazing sunshine and not a breath of air.

  He too had been thinking of Hawks Hill all those hundreds, thousands of miles away. The gardens, the terraces, the agelessness of the rooms with their great pictures and proud portraits.

  His youngest brother, Jonathan, would be at sea by now unless there had been some delay. Neil, the middle brother who was twenty-three, was probably still serving as a lieutenant in a frigate in India. Communications might be far superior to those of his father’s day, but it still took a long, long while to discover what was happening around the fleet.

  He closed his eyes and half listened to the rumble of the great paddles. The passage seemed as if it would never end. They had spent a week at Trincomalee where he had been invited to several dances and receptions aboard ships there. Thank God for the Suez Canal, he thought. It did cut the monotonous journey by weeks.

  It would be cold and frosty in Hampshire. Bare trees, sodden hedgerows. He felt his lips smile. Heaven.

  Singapore next, then Hong Kong, and then? It was pointless to think further than that. The Chinese situation might have settled itself. He might easily be sent home to England, another ship.

  He thought of the day he had joined the Royal Sovereign at Gibraltar. The glances in the mess, the way they looked from his Victoria Cross to his face as if to discover something. Even the battleship’s captain had received him with something like awe.

  ‘Two VCs in one family.’ He had asked dryly, ‘Have you finished now?’

  And yet the only thing that had made that fight on the Niger River different for Blackwood had been its ferocity and the firm belief that he was going to be killed.

  His captain had died within minutes, a sergeant major next, and two experienced marines before Lieutenant David Blackwood had been made to realize that it was upon himself and a small squad of marines that the whole flank depended.

  His hand moved up to his shoulder and rested momentarily on a livid scar. The bullet had remained embedded in his body for a whole day before he could find a surgeon. In that climate and under such conditions it was a marvel the surgeon had not lopped off his arm. As it was he still felt pain on occasion. He smiled again, the shadows falling from his face, making him look younger than his twenty-seven years.

  There was the girl in Trincomalee. The young wife of an army paymaster who had gone into the interior to visit some isolated infantry unit.

  She had made the stay in Ceylon memorable with the fierceness of her passion, her need of him. Her husband was either a lot older than she, or unaware of the luck he should have enjoyed. She had knelt over him in that tall, cool room one night, her loosened hair touching his body until his eagerness for her was roused yet again. She had kissed the scar so that the shame he had felt over it seemed dispersed and forgotten.

  He peered at his watch on its stand beside the bunk. It would be laughable but for the discomfort. For even in the little Cocatrice you dressed for dinner. Swan, his servant and attendant, would be here soon to arrange a bath and lay out a clean shirt and all the rest of it.

  Then in the cramped saloon, with the captain at the head of the table, he would have to endure a hot curry, and some conversation which got more stilted with each league steamed.

  There were ten passengers including two Catholic nuns who were intending to join a mission somewhere in China. One was old, the other quite young and pretty. The sailors had been ordered by the captain to mind their language as they worked the ship. He on the other hand, who was a model of good behaviour in the saloon, had a tongue like a lash when he was on his bridge.

  Blackwood threw his legs over the side of his bunk and ruffled his dark hair. In the mirror above the small washstand and dressing case he saw his eyes watching himself. Tawny-brown like his mother’s. An ordinary face, he told himself, with lines by his mouth as evidence of his suffering after being wounded.

  He saw the door open in the mirror, Swan’s head coming round it as it always did. The ritual was about to be repeated.

  Private Jack Swan of the RMLI had a round, homely face like a polished apple. Hampshire born and bred, he came from a family of marines. That was so common in the Corps it was barely ever mentioned except by exasperated drill-sergeants on the barracks square. ‘Don’t suppose yew ’ad a mother or father, did yer?’

  Swan was the same age as Blackwood and the latter had given up trying to make him go for promotion to corporal. Swan was intelligent and quick, both at his duties and in the fury of a battle. He had been with him for three years and whenever Blackwood had mentioned the subject Swan had replied in his round Hampshire dialect, ‘Better wait ‘n’ see, sir. Early days.’ It was hopeless.

  Swan reached into the canvas wardrobe and took out the mess jacket. Like everything else he supervised it was perfect, but it gave him time to glance at his master. Not the young captain with a VC but the man underneath.

  Captain Blackwood had the look of recklessness which made him appeal to women. Swan knew that better than most. He was not one to drive his men when they were doing their best either. But get on the wrong side of him and you would soon know it. They said his father, the old Major General, had been like him once. Blood, guts and women.

  Swan gave his secret smile. Promotion indeed. Just being with the young captain was worth all the stripes in the bloody Corps!

  Africa, then the Med, next China. In the Corps you took it all for granted. Like their motto. By sea and land. Barracks or frigate, mud huts or stockade, you were still a marine.

  The captain’s next appointment bothered Swan a bit. He was a hero. Swan had felt quite proud when he had read it in the newspaper. It seemed to rub off on him in some way. He had been with him when those black bastards had tried to cut down the Royals. Swan had lost some good mates on that bloody awful day. He’d not forget that in a hurry.

  Unbeknown to either of them, Swan and Captain Blackwood’s father thought much the same about the proposed appointment.

  The Chinks had learned their lesson back in the fifties in the Arrow War as it was called. In 1856 the Chinese had seized a British ship of that name and it had resulted in the bombardment of Canton and a considerable loss of life. In Swan’s uncomplicated mind there seemed little likelihood that anything like that would be repeated.

  Later at dinner in the Cocatrice’s saloon Blackwood had to use something like physical effort to prevent his eyelids from drooping.

  The curry had been extra hot, and the captain’s wine limp and warm.

  The two nuns said nothing, their eyes hidden by their wimples. Only once did the young one glance up as Blackwood replied to the captain’s comment about a Boer uprising in South Africa.

  Blackwood had been thinking about something else. Of Hawks Hill, and what his brother Neil had written to him about their father’s expensive tastes. The farmers did not like the hunt trampling over their fields but could do nothing about it. The labourers on the estate met nothing but rebuffs whenever they tried to have improvements made to their cottages. Trent, the estate steward, had told them to shut up or get out, and jobs were not so easy to find as winter closed in.

  Something would have to be done, otherwise Hawks Hill would find itself in serious debt.

  He had looked at the captain and had replied, ‘If it comes to anything I expect we’ll have to go in and finish the fight for the army!’ Perhaps it had come out sharper than he had intended. Maybe he was just tired, but he saw the girl’s eyes lift to his face. Her empty untroubled expression had made him feel clumsy and childish.

  The captain laughed. ‘Always spoiling for a battle, you lot are!’

  One of the passengers, a rubber planter returning to Singapore with his newly found wife from England, lea
ned over the table and said loudly, ‘I see you have the VC, er, Captain Blackwood. Would you care to tell us how you won it?’

  Blackwood looked at him coldly. ‘No.’

  The planter grinned at his wife. ‘Modest too.’

  Blackwood stood up abruptly. ‘Please excuse me.’

  He heard the captain murmur, ‘He’s had a bad time, poor fellow. Must make allowances.’ He also heard the planter’s loud guffaw. He suddenly wanted to return to the saloon and tell them in straight, unvarnished words what it was like, really like, not just once when someone gave you a medal, but all the other occasions in places which most Britons had never heard of. What right had those nuns to look at him as if he was some sort of animal?

  Always spoiling for a battle, the captain had said. He had only been joking, but it was probably true. Aboard Royal Sovereign with her endless drills and ceremonial Blackwood had thought of those other times, the fear and elation, the ready comradeship and rough humour which had made his men special. A walk on deck, then some brandy in the cabin. Another day nearer his destination.

  There would be some familiar faces at Singapore, rumours to discuss.

  He walked to the guardrails and watched the great frothing wash sweeping astern from one of the paddles. Ships such as this one were putting paid to sail. The steam engine and the opening of the Suez Canal through which the square-riggers could not navigate were making sure of it.

  Blackwood had been in the Corps for nine years and had served aboard a sailing frigate when he had first gone to sea. He remembered it clearly. The creaking spars and booming canvas, the sense of mystery which sailing vessels still retained. What was it some old tar had said? Sail is a lady. Steam a bundle of iron. He smiled and returned to the companion way.

  Within minutes of his head touching the pillow Captain David Blackwood of the Royal Marines Light Infantry, Victoria Cross and Mentioned in Despatches, was fast asleep.

  The Officer Commanding Troops of the big transport Aurora leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingertips together. All round the cabin the hull shook to the thump of booted feet, the clatter of tackles and shouted orders as the last of the military came on board.

  The Aurora was very old and fitted with a single propellor which would probably break down before they reached the Bay of Biscay. He hoped it would not be the case, for the trooper was packed to the deck beams with soldiers, guns, supplies, even some mules and horses, many of which were destined for the latest trouble in South Africa. A whole company of Royal Marines had been the last to arrive on board. The OC Troops did not like the Royal Marines. They were neither one thing nor the other in his view.

  Outside the stout hull he heard the muffled sound of a military band on Portsmouth Point as it ran through its repertoire of lively and patriotic tunes. A great crowd had gathered on the harbour wall and pier to watch the old ship put to sea. Mothers and children, wives and lovers. Troopships were only too common as they sailed to the ends of the Empire to restore peace and good order, to attack and destroy the Queen’s enemies. But to the watching crowd each ship was different.

  The rain was sheeting down. He would be glad to leave. But he had to see a junior second lieutenant of the Royal Marines. He snapped, ‘Enter!’

  Ralf Blackwood marched through the door and halted smartly in front of the desk.

  The OC Troops said coolly, ‘You should see one of your own officers. I have a thousand things to deal with. However –’

  He would have liked to have kicked him out of the cabin, but a friend had told him that this young marine came from an important family.

  Ralf Blackwood was still not sure what he had been expecting when he had marched with a full company from the barracks to Portsmouth dockyard. Even here in harbour his stomach heaved from a mixture of smells. Horses and men, cabbage water, tar and sweat. Once at sea he would probably be sick.

  ‘My quarters are inadequate, sir.’

  ‘What?’ He swallowed his anger. ‘Four officers to a cabin. When I was your age, your rank, I was lucky to get a berth at all!’

  Ralf hung his head. ‘I’m not even sharing with a Royal Marine, sir.’

  That did it. ‘Not good enough, eh?’ He flung some papers aside from his desk and stared furiously at a list of names and cabins. ‘Three second lieutenants from the Rifles! They’re the ones who should be objecting!’

  Ralf Blackwood stared at a point above the other officer’s left epaulette. Damn him to hell, and his uncle too for landing him in this slum. He thought of London, the bright-eyed girls, the music and the balls he so enjoyed.

  He did not really know his cousin David but from what he had heard he was not one to take any misdemeanour lightly. It was all so damned unfair. He felt his eyes smart with despair. A warship would at least be tolerable. Where they were going sounded like the end of the earth.

  The OC Troops winced as something very heavy crashed down on the upper desk and was followed by a stream of obscenities from one of the ship’s petty officers. He could waste no more time.

  ‘I have little to do with your Corps.’ His tone was icy. ‘But I can only advise you to think less of yourself and a bit more of your responsibility, if you have any!’

  Ralf snapped his heels together and left the cabin, his face devoid of expression but inwardly seething.

  The major in command of the marines saw him and shouted, ‘And just where the bloody hell have you been?’ Like the OC Troops, he was preoccupied with getting his own people settled in their overcrowded quarters. ‘Report to the Adjutant at the double, sir!’

  An artillery lieutenant touched Ralf’s sleeve as the angry major strode away.

  ‘Never mind him. I understand you’re quite a hand at cards?’

  Ralf was both surprised and flattered by the other officer’s knowledge.

  He thought of the General’s Room, the great house which but for his parents’ deaths might have been his.

  They treated him like a child. Aunt Deirdre and her dreamy detachment from daily events. And his uncle, always on at him to remember the family, uphold the honour of the Corps. He was a fine one to lecture him. Ralf had heard things about the General’s mother, about Harry Blackwood’s own affairs with whores no better than she.

  Ralf replied calmly, ‘Any time.’

  The artillery lieutenant grinned. ‘As soon as we leave harbour.’

  Ralf watched him go. This time his luck must change.

  His sergeant found him and saluted.

  ‘The men are waitin’, sir.’ He ran his eyes over the second lieutenant, critical and anxious. He would have to carry this one, he could see all the signs. Spoiled, arrogant, lazy. But if he let down the platoon and the adjutant became aware of it he knew who would get the blame.

  ‘Let them wait, Sergeant. Can’t you deal with them?’

  The sergeant saw one of his corporals watching and glared. His own wife was out there on the dockside. Two kids he might never see again.

  Blackwood was a fine name in the Corps. The sergeant tightened his belt and grimaced. But there was usually a rotten apple in any barrel.

  The Aurora slipped between Portsmouth Point and Fort Blockhouse just before dusk, her black and white hull shining in the steady rain like glass.

  Her decks were crammed with scarlet and green, blue and khaki, the great anonymous mass of faces peering for someone dear or familiar as the band played its own farewell. Hundreds of troopships had sailed from here, and many more would follow. But it was a moment they would all remember.

  2

  The Letter

  Private Swan took the sword and helmet and laid them carefully on a chest while he gauged his master’s mood.

  Outside the white-painted room the air still vibrated to the sorrowful drums and the slow marches of marines and soldiers, as dust swirled over the docks and parade ground and seemed to change colour in the sunshine.

  David Blackwood allowed Swan to unfasten and remove his tunic. His shirt was plastered to his bod
y like a second skin. After the marching and the drills the room felt almost cold.

  No matter what was happening in other parts of the Queen’s Empire the importance of ceremonial remained paramount. There had been several visits to Hong Kong by senior foreign dignitaries as well as senior British officers. It seemed as if almost overnight Hong Kong had become the hinge upon which the power in Whitehall extended to the Far East and beyond. In the spring it would be the ailing Queen’s birthday, and that would mean even more drills and parades.

  In South Africa what first had been scoffed at as a mere skirmish had changed into a full-scale and bloody war where British troops were too often getting the worst of it. That again was impossible to accept. Trained regular soldiers and marines against Boer farmers and renegades. More than once the enemy sharpshooters had proved a match for cavalry and tactics which had not altered since the Crimea.

  Blackwood sighed and waited for Swan to tug off his boots. It was now February 1900, and he had been in Hong Kong with little to occupy his time since he had arrived in the Cocatrice.

  The harbour and dockyard were packed with men-of-war. Gleaming white hulls or black and buff, they represented the new iron navy. Here and there like reminders of a past era were still some of the old ‘wooden walls’, now mostly used as store and hospital ships.

  Blackwood thought of his brother Neil who had been sent to South Africa. He had received one letter from him which had described the raids on Boer positions, the unending sniping which had caused heavy casualties amongst the British troops.

  He had seemed extra bitter in that letter, scornful of the generals who had no idea of modern fighting conditions. He had described the perils of moving large numbers of men across open country without breaking formation even under fire.

  David Blackwood could picture his father striding about his room at Hawks Hill, laying down the law on what they should be doing in the colony, demanding that he should be sent to take command. No wonder there was news of more trouble in China, he thought. The Empire seemed beset from every side while the great powers of France and Germany watched with unconcealed satisfaction. A real uprising in China would at least cement the relationships between these powers. But by the time they realized that danger like prosperity could be shared, it might be too late.