Nexus Deep (Kirov Series Book 31)

by Schettler, John

  We were told about that ship, she knew—Kirov —and that warning came from the future. Yet here I am about to do something that will introduce a major variation in time. I’m out to find and take this key, which means everything I did in my quest to find and save Rodney simply cannot happen. All those long conversations I had with Fedorov, and Admiral Tovey… They cannot occur. There will be no reason for those words to ever be spoken.

  Then it struck her like a thunderclap. If I take this key, then we’ll never get back to the time line we left. We’ll be resetting it to an entirely new meridian, one where the urgency of our quest to find the key aboard Rodney never happens… and yet… it must happen. Otherwise, I could not be sitting here on this ship, in the year 1804.

  Which one was correct? Was the sinking of Rodney and the loss of the key a mandatory event underpinning her mission here? If so, then Morgan was correct—they would never find the key here. This was all a fanciful jaunt through time, and a dangerous one as well. They were going to fail.

  “Damn it, Mack,” she swore. “Now you’ve gone and spoiled my day.” Yet at soon as she said that, her mind was already trying to find another reason that would permit their success here. She didn’t want these thorny wrinkles in time to dampen her ardor for the mission, determined as ever to find this key, and by so doing, get one step closer to solving the mystery they presented.

  We could find the key, she thought, but then we might become the means it finds its way aboard Rodney . It was thin. She could not see that as happening, because she thought they would return to 1943, well after Rodney was sunk. I’m playing with fire here. I’m tiptoeing around the edges of Paradox, and by god, that’s dangerous…. Oh, Lord Elgin, you’ve no idea what your plunder may bring home to the Kingdom. But then again, neither do I.

  * * *

  As fate would have it, Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, would have his hand deep in the jar of time, and grasp more than he could fathom. Perhaps it was family lineage, heritage, or some arcane quality of the blood that would also make that strangely true of his son, James Bruce, the 8th Earl of Elgin, who would become both the Viceroy of India and High Commissioner and Plenipotentiary in China and the Far East. In that capacity, the 8th Earl would take part in yet another desecration of the arts, this time the so called ‘Summer Palace’ of the Qing Emperor of China, in the year 1860.

  While the 7th Earl might rightly claim that his acquisition of the Parthenon Marbles was an act of conservation, the same cannot be claimed by the son. For it was James Bruce who delivered the final blow to the sprawling grounds and buildings of the Qing Palace in Peking. After three days of maniacal looting by French troops, and some British as well, the 8th Earl of Elgin ordered the entire place put to the torch, seeing hundreds of cedar buildings, reception halls, galleries, residences, museums, the whole lot go up in a pall of smoke that would hang over Peking for days.

  It is a story that has its origins in British Imperialism, and the inevitable clash of cultures that often rose from it. The Western Powers had been attempting to further their interests in the Far East, which led to demands for freer trade with China, the opening of ports, and more rights and privileges for British citizens engaged in those activities. Some of that trade, however, was the exchange of British cultivated opium for Chinese tea, silk, porcelain, and taels of silver, and as the opium addictions began to spread like a dark weed through Chinese society, conflict resulted that became known as the “Opium Wars.”

  One such war had already been fought, concluded by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842, an agreement the Qing Dynasty believed was “unequal.” It had been enforced by “gunboat diplomacy,” and so in 1856, when Britain began to clamor for a complete opening of China to free trade, a full legalization of the opium trade as well, conflict blossomed again from those weeds.

  As always, big things have small beginnings, and it was a very small cargo ship, the Arrow , that would threaten to destroy the famous ‘Arrow of Time’ in a way no one then alive might fathom. The Arrow was a Lorcha, which was a small ship rigged out with sails like a Chinese Junk, but having a European built hull. She had been registered to fly the British flag, and was anchored in the harbor at Canton, on October 8, 1856.

  It was a fine morning, and the ship’s Master, young Thomas Kennedy, had taken a boat to row over to another Lorcha, the Dart , where he was having breakfast with her Master. As they sat there, finishing up a cup of well brewed Tieguanyin , a tea known as “The Iron Goddess,” Kennedy noticed a couple of Mandarin boats rowing in towards his ship, the oars manned by rows of uniformed men.

  “Now what are they up to?” he said aloud.

  “Have you got passengers aboard?” asked the other Master. “They may be here to ferry them over to Hong Kong.”

  “I’ve no passengers who expressed any such interest,” said Kennedy…. He stopped, staring, and watching as many of the oarsmen boarded his ship. Then his blood ran cold.

  “By God in his heaven,” he exclaimed. “They’re hauling down the ensign! I’ve got to get over there!”

  By the time he arrived, sweating with the exertion of his haste, he saw the situation was far more serious than it first seemed. Twelve members of his crew, all Chinese sailors, had been apprehended, their hands bound, and they were being led off his ship into the Chinese longboats. He was quick to come along side, his anger apparent in his tone.

  “What in bloody hell are you doing? What’s the meaning of this?”

  Much of what he got back was in Mandarin, and he could not understand it. So his only recourse was to get himself to the British Consul and lodge a formal complaint with Sir Harry Parkes. Attempting to intervene by contacting the Imperial High Commissioner, Yeh Mingchen, Parkes would learn that the crew had been seized on suspicion of piracy.

  “Is that so?” said Parkes, his feathers ruffled. (Adept at Mandarin, he was speaking in Chinese, though I paraphrase his remarks here for the English speaker’s ear.) “Well, you’ve come aboard a British flagged ship, and without getting leave to do so from the ship’s Master. You seized that ship’s lawful crew, and I want them returned, publicly. Then I will cooperate fully with you to investigate any crimes they may be accused of.”

  His initial effort saw the release of nine men, but he refused to receive them, demanding the entire crew should be released before any charges were brought. If grounds were found for piracy, then he would turn them over to Chinese authorities himself.

  “Send this to your High Commissioner,” he said to the messenger. “Tell him he has 48 hours to comply with this request, or I will escalate this matter for action by our Naval Board. I don’t know what these men may have done, and I’m fully prepared to get to the bottom of this, but by God, I’ll teach you to respect the British flag when you see one.” He folded his arms, adamant. “Do you hear me? Forty-eight hours!”

  A day later a message was sent indicating that no British flag had been seen, and that the Lorcha was therefore not even a British registered ship!

  “That’s an outrage,” said Master Kennedy. “I might be slack with me papers, but there’s no question that the ensign was flying clear and high on the mainmast that morning. I saw the ruddy buggers haul it down myself! I thought we taught them a lesson back in ‘42.”

  “They’re crafty,” said Parkes. “We had Canton open as a single port for trade, and gained four others with the Treaty of Nanking, but we still can’t set foot off the docks and quays and even enter the goddamned city here. It’s as if they see us as a contamination. The Emperor sits up there in Peking, in his bloody palaces, and thinks he runs the whole bloody world! I’ll take this right on up to Sir John Bowring, Superintendent of Trade.”

  He did exactly that, but found the High Commissioner Yeh to be very evasive, delaying at every turn, refusing to consult Peking on the matter. He would finally simply drop off the remaining crew at night near the warehouses at the harbor, but Parkes and Bowring would not stand for that. They demanded that the crew be publ
icly reinstated, and a formal apology made. The High Commissioner was stubbornly silent, and the matter was then referred to Rear Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, the Commander of all British squadrons in the Far East.

  A dozen crewmen and a flag…. That was how it started, and it would end four years later, in a way that neither side could foresee, with bloodshed, war, fire and destruction. Before it ended, France, Russia and the United States would be drawn into the spinning gyre of the conflict, and the Russians would end up gaining their prized deep water port on the Pacific, Vladivostok.

  The British would secure trade rights, open more Chinese ports, legalize the commerce of their opium, and demand and receive indemnity payments in silver. Yet these were the least important things they would acquire in that little spat. Though it was not anticipated or looked for, the 8th Earl of Elgin would find a treasure in the heart of Peking far greater than any he could imagine.

  Chapter 33

  The war, like all wars, started with a small dispute, its nascent fire being fanned by the pride of the men leading either side. Admiral Seymour would seize a few barrier forts on the rivers that flowed near Canton, and Marines would be landed to protect the Western controlled factories near the harbor. The Chinese High Commissioner would harass them day and night, attempt to poison Sir John Bowring and his family where they lived at Hong Kong, all while slowly assembling a small army to oppose the upstart Europeans, collecting war junks to challenge them on the rivers.

  The Chinese, however, were not as adept at the art of war as their European opponents. The matter would escalate, until Canton itself was shelled and occupied, an amazing feat considering that this city of nearly a million people had been “taken” by a force of no more than 6000 troops from various nations, including Britain, Russia, France and the United States. High Commissioner Yeh himself would eventually be captured and sent off to a British prison in India, where he died of starvation, adamant to the last, as he refused to take any food from his captors.

  The “incident” led to more demands upon the Chinese to open additional ports and loosen trade restrictions, and to force these concessions, an expedition would be mounted to the port of Tianjin in the north, the gateway port to the Emperor’s Capitol at Peking.

  It must be said that of all the things the Emperor was contending with in those years, this little annoyance by the “barbarians” that had been infesting his coastline in recent years was not high on the list. There had been an internal rebellion underway for some time, and literally millions had died in that civil conflict. So the Xianfeng Emperor (Yizhu), and his Imperial Court, would make concessions, to the “foreign devils,” agreeing to a new treaty, thinking to dispense with the matter. But they would be very slow to sign and formalize any such arrangements, further trying the patience of the British and their allies.

  It would be years after the initial “Arrow ” incident before the situation would escalate to a more serious conflict. In that time, Parkes, Bowring and Seymour would collect allies, ships, and men in Hong Kong, awaiting the arrival of Lord Elgin, who had been named High Commissioner and Plenipotentiary in China and the Far East. The French had sent one Baron Gros to represent their interests. Though they outwardly agreed to negotiate, the Chinese would secretly summon one of their Mongolian Generals, Sengge Rinchen, to deal with the Europeans.

  The British had taken the forts protecting the river once before, and rather easily, so on the 25th of June, 1859, they had every reason to think they would do the same thing. But things had changed. In the long year since the last time there had been trouble here, the Chinese had placed large heavy metal spikes in the riverbed, but claimed that they had been put there to prevent pirates from entering. The local authorities promised to remove them to allow a small British flotilla to pass, but instead, they began to strengthen the barriers, adding in boulders and smaller rocks. It was soon found that many other impediments had been built. First, piles were driven into the riverbed astride the main channel. Then iron chains studded with floating timber were stretched across the entire width of the river, and lastly, heavy rafts, many feet thick, were floated into blocking positions where the waterway narrowed.

  “Typical of them,” said Admiral James Hope, the commander of the British Fleet for this adventure. “They speak out of both sides of their mouth, say one thing, but do another. This is intolerable. We shall have no recourse other than to run up the gunboats and silence those forts. Then we can clear these obstacles and proceed up river.”

  That would prove to be more easily said than done. The river was now guarded by a series of forts named after a town at its mouth, Taku. These so called “Taku Forts” were stony outposts, each one with a crenulated wall where the barrels of rudimentary cannons would jut forth to threaten any ships attempting to pass on the river. It was here that the bluster and arrogance of the Westerners would meet its first test, at what became known as the 2nd Battle of the Taku Forts.

  The British had the bulk of the naval units at hand, and so Admiral Hope, now succeeding Seymour, organized his flotillas. He had 11 gunboats at his disposal, small craft of 230 to 270 tons, and most having only two guns, one boat, the Cormorant , had four guns, and the best of the flotilla was the Nimrod , a six-gun sloop.

  The ensuing engagement would give the Chinese every reason to think they could carry on with their game of delay, bluff, and subterfuge with the British. It was ill managed from the first, when Hope attempted to advance up river at low tide, and could only get four gunboats over the sandbars, Plover, Opossum, Lee, and Haughty .

  On the left bank of the river mouth, the “Great South Fort” was a long entrenchment, with three stone parapets and 58 guns of all sorts. Just beyond its southern end was another squarish fort with 10 guns. The matter at hand was to first find a way to silence the enemy guns, so as to permit the bluecoat Marines aboard the gunboats to land and have at them.

  Using the word ‘land’ was a bit of a misnomer on two counts. Firstly, the approach to the forts, through the shallows of the river, would quickly become a slog through mud flats. So there was no place to “land,” and the act of attempting to do so would better be described as a wallow, and not a landing. If Hope were to get men over those wetlands to dryer land beyond, he would then be faced with rows of barbed wood piles and other entanglements as a barrier, and beyond this was a series of trenches or moats, the last of which was a deep flooded ditch. Only then could the troops attempt to scale the walls of the fort, and if they did get up, there would be hundreds of Chinese troops waiting for them there.

  Against this defense, Hope would fling his leading four gunboats, with two guns each. The British howitzers were newer, more accurate, more powerful, but being outnumbered 58 to 8 was a rather severe handicap. The result was a foregone conclusion.

  The day was fine and hot, the Chinese gunfire hotter, and very well ranged. They knew where the enemy boats would have to go, and had plenty of time to practice shooting right into the navigable channel.

  Plover was one of the first to take hits, her commander, William Hector Rason, killed by shot from a cannon early on. The poor man was literally cut in two by a round, and died instantly. Admiral Hope’s Flag Lieutenant, George Douglas, took command of the gunboat, where the Admiral himself had been bold enough to plant his flag. It wasn’t long before he was also wounded by a splinter, and that wound, with the fact that Plover was being badly pounded, forced Hope to transfer his flag to the Cormorant , further back in the muddle of the other eight gunboats that had not managed to get over the bar.

  Admiral Hope, weakened from loss of blood, turned command over to Captain Shadwell, who was wise enough to see the attack was folly, and ordered the gunboats to withdraw. The Chinese were firing at everything, and had already sunk the Kestrel . Then Lee had to be grounded to avoid going down, and Shadwell could see that the naval engagement had been a disaster. So the little flotilla decided to turn the affair over to the Marines. In addition to their crews, there were 30 to 35 Ma
rines on each gunboat, and so a force of 350 men was wallowed ashore on the left bank, beneath the parapet that had taken the most damage from the ill-fated gunboat sortie.

  Of those 350 men, only about 50 would get through all the obstacles, over the flooded ditch, and actually make the attempt to scale the walls. Captain Shadwell would not make it, being wounded himself in the attempt. The Chinese had muskets, and would also rain down stones, hot pitch, and stinkpots on the exposed Marines below. It was soon clear that those 50 men were not going to take this fort, and so now the action became nothing more than an effort to get them safely back, and gather up as many of the wounded and fallen as possible.

  The Barbarians had been stopped cold.

  Two gunboats were sunk, another burned. 89 officers and men were killed, with 345 wounded. When the news reached Lord Elgin, he was incensed.

  “How in the world? For us to be so roundly beaten by these Coolies and bearded Mandarins is an absolute insult! If this matter is to ever be resolved as it should, the Kingdom will have to get serious in the making of war there. I intend to go to Hong Kong Directly, and will wait until adequate forces are dispatched before taking any further action. British prestige is at stake here! This insult must be redressed.”

  He might have used the word “avenged,” but would have even more cause to do so later. Lord Elgin’s demand for serious military muscle would be met. 12,600 troops would arrive from British India under command of Lieutenant General Sir Hope Grant. They were tough professional soldiers, the 44th Foot and 67th South Hampshires. To these, the French would add a fresh contingent of 8000 men under General Cousin de Montauban. The military would construct flat bottomed boats to get men over the shallows of the river, and rafts with landing planks. Soon Lord Elgin would lead that force into a maelstrom of wanton, rapacious violence.