Not that it had all been doom and gloom. And, as I’d suspected, it had certainly stirred things up a bit. Just after the worst of the wind passed, there was suddenly a great commotion – Peggy, who I’d thought had been dozing in Petty Officer Griffiths’ cabin, was out on deck, barking herself hoarse.
We all went out to find out what was going on, gathering at the guardrails, to see a haystack floating past the Amethyst, with a dog standing on top of it, barking back. Peggy was beside herself, understandably. Was this the first fellow canine she’d seen in a year? Probably. I wondered if we’d see a cat next.
‘Shall we try to lasso it for you, Pegs?’ Petty Officer Griffiths was saying to her, laughing.
‘I think it’s love at first sight,’ remarked Lieutenant Strain drily.
There was more to come. Soon another haystack appeared in the distance, this one topped off not by a cat, but by a chicken.
‘Ruddy hell, is this some evil communist torture?’ Frank said. ‘God, what I wouldn’t give to see that roasted on a plate.’
But if the chicken had roused the crew’s hunger, the next thing had them drooling – for it was not a haystack this time, but a pig!
‘Saints alive,’ somebody shouted from above me. ‘Someone fetch some rope or something! Anything! We can get that! A whole pig!’
There was a frantic scrabble while everyone flew in all directions, trying to find something to lasso the animal with before the tide pulled it out of our reach. And they made a good fist of it; more than once managing to get a rope round it before the current got the upper hand and the pig, looking up at its tormentors with terrified eyes, managed to slip the makeshift noose.
‘No fresh pork for dinner tonight, then,’ Frank observed, as it disappeared into the distance and whatever alternative fate awaited it. ‘Bully beef it is, then,’ he added, sighing, and as I looked at the men’s expressions, the brief excitement snatched from them – literally – I couldn’t help but wish they liked sardines as much as I did. For all the privations, we had more than enough of those.
‘Woof,’ said Peggy, dolefully. We all knew how she felt.
Though the effects of Typhoon Gloria were largely behind us now, we had much to be grateful to her for. We didn’t know it yet, but the high tide, the current and the flooding on the banks were all going to be our friends.
However, when I entered Captain Kerans’ cabin that afternoon, in the interests of giving him some moral support, I had no idea quite how much Gloria was going to mean to us, and how soon.
There was no getting away from it; conditions were deteriorating rapidly. I had come from the wireless room – no longer a warm cosy spot but a raging cauldron – so much so that poor Jack was barely able to think straight from heat exhaustion. Junior ratings were taking turns to sit with him and pump a pair of the ship’s bellows over him, but he was in such a bad way now that he sometimes struggled to write, let alone try to decode incoming messages – of which, over the last few days there seemed to have been many.
There were also mutterings all over the ship – mutterings the captain had been at pains to quell – about what was going to happen once this new oil ran out, which it soon would, even with the ship being powered down at night. And what about the food? We were almost out of flour, the sugar was spoiled now, the rats – growing fatter on it – were breeding unchecked.
The flooding hadn’t helped, either. Because of it, communication with the shore had been impossible, so such supplies as we’d been able to trade for were no longer available to us.
No, all in all, things were not looking good for the Amethyst, and as I caught the captain’s eye once inside his cabin, I could tell he was thinking about that too; about just how far the communists intended to push us. To the death? Then, with a thrill of excitement, I saw something else twinkling in his eyes. Did he know something no one else did?
I settled myself down in my usual spot, just beside the typewriter on which he bashed out his reports. But it seemed that he hadn’t been writing, but drawing. He picked up the result of his efforts – a pencil sketch of a ship – and hung it from his fingers in front of me.
‘Shall I tell you a secret, Simon?’ he said.
Galvanised and rapt now, I stood up and stretched, then resettled and made myself more comfortable. I was glad I had, because it turned out to be quite a big secret. And also an explanation for all the strange goings-on that almost the entire crew had been muttering and moaning about these past couple of weeks. The business of the greasing and blanketing of the anchor. The business of the Amethyst being shrouded in sheets. The business of taking down all that metal topweight and slinging it unceremoniously overboard or below. The business of still being so frugal with the oil.
He wasn’t losing his marbles. He had had all his wits about him. He was setting things in place to try to silence and disguise the Amethyst. He was preparing for us all to escape!
‘What we’re going to do,’ he confirmed, to my great excitement, ‘is make a dash for it. Tonight. Yes, I know it’s dangerous, but there’s no need to look at me like that, Simon. I promise you, I have thought all this through. For weeks, let me tell you. We’re going to make a break for it under cover of darkness later this evening. Look. See this here?’
He pointed to where he’d done some shading with his pencil. ‘I’m going to disguise the Amethyst – well, to the extent that I can do, at any rate – disguise her enough to at least give those communists pause for thought. To be uncertain that they are looking at what they think they are looking at. And then we are going to escape.’
There was no hesitation. No judicious use of the word ‘try’. We are going to escape. So the men had been wrong in their mutterings and chunterings. Captain Kerans had pulled the wool right over their eyes.
Having already told Williams, the chief engineer, earlier in the day, so he would have time to raise steam in the boilers, Captain Kerans gave Frank a list of names. He was to inform everyone on the list – all the chief petty officers and petty officers – to assemble in his cabin, plus a number of the senior ratings, all of them maintaining utmost security at all times.
It was early evening when they arrived, the sky outside turning a darkening peachy pink, and the temperature still as warm as it had been all day. So with some seventeen men crammed into the tiny airless space, it was something of a hot, uncomfortable squeeze. I didn’t mind, though. I was too excited about everything to want to be anywhere else, so I settled again, just by the voice pipe to the wheelhouse, keen to listen in on his briefing.
‘I have decided to make a break for it tonight,’ he told everyone. ‘Now, I know it’s not going to be easy without a pilot to guide us, but the darkness is going to help us – the moon sets just after 23:00. And it won’t be as good for another month after tonight. The river’s high because of the typhoon, too, which should give us some advantage, and we need to slip at 22:00.’ He paused to let this sink in. ‘That’s crucial if we’re going to pass the big guns at Woosung before dawn. I don’t doubt that if they are on to us, that’s where we’re going to get it. So speed,’ he glanced over at Williams, ‘is going to be of the very essence.’
There was silence for a moment as the officers took this in, then the mood changed and they all began bombarding him with questions – every one of which he seemed to have an answer for. He really had been thinking about this for a long time, I realised. No wonder he’d seemed so preoccupied.
They soon dispersed – because now time was very much of the essence – and everyone had a precise role to play to make Captain Kerans’ dream of escape a reality. There was no room for doubt. This was our only chance of making a run for it, and there wasn’t a man there, I think, who didn’t want to take it.
Frank grinned at me, then, having saluted the captain, as if on an impulse, scooped me up and tucked me under his arm. I wondered if – perhaps given what had happened the last time – he intended to take me down to the wheelhouse to bring him luck.
‘You hear that?’ he said. ‘Finally, it’s happening! You know what we’re going to do, Blackie boy? No? Well, I’ll tell you. We’re going to give that ruddy Kang a right smack in the eye!’
After so long being trapped, I felt the same excitement everyone else did. I just hoped Kang wouldn’t slap us right back.
Chapter 18
Yangtse River, 22:09 hours, 30 July 1949
Despite knowing what was happening, and by now having every faith in Captain Kerans’ ability to make it happen, in that hour or so remaining before we were going to make the dash for it, I started feeling frightened again. I couldn’t seem to help it. It just crept up on me, like the mosquitoes would creep up on the sleeping sailors. It wasn’t too bad at first; just a feeling that I couldn’t quite articulate, nothing more tangible than a vague sense of unease. But when I walked across the deck, close to the X guns, and caught the distinctive whiff of their recent oiling on the damp evening air, that’s when it properly hit me.
A memory pounced on me then – a memory that wasn’t even quite a memory. I remembered so little of the actual attack. Remembered almost nothing of those minutes in any detail – but the sound and smell of the guns had never quite left me, any more than had the sight of all the bodies. Though I’d become long used to seeing all the shell holes and twisted metal around the ship – and that emblematic battered ensign – the thought of the guns being manned and fired again tonight was more than enough to have the sensations flooding back. All at once, I felt ambushed by a powerful, mortal fear, and it was an act of will to force it out of my mind.
I knew many of the crew must feel the same. Over the months of our captivity, no matter how much they tried to push the memories down, many of them had relived the events of that day constantly; had kept seeing again the things they wished they hadn’t had to see in the first place. And I wasn’t surprised, because so many of them were still young and inexperienced. Like gentle George, who’d found me, so few of them had seen the brutal reality of war before this – even fewer, I suspected, had ever seen death. So I understood how frightened they must now be feeling again. And they knew I would always keep their confidences, too; keep those memories of the private tears some had shed to myself.
‘There is no courage without fear.’ I remembered Captain Skinner saying that to me. And he was right. You didn’t need to be brave if you weren’t afraid. A part of me felt a welcome kernel of excitement growing inside me at the sheer courage – the audacity – of what we were about to try to do. As I took up my position close to Captain Kerans (which thankfully nobody seemed to object to, even if Peggy, Queen of Incessant Barking, had been shut up down in the sick berth, just to be on the safe side) I realised I felt ready for anything, despite the constant undercurrent of fear.
The final couple of hours had not been without incident. The captain had gone up to the bridge before eight, keen to get his eyes used to the dark well before the time came to raise the anchor. Despite the advantages of the high tide and flooding, the Yangtse was still a dangerous river, and as we were without either a pilot or any charts now, being able to see with the naked eye was crucial.
And what he’d seen had been a sampan in the distance, that was heading our way.
Having been unable to get to us for over a week, due to Gloria, the traders who sold us produce (by now at ridiculously inflated prices) had, tonight of all nights, decided to make the crossing. With everyone now ready to go, and the evidence clear all over the Amethyst, there was a moment of panic about what should be done.
The captain thought on his feet. ‘On no account let them board,’ he told Lieutenant Hett. ‘And have some camp beds set up on the quarterdeck. Have some men get in them, as if they’re turning in. We must make it look as if everything is normal. Get some goods. Check the invoice. Act completely normally.’
And everyone did. But there couldn’t have been a crew member on board who wasn’t holding his breath. If news got passed on to Kang of even the tiniest oddity, our imminent deaths were now staring us in the face.
‘Lord, it’s dark,’ the captain observed, peering out into the inky night through his binoculars, the traders having thankfully left again. Despite his eyes having ‘adjusted’, that was the thing with humans; they really couldn’t see much after nightfall, which I supposed was why they tended to go to sleep. But not tonight, and the captain’s determination to free us only increased my respect for him further. It was a truly courageous decision to do the thing he was about to do, and I knew I must take my lead from him.
I also couldn’t help but remember what Colonel Kang had told him every single time they’d spoken: that ‘if you move your ship, every attempt will be made to destroy it. If you do not, all will be well.’
All would be well. We were going anyway, despite him and his threats, and all would still be well. We were going to slip and turn the Amethyst as soon as the moon nudged behind a convenient cloud, so I wrapped my tail around my paws and peered downriver alongside the captain and Lieutenant Hett, wishing I could reassure them on that point. For, much as I believed it, that wasn’t the case, at least not as yet.
There really wasn’t much to see, even with my excellent vision. Just the oily, lapping blackness of the river, the silhouetted shores – raggy and lace-like against the moonlit night sky – and the odd moth and winged beetle, flying low over the water, and – hang on! I craned my neck further. Wait – I could see something!
And so, evidently, could the captain. ‘Good Lord!’ he said to Hett, who was also peering through his binoculars. ‘See that, Number One? It’s only another ship! What the devil?’
They both lowered their binoculars, then raised them again. ‘Seems we have our pilot after all, eh?’ said the captain. Then he leaned towards the voice pipe to his right. ‘Slow ahead port engines,’ he commanded, his voice taut with tension. ‘Wheel amidships. Black smoke.’ The Amethyst responded. We were finally underway.
Everyone seemed to hold their breath at that point, it seeming a miracle that we could ever be so lucky. Because the presence of this other vessel was good news indeed. The captain’s biggest concern – which he had voiced only an hour earlier – was whether a big frigate such as the Amethyst would be able to safely negotiate the deep water channel in the middle of the river without a pilot. One slip-up and we could so easily run aground on the bank again. So the arrival of this other ship – which was strung with lights, and soon identified as a merchant ship called the Kiang Ling Liberation – felt like the best omen possible.
‘Five degrees starboard,’ Captain Kerans ordered, his binoculars following the merchant ship. ‘We’ll drop astern of her and follow her through instead.’
This was it, I realised, my whole body tensed in anticipation. After all these long weeks in captivity, we were finally doing it! We were making our escape!
Or, at least, trying to. Every second seemed to pass agonisingly slowly as inch by inch the Amethyst moved through the dark water. With our smoke belching aft now, the night felt even darker, the river’s shores blacker mounds in the distance. No one on the bridge said a word, but I knew every last man on board was silently waiting for the same thing to happen; for the moment when the communists saw us and began blasting us out of the water. Destroying us, just as they’d promised they would.
But it seemed the blanketed anchor and greased chain had done the job the captain wanted, and as we began to slice along behind the Chinese merchant vessel, the blackout sheeting seemed to be doing its job too, evidently making the Amethyst all but invisible to the batteries, just as Captain Kerans had hoped it would.
No such luck for the Kiang Ling Liberation. No sooner had we slipped alongside her, hidden now from view, than the shore was suddenly alive with activity.
‘They’re firing!’ the captain shouted, above the roar of shell fire and machine guns. ‘They’re firing at her! What the devil?’
And it seemed they were. The big merchant ship, already lit by its gay strings of light
bulbs, was now even more ablaze – with orange licks of leaping, murderous flame.
‘What the devil?’ the captain said again, his binoculars at his face again. ‘You see that, Hett? What the devil’s going on over there?’
I stood transfixed; paralysed now, both with fear and consternation, hearing distant shouts and cries as the Kiang Ling’s crew ran for cover; as the shells pounded against her, above and around her. Yet still we moved, following the same line as the stricken, flaming vessel. A minute passed. Five minutes. Ten minutes. More. Until she slowed, fully ablaze now, and we began to nose ahead of her, away from the batteries, away from Kang, away from the shells and the bullets, incredibly, astoundingly, unbelievably unscathed.
‘Looks like we’ve got away with it so far,’ said Lieutenant Strain. He sounded as stunned as everyone felt.
Captain Kerans raised his binoculars again, peering back from where we’d come. The merchant ship seemed to have been run aground now, as well. ‘Yes,’ he conceded, ‘it does indeed, doesn’t it?’ He lowered his binoculars, and his expression was at odds with the calm way he’d spoken. ‘Those gunners on the shore must have been asleep.’
But even as he said it, the words were true no longer. No sooner had he finished speaking than new explosions broke the stillness, and the sky above the Amethyst was alive with flares.
‘Hard astern!’ ordered the captain. ‘Perhaps we haven’t got away with it after all. It looks like there’s a patrol boat coming to meet us!’
But then something else inexplicable happened – it began firing not on us, but at the shore battery that had sent all the flares up – which made no sense at all. Had the darkness and disguise really confused them that much?
Able Seacat Simon Page 13