  Produced by Al Haines. [image] Cover art [image] THE SKIPPER RECEIVES THE MANDARIN Ford A Tale of the Chusan Archipelago BY STAFF SURGEON T. T. JEANS, R.N. Author of "Mr. Midshipman Glover, R.N." ILLUSTRATED BY WILLIAM RAINEY, R.I. BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED Preface This story is written more or less on the same lines as my previous story of naval adventures—Mr. Midshipman Glover, R.M.—and describes events subsequent to those narrated in that book. The proof sheets have been carefully read by messmates of different branches of the Service, and I am much indebted to them for correcting many technical errors. Practically all the characters are drawn from life, and the cruisers and gunboats, British, American, and Chinese, taking part in the various operations are actual ships under altered names. I therefore hope that the story gives an accurate representation of life in the Service under the war conditions described. T. T. JEANS TO E. R. W., K. G., AND E. M. AS A SLIGHT RETURN FOR THEIR ASSISTANCE Contents CHAP.
Illustrations CHAPTER I How Dick Ford went to Sea
Written by Midshipman Ford I don't expect that you have ever heard of Upton Overy, in North Devon, but it is there where Captain Lester, of the Royal Navy, lives, and, at any rate, you must have heard of him. Everyone in the West Country knows him by name and most of them by sight, and whenever he comes back from sea the villagers won't do any work, and the bellringers ring peals and "changes" on the old church bells all day long, till you'd think that the top stones must be shaken off. The noise always makes my mother's head ache terribly. You see, my father is the parson of Upton Overy, and our house is so close to the church, that the noise seems to go through and through it. If he happened to be at home, on leave or on half-pay, the Captain sometimes asked my father to go out shooting with him, and when I was quite a kiddy I was so fearfully keen to go too, that once I crept away and followed them. My father would have sent me back, had not the Captain growled out—and he had an awfully deep growling voice—"Let the nipper come along o' us, PadrÉ;" and you may be jolly well certain that I did follow them, keeping close behind the Captain, without saying a word, and with my eyes glued on him, just to see exactly what he did. I got so tired, that if I hadn't been afraid of making a noise I should have cried. "Send the young 'un to sea. He'll do," he had said when my father, very angry at having his day's sport spoilt, had at last to carry me back. That is the first I remember of Captain Lester, and is why I remember what he said. Afterwards he would often let me go with him, and when I was big enough would let me hold his great mongrel dog "Blucher". The Captain used to take this dog to sea with him, and always brought him out shooting; but he used to get so excited that he would obey nobody, and if let loose, always ranged ahead of the guns, and put up every bird for miles. The result was that he was kept on the chain nearly all the time. Although he was so useless, the Captain would never leave him behind. "I've spoilt the dog taking him to sea", he would growl; "I ain't going to spoil his bit of sport", and he always let him have a run "on his own" towards the end of the day. Sometimes his eldest girl, Nan, used to come too, and as she worshipped her father just as much as I did, we became quite chums, and had many a jolly day together, while we hung on to old Blucher's chain, and he tugged us about. She worried very much because she was a girl and couldn't go to sea, but of course that wasn't her fault—I told her so, often—and it always made me feel what a jolly good thing it was to be a man, and that I was going to sea. I had made up my mind to that, and had never forgotten what the Captain had said. I simply longed for the sea, and used to spend every moment I could down among the fishing boats, helping to spread the nets out along the shore to dry, and sometimes taking a hand in mending them. I made chums, too, of the boys in the smaller smacks, which worked close inshore, and one of them took me out several times in his uncle's boat. But just skirting along the coast was not enough for me, so one night I did a very silly thing. Upton Overy owned six deep-sea trawlers, which were generally away on the fishing grounds for a whole week, and one night, I couldn't stand it any longer, and crept out of the house, round by the back of the church, down a cliff path to the harbour, crawled aboard one of these trawlers, and hid myself under the nets. I knew that they were all going out before daylight, and that I shouldn't be found till we were right out of sight of land. When they did pull me out in the morning, old Gurridge—it was his boat I'd crept into—was rather beastly about it, and jawed at me till he was tired. He'd had some row with my father, and thought it a jolly good opportunity of having a "dig" at him, and the way he'd brought me up; but I didn't mind what he said—not in the least—for all round me was sea, no land whichever way I looked, and I simply felt mad with delight. It came on to blow, too, and I don't think that old Gurridge could have taken me back, even if he'd wanted to—and he didn't want to either, because of that row with my father—and all the time he made me work, scrubbing and cleaning, and jawing at me for being so wicked as to run away. Of course I got back safely, had a jolly good beating, and was sent to bed; but, honestly, I couldn't feel wicked, because, right down inside me, I knew that I'd done it because the Captain wanted me to go to sea, and, as I told you before, I simply worshipped him. Most people did—even the "grown-ups"—so it was no wonder that I did. He heard about it too—my trip in the trawler, I mean—and that was one reason, I fancy, why he gave me a nomination for the Britannia, and when I had passed in, promised to look after me if I did well there. I can't help remembering the first time I came home in cadet's uniform, and rushed up to the House to show myself to Mrs. Lester and the girls. Nan was most respectful, and she'd never been so before, and that pleased me more than anything else. I expect that I put on a frightful amount of "side", and must have been a horrid little bounder. I only saw Captain Lester twice whilst I was in the Britannia, and then he commissioned the Vigilant for the China station. Of course, what I really wanted to do was to go to his ship, but I thought that probably he'd forgotten all about me. He hadn't, though; for when, during my last term, my father had to write out to him about some church repairs, he wrote in his reply, "Tell the young 'un he can come out to my ship, if he passes out of the Britannia well". This news simply made me boil all over, and you may guess how hard I worked that term, and what I felt like when the lists came out. My name—Dick Ford—was seventh of my term, and next below me was Jim Rawlings, my best chum, and we both had just got enough marks to scrape out as midshipmen straight away. Wasn't that splendid? It was grand, too, to see the little white badges sewn on the collars of our monkey jackets, and to know that we'd finished being cadets. The next thing to do was to get Captain Lester to apply for me; but I funked asking Mrs. Lester, and my mother stood rather in awe of her too. However, it turned out that the Captain and Mrs. Lester between them had arranged it all, and one morning, after I'd gone home on Christmas leave, there was a large blue envelope for me in the postbag. I tore it open, and the first thing I saw was the name Vigilant scrawled in among the print. I yelled with delight, for there it was at last. It was grand, and at the end of the print was: "You are to embark on board the P. & O. Steamship Marmora by noon on the 14th January". My mother ran up to her room directly I had read it aloud and she had looked to make certain, and my father frowned at me and said angrily, "You see what you've done? Broken your mother's heart," and that made me miserable again, though I couldn't feel miserable for long, and rushed up to the House to show the appointment to Nan and everyone I met. I shall never forget that day and the next three weeks, and at last driving off to the station, with my sea chest on top of the village cab, really, actually—I could hardly believe it—on my way to China—and Captain Lester. Mrs. Lester and the girls were at the big gates, and I had to stop and wish them goodbye. Nan looked down her nose and pretended she wouldn't have given her soul to be coming too, and Mrs. Lester, before I knew what was going to happen, actually bent down and kissed me. My mother was so astonished that she left off crying, but I'm almost sure that Mrs. Lester had tears in her eyes. Of course I knew why—because I was off to join the Captain, and would—-with luck—see him in six or seven weeks. She had a big box of things for me to take out to him too, and it took a great deal of hoisting up alongside my chest. You can have no idea how many messages were given me for him. Of course everyone in the village knew I was going, and for the last fortnight, I should think, half the village had sent "best respects to the Captain", and news about their children or gardens or the fishing. I stuck them all down in a notebook so as not to forget them—my mother advised me to do this. At the station old Puddock, the station master, gave me a pot of cranberry jam his wife had made—she'd been cook up at the House before she married Puddock—"with our best respects for the Cap'en, Master Dick, and tell him we're both fair to middling, and I got first prize at Barnton Show for the pigs". Out came the notebook again, and we were off at last—my mother and I. But the funniest thing of all happened at the next station—Bodington—for there Ned the Poacher—he was an awful nuisance for miles round, and spent half the year in prison—came sheepishly to the carriage and asked me to tell the Captain that he and his pals wouldn't be too hard on the pheasants this year, as they knew he was coming home for next year's shooting. "Tell the Cap'en they birds be mighty strong and healthy, and there'll be plenty of 'em next year when he comes home," and he shuffled away. I suppose he hadn't the face to come to me at Upton Overy itself. I wasn't going to put that down in the notebook, but my mother said I had better do so. When we went down to the docks next day and went aboard the Marmora, the very first person I saw was Jim Rawlings—on his way out to join another cruiser—and in the excitement of seeing him I hardly wished my mother "goodbye" properly, and it was only when the Marmora shoved off and left her standing alone in the rain, on the dock wall, that I felt what an awful brute I was, and wanted to jump across the bit of water just to say "goodbye" once again. There were four cadets on board, as well; going out to join different ships. A lieutenant was in charge of all of us, and jolly nasty he made himself too; and we were all jolly glad when we found his ship lying at Singapore, and he cleared out. I'm not going to tell you all about the voyage. It would take too long, and there are too many exciting things for you to hear. For me they began there, and it was Jim who made the discovery. He'd got hold of a Singapore newspaper, and suddenly came flying along the deck, whooping like a madman, and shoved it into my hands. You can imagine how excited I was, for among the telegrams was this: "Shanghai, February 22nd. Captain Lester, H.M.S. Vigilant, senior officer in the Chusan Archipelago, reports that the Chinese cruiser Huan Min has picked up Mr. Martin P. Hobbs and his daughter, adrift in a boat, and that their steam yacht has been captured by a gang of pirates in possession of a large steamer, and led by a European." At the end of the telegram followed—"We understand that Captain Lester has been ordered to take the necessary steps to recapture Mr. Hobbs's yacht." My Aunt! Wasn't that news? You can just fancy how I almost felt sick all over with excitement, and how frightfully important I felt at being the only one going to that ship, with a chance of chasing pirates. How I wished it was possible for Jim to come too. We thought and thought of any number of schemes, and then, "Let's telegraph to Captain Lester," he burst out; and we hunted out every penny we had in our chests, rushed ashore, jumped into a double rickshaw, and went off like mad to the Eastern Telegraph Office. The Marmora was lying at Tanjong Pagar wharf, and we needn't have gone fifty yards, if we'd known, but we drove right into the town. When we got there our courage began to ooze away, because I knew it was a frightfully cheeky thing to do; but Jim bucked me up, and the telegraph people helped us, and put the best address they could think of. What we sent was: "Midshipman Rawlings chum mine wants come Vigilant—Ford Midshipman", and that took nearly all our money. Neither of us cared a "rap" about that, though, so long as Captain Lester would ask for Jim. We were half-dead with funk at what we'd done when we got outside the office, but Jim cheered me up by saying, "we couldn't get hanged", and that they wouldn't send us home again, because of the expense, so we drove back fairly happy, though I couldn't sleep much that night for wondering whether the Captain would think me frightfully impertinent. He was terrible when he was angry. We were a week punching up to Hong-Kong. It seemed a month, and when we did get there, both Jim and I were waiting at the gangway for the officer of the guard to board her, hoping to hear from Captain Lester. Of course there was nothing at all for us from him, and I was ordered to go across to H.M.S. Tyne, store-ship, for passage to the Vigilant, whilst Jim and the three cadets had to go aboard the Tamar, the receiving ship, always stationed there. Jim didn't say anything, but went down the gangway with his lips firmly pressed together, and I, very miserable, went across to the Tyne and wandered about her great ward room like a lost sheep all the afternoon, getting in everyone's way, till I got into a corner, and wrote a long letter home. I couldn't keep miserable very long, though, because we unmoored directly after dark, and at last I was really off to join the Vigilant, and in the excitement forgot about Jim. Boats had kept coming and going, and I hadn't taken any notice of them, and they must have come over in the last boat, because just as we cast off someone banged me on the back, and there was Jim Rawlings, grinning all over his jolly ugly red face, and behind him was that ass Dicky Morton, the junior of the three cadets, with his silly little eyes almost sticking out of his head with excitement. "We're both sent to the Vigilant," he squeaked out. Well, Jim coming too made me just completely happy, although it was a bit toned down by having Dicky Morton with us too. "He's not a bad little chap when you get used to him," Jim told me, but that was Jim "all over". He was the most unselfish fellow you ever met in the world, would have given you his last shirt if you asked him, and was always standing by to give a leg up to silly idiots like Dicky. He hadn't the least idea why he'd been sent; he'd just been given an order, signed by the Commodore, and he hadn't heard whether Captain Lester had telegraphed or not. We tried to think that our telegram had just done the trick, but then that did not explain why Dicky was here. We didn't worry about anything, though, for long, and simply counted the minutes, and kept our eye on the cherub log all the time. You can imagine what we felt like when we ran into a fog, three days out, and had to crawl along at about five knots, rolling about in a swell on our starboard bow. Our navigator was much too wily a bird to try and make the Chusan group of islands from the south in that kind of weather, and that meant another twelve hours steaming; but at last the fog blew away, the sun came out long enough for him to take a sight, and away we went again. The fifth day out from Hong-Kong we made the islands—you can bet your boots we were on deck—dodged in between several of them, and then the harbour of Tinghai suddenly opened out, and far away, under a hill, we could just see a white spot. "That's your ship, the Vigilant," a signalman told us as he hoisted the Tyne's number. We got nearer and nearer; she got bigger and bigger. Presently the signalman hauled down the pendants, and we knew that the Vigilant had seen us, and I wondered whether Captain Lester would be frightfully angry or not. I was really in a funk at meeting him, chiefly because of that telegram. We anchored quite close to her, over to us bobbed a steamboat with a big "V" on her bows—our steamboat—my steamboat some day perhaps—and we were presently bundled in and taken across, the midshipman of the boat winking at us patronizingly. "Have you caught the pirates?" we all asked him. "Not yet. You bet! but we're in for some fun. You're lucky beggars, I can tell you. They're only expecting one mid. Where the dickens d'you other two come from?" The first bit made us fearfully excited, but the last part made me miserable again; for it made it quite certain that Captain Lester had not asked for Jim Rawlings, and I knew he would be angry with us both if he had received that telegram already, or if he ever did get it. We were alongside in a jiffy, I climbed up the ladder, and, in my excitement at being at last on board the Vigilant, I forgot to salute the quarterdeck, and so did Dicky, and the officer of the watch "jumped" on us both and sent us both down below with a flea in our ears. I got red all over with shame, and it hurt me more because Dicky and I were in the same box; it wouldn't have been so bad if it had been Jim. The Captain was ashore—I was jolly glad of that—and the Commander was asleep, and didn't want to be disturbed, so we were left to ourselves, and saw our chests lowered into the gunroom flat, jammed together into a dark corner, and then we sat down on them for company, swung our legs, and felt miserable. We weren't left alone for long, though, and soon we were hauled into the gunroom, where the Sub-lieutenant—a huge, great fellow—made us stand in a row in front of him, and asked us silly questions, to make all the others laugh. Jim and I got through this all right, but Dicky made a perfect little ass of himself—we were frightfully ashamed of him—squeaking out all sorts of things about his family and his sisters, and everyone roared with laughter. "What do they call you at home?" the Sub asked him. "Dicky, sir," the idiot bleated. "Don't they ever call you 'dear little Dicky'?" the Sub said coaxingly. He was enjoying himself immensely, and I could almost feel Jim grind his teeth with anger when Dicky smiled feebly, and answered, "Sometimes, sir." There were shouts of "dear little Dicky" all round the room, and the ass never saw what an idiot he had made of himself. He was always called "dear little Dicky" afterwards, by the Sub's orders, though there was no need for orders to make them all do that. It was a horribly bad beginning. They hadn't any news of the pirates either to cheer us up. They had had one look for them, but had found nothing, and were now waiting for fresh orders. Just before it got dark someone sung out that the Captain was coming back with the Fleet Paymaster. I hadn't the courage to go up on deck to let him see me, but just peeped out of a gunroom scuttle as he came alongside. He was so broad and big, that he seemed to fill the galley's stern sheets. He was wearing the same stained old shooting-suit he always wore at Upton Overy—I never could remember seeing him in any other—Blucher, thinner than ever, was squatting between his knees, and the Fleet Paymaster, with white beard and a still older shooting-suit, was sitting next to him. He threw away the stump of a cigar, helped Blucher scramble on to the ladder, gave a gruff order to the coxswain, and followed Blucher. He looked so stern, and I felt so afraid of him, that I popped my head in again lest he should see me, and waited, hot and cold, expecting him to send for me. I wasn't so silly as to think that he would want to see me, but I knew that he would want to hear all about Mrs. Lester and the girls. Jim knew how frightened I was, and promised that directly I was sent for, he and Dicky would bring along the packing-case which Mrs. Lester had sent, and put it outside his cabin door, so that I could get at it very quickly. And then I remembered that pot of cranberry jam, and hunted for it in my chest. I couldn't find it anywhere. Jim asked what I was looking for, and he helped too. Suddenly he stopped, his face quite white. "Was it a white jar with the top covered with brown paper?" "Yes, it was," I told him, and knew that something awful was going to happen. "I emptied it," he groaned; "ate the whole lot, half-way from Aden." I went cold all over, and just then the sentry sang out that the Captain wanted me, and I shuffled aft, knocked at the door, heard the Captain's growl "Come in!" could hardly turn the handle for fright, went in, and stood before him absolutely speechless. He was reading a letter—we'd brought a mail with us in the Tyne—and didn't look up for a moment or two, and just in that time, jolly old Blucher stretched himself, came over, smelt me, got up on his hind legs and licked my face before I could prevent him. I could have hugged him, because that did the trick, and made me forget all about the jam and the telegram—for the moment. "Hello, Dick! Got here at last?" and the Captain looked up, and held out his great red hand. "How's the Missus and the girls? Where's that box of things she tells me she gave you?" "Outside, sir," I squeaked—like Dicky—and simply rushed out. Jim and Dicky had just brought it along, and I dragged it in. "Umph! Don't spoil my carpet. Where's Willum? Willum!" the Captain shouted, "come and open this box." "Willum"—I never knew his surname—was his valet, and between us we soon had the box open, the Captain all the time asking me questions. "I had a number of messages for you, sir, from people in Upton Overy. I've got them all—nearly all of them—down in my notebook." "Where is it?" he growled. "Read 'em out." But I'd left it down in my chest purposely, so that I could get a "breather", and when I ran down to get it, Jim was waiting for me. "Anything about the telegram or the jam?" he asked anxiously. "Not yet; things are going all right so far;" and I raced back and began reading the messages, till I came to the station master's, and then I got red and spluttered a bit and didn't read it, but went on to Ned the Poacher's about the pheasants. "Like his darned cheek!" the Captain roared, purple in the face. "I'll shoot him the first time I catch him! He knows that, and keeps clear when I'm about. What's become of his wife and kids?" I told him, and then—I knew it must come out sooner or later—blurted out, "and Puddock, the station master, asked me, sir, to tell you that they were both 'fair to middling', and 'his pigs have won first prize this year at Barnton'. Mrs. Puddock, sir, sent you a pot of cranberry jam, but—but——" "Where is it, Dick? She's made me a pot every year since I went to the Britannia. Bring it out." Well, there was nothing else to be done. I simply quaked with fear and stuttered out: "Jim ate it, sir—I mean we both ate it," and then, before he could say anything, I explained that Jim Rawlings had thought it was mine, and that it would be a good joke to eat it without my knowing. I suppose I looked so terrified that he hadn't the heart to be angry. He gurgled and growled and got red in the face, and I waited to see whether it was going to be with amusement or anger, and oh! I was so thankful, it was only amusement. He sent me away then. "You'll shake down all right; glad to have you in my ship;" and though I longed to ask him whether there was any chance of going for those pirates, I hadn't the pluck to do so, and bolted like a rabbit. [image] H.M.S. "Vigilant" CHAPTER II Introduces Sally Hobbs
Written by Commander Truscott, H.M.S. Vigilant. As I have been asked to assist in writing an account of the events which happened during the last few months of the commission of our dear old tub the Vigilant, I had better explain to you how they first arose. We had been up to Shanghai, to be handy in case a serious effervescence of native feeling against Europeans should bubble over, and get out of the control of the local authorities. As it happened, the agitation fizzled out without our being required, and I think I can honestly say, to our great disappointment. From there we steamed down to Tinghai Harbour in Chusan, the largest of the islands of the Chusan Archipelago, and anchored close to Joss House Hill and the tumble-down ramparts of the new town of Tinghai. All the islands of the archipelago simply abound with game. There are pheasants in every valley, and millions of duck, geese, curlew, snipe, and even wild swan are to be found on the marshes, paddy fields, and vast stretches of mud. It was for this reason that Captain Lester had obtained permission to come here, and he had chosen Tinghai because its harbour is the safest in the archipelago, as well as the most important, being the centre for a vast trade carried on with Ningpo and Shanghai on the mainland. Close inshore are always clustered a great number of fine merchant junks, loading and unloading, and anchored off the town is generally a small fleet of war junks. These are supposed to cruise round the islands and keep down piracy—as a matter of fact they don't. As an additional protection to the town and shipping, two little open batteries are built at each end of the harbour, mounting fairly modern breech-loading guns. Half a mile inland, and only connected to the modern town by a rough causeway through the paddy fields, is the ancient town of Tinghai. It is surrounded by a deep moat and lofty mud walls, which are pierced by four gloomy archways. These are flanked by towers, closed in by heavy, iron-bound gates, and only approached over drawbridges whose rusty chains are probably not equal to the task of hauling them up. It looks gloomy enough from the outside, but it is still more so inside, and the sullen, scarcely concealed hostility of the inhabitants of its dark, horrid-smelling streets makes one exceedingly glad to get out again into the daylight, with no more indignity than being spat at or hustled. The natives of the seaport town have grown accustomed to white men, and if they do not exactly welcome them, they tolerate them amiably enough. Indeed, a missionary and his wife—Macpherson by name—have lived here for years, and are always dinning into our ears the number of converts they have made. You can imagine that everyone who could get away shooting did so, and one evening I came back to the ship after a long day's tramping through paddy fields after snipe. I had been using my new hammerless gun for the first time, I remember, and hadn't quite got into the "hang" of it, and kept on forgetting to push up the "safety" catch. Snipe don't give you much time for fooleries of that sort, so I hadn't been very successful. I noticed that a Chinese cruiser was anchored close to the Vigilant, but paid no special attention to her, because she often came in. It was getting dark, and I was in a hurry to get aboard, have a hot bath, and change for dinner. The skipper of the Ringdove, one of our gunboats, had been shooting with me; I put him aboard his own packet, and then pulled alongside the Vigilant, where Lawrence, our navigator, met me at the gangway very excited, and I saw at once that there was something the matter. He followed me into my cabin, and whilst I changed into uniform, told me what had happened. The Chinese cruiser—the Huan Min she was—an old wooden corvette belonging to the Peiyang squadron, had been making one of her regular cruises among the islands, and yesterday morning she had picked up two Americans—an old man named Hobbs and his daughter—adrift in a boat. They had reported that they and their steam yacht, the Sally Hobbs, had been captured by pirates, and that somehow they themselves had managed to escape. Turning out of her course to search for the yacht, the Huan Min had run into a fog, and presently found herself "right on top" of a tramp steamer and the yacht herself. Both had made off inshore as quickly as possible, and the Chinese Captain, following them, had rammed the poor old Huan Min's nose firmly into the mud. He had scarcely commenced to go full speed astern, when she came under a heavy fire, either from the tramp steamer or the shore, a fire to which she was unable to reply with effect. She was hulled several times, and had had some men killed and wounded before the rising tide enabled her to back off into deep water and get out of range. She had come along to Tinghai as fast as she could, and Lawrence told me that the two Americans were already aboard the Vigilant, and that Captain Lester was furious at having to look after them. "He's had rather a bad day's shooting, sir, and is in a bad temper." This was Lawrence's story, and excited enough he was about it and the chances of our having a "show". "Strangely enough too, sir," he said, "the First Lieutenant of that ship is an old chum of mine—a man named Ching. He was doing a year's training in the old Inflexible when I was a Mid in her. A jolly chap he was—we all liked him—and he's coming over after dinner to have a yarn, if he can get away." I had to dine with the Captain that night—he positively refused to entertain the two Americans by himself—and I learnt from the old father, Mr. Martin P. Hobbs—I had seen his name in the papers—he was a wealthy railway magnate—the details of their extraordinary escape. This is what he told me, and you can take it for what it's worth; but he was such a weird, cunning little object, that I, somehow or other, found myself doubting his story. He and his daughter Sally, who was as pretty as paint, although her hair had been clumsily cut off, and who was now trying to twist the dear old bully of a Captain round her little finger, had been wandering about the Northern Treaty Ports, and at Shanghai had met some Boston people who were, what he called, doing a "splash". They'd been somewhere up country with a caravan of their own—somewhere where no one else had ever been—and in order to go one better, nothing would content Miss Hobbs but that her father should buy a small steam yacht, which happened to be for sale, and start away for a thousand-mile trip up the Yangtse. The skipper of the yacht—they'd named it the Sally Hobbs—seems to have been a dare-devil sort of scoundrel, according to Hobbs, and instead of taking them up to Hankow, got them to alter their plans, and brought them down among the islands. One night they had anchored close to an island, and woke up to find the yacht in possession of a crowd of Chinamen, simply swarming all over the decks. They were forced down below and locked in their cabins, and there they stayed for a whole day, while the yacht steamed away. Some time during the next night Hobbs was roughly gagged and bound, a long, blue, Chinese coat pulled over him, and he was made to get into a boat alongside. He found his daughter lying in the sternsheets, gagged and covered with another blue native coat. He heard a scuffle on deck, but it was too dark to see anything distinctly. He thought he heard the voice of the old Scotch engineer of the yacht, and then someone cast off the boat and they drifted quickly away in the darkness. In the morning they had been seen by the Huan Min, taken on board, were in great danger whilst she was trying to fight the pirates, and were afterwards brought along here. That was his story, and as I said before, it did not convince me. If the whole scheme had been arranged, and he implied that the skipper of the yacht was the arch villain, how on earth had he allowed Hobbs to escape so easily? He must have known of his enormous wealth, and would surely have kept close guard on him to extort a ransom later on. However, there was his daughter, and no doubt her hair had been roughly cropped off, and from what I know about women, especially pretty ones, they wouldn't lose their hair if they could possibly help it, and when I looked across at her, the very picture of innocence, and heard her tell the Skipper how they'd shorn it off, putting her hands through the irregular bits left, her lips quivering, and her eyes filling with tears, I was bound to believe that there was some truth in it. It was amusing to watch the change in the Skipper's manner. He had sat down to dinner with a scowl on his face that would have melted the paint off the bulkhead, and snarled whenever he spoke; but now he was telling her all about his wife and daughters, and she was holding up her wrists to show him where they had been bound and bruised, and had completely mollified him. Presently Hobbs ventured to ask him if he would try and recapture the yacht, and then the Skipper flared up again and roared at him, "that American citizens should get their own ships to do their own dirty work". The Skipper's language was never too refined, but the little man wasn't to be browbeaten. "Guess the Sally Hobbs was flying your own red ensign, Captain," he answered defiantly. "Darn my rags! Why didn't you say so before?" shouted the Skipper, and got purple in the face. "Those pirates dare touch anything under our flag? I'll go after 'em to-morrow." "I rather fancy she was," put in Miss Hobbs. "Poppa and I were in such a hurry, we'd only time to paint Sally Hobbs on the stern and the lifebuoys, and didn't reckon it counted, altering the registration." Well, that put matters in a new light, and I felt pleased at the prospect of our taking a hand in the game. I happened to think of Lawrence finding his chum on board the Huan Min, and told the Captain about the strange coincidence. "He's probably on board now, sir; he was coming over after dinner, if he possibly could." "Umph! I'd like to see him. He would probably be useful," growled the Skipper, and sent "Willum" for him. He came in presently, a fine-looking fellow in his black silk tunic with gold dragons round the sleeves, tall and upright, with a determined, prize-fighting jaw, which took the Skipper's fancy directly. He sat down, couldn't keep his eyes off Miss Hobbs, and told us the story which you know already. He was very bitter about everything: his guns were worn out, his ammunition rotten, and his shells wouldn't burst, and, he added, wincing, that they had not had sufficient medical stores for their wounded. The Skipper, who, I could see, was much attracted by him—it was his square jaw that did it—offered to send carpenters over to help repair damages next morning (our doctors had already taken charge of the wounded), and promised that he would take the Vigilant down to investigate the island. I waited only long enough for the Skipper to make out his orders for raising steam in the morning, and slipped away to bed. Next day we sent Hobbs and his daughter ashore—they were to stay with the Macphersons at the Mission House—and steamed down to the island, off which the Huan Min had received such a hammering. Though we spent the whole day examining not only the coast line, but the interior itself, not a trace could be found of the existence of any pirates or any battery. In fact, the island appeared to be uninhabited, and we steamed back somewhat out of patience with ourselves. The next day the Taotai from the old town of Tinghai came on board in great state, amidst the firing of three gun salutes from the war junks and the Huan Min. The Captain of that ship came with him, and Ching also, to act as interpreter. I don't quite know what their idea was, but they imagined that the Skipper could do anything, and they implored him to do something. The poor, feeble old Taotai seemed to be at his wits' end, and must have stayed a couple of hours on board, pouring his woes into the Skipper's extremely unsympathetic ears. It appeared that he was responsible for the maintenance of order throughout the archipelago, and that piracy had lately been increasing to an alarming extent. From island after island memorials and petitions had been pouring in for the last six months, and the old man quite broke down when he told us how impossible it was to do anything, and how he dare not report the whole state of affairs to his Viceroy on the mainland. "Why not?" growled the Skipper, glaring at him. "He'd probably be dismissed, sir, or lose his head," Ching answered. "And a good thing too. Umph!" the Captain muttered. "Tell the old chap that I'm sending a gunboat up to Shanghai to-morrow or the next day, and will report everything to the Admiral, and must wait his orders. It's no use me looking for that yacht by myself—might as well look for a needle in a haystack. Umph!" What annoyed him was that the Taotai wouldn't send out his war junks. We didn't know the real reason for some weeks, but the old Taotai almost cried when he said that if the Huan Min could be beaten off by them, the feeble junks wouldn't stand a chance. There was a good deal of sense in that. Of course, instances of piracy are always cropping up among these islands—we had been long enough in Chinese waters to know that—and we knew, too, that unless they became very numerous in the same locality, the authorities did not take much notice of them. You see it was only in times of bad trade, when perhaps the fishing had been a failure, or when the crops had been destroyed by one of the typhoons which used to devastate the islands lying in its track, that the inhabitants, practically threatened with starvation, would take to piracy as a means of tiding over the bad time. Just imagine the temptation of seeing some lumbering great junk becalmed off your village, or stuck fast in the mud, if everyone was hungry and desperate, and imagine what an easy thing it was to man all your boats, surround her, and capture her. The chances were that she was full up with foodstuffs, beans, or rice or fish, and there was little to fear from the authorities, far away in Tinghai. They would never hear of it either, if you knocked the crew on the head. That is practically what would happen, and one lucky capture would set a village "up", till next harvest enabled them to carry on their peaceable pursuits. Sometimes, of course, it happened that their appetites would be so whetted with their success, that they would lay in wait for every favourable opportunity, and every crawling junk which passed. Sooner or later it would be known that it was dangerous to take that channel, and sooner or later, if the trouble continued, a war junk or two, or perhaps one of the Peiyang corvettes, would be sent there to burn the village and hang a few of the inhabitants. That is what you may call the ordinary course of events, and so long as someone did get hanged and some village was burnt, all went smoothly, and very little notice was taken of it. But now, according to the old Taotai and Ching, it was a very different pair of shoes. There was organized piracy now; pirate junks cruised in twos and threes, cutting out junks anchored in front of their own villages, appearing from where no one knew, disappearing as mysteriously, but scattering death and ruin wherever they did appear. A whole fleet of merchant junks, crowded together for safety, had recently been attacked by half a dozen pirate junks, and but one had escaped, throwing her cargo overboard, and flying before the wind to bear the news. Not only were they evidently organized, but they also must have had spies in the principal centres, because, not two months ago, a war junk carrying the monthly salt tax to the mainland had been surrounded by pirates and forced to surrender, in sight of land. She had put up a good fight, and was well armed—for a war junk—and not the least notice had been taken of several merchantmen sailing with her for protection. This outrage was the real reason why the Huan Min had been sent down. Merchant junks always do carry four or five small muzzle-loading carronades, and these pop-guns had, up to now, been generally sufficient to scare away any sea robbers. Now, however, these gentry had got possession of such powerful weapons, that antiquated smooth bores were out-ranged entirely. For months junks hardly dare quit an anchorage, unless they sailed in company with others, and if a strange lateen mat sail was sighted, would huddle together, and be only too glad to escape by disabling one of their own number, and leaving her a prey to their pursuer. You can understand the fright of these poor wretches, as they beat or drifted through the narrow channels, burning joss-sticks on their high poops, to implore the protection of one of their sea gods, and scuttling down below in abject fear when a pirate junk swooped down on them like a hawk, showing no mercy and giving no quarter, if any resistance was offered. It was then, in this plight, that the Taotai had implored Captain Lester to give him assistance, and you can imagine that he was only too eager to take the matter up, especially as the capture of the Sally Hobbs under our flag gave him the excuse and opportunity he needed. But he could do nothing till he had communicated with the Admiral and asked for more gunboats. This is what he did immediately, sending despatches up to Shanghai by the Ringdove. After that we had to be content to await events, and we had to wait for nearly three weeks, as something went wrong with the mails. During this time the Tyne storeship arrived with a lot of gear for us, as well as three youngsters. Only one of them—Ford—had originally been appointed to this ship, and I was much annoyed at two more being sent, because our gunroom was already overcrowded, and I'm always having trouble there, Langham, the Sub, having peculiar ideas of running the "show" with which I don't always agree. Hobbs and his daughter seemed to have taken up their quarters permanently at the Mission House, and one day, before we eventually sailed, came off to tea with me—they'd asked themselves, and I could not well refuse—and brought with them a German named Hoffman, one of the finest specimens of a man I have ever seen. He caught the Skipper's eye immediately, and the two were soon engaged in trying various feats of strength, at which, as far as I can remember, the German generally won, very much to the Captain's annoyance. Little Miss Hobbs bothered me till I let her go down into the gunroom to have all the "dear little midshipmen", as she called them, introduced to her. She made herself so popular there, that they sang "For she's a jolly good fellow", which made her fly back, in double-quick time, with tears in her eyes, to my cabin, where her father was smoking my cigars, and spitting, most accurately (and frequently), into my fireplace. Hobbs told me that Hoffman was the original owner of the Sally Hobbs, had heard of her capture from some of the Ringdove fellows at the Shanghai Club, and had come across country to Ningpo, and from there to Tinghai in a junk. Mighty keen, too, he was to get hold of her, because her rascally skipper, who had pretended to be his agent, had naturally never paid over the purchase money. He rather foolishly asked Captain Lester whether he could be of any assistance to him in his search for her; but this made the Skipper flare up and say that he hadn't orders to do anything, and "if he did get them", he growled, "it was time enough when 'Old Lest'", as he always called himself, "had proved himself a blooming fool". I softened the Skipper's fierceness as much as I could, for Hoffman was evidently hard "hit" by his money loss, and, as he had lived all his life in China, I thought that he very possibly would be of some assistance when we really did come to business. Well, at last, after we'd almost thought the Admiral had forgotten us, the Ringdove did arrive, and little Rashleigh, her Lieutenant Commander, came on board, purple in the face because he would wear his sword belt too tight, waved some official letters at me, and went down aft. It was not many minutes before I was sent for, heard the Skipper roaring to Rashleigh to "throw away that cabbage stalk he was smoking", and to Willum, "bring those eighteen-penny Havanas of mine", so knew, before I saw him, that the news was good, and found him rubbing his hands together and grunting with pleasure. "We've got to go for 'em, Truscott, got to go for 'em. The Admiral's sending me a couple more gunboats, as well as the Ringdove, and I'm to have a free hand. We've got to get back that yacht, and Old Lest will give 'em a lesson not to meddle with the British flag. Umph!" As he went over his correspondence I saw him read a telegram and turn round furiously. "Dash my wig, Truscott, look here, here's impertinence! What the dickens is the Service coming to?" and he handed it to me. I couldn't help laughing. It read, "Midshipman Rawlings chum mine wants come Vigilant—Ford Midshipman," and was sent from Singapore. "Well, he's managed to get here somehow or other, sir." "Both of 'em, drat 'em! and brought that useless rubbish Morton with 'em too! Umph!" The Skipper was really angry, but I managed to smooth things down. "Pretty plucky thing to do, sir, and both Ford and Rawlings are not half-bad boys. They don't know much, of course, but will do well." "Umph!" he grunted. "Plucky, do you call it? I don't. I'll see them both presently." It was lucky for them that the Admiral's letters had brought such good news. As a matter of fact, we fully expected that they would, and in the meantime the Skipper had obtained a vast amount of information from the Taotai ashore, and had already roughly drawn out his scheme for dealing with the pirates. "If you want a good day's rabbiting," he said, "stop the holes, stop 'em up, Truscott." His main idea was that the pirates must have, somewhere in the archipelago, a base from which they operated, where they repaired and revictualled their ships, and where they warehoused their captured goods before selling them. The authorities on the mainland had assured him that no such dÉpÔt existed on the mainland, so he only had the archipelago to trouble about, and now he determined, first of all, to examine every island. The archipelago is roughly divided into five great groups, and his scheme was to examine each group, one at a time. The three gunboats and the Huan Min, which had been placed under his orders by the Viceroy, were to do the exploring work, and he was going to steam slowly, backwards and forwards to leeward, in order to catch anything that tried to escape. You must understand that junks can hardly beat to wind'ard, and would fly "down" wind. His orders to Rashleigh and to the skippers of the other two gunboats, the Sparrow and Goldfinch, which arrived a day or two later, were—"You fellows, go in and turn out the game, umph! and Old Lest'll bag it when it comes down to him;" and his orders were the same, though not in those words, to the Captain of the Huan Min. Once the last gunboat had arrived, he did not lose any time, but weighed anchor the very next morning, and with the clumsy old black corvette and the three little white gunboats puffing after him, steered for the north. He chose to examine the northerly group first, because the winds, at that season of the year, always had a good deal of "northerly" in them, and, as I said before, junks beat to wind'ard so slowly that they would never think of trying to escape in that way. |
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