Chapter IX Captain Helston Wounded
Ping Sang Kidnapped—Cummins gives Advice—A Narrow Escape—Helston’s Fears—A Futile Search—An Exchange of Prisoners
The Narrative is continued by Dr. Fox
We arrived at Hong-Kong on the afternoon of December 22, after an uneventful voyage from Singapore, and received permission to moor at Admiralty buoys.
Helston expected Ping Sang to come aboard immediately, and was rather upset that he did not appear. He is still very nervous and irritable, and the chilly evening made him complain again of his rheumatism, though he certainly seems much improved in health and spirits since he shook off the Patagonian destroyers, and has, so far, brought his ships in safety.
He and I were smoking in his after-cabin, and making up our minds as to whether we would wait any longer for Ping Sang or go ashore, dine at the Club, and afterwards try and find the old gentleman, when Pritchard, the officer of the watch, brought down a letter.
Helston hastily tore it open. I saw at once that it contained bad news, but he handed it to me without saying a word, and rang for the quarter-master to bring down the messenger.
The letter was from a Mr. Ho Ming, of whom we had never heard.
“DEAR CAPTAIN HELSTON,
“I do not know what to say. My comprador brings you this, and you may trust him. His name is A Tsi. He knows all. You are in the greatest danger. Mr. Ping Sang has been thrown into prison this afternoon, and there is a fearful conspiracy to sink your ships. In great haste and distress,
“Yours respectfully, “HO MING.”
Hardly had I read it before the bearer of the letter was shown in—an honest-looking Chinaman, not marked by small-pox. He appeared exhausted, was much scratched about the face and hands, and I saw that a patch of blood had soaked through the right sleeve of his silk coat.
He told his story in a very direct, straightforward manner, and would not be disturbed in the telling of it, although Helston kept constantly asking him unnecessary questions, wanting to know the end of the yarn before he had barely started. I admired him for his pertinacity—though I generally detest Chinamen—and for his pluck, because he was evidently almost on the point of collapsing. In fact his legs nearly gave way under him several times, and at last I pushed a chair forward and made him sit down.
Helston seemed somewhat relieved when the story had been told, for, as a matter of fact, there was little enough evidence of immediate danger, and the thought of Ping Sang the sybarite shut up in jail as a common thief was somewhat amusing.
Hardly had he finished, though, before Pritchard came down from the quarter-deck followed by a native who was one of the tallest I have ever seen, and as thin as a lath. He was in an extremely excited condition, flopped down on a chair, said his name was Ho Ming, and began wringing his hands.
“Mr. Ping Sang has disappeared,” he broke out; “gone, no one knows where. I go see Chief of Police and tell him who Ping Sang is. He perfectly satisfied if I will stand bail. Telephones to Aberdeen police station to have him sent up. They reply, ‘The master of the man arrested this afternoon withdrew the charge and has taken him away’. What shall we do? What shall we do?”
He was in a state of most intense alarm, pitiful to see, even in a Chinaman.
“Phew!” ejaculated Helston, “that makes it more serious. Did they know where he had gone?”
“I no wait,” whined Ho Ming. “I come to you quickly.”
There was silence for some seconds whilst Helston and I looked at each other, for if Ping Sang had actually been kidnapped by this scoundrel of an Englishman, it was a most disastrous event for our expedition, because he was the head and brains of the Trading Association, and it was through him, and by means of his enormous credit throughout China, that the heavy expenses of the squadron had to be met.
Without him it was almost impossible to move, as I well knew that the funds with which Helston had in the first instance been supplied were well-nigh exhausted.
“See what Cummins has to say about it!” we both suggested, breaking the silence.
Cummins was the Commander of the Laird, and, even in the few months the ship had been in commission, had become the one man relied upon in every emergency either for advice or action. Short of stature, with a little thin body and very sloping shoulders, his head looked too big for his body and his long thin nose too big for his head. It was only when he talked, which he seldom did, that his dreamy grey eyes commenced to light up, and then they had the most humorous twinkle in the world. He was a great mathematician, had been a torpedo lieutenant, and was taken for a dreamy philosopher till you saw those twinkling eyes change to eyes of steel, and his somewhat effeminate, irresolute lips harden. This was only when he had a big job to undertake or a weighty decision to make.
He sauntered in, dressed as usual, without regard to appearance, in an old ill-fitting monkey jacket, the pockets of which had been roughly stitched at the sides, for he always had his hands in them and wore them out rapidly. He was chewing his usual wooden toothpick, biting off little pieces, which he carefully put in his left-hand pocket, whilst he carried a store of new ones in the right-hand one.
When he did speak he always commenced with a silly little chuckle which was distinctly irritating—to me at any rate.
He seemed vaguely amused at the presence of the two Chinese, and at the details of the crisis which Helston recounted to him.
“What do you advise?” asked Helston, biting his words, as he always does when excited. “Whatever we do we must do quickly.”
“Heugh! heugh! heugh!” chuckled Cummins, selecting a fresh toothpick from his pocket, “I should give that cove some brandy first of all,” pointing to A Tsi, who was looking pretty ill, and he smiled blandly at us, wandered off to a corner of the cabin where Helston kept his cigars, and lighted one, whilst a servant brought the drink and turned on the electric light, for by this time it had become dark.
Every now and then he gave vent to an irritating chuckle, as if immensely amused at the whole story, whilst Helston watched him with ill-concealed impatience, knowing that it was useless to hurry him.
Then suddenly turning round, he gave his advice:
“Communicate with the police, sir, and have Ping Sang traced. Get search warrants issued, and search every junk leaving Hong-Kong to-night. This Englishman has got a long start, but there is no breeze to speak of, and if he tries to get him away to the mainland, we might catch him if you sent the destroyers out at once. That man—the one with the brandy—would possibly recognize the junk. Send him with Parker (‘No. 3’); he’s the smartest of the three, and will probably get away first. I will go up and make the necessary signals, and have their searchlights sent over from the Sylvia. They may be able to get away in an hour.”
Without waiting for Helston’s “All right, Cummins, you carry on,” he sauntered up on deck, and we heard him singing out for the signalman; and then, putting his head down the skylight, he chuckled; “Heugh! heugh! heugh! You need have no fear for your Chinese friend, sir; they won’t hurt a hair of his head. They’ll want to exchange him for that rascal Hopkins.”
“Bless my soul, I never thought of that!” exclaimed Helston, much relieved; “I never thought of that!”
The Skipper’s galley being called away, he and I went ashore, taking Ho Ming with us.
We landed at Murray Pier, and had to push through a crowd of curious Chinamen.
Helston clutched my arm and whispered excitedly: “There are some of those brutes who shadowed me in London. Get out of this quickly, old chap!” I thought he was probably mistaken, and put it down to his nervousness, but when we got into rickshaws and were driven rapidly up the street, I could swear that several detached themselves from the crowd and followed us in the dark shadows of the trees on either side.
However, there was no trace of them when we reached the main road.
By a stroke of luck we found the Chief of Police at Headquarters, and he telephoned to Aberdeen for more information.
Ping Sang had been discharged two hours ago, and was taken aboard the Amoy junks, one of which was just then sailing.
He listened impatiently whilst the Chief of Police spoke through the telephone.
“Has she left the harbour?”... “Well, can’t you follow her?”... “How about the steam-boat?”...
“She is already out of the harbour,” he said, turning to us and hooking up the telephone-receiver, “and their steam-boat is under repairs and they cannot stop her. I’ll send one of our patrol boats from here to cut her off.”
“My destroyers must be ready by this time,” interposed Helston, “and if you will make out search warrants, I’ll catch her before she can get across to the mainland.”
“The warrants would take some time,” answered the official, “and I should have to see the Governor. The patrol boat shall get away immediately.”
But for once Helston made up his mind. “Warrants or no warrants, I’ll search every junk under way to-night,” he said, and strode impatiently out of the room.
“I don’t care what you do, outside the harbour limits,” said the Chief of Police to me as I followed Helston; “and it’s a very dark night, and no one will be any the wiser.”
Ho Ming coming with us, we went down to the Victoria Hotel, and after some difficulty—for all we knew of the Englishman was that he walked with a limp—found that he had not returned in time for dinner, as was his custom.
Coming back from the hotel, I several times thought I could hear the pattering of soft feet behind me, though I could see no one. To reach Murray Pier, however, we had to go round the cricket ground, and as we passed along the front of it I saw two shadowy figures dart across to the trees which bordered the road at the side, and it struck me immediately that, if they meant any mischief, they might head us off there.
With a sudden inspiration, I sang out to Helston, who was ahead of me, “Race you to the pier for a dollar, old chap!” and called to my coolie, “Fi tee, fi tee! You beatee him fellow lickshaw, half dollah can do.”
This was enough for the sporting coolies, and they raced like mad things round the corner and down the dark road.
It was lucky we were going so fast, because as we came abreast the one electric light in the road, two pistol shots rang out from the shadows under the trees and then a third. One splintered through the woodwork of Helston’s rickshaw, and both our rickshaw coolies, with a yell of fright, dropped their handles, and fled for their lives. Helston tumbled head-foremost into the road at the sudden stop, though I was just able to save myself, and turning, saw a Chinaman within two yards of me levelling a pistol straight at Helston. I struck at him with my heavy malacca stick, and caught him on the wrist just as he fired again, the pistol rolling into the mud.
I grabbed at it, and the Chinaman fled into the shadows.
Helston scrambled to his feet, and we both jumped behind trees, the policeman on duty at the pier rushing towards us with his revolver in his hand and blowing his whistle lustily.
Ho Ming, whose rickshaw man had dropped him twenty yards behind, crawled out from behind another tree, and soon we had quite an army of policemen running up from different directions, one of them dragging my own wretched coolie after him into the electric light.
Then came some of our boat’s crew with boat’s stretchers in their hands, and just as they reached us Helston suddenly fell in a heap on the road.
They carried Helston down to the pier, and there he regained consciousness and struggled to his feet. I saw his left arm was broken. I supported him down to the boat, got him safely aboard, and ripped his clothes off to examine him. “Beastly ashamed of myself, old chap,” he kept saying, “but they’ve got me in the chest too.”
The bone was smashed five inches above the elbow. The flattened bullet had then torn a deep groove through his chest muscles, and he had lost a great quantity of blood. His wrist and forearm were also paralysed, so it was a pretty bad job, and took me and my surgeon, young Richardson, an hour and a half before we had him ship-shape again.
We ought to have given him chloroform and tried to sew up the damaged nerve, but he would not hear of it, because he was anxious to get the destroyers away and look after a hundred details, when once Cummins had reported their departure; and all the time we were busy with him, putting on splints and sewing up the wound in his chest, messengers and signalmen kept coming and going incessantly. He feared that one or other of the junks would drift down alongside and blow up, and worked himself into a tremendous pitch of excitement when the Strong Arm delayed reporting “all water-tight doors closed”. Then he thought it would be advisable for the steam-boats of the two ships to patrol round and round till daylight, and it took a long time to get steam up in them, all of which excited him still more.
Of course I knew that Cummins would “carry on” without him perfectly well, and I am certain he knew that too, and the knowledge only made him the more determined to superintend everything personally.
Finally he wanted to go aboard the Strong Arm to see for himself that she was prepared for any emergency; but that was too much for me, and he eventually was satisfied with sending for her captain, Hunter, to report personally.
I made him eat some dinner—he had had nothing since lunch-time—and urged him to take a sleeping-draught. Not a bit of it. He was going to stay on deck till sunrise. “I’m no baby, old chap; it’s all right, now you’ve fixed it up;” and he had a chair placed on the quarter-deck and sat there. However, I put half a grain of opium in his cup of coffee, and what with that and with the strain of the last few hours, he was soon sound asleep, and we moved him, chair and all, into the navigator’s cabin, much to the relief of everyone, and especially of Cummins.
Personally I did not believe in the blowing-up theory, nor did I feel any intense interest either in old Ping Sang’s fate or in the effects his disappearance would have on the expedition. As a matter of fact, I was pretty well bored with the whole affair, and would have “chucked it” willingly, but for my chum Helston. I turned in and slept soundly, as, thank Heaven! I generally do.
As I conjectured, nothing happened during the night, and at daybreak the destroyers had not returned.
Helston had slept fairly well, but, what with the pain in his arm and chest, a bad headache from the effects of the opium, and the disappointment of not recovering Ping Sang, was almost unbearable.
He had a great number of official calls to pay on shore, and was also very anxious to “carry on” aboard his ships, but I had at last to come definitely to an understanding with him and tell him very plainly—and he knew that I meant it—that I would not remain in the ship any longer unless he went on the sick list and did exactly what he was told to do. If he continued to play the fool, I swore that I would invalid myself home, and—perhaps most powerful argument of all, though I do believe he would not have had me desert him for anything—I assured him that if he persisted in refusing to act on my advice his health would most certainly break down, he would be obliged to give up the command, and then what hope would he ever have of winning that fickle little jade Milly.
Eventually we got him to bed—I was horrified to see how thin he had become—and I gave him another sleeping-draught, darkened his cabin, roped off the quarter-deck to prevent any trampling of feet over his head, and presently he went to sleep again, sleeping soundly till the afternoon.
He looked much less haggard when he woke, but I kept him in bed.
“How long are you going to keep me here, old chap?” he asked piteously.
“Two days more at the very least,” I told him.
The destroyers had returned that afternoon without having been successful in their search.
During the next few days the police searched, without result, every junk in the harbour and every place where the Englishman could have concealed himself or Ping Sang. The second Amoy junk was found to contain no suspicious cargo, but, for all that, it was carefully watched, to give early warning lest she should attempt any treachery, because Cummins was still doubtful about her, and did not relax any precautions during those long nights.
Christmas-day went by, and Helston was able to walk round the gaudily decorated mess-decks, headed by our amateur band playing those atrocious tunes, “The Roast Beef of Old England” and “For he’s a jolly good fellow”, and everyone gorged as usual at lunch and slept like boa constrictors afterwards in their cabins.
I suppose I am too old for sea life, because Christmas so-called festivities on board ship bore me to distraction. At night the midshipmen had what they called a sing-song in the gun-room, to which the Strong Arm’s gun-room had been invited. They made the most disgusting noise—it makes me angry to think of it even now—and had the confounded impudence to ask me down, as they all wanted to drink my health.
The yarn had got about that but for me Helston would have been killed.
Perfect rot! but there it was; and the Sub and senior midshipman came to my cabin after I had turned in and pressed me to go down, even for five minutes.
I was reading a favourite chapter of Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus—what a biting cynic that man was!—and hate being disturbed, so told them to go to Jericho, and wished I had the power to send them there, the whole bag of tricks.
No news of Ping Sang had arrived, and though Helston naturally worried himself, Cummins was still convinced that, as he had been kidnapped solely to be exchanged for Hopkins, we should shortly hear of him.
And so it turned out, for a letter came one morning, apparently written by the lame Englishman and posted from Macao, the Portuguese town at the mouth of the West river.
He signed himself Chas. R. Hamilton, and suggested an exchange of prisoners. I quote an extract from his letter as showing his unbounded impudence and his evident knowledge that we were bound hand and foot whilst Ping Sang was in his power.
“... In conducting war against the Chinese Government at Peking (war he called it, not piracy!) we little imagined that we should have the honour of meeting ships manned by my own countrymen.... Ping Sang, you may be glad to hear, is in robust health, but is anxious to return to you, as, I understand, your further proceedings are practically dependent upon his financial assistance.
“As he is of such great importance, I am naturally loth to part with him; but unfortunately I hear you have on board your ship an old friend of mine, Reginald Hopkins, and if you could deprive yourself of his society we might, in short, exchange our two unwilling guests...
“In arranging the details of such exchange I must first ask you to give me your word of honour that you will not attempt any treachery during the transfer, nor endeavour, once the exchange has been made, to follow or interfere with Hopkins.
“I suggest that you send a destroyer to Macao with your reply. On her arrival a man giving my name will board her and receive the letter. If favourable, I will then write you again, and only regret that my distance from Macao will cause much delay.
“Failing a reply I shall, of course, retain possession of Ping Sang....”
We had a council of war after dinner that night, that is, Cummins and Helston had, for I myself only sat near the fire and smoked, and refused to give any advice even when they asked me.
I am paid to come this fool’s jaunt as a doctor, and I’ll see them hanged first before I interfere with their job. I certainly would not let them meddle with mine. If they did follow any advice I happened to give and it was unsuccessful, I should never hear the last of it, or, if it by chance were successful, they would pat each other on the back and pretend and believe too that it was their plan all along; so it was much better to smoke my pipe and keep my own ideas to myself.
Eventually they decided to arrange the exchange, although Cummins seemed personally averse to such a proceeding, thinking it much beneath our dignity to treat with such a man.