A Chinese Command: A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas

by Harry Collingwood

And indeed, even as the words left Drake’s lips, with a terrible grinding sound of rending iron and timber the Chih’ Yuen began to slide backward off the sharp pinnacle of rock that supported her bows.

Some of the men followed Drake’s advice and leaped overboard, others seized anything handy that would serve to support them, while one small body of seamen made herculean efforts to launch the half-completed raft. But these last were too late; the structure had been made of large dimensions on purpose to sustain the weight of a considerable number of men, and it was too heavy to be moved unless all hands had applied themselves to the task. It refused to budge, and while the men were still struggling with it, the cruiser slid clear of the last ridge of rock into the sea in a terrific swirl of foaming water, rolled sluggishly once or twice, with the water up to the level of her gun casemates, and then slowly capsized and sank, throwing all the men who were fortunate enough to have been above-deck into the water, where a terrible scene of struggling among the drowning at once ensued.

Quite a large proportion of the Chinese were unable to swim, and those of them who possessed no spar or piece of plank to cling to either strove to save themselves by clutching at the nearest swimmer, or fought to tear their more fortunate companions from their supports and seize them for themselves. There were many exhibitions of mad brutality, selfishness, and cowardice, as there too frequently are on such occasions; but these were redeemed by the heroic deeds of others who retained their senses and their manhood.

The raft had, of course, floated clear when the ship sank; and Frobisher and Drake, after being submerged so long by the suction of the sinking craft as to be almost suffocated, were lucky enough to come to the surface close alongside it. Having gained the raft, they at once set to work to haul on board everybody within reach, and then, with the assistance of a few oars which had floated free of the broken boats remaining on the cruiser, the occupants managed to propel the raft, despite the heavy sea still running, to a large grating, to which half a dozen men were clinging, submerged to their chins.

By this time, however, the raft was as heavily weighted as it could safely be—the water, indeed, was sweeping over it at times in such volume as to bury the men almost to their waists; and it was fortunate for its occupants that the other two boats now returned and, getting alongside, proceeded to relieve it of some of its living burden, otherwise a great number would inevitably have soon been swept away to death.

There were still a few men either swimming or clinging to pieces of wreckage, and when these had been taken on board the boats, the mournful harvest was completed. Save for spars, gratings, and fragments of wreckage, the sea was clear of every trace of the once-proud cruiser. All the survivors of the catastrophe were either ashore, on the raft, or divided between the two boats; and after another careful scrutiny in every direction, Frobisher recognised that there were no more to be saved, and ordered the boats to pass lines aboard the raft and tow it to the shore.

The landing was effected in safety, except for the loss of one man, who was snapped up by a shark as he sprang out of one of the boats to help to run her up the beach. The great fish swooped up with a rush, turned on its side in the shallow water, and dragged the man away before a hand could be lifted to rescue him. His despairing shriek rang in the ears of everybody for many a day afterwards; yet his fate was a lucky one compared to that in store for some of those who stood shivering and wet upon that sandy beach in the chill air of early morning.

Once safely ashore, Frobisher proceeded to count the survivors; and out of the crew of three hundred and thirty men who were on board the Chih’ Yuen when she left Wei-hai-wei, he found only a hundred and forty remaining. Of the others, some had been washed overboard during the typhoon, more had been swept away when the ship first struck, and the rest had gone down when she sank, either between her decks or sucked down and drowned in the vortex caused by the sinking hull.

This was no time for repining, however; they were not yet by any means out of the wood, and there was a good deal of work to be done at once. First of all, the provisions and water-casks were left on the beach under a guard, while two parties, headed by Frobisher and Drake respectively, armed themselves from the stock of weapons brought ashore, and went off in different directions, in search, first, of a water supply, and secondly, of a spot in its immediate neighbourhood where they might construct some sort of a defence to protect themselves from any attack until rescued.

That there was urgent need for such a structure was very soon demonstrated, for scarcely had Frobisher and his party penetrated a quarter of a mile into the jungle, when they were saluted by a shower of spears and arrows that stretched no less than thirteen of their number dead on the ground, and wounded several others. Frobisher immediately threw his men roughly into a square formation, and fired a volley into the surrounding bush, in the midst of which naked brown forms could be seen flitting hither and thither; and by the volume of shrieks, groans, and cries that arose immediately after the discharge, it seemed that he had taught the savage natives a sharp and wholesome lesson. At any rate, they retreated in confusion; and soon afterward Frobisher was fortunate enough to discover a spot that would serve admirably as a site for a sort of blockhouse or fort. There was a spring of good water sufficient in quantity to supply the needs of his whole force, an open space of ground on which the structure could be built, and an abundance of small timber that could easily be worked up into palisading with the assistance of the tools from the carpenter’s chest—one of the first things that Frobisher had thought of sending ashore, after the arms and ammunition.