A Chinese Command: A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas

by Harry Collingwood

Frobisher had little leisure, however, for the contemplation of possible diplomatic action on the part of the Chinese or Japanese, for he had now other things to engage his attention. To his astonishment, as he watched, he saw that the ship which had just steamed into view was not alone; she was followed, close astern, by another cruiser of her own size and class, also firing heavily with her broadside batteries, and also flying the Chinese flag. A third and fourth vessel—gunboats these—followed in her wake; and, bringing up the rear, there were three hired transports which appeared to be crowded with men.

So this was no chance appearance of a single cruiser at a critical moment; it was evidently part of a preconcerted scheme—some arrangement previously made between Korea and China whereby the latter country was to lend her assistance for the crushing of the rebellion, a task which the Korean Government had apparently decided to be beyond its capabilities.

The Chinese squadron had been steaming exceedingly slowly when it had first come into view, and Frobisher could now see, from the flash of white water under the ships’ sterns, that their engines were being sent astern; and a few seconds later the entire fleet came to an anchor, their cables flying out through the hawse-pipes with a roar which was plainly audible at the fort. The four men-of-war anchored stem and stern, broadside-on to the shore, while the three transports took up their berths about half a mile farther seaward, the ships themselves being screened from the rebel fire by the steel hulls of the men-of-war.

Fully recovered now from their first surprise, the rebels resumed their cannonade most pluckily, two of the field-pieces being directed against the fleet, while the remaining four retained their original position, and poured a well-directed and concentrated fire on the fort. It was apparently the intention of the rebel commander to reduce and take possession of the fort, if he could, before the Chinese troops should be enabled to effect a landing, so that he might have some shelter behind which to hold out until he could summon more rebel troops to his aid.

But the commandant of the garrison had evidently no intention of letting the fort slip through his fingers, now that assistance was so close at hand; and from what Frobisher had already seen of him, he felt sure that his visitor of yesterday was the exact type of man who would blow the building into the air, with himself and all that it contained, rather than surrender, even to an overwhelming force. The guns from the battlements crashed out anew, and although their fire was not nearly so accurate as that from the rebel pieces, yet, in the long run, weight of metal was bound to tell; and, while the shot was solid and had not therefore the devastating effect of the percussion shell fired from the war-ships, it began to be apparent that some of them at least were getting home, and that their effect was already becoming very galling to the rebels. The latter, now harassed almost beyond endurance by the combined fire of the fort and the ships, brought up, about midday, a company of sharpshooters armed with the latest breech-loaders, which they had somehow managed to secure; and by means of well-directed volleys, contrived to keep the men of the fort from their guns to such an extent that the fire from that building dwindled almost to nothing, so that one more of the rebel guns was released to be trained on the anchored cruisers, when the effect of the increased cannonade soon became apparent in that direction also.

Now and again Frobisher saw flashes of fire leap up on board the men-of-war, for it appeared that the rebels were also possessed of a few percussion shells; and he further observed that the ten-inch gun in the bow turret of the foremost cruiser had been put out of action entirely, thus giving a good deal of relief to the men who had been exposed to its fire. The weapon had been struck full upon the muzzle at the precise moment when a shell was leaving it, and the combined explosion had torn a length of about four feet off the end of the gun, and had lifted it clean out of its bearings, so that it now pointed skyward, its under side resting on the edge of the turret and threatening to crash down on deck outside at any moment. The ruddy orange tint of the light and the length of the shadows told that the sun was near his setting, yet up to this time no effort had been made to land any of the men from the transports. But now Frobisher observed that boats were being lowered from the steamers, and that soldiers were beginning to clamber down into them, while the war-ships redoubled their fire, with the evident purpose of putting the rebel guns out of action, and so making it the easier for the troops to effect a landing.

And now at length that terrible and continuous cannonade began to have its effect, especially as the garrison of the fort had begun to imitate the rebel tactics and were now harassing the foe with rifle fire. The garrison, being sheltered by the parapet of the battlements, were able to fire at leisure and without much danger to themselves; so that, although they were not such good marksmen as their opponents, the mere weight of their fire eventually began to tell upon the unfortunate men in the open, who had nothing but the fringe of jungle to protect them.

The field-piece which had previously been put out of action was now struck a second time by a fragment of flying shell, and collapsed once more on to the sand; and so fierce was the rifle and shell fire that was now being directed upon the little band of gunners that, although they made the most valiant and desperate efforts to repair the damage, they were driven away from the spot time after time, and were at last compelled to abandon their efforts. Then a second field-piece was blown completely off its carriage by one of the solid shot from the fort, and a few seconds afterwards a third gun was dismounted and its crew shattered to pieces by a shell from one of the Chinese gunboats.

Stubbornly, however, the rebels still clung to their position, and, again swinging round the two pieces with which they had been playing on the ships, they resumed the bombardment of the fort, in the hope of battering in a breach through which the place might be carried by storm, or compelling its surrender before the approaching reinforcements could arrive from the fleet.

So absorbed was Frobisher in the little drama that was being enacted before his eyes that, even when the muzzles of the rebel guns were trained on what appeared to be the very window out of which he was peeping, the idea never once occurred to him that he was in a position of considerable danger, and that he would be well advised to climb down; so that it was not until he saw the flashes of flame leap from the pieces as they were all fired simultaneously that he realised the full extent of his temerity.