A Chinese Command Part 23

For only a few brief seconds did this last; then it ceased as suddenly as though a tap had been turned off. An instant later the line of white water appeared, scarcely a hundred yards distant from the _Chih' Yuen's_ stern. Frobisher had barely time to yell an order to the men on deck to "hold on for their lives" before the oncoming wave and the attendant hurricane broke upon the cruiser.

The wave, black, gleaming, and sinister in the sheen of the lancing lightning flashes, and capped with a ridge of phosph.o.r.escent foam, swept over the cruiser's stern, down upon the quarter-deck, and then forward, burying the ship in an instant from stern to stem, so that her captain, up on the navigating bridge, was unable for a few seconds to see anything of his vessel's decks, the bridge on which he and Drake were standing--or endeavouring to stand--and the tops of the ventilators being all of the upper-works that showed above the racing turmoil of foam-covered water. At the same time Frobisher and Drake were literally jammed against the quivering rails of the bridge and held there, powerless to move, by the amazing force of the wind.

A perceptible quiver thrilled through the hull of the st.u.r.dy vessel as, like a live thing, she endeavoured to free herself from that enormous weight of water, and a few moments later she emerged from the swirl, which poured off her decks in cataracts. Then, rolling herself free of the rest of her burden, she was carried irresistibly forward on the back of the wave, like a chip in the current of a mill-race.

Frobisher gave a big sigh of relief as he saw his ship shake herself free. "A little longer, Drake, and she would have foundered under our feet," he managed to gasp; "if she had not been the st.u.r.dy craft that she is, she would not have come up again."

"You're right, sir," replied Drake, wiping the spray out of his eyes; "that was a narrow squeak, if ever there was one. But hark to the wind!

It must be blowing at ninety miles an hour, at least. I pray that nothing may get in our way, for we could not possibly avoid it. A hair's-breadth out of our course, and the ship would broach to and capsize with us."

Drake spoke truth. Although the sea was absolutely smooth--every wave-crest being shorn off by the terrific force of the wind almost before it had time to form--the extremely heavy swell that had arisen earlier in the evening was still running. Even the hurricane could not flatten that, and the _Chih' Yuen_, driven forward by her own steam and the power of the wind behind her, rushed down one steep slope and up the next with a speed that made even the most experienced seaman gasp. A very slight alteration of the helm, at the speed at which the ship was then travelling, would certainly suffice to send her reeling over upon her beam-ends, aided by the "send" of the sea.

Looking round him, after the storm's first wild outburst, Frobisher was horrified to observe the terrible damage and loss of life that had been caused by that first great rush of water. Of the men who had been on deck at the time, only some half a dozen poor, draggled, half-drowned creatures, clinging limply to the nearest support, could be seen; while every movable object had been swept overboard into the sea, as well as a number that are not usually considered easy of removal. Several ventilators had been shorn off level with the deck, and the water had poured in tons down the openings thus formed; the two quarterboats had disappeared altogether, and of another boat only the stem and stern posts remained, hanging to the davit tackles by their ring-bolts.

Stanchions were either missing altogether, or bent into a variety of curious and extraordinary shapes; and even some of the lighter machine-guns mounted on deck had been torn from their tripods, and were by this time at the bottom of the sea. The havoc was simply indescribable, and Frobisher's heart was full of bitterness as he surveyed the shocking wreck of what had, a few minutes previously, been the smartest and finest cruiser in the whole Chinese Navy, and thought of the poor souls who were perhaps, even now, struggling feebly as they gradually sank to their watery graves.

All that night both Drake and Frobisher remained on the bridge, not daring to leave the ship to herself for an instant; and many and many a time during those hours of darkness did each of them think that his last moment was come. Yet time after time the cruiser recovered from the staggering blows inflicted by wind and sea, and rushed from crest to crest of the swell like a flying-fish pursued by dolphin.

Several times during the night and the following morning her skipper tried to gauge the speed at which his ship was travelling, and ultimately he estimated that she must be doing fully twenty knots over the ground. As the cruiser was travelling at this high speed Frobisher became particularly anxious to obtain a sight of the sun at midday, in order to ascertain his position; for he was of opinion that he must be very near, if not actually among, those islands forming the Chu-san Archipelago; and he feared, every moment, that the _Chih' Yuen_ might crash headlong upon some submerged rock. But, unfortunately, the atmosphere was far too thick to render any observation possible; indeed, what with the black, low-hanging clouds, and the dense spindrift with which the air was filled, it was as dark at midday as it would have been, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, half an hour after sunset; and he was perforce obliged to content himself with the very unsatisfactory result obtained by dead reckoning.

Late in the afternoon the typhoon eased up a little, and Frobisher sent Drake below to secure some rest--for both men were completely worn out-- promising to call him and take his own turn after the first lieutenant had refreshed himself with three hours' slumber.

At the expiration of that time the wind had dropped so much that he felt quite justified in leaving the bridge; and he therefore had Drake called to take his place. With the easing of the wind, however, a very steep and heavy sea naturally began to rise, and Frobisher therefore instructed Drake to call him immediately should any danger arise to the ship. He then went below and turned in "all standing", excepting that he discarded his boots and his water-soaked oilskins; and he was asleep almost before his head had touched the pillow.

It seemed to him that he had been sleeping but a few minutes when he felt himself violently shaken by the shoulder, and awoke to find Drake, still haggard and worn for want of proper sleep, standing over him in his dripping oilskins.

"Hillo! Anything wrong, Drake?" was his immediate enquiry, followed by a request to be told the time, since his own watch appeared to have run down.

"Nothing absolutely wrong, sir," was the reply, "but what you can feel for yourself. The sea has risen very badly; and the ship is not behaving as well as I should like. The chief engineer, also, has just sent up word that the engines are working a bit loose, and that some of the bearings are almost red-hot. He thinks that some parts of the machinery must have been strained when that first wave swept over us; so I thought it just as well to let you know. As for the time, sir, it is nearly three o'clock in the morning."

"Three in the morning!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the captain. "Surely not, Drake! I must have slept nearly ten hours, in that case. All right! I will be on deck in a few seconds."

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when there arose on deck a fearful outcry, as of men in the extremity of fear and dismay; and before Frobisher and Drake had planted their feet on the first steps of the companion-ladder, the ship struck heavily, plunged forward, and then struck again. At the same moment the electric lights went out, and everything was in darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

IN THE HANDS OF FORMOSAN CANNIBALS.

"Heavens above!" shouted Frobisher, as he and Drake picked themselves up from the floor, to which they had been hurled at the first shock; "the ship is ash.o.r.e!"

As if to emphasise the statement, just as the two men succeeded in reaching the top of the steeply-inclined ladder a deluge of water crashed thunderously down on the cruiser's p.o.o.p, driving in a solid ma.s.s along her decks from end to end, and causing her to b.u.mp again heavily.

Then came a terrific shock, accompanied by the heart-stopping sounds of rending and tearing iron, shearing rivets, jangling machinery, and, worse than all, the despairing screams of men who had been caught by the giant comber and swept overboard to death among the rocks which were grinding and tearing their way into the unfortunate _Chih' Yuen's_ vitals.

When Frobisher and his lieutenant gained the wave-swept deck, the first faint glimmerings of coming dawn were just appearing away to the eastward, and objects close at hand were beginning to take on recognisable form in the ghostly, grey dawn light; so that, although all the lamps in the ship had gone out with the stoppage of the dynamo, which had been jolted from its bedplate at the first shock, it was to some slight extent possible to see what was happening, and to dodge the ma.s.ses of wreckage which were being hurled hither and thither about the decks.

Frobisher's first instructions were to the engine-room staff, to stop the engines, which the engineers had omitted to do, doubtless waiting for orders; and the next was to the carpenter, to sound the well and ascertain how much water the ship had inside her. True, she seemed to be firmly enough fixed on the rocks at the moment, but there was no knowing when she might slide off and, if she had taken in much water, carry them all to the bottom.

Then, without waiting to receive the man's report, he ordered such boats as still remained in a condition to swim to be stocked with provisions and water, and to be hoisted off the chocks ready for lowering in a hurry, should necessity arise. These, it was soon discovered, amounted only to three, not counting the steam-pinnace, which, Frobisher feared, it would be impossible to get into the water under the circ.u.mstances; and it was at once apparent that, notwithstanding the large number of men who had been already swept overboard and drowned, there would not be sufficient accommodation for half the remaining crew.

Meanwhile the seas, although they still continued to break heavily over the ship's stern, were not nearly so violent as the great waves that had swept the decks when she first struck; and the men were able to move about in comparative safety by watching their opportunity. After the first few moments of alarm and confusion, too, Frobisher's strong personality and cool confidence soon restored the men's courage, and discipline once more prevailed.

The carpenter returned after about five minutes' absence, and reported that already there was more than ten feet of water in the fore end of the ship, while in the engine-room it was almost up to the bedplates, and that consequently the stokers were drawing the furnaces as quickly as they could in order to avert an explosion. He also added that, during the brief period while he had been sounding the well, the water had risen almost a foot, and that therefore the vessel could not be expected to float much longer. Indeed it was now evident that, although the bows of the _Chih' Yuen_ were supported on a ridge or pinnacle of rock, the after portion of the ship was in deep water, in which it was quickly sinking lower and lower, so that it was almost a question of minutes before she must either break in two or else slide backward off the rock and founder.

By this time the light had become so much stronger that it was possible to make out, in some small degree, the position in which they were situated. The ship had apparently driven upon an outlying ridge of rock, stretching a mile or more into the sea in a north-easterly direction, from an array of black-looking, rugged cliffs, which towered upward to a height of several hundred feet above the sea. The cliffs themselves shut out the view to the south-westward, but toward the south the sh.o.r.e line could be seen running away until it became lost in the distance, thus proving--although the light was still too poor to enable the men to see very far--that it was not some isolated, uncharted reef upon which the ship had run, but an island of considerable size.

Although it seemed to Frobisher almost impossible that the land could be actually the island of Formosa itself, yet it was still believable when he came to consider the great speed at which the _Chih' Yuen_ had been travelling during the storm, urged forward both by her engines and by the terrific force of the wind. In fact, a few minutes' consideration sufficed to convince him that this must indeed be Formosa, since there was no other island of such extent as this, anywhere in the vicinity, upon which the cruiser could possibly have struck.

Seeing, then, that there was no time to be lost, Frobisher gave orders for the boats to be hoisted out, as many men as they could safely hold being told off to each, with instructions that, upon their cargoes being landed, they were to be brought back to the ship by a crew selected among themselves, for the remainder of the _men_. In the meantime, while the boats were transferring some of the men to the sh.o.r.e, the remainder were to set to work to construct rafts as quickly as possible out of the raffle of wreckage washing about the deck and alongside, so that, in the event of the boats not having time to make more than the one trip, those left behind should have some means of saving their lives other than by swimming.

Very fortunately, the now fast-increasing light disclosed a strip of sandy beach, on the west side of, and very largely sheltered by, the ridge of rocks on which the _Chih' Yuen_ had struck; and it was for this spot that Frobisher directed the boats to make, as offering the most suitable landing-place in sight.

These orders given, the men rushed to execute them, and in a few minutes the first boat was ready for lowering into the water. The crew got in, while others stood by the tackles, prepared to lower away at the word of command. Drake, carefully watching the seas sweeping up behind the ship, waited until an especially heavy wave dashed past, and then, when the ensuing "smooth" arrived, gave the word to let run. The boat dropped down the cruiser's steep side like a rocket, hit the water with a resounding splash, the bow and stern men unhooked the tackles, the oars pushed the little craft away from the ship's side, and the perilous journey toward the beach was commenced.

Time after time it appeared as though the boat must be overrun by the sea and swamped; but the c.o.xswain in charge of her was an old man-o'-war's-man, and each time he avoided disaster by a hairbreadth, until, at the expiration of a breathless five minutes, Frobisher saw her living cargo leap safely out on the beach, and heaved a sigh of relief.

By this time, too, the second and third boats had been got into the water without mishap, and were also on their way sh.o.r.eward, leaving about a hundred and fifty men still remaining aboard the cruiser, working like madmen to complete their raft; for it now appeared almost certain that the _Chih' Yuen_ could not live long enough to allow all hands to be taken off by the boats.

The engine-room staff had been driven on deck some time previously by the inrush of water, and were also making a raft for themselves up in the bows of the ship. Others were busily engaged in getting up such unspoiled provisions as they could lay their hands on; and yet another party, headed by Frobisher himself, was collecting a little armoury of weapons on deck, ready to be taken ash.o.r.e, for the Englishman had heard some ugly yarns of the savage character of the natives of the island, and their methods of treatment of such shipwrecked crews as were unfortunate enough to fall into their hands. Among these yarns were one or two to the effect that they were also strongly addicted to cannibalism; and neither he nor Drake, nor indeed any of the rest, were at all desirous of ending their careers as part of the ingredients of a cannibal banquet on the desolate and forbidding sh.o.r.es of Formosa.

Unfortunately, the magazine was flooded, so that it was impossible to procure any ammunition for the fire-arms, but all the rifles in the arm-belts happened to be loaded in readiness for the expected encounter with the j.a.panese gunboat and transports; these were therefore unloaded and the cartridges placed in a box for safe transit. The officers'

revolvers were also all fully charged, while Frobisher, Drake, and the second lieutenant had a small quant.i.ty of revolver cartridge loose in their cabins. This was added to the general store, and it was then found that the entire supply of ammunition available amounted to three hundred rounds of rifle ammunition and a little over a hundred rounds of revolver cartridge.

This, together with a supply of rifles, revolvers, and cutla.s.ses, formed part of the second cargo of the first boat, which had by this time returned to the wreck; and she was soon on her way back to the sh.o.r.e, with a small party of seamen as well as the weapons.

Frobisher was on the point of going below again, to endeavour to rescue a few more articles likely to be of use to people in their position, when Drake suddenly shouted:

"Look out, sir; look out, men! Jump for your lives; the ship is sinking under us!"

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 a.s.sistance 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 ash.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.s lines aboard the raft and tow it to the sh.o.r.e.

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 ash.o.r.e, 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 ash.o.r.e, 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.