Part 14

The Gulf of Tonquin, the island of Hainan, and the length of coast from that point to Macao, were--and are--what might be termed the hunting-ground of the Chinese pirates. Macao, as a glance at the map will show, is on the opposite side of the Canton River to Hong-Kong, the British naval base. The trading was done chiefly from Hong-Kong to the northward, the country below Macao being practically unknown to Europeans. The British steamer _Takon_ was held up on April 27th, 1914, by pirates off Kian, to the north of Macao. It was late at night, and the captain was on his bridge. The pirates swarmed along the deck, killing as they went, and instantly all was confusion. There were two hundred and thirty people on board, including passengers and crew, and it was a bold attempt the pirates made. The officers and crew opposed them nobly, and tried to force them back; but nothing could stop them. Across the deck they went towards the bridge where the captain stood, revolver in hand, blazing away at them as fast as he could. Here so good a stand was made, that the pirates found they would be unable to win, and, while some kept the captain and his few men engaged, others rushed below and set fire to the ship. Very soon the vessel was a blazing mass, with women and children screaming, pirates jumping overboard to escape capture, the crew launching boats and trying to get the women and children off.

Naturally, after the turmoil of the fight, there was much confusion, for people had lost their heads, and though incoming steamers rescued over a hundred and fifty from the ship, which was burnt to the water’s edge, when the toll was taken next morning it was found that a hundred and eighty were missing, including the chief officer, Evans, who had been last seen clinging to a floating oar. Of the rescued, some showed signs of the encounter with the pirates, several of whom had been killed and a number of others wounded.

To go farther back, in 1865, a large junk, with a fine cargo of opium, left the port bound for Swatow in the north. Now, as the junk was well armed and well manned, having no fewer than a dozen 12- to 18-pounder guns and some forty-five men on board, it seemed unlikely that she would be molested by the pirates. For this reason a number of people sailed in her, thinking themselves safe. The better not to be noticed by any prowling piratical craft, the junk slipped out of harbour at evening, but, the wind falling, she had to anchor about nine o’clock a few miles from the outer roads of Hong-Kong, the crew, despite their strength, and the passengers, despite the crew, feeling anything but at ease in their minds; at any moment they knew they might be swooped down upon by a number of pirate junks, and then--well, here is the “then.”

At midnight, while the passengers were tossing about uneasily, a dark shape loomed out of the night, there was a grating of ship’s side against ship’s side, the patter of running feet on deck, and before the crew or the passengers could gather themselves together--before they even knew what was afoot--they were clapped under the hatches, prisoners to pirates. Eighty-three people had been captured by, perhaps, half that number!

Once having secured their prisoners, the pirates set the junk’s sails, and under cover of the darkness took her back towards Hong-Kong, keeping well away from the coast until they were on the south side of the island. Here, at daybreak, they ordered the prisoners to come up on deck one by one.

They came; and as each one showed head above the hatch, he or she--for there were women and children aboard--was seized by the pirates, bound hand and foot, and pitched headlong into the sea; these ruffians didn’t trouble about planks! A man stood too much chance of being saved if he walked off a plank, and very little if flung overboard with his feet and hands tied.

Eighty-two of the batch were treated in this way, the sole exception being a child of twelve years of age, whom they decided to keep and turn into ship’s boy. Then away went the pirates to a snug little harbour near Macao, where they shared their spoil--no little lot, either, for the ship had been well laden. Then the captured junk was burnt, and the pirates broke up into little companies and went anywhere they felt inclined, to spend their ill-gotten gains, and then to return to their trade.

Seven of the rogues, taking the little boy with them, boarded a steamer bound for Hong-Kong. The pirates, used to such ventures, maintained a fine pose, but the poor little laddie, scared out of his wits and wondering what was likely to happen to him, attracted the attention of the captain.

“What’s the matter?” asked the captain. And, with nervous glances about him, lest a pirate should catch him confiding to the kind-hearted man, the boy told him the story of the tragic night on the junk. Telling him to say nothing to anyone else, the captain, when the steamer arrived at Hong-Kong, stopped in the middle of the river, and hailed the police-boat. This arriving, the whole batch of passengers, numbering over a hundred, was lined up, and the boy made to pick out the seven pirates, who were taken prisoners and sent to the lock-up.

The people of Hong-Kong were in a fine stew over the matter already, for the previous evening one of the men who had been flung overboard had, by a miracle, succeeded in getting his hands and feet free, and, being a good swimmer, made his way to a small island near at hand, whence he took a fishing-boat to Hong-Kong and told his story. But though the authorities made inquiries none of the pirates were captured, except the seven mentioned, who were duly tried and hanged.

The terror which the pirates struck into the inhabitants of the small coast towns--and large ones, too--is clearly shown in the following story, told by Captain St. John, R.N., who commanded one of the gunboats detailed to tackle the rovers. He was cruising about the coast in 1865, shortly after the incident above-mentioned, when a sampan hailed him, and the fisherman in it cried excitedly:

“Have got pilong!” (pirate).

“Where?” he was asked.

“Can makee see,” was the answer. And he pointed to a couple of junks which were making out to sea. That was enough for St. John. After them he went, and the junks had no chance against the steam gunboat, which rapidly overhauled them. Before the British vessel could get alongside, however, a number of other junks swung out from the shore, and there began a miniature battle--much noise, much smoke, though probably not much damage on the part of the official junks, anyhow; for it was left to Captain St. John to effect the capture of the pirate junks. Anchoring off shore with his prisoners, the captain interviewed the mandarin who came aboard. In true Oriental fashion the latter thanked the Britisher for what he had done, considering it a vast achievement to have captured a couple of junks and twenty-one men.

“These two junks,” he said, “have given me a great deal of trouble for four days; they have blockaded the place; neither a fishing nor a trading junk has been able to get out!”

Naturally, Captain St. John was surprised that two miserable junks, with twenty-one men and a two-pounder gun, could have effectively shut up a port in such a way. The mandarin excused himself and his people by saying that they were very, very scared of pirates, and on being asked if he hadn’t any soldiers, replied that he had eight hundred ashore. Eight hundred soldiers, and a hundred or so junks knocking about the harbour, and yet the two pirate craft could hold up a whole port’s trade for over half a week! And the port had 4,000 inhabitants!

“Well,” said the captain to the mandarin, “if I were a Chinaman, I think I would turn pirate at once. They must lead very jolly, independent lives!”

“Yes, they do,” answered the mandarin, not appreciating the captain’s humour. “The only things they fear are English gunboats.”

Pickshui, one of the strongholds of the pirates, had already been burned down twice by Captain St. John; but, having been rebuilt, it was determined that once and for all it should be razed to the ground. A large expedition, consisting of fifty-three war-junks, sixteen hundred Chinese troops, four English gunboats and a steamer was detailed to do this, Captain St. John being in command, though the part of his own little force was rather to encourage the Chinese than anything else. The armada arrived off Pickshui, which from its situation was as good a place for the pirates to lurk in as could be found. The way in was through a channel between two islands, and vessels passing through were at the mercy of the pirate junks inside. The mandarin in charge of the Chinese section of the expedition knew this, and was pathetic in his refusal to venture in, or allow his own ships to do so, unless an English gunboat led the way. So in went the English, followed by the Chinese, who, indicative of their dread of the pirates, directed a heavy fire upon the village before they dared land a single man. Then, when they had plucked up sufficient courage, the celestial warriors leaped ashore, and a great mass of them rushed at the village, from which the inhabitants fled in terror. Then looting began; and afterwards the village was burned to the ground--for the third time.

But the work was not done; large numbers of pirates were hidden amongst the trees, and kept up a continual fire upon the Chinese troops who were told to clear them out of the woods. Eight hundred of the soldiers were detailed for this task, and for a time they kept up a brisk, though useless, because ill-directed, fire upon the pirates. Then they refused to advance a single inch; it was only courting death, they said.

“My troops cannot take the place!” cried the mandarin to Captain St. John, in an awful agony of spirit.

“Go in at them,” exclaimed the captain, “and they’ll run as fast as their legs can carry them!”

A blank refusal was the only answer, and the captain realised that if the expedition was to be a success, he would have to make it so. He therefore promised to help, and, taking one sailor and one marine, he landed and went to where the Imperial cowards were waiting. The mandarin, fear written all over his face, took his stand with his men, but the captain and his two companions went forward alone, getting close up to where the pirates were concealed.

These three intrepid men opened fire upon the lurkers, and what all the desultory firing of the Imperial troops had failed to do, they did; they alone sent the pirates fleeing for their lives!

And that little affair upset the ruffians at Pickshui!

How scared the pirates were of a handful of Englishmen is shown by an encounter which Captain St. John had with them in another little bay, where the gunboat could not enter, the entrance being too narrow and the water too shallow. As the pirate junks would be lined up inside, ready to meet with a heavy fire any attacking boats, some other way had to be devised, and the captain hit on a method which, as it turned out, was successful. He landed at a spot some distance from the entrance, taking seven men with him, and arranging for another boat to put out when the gunboat reached the entrance of the channel.

The way to the pirates’ rendezvous lay through a quarter of a mile of scrubby bush and long grass, and up the side of a hill. Cautiously this ground was covered and the summit of the hill reached. Down in the bay lay three large junks, broadside on to the entrance, ready to give a good fight to any who tried to get in. Their men were at the guns, twenty-six in all--a fair armament, and one likely to cause havoc in any boats which dare attempt to enter. As for men, there were about ten to one against the English; but the job had to be done.

Grounded on the shore was a small sampan, hidden from the junks by some trees; and Captain St. John resolved that he would have this sampan. Just as he had made up his mind to obtain it, the gunboat appeared at the entrance and the pirates began to get to business. But before they had a chance to fire, St. John and three of his men had scrambled into the sampan, pushed off, and took them in the rear. They were seen immediately, before ever they got near enough to board, and the three other men, who were coming along the shore, were also seen.

Never were mortals so scared as were those poor pirates! Seven men--white men, Englishmen! So vast an army had come out against them! It was more than piratic endurance and pluck could stand; and over the side went the raiders, some being fortunate enough to drop into the boats alongside, others tumbling headlong into the water. Such a scene you never saw! Such yells of fear you never heard!

And four of those seven men were in a sampan that simply refused to be steered, but spun round and round and round, so that they could neither get aboard nor grab any of the pirates. Then, to add to the consternation of the ruffians, another boat, with more Englishmen, appeared in the entrance; and there were no men at the guns to fire the grapeshot which they had hoped would blow the sailors from the sea!

And instead of doing that the pirates splashed and scrambled about in frantic efforts to reach shore, all of them managing to do so except about half a dozen who were taken prisoners. Then the Englishmen had a bonfire, the junks forming the fuel for it.

Truly, pirate-hunting in the Far East is a fine sport!

A VOYAGE OF DANGER

The Mutiny on the _Flowery Land_

It is significant to note that, in the merchant service, most of the mutinies on the record of shame have as their ringleaders--and rank and file--foreign sailors aboard British ships; and the mutiny on board the _Flowery Land_ was no exception.

The _Flowery Land_, laden with wines, and a mixed cargo besides, left the Port of London on July 28, 1863, bound for Singapore. Crew and officers numbered twenty, the captain bearing the honest, if common, name of John Smith; with him, as a passenger, sailed his brother George.

They had not been at sea long before Captain Smith found that he had a very tough set of men to deal with. They were a cosmopolitan crowd--Spaniards, Turks, Greeks, Norwegians, Chinamen, and a sprinkling of Englishmen, these latter being Karswell, the first mate, and William Taffir, the second mate. The seamen, being far from sweet-tempered, and giving evidence every now and then of insubordination, had to be taken pretty strongly in hand, which took the form of rope’s-ending some of them occasionally to quell their unruly spirits. Such treatment, however, only seemed to arouse the antipathy of the crew, who secretly plotted against the captain and his officers; and when one day George Carlos, the Greek, after a particularly flagrant piece of insubordination, was hauled on deck and strapped to the bulwark for a while, it made them more determined than ever to get their own back. Not that this treatment of Carlos was anything out of the way; it was a very frequent form of punishment for the law-breaker at sea. And, as a matter of fact, Carlos did not get all he deserved, for Captain Smith took pity on him, and had him released sooner than he need have done, and went so far as to physic him and let him go to his bunk for a rest.

But what harsh treatment did not effect, kind was unable to, and Carlos nursed revenge in his heart. With his cosmopolitan comrades he worked up a mutiny which broke out on September 10, at about three o’clock in the morning.

The captain was below at the time, and Karswell was on deck, it being his watch; and the conspirators had timed things so that the two could not help each other. Suddenly the storm burst; one party made a rush for Karswell, who, taken unawares, was felled to the deck with handspikes.

“Mercy!” he cried in his agony; but the ruffians were out for blood, and, not heeding his cries, struck him again and again, battering in his head and smashing his face. Then, having taken so much of revenge, they picked the still screaming man up from the deck, carried him to the side, and heaved him into the sea.

Meanwhile, down in the cabin, the captain had heard the noise, and, jumping up, had rushed half-way up the companion-way. He got no farther; several men met him, including Francisco Blanco and Brasilio de los Santos, and, armed with handspikes and daggers, they fell upon him with fury. Clinging to the ladder, seeking to work his way up, the captain was hacked, stabbed, and stabbed again, and then chased below and beaten till his body was racked with pain.

Taffir, the second mate, also roused by the hubbub, tried to get on to the deck, but was stopped by a struggling crowd on the companion, who were treating another man as they had treated the captain. A handspike sent him spinning down again; but once more he ran up, and caught hold this time of the man, and tried to pull him out of danger. He did not know then what had happened to Smith, and he called out lustily on the captain for help. There was no answer; only another blow that sent him hurtling below.

Picking himself up, he ran to the captain’s cabin, only to find it empty. From there he hurried to the main cabin, and here the flickering light of the untrimmed lamp showed him the captain lying in a pool of blood. The mutineers had finished him off there. He was dead. Half maddened by the horror of it all, Taffir rushed to the berth of the captain’s brother. That also was empty. George Smith had been beaten on the head with handspikes till the life was out of him, and then had been pitched overboard. Realising now that there was little mercy being shown to whoever fell into the mutineers’ hands, Taffir sought safety in his own cabin, where he locked himself in, and waited in anguish for about three-quarters of an hour, refusing to answer the calls of the seamen as they pounded at his door.

In the meantime the mutineers were having a clean sweep up; they knocked the carpenter, Michael Anderson, on the head, and ransacked the ship to see what they could find. Then they bethought themselves of Taffir again. Although he did not know it, Taffir was destined to be saved, for the sole reason that, now that they had disposed of the other officers, he was the only man who knew anything about navigation; and, even when you’ve got a ship in your hands, it’s not much use unless you can do something with it.

So down they went to Taffir’s cabin, and on his refusing to open the door to them, they smashed it in and marched into the cabin, where, as bloodstained, ruffianly looking a crew as man ever saw, they stood in a half-circle round his berth.

“Come out!” cried John Lyons, a Spaniard. “Come out!”

Thinking that acquiescence was the safest thing, Taffir got out and stood before them.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked, anxiously waiting for the answer, and half fearing what it might be. He had little reason to expect mercy from men who had so far shown none.

“No,” said Lyons. “But we’ve killed the skipper and the mate, and the captain’s brother has got away somewhere. We want you to work the ship to somewhere. Will you do it?”

For a moment or so Taffir thought. To say “Yes” was to lend himself to the crime; to say “No” was to ask for death. And, after all, refusing would do nothing for the men who had been killed, whereas to agree might lead to the bringing of the ruffians to justice.

“All right,” he said presently, and the party went on deck again.

Going to the main cabin, Taffir saw that Captain Smith’s body had a rope round it, and that Watto, the Turk, was going to haul it up on deck to heave it overboard.

“Hold! Let me sew it up in canvas,” cried Taffir, with all the sailor’s reverence for the dead; and the mutineers, knowing that, after all, they must humour the mate, consented. Taffir performed his sad office, and Captain Smith had a decent burial at sea, minus the service.

It was five o’clock before Taffir went up on deck, and as he did so he passed Santos, who flourished a big knife at him, as though he would much like to do with Taffir as he had done with the captain.

Having seen that the ship was going all right, Taffir went back to the cabin, and remained there till about eight o’clock, when all the hands except the man at the wheel came down to interview him.

“Come into the captain’s cabin,” said Lyon sternly.

“What for?” Taffir asked, though he had already guessed what was afoot.

“We want to see what money and clothes he’d got,” was the reply; and although he did not say so, Lyons’s idea was that, if they got Taffir there, and made him share with them, they could say that he was a party to the whole affair.

Needs must when the devil drives; and so Taffir went into the cabin, standing by while Santos, Blanco, Carlos, Watto, and Lopez ransacked it for everything of value. They broke open boxes and chests, wrenched open the desks, and, gathering all the money they could find, took it into the main cabin, where they laid it upon the table for division.

“Dole it out in seventeen parts,” said Lyons to Taffir.

“No!” screamed the Turk. “Make it eight!”

“Shut up!” said Lyons threateningly, and Taffir thought that the thieves were going to quarrel amongst themselves. However, the matter was smoothed over, and Lyons had his own way.

Into seventeen parts the money was divided.

“Here’s yours,” said Lyons to the mate.

“I won’t touch a cent of it,” said Taffir, seeing what the idea was.

“You’ll do as I tell you,” cried Lyons, “or----”

He let the rest go by default, and Taffir knew what he meant. There was nothing for it, and, taking the share, the mate carried it to one of the writing-desks and put it in there, though he never saw it again. Perhaps the greedy Turk had it.

Next the mutineers allotted out the captain’s clothes, though they did not give Taffir a share of them. When they came to Smith’s watch they decided that, as they couldn’t very well divide that, they would keep it till they landed, when they might be able to sell it. The timepiece was therefore put into the writing-desk with Taffir’s money; but that also disappeared, and later was a source of trouble.

Having settled up these little matters fairly amicably, the question was to get to land, and Taffir was made to navigate the vessel, while the crew, when it was not necessary for them to work, regaled themselves with champagne and overhauled the cargo for valuables.

For some days everything went on smoothly, and then a ship was sighted. She proved to be the _Friends_, of Liverpool, and Taffir steered the _Flowery Land_ towards her. Acting on instructions from Carlos, who was in charge of the ship, and had ordered her to be set for Buenos Ayres, under threat of death Taffir told the _Friends’_ captain that she was the _Louiza_, bound for Valparaiso.

Then the two ships parted company; and barely had the _Friends_ got away when the crew rushed towards Taffir, and, with daggers drawn, stood and jabbered at him like so many monkeys. Although he couldn’t understand what they were saying, there was no mistaking their attitude. Evidently they were angry with him for something, and it would have gone ill with Taffir had not Lyons come along. Quieting the angry crew, he abstracted from them the fact that they thought Taffir had just told the _Friends_ the whole story of the mutiny. Lyons soon put them right on that little matter, and they went back to their champagne, appeased.