Flood of Fire (72 page)

‘I'm sure you're right, sir.'

Mr Burnham glanced at his fob before giving Zachary a pat on the back. ‘You'd better be off now, Reid; I'm sure there's a lot to be done on the
Ibis
.'

Eager to get to work, Zachary hurried back to the schooner – but no sooner had he stepped on board than he learnt of a minor setback. The Finnish first mate was waiting for him, on the maindeck. His shirt was splattered with blood and he was holding a large poultice to his face.

The door of his cabin had slammed into him, said the mate, knocking him off his feet. He suspected that he had suffered internal injuries as well; in any case, he was in no state to sail.

Zachary had suspected for a while that the mate was looking for an excuse to abandon ship: he paid him off and told him to empty out his cabin.

It was too late to find a man to take the Finn's place, but Zachary did not allow that to dampen his enthusiasm: he was confident
that he and the second mate would be able to manage well enough between them.

*

The night before the embarkation Kesri was summoned to Captain Mee's tent, for a briefing on the plan of attack. On the captain's field-desk lay a large chart of the defences of the Pearl River's lower reaches.

The fortifications that had been reconstructed or newly built were marked in red ink, and the area around the Tiger's Mouth was a sunburst of colour: the recently demolished fortifications at Chuenpee and Tytock had all been rebuilt, said Captain Mee. Chains had once again been slung across the shipping lanes and at certain points stakes had been sunk into the river-bed, to obstruct entry.

The most heavily reinforced forts were those on the island of North Wantung, which lay right in the middle of the Tiger's Mouth, halfway between Chuenpee to the east and Tytock to the west. The island was now bristling with batteries: one set of guns faced the main shipping channel to the east; the other overlooked the lane to the west. In addition, a third battery had been built on the island's peak.

Along with a number of other officers, Captain Mee had surveyed the fortifications of North Wantung from the deck of the
Nemesis
. The forts were undoubtedly impressive, he said: the island was now encircled by some two hundred cannon: the month before there had been only a few dozen guns on the island; that such a vast project could be so quickly completed was in itself an astonishing thing.

But just to the south of heavily fortified North Wantung lay another, much smaller island: South Wantung. The batteries of North Wantung were within easy shelling distance of its southern neighbour – yet, unaccountably, the Chinese had failed to occupy and fortify this second island. From a military point of view this was an elementary error, said the captain: if taken, South Wantung might well be the lever with which to force open the Tiger's Mouth. This was the thinking behind the British plan of attack, which would commence with an assault on that island.

Once again the Bengal Volunteers were to be transported on the
Nazareth Shah
; they would be accompanied by a full complement of followers and baggage. The fighting would probably take several days if not weeks, said the captain, so the men had to be prepared for a long stay.

‘This time there're no two ways about it, havildar,' said the captain. ‘We're going to push on to Canton, come what may.'

*

Next morning excitement spread like a contagion at Hong Kong Bay. Everyone – merchants and lascars, Parsi shipowners and Chinese boat-people – knew that a critical moment was at hand. When it came time for the warships to sail, a procession of British merchant vessels, festooned with pennants and Union Jacks, left the harbour to line the route to the estuary; their decks were crowded with passengers, some cheering, some praying; their masts and yards were aswarm with crewmen who had climbed aloft to watch the fleet go by.

Three seventy-four-gun ships-of-the line,
Melville, Blenheim
and
Wellesley
, led the way, and were followed by the forty-four-gun
Druid
and the twenty-four-gun
Jupiter
. They sailed out in stately fashion, with each vessel being cheered on by the spectators, who whooped and shouted hurrahs as though they were at a regatta.

The
Ibis
and the other supply and troopships were the last to weigh. They were escorted out of the bay by the
Queen
and
Madagascar
. In their wake followed the merchant vessels that were moving to the safe haven of Saw Chow, the
Anahita
among them.

The weather was perfect, cool but not cold; the sky was a clear blue and there was a gentle following breeze. This was the first time that Zachary had ventured so deep into the estuary: even though he had seen many fine prospects on the China coast, he was awed by the grandeur of this view – the channel was like a vast valley of lapis lazuli, set between mountains of jade.

The assembly point was a mile or so below South Wantung Island; by the time the support vessels arrived there preparations for the attack were already under way. The force's warships were anchored in a broadly triangular formation, headed by the
Wellesley
and two other seventy-four-gun frigates. Behind them were seven smaller warships and a flotilla of cutters and rocket-boats.
Supporting the sailships were three heavily armed steamers.

The formation was like an arrowhead, pointed directly at the forts of North Wantung Island. The island was sphinx-like in shape, with its head facing the British fleet. Upon its crown sat a massive battery, the gun-ports of which were already open, with the muzzles pointing at the warships. The surrounding shores were ringed by an almost continuous circle of fortifications; battlements ran up and down the slopes, ranging over the promontories and peaks of the Tiger's Mouth.

From the quarter-deck of the
Ibis
Zachary had a fine view of the preparations for the attack. Of the fleet's complement of steamers, three were busy paddling around the anchored vessels. Only one steamer was stationary, the
Nemesis
– but that was only because she was to be the spearhead of the coming attack. Half a dozen longboats were clustered around her, discharging men and munitions; a string of cutters was attached to her stern, ready to be towed.

Just as the sun was going down a cloud of dense black smoke spurted from the tall funnel of the
Nemesis
. As steam built up in her boilers she seemed to quiver and shake, like a racehorse chomping at the bit. Then all of a sudden she darted forward, pulling three cutters behind her, heading towards the islet of South Wantung.

South and North Wantung were separated by a narrow strip of water. South Wantung was of negligible size: had it not been topped by a couple of small hillocks it could have been mistaken for a mudflat. Like a mouse beneath a cat, it seemed to cower in front of its lofty neighbour to the north.

As the
Nemesis
moved towards South Wantung two Chinese batteries opened up simultaneously, one from the heights of North Wantung, and the other from across the water, at Humen. The first few shots went astray and before the Chinese gunners could find their range the
Nemesis
had edged close to the shore of the islet. She pulled up to a beach that was protected by a hillock.

While the batteries of North Wantung continued to pound away, ineffectively, a landing party leapt ashore. All of a sudden the dun-coloured hillocks of the islet were aswarm with the blue uniforms of artillerymen.

Zachary's spyglass was now riveted on the islet: having been trained as a shipwright he had a professional interest in the ways in which things were assembled and taken apart. He was captivated by the scene that now unfolded on South Wantung – two hundred men working together with the synchronized precision of wasps building a nest.

The gun-lascars of the Madras Artillery had brought a stack of gunny sacks with them; these they now proceeded to fill with sand from the shore. As the sacks accumulated they were passed from hand to hand, up to the saddle that separated the island's two hillocks. Here, sheltered by the slope, stood an officer of the Royal Artillery; under his direction the sandbags were stacked to form a protective breastworks.

In the meantime squads of artillerymen were lowering an arsenal of dismantled weaponry from the
Nemesis
. A set of massive brass and iron barrels came first, each of them weighing half a ton or more; they were followed by the wheels and limbers of their carriages. The various parts were put together with astonishing speed and before the sun had gone down the makings of a small battery were already visible on the beach.

The fusillades from the Chinese batteries had been intensifying steadily all this while. The islet took many hits, but because of the intervening hillock none caused any harm to the artillerymen.

When night fell the Tiger's Mouth became a vast panorama of light and fire. On the surrounding headlands the cooking-fires of the Chinese troops flickered dimly in the darkness. And all the while the guns on North Wantung continued to shoot so that the heights of the island looked like the mouth of a smouldering volcano, constantly ejecting tongues of flame.

On the protected side of the islet too, lights glimmered through the night as the British and Indian artillerymen went about the business of erecting the battery. When daylight broke it was seen that they had succeeded in finishing the job – a small artillery park, sheltered by a thick wall of sandbags, had arisen in the saddle between the island's two hillocks. It consisted of three howitzers, two eight-inch field-pieces and a brass twenty-four-pounder. Behind the gun-carriages was a platform for the launching of Congreve rockets.

At about eight in the morning, with clear skies above and the whole estuary bathed in bright sunlight, the newly erected British battery opened up. The first rounds fell short, with the shells slamming into the cliff of North Wantung, gouging out clumps of rock and earth. But slowly the impacts crept up the rock-face until they began to crash into the walls of the battery, knocking out embrasures and castellations. Soon the field-pieces switched to canister and grapeshot, sending a hailstorm of musket-balls into the Chinese gun-emplacements. Then a flight of Congreve rockets, armed with explosives, took to the air. A series of blasts followed as they arced over the battlements. A powder magazine blew up and the explosion pushed a massive sixty-eight-pounder through its gun-port: it teetered on the edge for a moment and then toppled over and went spinning down the cliffs, with a great clanging of metal on rock. A plume of water shot up as it bounced off a boulder and plunged into the channel.

By this time the British fleet had separated into three squadrons in preparation for the coming attack. For a while the ships were held back by the retreating tide; nor was there a breath of wind to fill their sails. The pounding of North Wantung continued while they waited for a breeze; in the windless air smoke and debris rose from the island's heights in roiling clouds, as if from a belching volcano.

It was past ten when a breeze stirred the air. Hoisting sail, the largest of the three squadrons set off for Humen, to the east; it was led by two seventy-four-gun line-of-battle frigates,
Melville
and
Blenheim
. The second squadron headed westwards, towards the restored fort of Tytock on the other shore: it consisted of only two vessels, the
Wellesley
and the twenty-four-gun
Modeste
. The third squadron converged on the battered and smoking island of North Wantung. Accompanying each group of attack vessels was a complement of rocket-boats.

Till this time no British warship had fired a single shot. Now, as the squadrons drew abreast of the gun-emplacements, they dropped anchor with springs on their cables, so that they could stay beam-on to their respective targets. Then, almost simultaneously they unloosed their broadsides at all three sets of defences – Humen, Tytock and North Wantung. The thunder of their cannon was accompanied by the shriek of Congreve rockets.

The firing was of such concentrated ferocity that it was as if a deluge of metal and flame had swept around the channel, setting fire to the water itself. As broadside followed upon broadside a dark thundercloud blossomed around the Tiger's Mouth: the fumes were so dense that the warships had to stop firing to let the air clear.

When the smoke lifted it was seen that much of the Chinese artillery had been knocked out. The fort of Tytock had fallen silent while the guns at Humen and North Wantung were firing only sporadically. At all three points the battlements and defences had been badly battered and breached.

Now, as preparations for the ground assault got under way, the warships redeployed: the
Wellesley
and
Modeste
had already succeeded in reducing the fort of Tytock to a smoking ruin. Turning away, they crossed over to join in the attack on North Wantung.

It was only now that Zachary could bring himself to lower his telescope: he had watched the entire operation with breathless excitement, focusing now on the channel's right bank, now on the left, and sometimes on the island in the middle.

Never had he seen such a spectacle, such a marvel of planning and such a miracle of precision. It seemed to him a triumph of modern civilization; a perfect example of the ways in which discipline and reason could conquer continents of darkness, just as Mrs Burnham had said: it was proof of the omnipotence of the class of men of which he too was now a part. He thought of the unlikely mentors who had helped him through the door – Serang Ali, Baboo Nob Kissin Pander and Mrs Burnham – and was filled with gratitude that destiny had afforded him a place in this magnificent machine.

*

Kesri and the Bengal sepoys had been assigned to the landingparty that was to attack the island of North Wantung. This force included troops from the Royal Irish, the Cameronians and the 37th Madras: each detachment was allotted a cutter of its own. Two were taken in tow by the steamer
Madagascar
and the others by the
Nemesis
.