Under the Dragon Flag | Page 7

it here and there, we contrived to patch it up sufficiently to give our unfortunate shipmates Christian burial. I should mention that another of the wounded men died after our arrival at Tientsin, and was interred in the English cemetery. He was the man who was first hit; his name was Massinger, and he claimed to be a descendant of the dramatist. He was known on board chiefly as "Hair-oil," from his addiction to plastering his bushy black hair with some shiny and odorous compound of that nature. Both his legs were broken by the shot that struck him.
As to my friend Webster, adorned with a black eye, he never ceased, during the remainder of the voyage, to declaim against Chubb's foolhardiness and uphold his own proceedings on the eventful night. For his own discomfiture he sought consolation in rum, protesting that it was a miracle that any of us had survived to taste another drop of that liquid comforter.
"But I'm a houtcast," he would wind up invariably, as his potations overcame him; "that's where it is--who cares what a ---- houtcast thinks?"
Chubb took no further notice of him than to laughingly threaten to put him under arrest for mutiny. It must not be supposed that the "houtcast's" behaviour on the occasion in question was due to any want of courage. Escape seemed impossible; the risk of the attempt was tremendous, and I am convinced that if the matter had been left to my own judgment, I should not have dared it. But Chubb was one of those men whom nothing can daunt, and who are never more completely in their element than when running some desperate hazard.
CHAPTER II
We reached Tientsin without further mishap, and turned over our cargo to Mr. H----'s agent, who disposed of it at a handsome profit, though hardly sufficient, I thought, to warrant the risking of so valuable a ship as the Columbia. We lay in the port about a week, to effect the repairs rendered necessary by the Japanese gun practice.
At Tientsin a war council was sitting, and one morning Mr. Mac----, the agent, came on board and informed us that he had received a proposal for the Columbia to be chartered as a transport to convey troops to the Corea. It was only, he said, for an immediate special service, and the terms being exceedingly advantageous he had resolved on his own responsibility to accept the offer, as the work would not occupy us more than a few days. We were to be one of a convoy of transports which, sailing at different times from different ports, were to rendezvous in Talienwan Bay on the east coast of the Liaotung Peninsula, where the troops were to be embarked under protection of an armed squadron. There was no time to be lost, and we were to weigh anchor and make for the bay as soon as possible.
On the afternoon of the same day two Chinese emissaries came to make a visit of inspection, and in the evening we steamed out of the port, flying the American colours, with nothing of course to fear at the moment. On arriving at Talienwan we found the bay full of shipping. Four large transports were already engaged in the work of embarkation, and another arrived after we did. The warships presented a gallant array, twelve in all, belonging, with two or three exceptions, to the North Coast Squadron. There were four torpedo-boats in addition. The most powerful vessels were the Chen-Yuen and the Ting-Yuen, barbette ships, English-built, I think, of 7280 tons. The King-Yuen and Lai-Yuen were two barbette ships of smaller tonnage--2850. Then came the Ping-Yuen, of 2850 tons, a coast-defence armour-clad; a turret-ship, the Tsi-Yuen, of 2320 tons; the Chih-Yuen, Ching-Yuen, Kwang-Kai and Kwang-Ting, all of 2300 tons, deck-protected cruisers; and the Chao-Yung and Yang-Wei, each of 1400 tons, unprotected cruisers.
I have forgotten to say that we took a Chinese agent on board at Tientsin for the trip. He was alleged to be able to speak English, but rarely indeed was his jargon intelligible. I asked him to translate the names of the Chinese warships, but this was a task far beyond the linguistic capacity of my friend Lin Wong. I understood him to say that it would require "too muchee words" to render in our prosaic tongue the amount of poetic imagery concentrated in the expressions "Chih-Yuen," or "Kwang-Kai." Of what the names mean I am in ignorance still.
We were speedily boarded by a boat from the flagship, to the officer of which Lin Wong gave an account of his stewardship, and we received directions to draw up to the landing-stage in turn and receive our human freight. The troops were still arriving from the roads to Talien and Kinchou. They seemed for the most