On the China Station
THE command of a gunboat on the Yangtze or West River was in pre-wireless days one of the most coveted jobs in the British Navy. Once out of sight of his admiral, the junior officer in this enviable position had then simply to order "Full speed ahead both," and vanish discreetly out of the Supreme Presence. No salute of guns could recall him, no flutter of coloured flags at the masthead or wink of night-signalling lamps could thereafter trouble his detached serenity. And there was no doubt about it either : the policemen of those remote and often turbulent waterways, the terror of river pirates, and the only admittedly unprejudiced arbitrator in international or private feuds, the gunboat captain was a figure of more than ordinary significance.
To-day, even if much of the old independence has been lost through the knitting together of outpost commands, service on the China Station is still exciting and varied enough to be considered quite the best thing the Ad- miralty has to offer.
During the troubles the river-gunboats arc in the thick of things, as they have been lately. When fighting has to be done it is usually at close quarters, the little ship sidling up alongside her enemy—a pirate junk bristling with fearsome cannon, or an armed " Red " tramp steamer—and tackling the job as Drake's sailors did on the Spanish Main, by boarding and hand-to-hand combat. "All hands repel boarders—now then, stand by for it, boys ! " It sounds like an anachronism, a cry out of the (I romantic, stirring past : but the writer has heard that very order given.
For the more adventurous spirits this ever-present pos- sibility of active service is doubtless the chief attraction of the China Station ; but even in normal times—or perhaps one should call the rare intervals of quiet in China abnormal times—the life is far from hum-drum. There are, for instance, the spring and autumn race- meetings at Shanghai and Hankow, uproarious festivals not to be missed for worlds. One may charter a house- boat, go shooting duck and golden pheasants in the enchanted country of the lotus ponds ; or, if the after- noons are oppressive with heat and patrol duties light, grant oneself a few days' leave at some airy mountain-top resort such as Kuling, the Chinese Simla. The river-ports have their night-life too : probably not even Paris can boast so many cabarets as Shanghai—real, gaily lawless cabarets, not the pretentious night-club affairs where one merely gets robbed. Nowadays, however, it is the life of the larger ships, whose cruising range extends from the Siberian coast to Borneo, rather than of the river gun- boats, that appeals most generally.
To be properly prepared for such a shuttlecock existence as obtains in the sea-going cruiser squadron one's kit must include not only the full tropical outfit, solar topee and sun-glasses, but the warmest of winter gear as welt Obviously so, on a station where it is quite possible to find oneself bathing in tepid equatorial seas scarcely more than a week after one had been shivering over a fire in Vladivostock Bay I While serving in the.China_Station the writer was in the habit of keeping an intermittent scrap-diary, one or two extracts from which may be found as illuminating as any full description of naval life out there could be. The ship had passed through the Inland Sea of Japan at the time of the cherry-blOssom—suiely the nearest approach to Fairyland to be found anywhere on earth, with those little wooden houses at the water's edge, the white sailed lishing-coracles, and the clouds of dancing petals—and was on a south-western course for Wei-hai-wei and, eventually, Hongkong for gunnery practice. A typhoon, however, intervened. And here the diary, though bald, is perhaps graphic enough.
" Ran slap into the thing," it reads, "in the morning watch. Two cutters smashed to atoms and forrard gun put out of action. Man lost overboard. Sick as a cat— hell.- Then, several days later : "Hong-Kong at last, thank the stars. Turned in and slept for twelve hours. Went ashore in the afternoon and played tennis with the captain's daughters. Swish. In the evening went into the Chinese quarter and smoked a pipe of opium just see what it felt like. No effect." A day or two on : "Tor- pedo running. Hear we are soon off up north again—. trouble at Moy. Curse. What a life."
What a crowded, fascinating life it is indeed ! H. M.
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