Chapter 14
It was several days before I was to gain any real understanding of why we were still trapped halfway up the Yangtse. After the usual Sunday morning church service, the crew were told to gather on the lower mess deck, and once Captain Kerans had all the men assembled together, he explained that we were in the middle of what he called a ‘diplomatic deadlock’. The local garrison commander, who had authority over the shore batteries that had fired on us, was not prepared to let us go.
Peggy and I sat together on one of the gun decks, the watery sun like a blanket on our backs, watching the antics of a small group of plump brown and white birds, who were bobbing on the water a few yards from the Amethyst, poking through the surface with their pencil-like beaks.
I couldn’t help but contrast the scene with the starkness of the captain’s words. ‘If we attempt to move, we will be fired upon,’ he explained grimly. ‘Until such time as we are prepared to admit that the Amethyst fired first.’
There was a swell of angry protest at this outrage. He raised a hand to silence it. ‘Which I have, of course, emphatically denied. And shall continue to do so, as we are not in the business of colluding with such lies. Quite apart from anything else, it would be a gross betrayal of the men who have died here. But I’m afraid that leaves us in something of a bind, and I’m going to need you all to be strong. As of now, we are in reasonably good shape. Talks continue – agonisingly slowly, but they continue – and at the highest level, so I am at least hopeful that it won’t be too long before the communist leaders take heed of the truth – that there is a somewhat trigger-happy garrison commander at the root of this mess – and that we’ll be allowed to continue our journey to Nanking.
‘But, in truth, I cannot say how long things will take. So though we must hope for the best, we must also prepare for the worst. Keep occupied, do everything we can to make the Amethyst seaworthy, and be understanding about the difficulties and privations that may lie ahead. We are at least lucky that we have assistance from the nationalists and can get our hands on some fresh food, though with the communists taking control of both banks of the river now, in places, I don’t know how long that might continue. We must also preserve our oil, for obvious reasons, so frugality is going to be key. To that end, I’m going to review our use of it on a day-by-day basis. It may well be that at some point soon we’ll have to shut down the boilers at night. Which won’t be comfortable, especially with the temperatures rising as they are, but I know I can rely on you all to be stoical.’
The captain knew he could also rely on me doing my part. Since the first rat I’d given him, I’d caught another two, and though our paths hadn’t crossed much he’d spotted me the previous morning and to my delight had said, ‘Well, now – so this is our master rat-catcher! Very glad to make your acquaintance at last, young Simon. Keep up the good work!’ Then he’d smiled and strode off, hands clasped loosely behind his back, leaving me puffed up with pride.
He looked around at the crew now and, following his gaze, so did I. So many of the remaining crew were so young themselves, and it shook me. Not to mention Lieutenant Strain, the fleet’s electrical officer, who now looked every inch the weather-beaten sea dog, despite having only joined the Amethyst at Shanghai the night we’d sailed – a taxi ride to Nanking was all he’d been after. As it stood, he’d been lucky to survive.
‘As I say, men,’ Captain Kerans finished, ‘this is a difficult situation – and one not of any of our making. And all we can do is accept our place in it with fortitude, and trust that everything that can be done is being done to expedite our safe passage. In the meantime, I know Lieutenant Commander Skinner would have been extremely proud of you. As am I. You are a credit to His Majesty’s Navy.’
Captain Kerans had the men fall out then, and despite the morale-boosting words, it was clear that the reality of our capture was beginning to sink in, and the mood quickly dipped again. I could see it in the slump of shoulders as the crew dispersed, in the low mutterings of discontent that floated up to me and Peggy.
I could mostly sense the growing anger, which was wholly justified, that the Amethyst was being pinpointed as the aggressor. That to admit to an outright lie would be a condition of us being freed, just to save the face – and perhaps the bacon – of a communist soldier who’d done wrong. And that anger was good, I thought. Fortifying and good. It would give the men a much needed reason to stay strong.
But it seemed Captain Kerans had been right when he’d used the words ‘agonisingly slowly’. A week passed and then another, and a new routine became established; one of hard physical work to keep the Amethyst in peak condition, which meant maintenance and cleaning and drills for the men, and round-the-clock rat-hunting for me. And while we got on with the business of managing our silent, stranded ship, the officers would be back and forth across the Yangtse in a communist sampan, back and forth, back and forth, all done up in their whites – to meetings with the communists, which always promised much but in every case failed to deliver.
The weather was a constant irritant too. The temperature rose and kept rising, but more often that not, there was no pleasure to be had from it. ‘There’s just too damned much weather!’ Frank was moved to comment one day, as we were treated to lashings of rain and winds strong enough to blow a man right off his feet (let alone a cat) alongside the inevitable soaring temperatures, dense, swirling mists, and humidity so high it made everything wringing wet anyway. ‘Can’t we just have one ruddy type at a time?’
And then, perhaps inevitably, came the news from the captain that in order to preserve the precious stock of oil we still had, the boilers would be shut down at night. This left nothing but the emergency lighting to rely on, and also meant there was no ventilation.
The news was greeted with grim acceptance, as the anger still held sway. They would not beat us. However hard they conspired to make life difficult for us, the truth was the truth, and every man was going to stick by it. To collude with their lies would be to betray our dead friends, so they could do what they liked.
Naturally, the rats were thrilled to bits.
Chapter 15
By mid-June, the temperature on board was becoming unbearably hot. By day it was in the hundreds and by night, not much cooler, and with the oil situation critical and no guarantee of getting more, the boilers remained shut down and silent every night, making the Amethyst as quiet as the grave.
It was strange and unsettling. A ship was a living, breathing thing. Whether at sea or in port, it was never meant to be completely silent. I knew this from my days as a kitten in Hong Kong. I would be mesmerised at night, often, by the big ships in the harbour – always lights showing, bells and whistles, the low chug and throb of all the engines and boilers, sailors running around everywhere, blurs of navy, flashes of white – seeming to crawl over the infrastructure like ants. This silence was different. It was complete and unbroken, and it was only now I felt it that I realised how peculiar it was.
I suspected the silence was the last thing on my friends’ minds. Just the heat, and the humidity, and the inability to sleep; so much so that little by little, the sleeping arrangements changed. Forced to swelter and sweat through the long sticky nights, many would often give up their hammocks and sleep on camp beds out on deck.