After so long being trapped, I felt the same excitement everyone else did. I just hoped Kang wouldn’t slap us right back.
Chapter 18
Yangtse River, 22:09 hours, 30 July 1949
Despite knowing what was happening, and by now having every faith in Captain Kerans’ ability to make it happen, in that hour or so remaining before we were going to make the dash for it, I started feeling frightened again. I couldn’t seem to help it. It just crept up on me, like the mosquitoes would creep up on the sleeping sailors. It wasn’t too bad at first; just a feeling that I couldn’t quite articulate, nothing more tangible than a vague sense of unease. But when I walked across the deck, close to the X guns, and caught the distinctive whiff of their recent oiling on the damp evening air, that’s when it properly hit me.
A memory pounced on me then – a memory that wasn’t even quite a memory. I remembered so little of the actual attack. Remembered almost nothing of those minutes in any detail – but the sound and smell of the guns had never quite left me, any more than had the sight of all the bodies. Though I’d become long used to seeing all the shell holes and twisted metal around the ship – and that emblematic battered ensign – the thought of the guns being manned and fired again tonight was more than enough to have the sensations flooding back. All at once, I felt ambushed by a powerful, mortal fear, and it was an act of will to force it out of my mind.
I knew many of the crew must feel the same. Over the months of our captivity, no matter how much they tried to push the memories down, many of them had relived the events of that day constantly; had kept seeing again the things they wished they hadn’t had to see in the first place. And I wasn’t surprised, because so many of them were still young and inexperienced. Like gentle George, who’d found me, so few of them had seen the brutal reality of war before this – even fewer, I suspected, had ever seen death. So I understood how frightened they must now be feeling again. And they knew I would always keep their confidences, too; keep those memories of the private tears some had shed to myself.
‘There is no courage without fear.’ I remembered Captain Skinner saying that to me. And he was right. You didn’t need to be brave if you weren’t afraid. A part of me felt a welcome kernel of excitement growing inside me at the sheer courage – the audacity – of what we were about to try to do. As I took up my position close to Captain Kerans (which thankfully nobody seemed to object to, even if Peggy, Queen of Incessant Barking, had been shut up down in the sick berth, just to be on the safe side) I realised I felt ready for anything, despite the constant undercurrent of fear.
The final couple of hours had not been without incident. The captain had gone up to the bridge before eight, keen to get his eyes used to the dark well before the time came to raise the anchor. Despite the advantages of the high tide and flooding, the Yangtse was still a dangerous river, and as we were without either a pilot or any charts now, being able to see with the naked eye was crucial.
And what he’d seen had been a sampan in the distance, that was heading our way.
Having been unable to get to us for over a week, due to Gloria, the traders who sold us produce (by now at ridiculously inflated prices) had, tonight of all nights, decided to make the crossing. With everyone now ready to go, and the evidence clear all over the Amethyst, there was a moment of panic about what should be done.
The captain thought on his feet. ‘On no account let them board,’ he told Lieutenant Hett. ‘And have some camp beds set up on the quarterdeck. Have some men get in them, as if they’re turning in. We must make it look as if everything is normal. Get some goods. Check the invoice. Act completely normally.’
And everyone did. But there couldn’t have been a crew member on board who wasn’t holding his breath. If news got passed on to Kang of even the tiniest oddity, our imminent deaths were now staring us in the face.
‘Lord, it’s dark,’ the captain observed, peering out into the inky night through his binoculars, the traders having thankfully left again. Despite his eyes having ‘adjusted’, that was the thing with humans; they really couldn’t see much after nightfall, which I supposed was why they tended to go to sleep. But not tonight, and the captain’s determination to free us only increased my respect for him further. It was a truly courageous decision to do the thing he was about to do, and I knew I must take my lead from him.
I also couldn’t help but remember what Colonel Kang had told him every single time they’d spoken: that ‘if you move your ship, every attempt will be made to destroy it. If you do not, all will be well.’
All would be well. We were going anyway, despite him and his threats, and all would still be well. We were going to slip and turn the Amethyst as soon as the moon nudged behind a convenient cloud, so I wrapped my tail around my paws and peered downriver alongside the captain and Lieutenant Hett, wishing I could reassure them on that point. For, much as I believed it, that wasn’t the case, at least not as yet.
There really wasn’t much to see, even with my excellent vision. Just the oily, lapping blackness of the river, the silhouetted shores – raggy and lace-like against the moonlit night sky – and the odd moth and winged beetle, flying low over the water, and – hang on! I craned my neck further. Wait – I could see something!
And so, evidently, could the captain. ‘Good Lord!’ he said to Hett, who was also peering through his binoculars. ‘See that, Number One? It’s only another ship! What the devil?’
They both lowered their binoculars, then raised them again. ‘Seems we have our pilot after all, eh?’ said the captain. Then he leaned towards the voice pipe to his right. ‘Slow ahead port engines,’ he commanded, his voice taut with tension. ‘Wheel amidships. Black smoke.’ The Amethyst responded. We were finally underway.
Everyone seemed to hold their breath at that point, it seeming a miracle that we could ever be so lucky. Because the presence of this other vessel was good news indeed. The captain’s biggest concern – which he had voiced only an hour earlier – was whether a big frigate such as the Amethyst would be able to safely negotiate the deep water channel in the middle of the river without a pilot. One slip-up and we could so easily run aground on the bank again. So the arrival of this other ship – which was strung with lights, and soon identified as a merchant ship called the Kiang Ling Liberation – felt like the best omen possible.
‘Five degrees starboard,’ Captain Kerans ordered, his binoculars following the merchant ship. ‘We’ll drop astern of her and follow her through instead.’
This was it, I realised, my whole body tensed in anticipation. After all these long weeks in captivity, we were finally doing it! We were making our escape!
Or, at least, trying to. Every second seemed to pass agonisingly slowly as inch by inch the Amethyst moved through the dark water. With our smoke belching aft now, the night felt even darker, the river’s shores blacker mounds in the distance. No one on the bridge said a word, but I knew every last man on board was silently waiting for the same thing to happen; for the moment when the communists saw us and began blasting us out of the water. Destroying us, just as they’d promised they would.