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.