A Chinese Command: A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas

The Outcast

A furious gust of wind tore down the chimney, blowing the smoke out into the small but cosily-furnished sitting-room of the little cottage at Kingston-on-Thames, and sending a shower of sparks hissing and spluttering on to the hearth-rug, where they were promptly trodden out by a tall, fair-haired young giant, who lazily removed his feet from a chair on which they reposed, for the purpose.

This operation concluded, he replaced his feet on the chair with deliberation, re-arranged a cushion behind his head, leaned back luxuriously, and started hunting in his pocket for matches wherewith to light his pipe, which had gone out.

"Beastly night for a dog to be out, much more a human being," he soliloquised. "Poor old Murray's sure to be drenched when he gets back, as well as frozen to the bone. Let's see--is everything ready for him? Yes, there are his slippers warming before the fire--hope none of those sparks burnt a hole in 'em--likewise dry coat, shirt, and trousers; that ought to do him all right. I hope to goodness the poor old chap's got some encouragement to-day, if nothing else, for he's fearfully down on his luck, and no mistake. And, between me and those fire-irons there, I'm getting almost afraid to let him out of my sight, for fear he'll go and do something foolish--though, to be sure, he's hardly that kind of fellow, when one comes to think of it. However, he should be in very soon now, and then I, shall learn the news."

Having delivered himself of this monologue, Dick Penryn lit his pipe, took up the book he had been reading, and was soon deep in the pages of Theophile Gautier's Voyage en l'Orient.

Dick Penryn and Murray Frobisher, the friend to whom he had been alluding, were chums of many years' standing. They had been born within a few months of one another--Frobisher being slightly the elder--in the same Devon village; had attended the same school in Plymouth--Mannamead House, to be exact; had gone to the same college together, and had passed into the British Navy within a year of one another--Frobisher being again first in the race.

Then, for some years, fortune smiled upon both. Each won golden opinions from his superiors; and by the time that the lads were twenty-three years of age they had attained the rank of lieutenant, and showed signs of rising rapidly in the service.

Everything was going splendidly, and both Dick and Murray were enjoying temporary rank as commanders of torpedo-boats during the winter manoeuvres of 1891-92, when suddenly, without any warning, Fate turned her face away from one of the chums and plunged him from the pinnacle of light-hearted happiness to the depths of misery and despair.

One evening, while a portion of the defending fleet was lying in Portland Roads waiting to be joined by the other division, news was brought in by one of the scouting destroyers that the attacking fleet had been seen at the entrance to the Channel, steering a course which undoubtedly had Portland as its objective. If that naval base was to be "saved", it was urgently necessary to send eastward in haste to Portsmouth, to bring up the other half of the defending squadron; otherwise the attackers would have things all their own way, and the south-west coast of England would lie at the mercy of the "enemy."

The destroyer Spitfire, which had just brought the news, would naturally have been selected to carry the message under ordinary circumstances--one of the rules of the game being that the telegraph might not be used by either side; but unfortunately, while still a considerable distance from Portland, she had commenced to run short of coal, being obliged to steam at half-speed for a number of hours, and finally arrived in the harbour on the sweepings of her bunkers. Hence there was greater need for haste than ever; and, as it would have taken longer to re-bunker the Spitfire than for T.B. 42, Murray's ship, to raise steam, the young commander was sent for in hot haste by his admiral, hurriedly given his instructions, and told to raise steam and make for Portsmouth with the news in "something less than a pig's whisper."

Delighted at receiving this important commission, Murray Frobisher had hurried back to his little ship, helped the astonished stokers with his own hands to raise steam, and at midnight on a dark, blustering night, with half a gale blowing from the south-east, the sea running steeply, and a heavy driving rain lashing right in their faces, he and his little crew cleared from Portland Roads, dashed across Weymouth Bay at a reckless speed--considering the height of the sea--and doubled Saint Alban's Head.

Murray found that the storm in the bay was a mere trifle compared with that which he was now facing; so, for safety's sake, and to avoid being blown ashore, he was compelled to stand off the coast a good deal farther than he had originally intended. He knew that he was in a position of some danger, and, besides being himself additionally on the alert, he posted an extra look-out, with orders to keep his eyes wide open for the first signs of light or loom of moving ship upon that black, rushing waste of water.

T.B. 42 was behaving splendidly, and Murray was just congratulating himself that, in spite of the violence of the wind, his little craft was fighting her way to her destination at a good honest twelve knots an hour, when, with a shriek like that of a thousand warlocks, the wind and sleet whirled down in a burst of vicious fury that struck the boat like a solid wall, rendering it a matter of physical impossibility for any human being to face it until after its first violence was exhausted.

It was during those few fateful moments that the catastrophe occurred. As the gust veered away astern, and the breathless, half-frozen seamen on deck were again able to direct their eyes ahead, there came a wild cry from the look-out forward of: "Port your helm, sir; port your helm!" followed, before Murray could spring to the assistance of the quartermaster at the wheel, by a splintering crash, the rending sound of steel rasping through steel. Then the little craft heeled over to starboard, until Murray felt himself sliding bodily down the steeply inclined deck towards the sea; while above, right over his head, as it seemed, he could dimly perceive the outline of a great, towering metal stem that still surged and sawed onward and over Number 42, relentless as fate itself.

A second later, and the catastrophe was complete. The colliding steamer lifted with the 'scend of the waves and crashed down yet again upon the hapless torpedo-boat, and young Frobisher found himself in the raging sea, clinging instinctively to something--he knew not what--that had come away in his hands as he flung them out wildly to prevent himself from sliding off the deck. As his head appeared above the brine after the plunge, he heard certain dreadful cries which he never forgot as long as he lived. They were the death shrieks of his unhappy crew, imprisoned below among the bursting steam-pipes and boilers, the cascade of white-hot coals from the furnaces, and the crumpling wreckage of machinery and torn plates; and he knew that his trim little ship and his gallant comrades were gone from him for ever.

As it happened, those on the look-out on board the liner, with the storm behind them and their eyes consequently clear, had seen the boat at the instant when the collision had become inevitable; and the captain had promptly rung his engines astern, brought his ship to a standstill, and lowered his boats in an endeavour to rescue the survivors. But the only person rescued was the unfortunate Murray himself, and even he was hauled on board more dead than alive, grieving that it had not been his lot to share the fate of his crew.

Upon his recovery he was called upon to face a court martial for the loss of his ship; and--strange were the ways of the Judge-Advocate--was dismissed that Service which, confronted by a less-harsh officer, he might have remained to honour. And since that miserable moment the unhappy man had been living upon his slender savings, endeavouring meanwhile to obtain employment of any sort that would keep the wolf from the door.

At the moment when this story opens, Murray Frobisher was down to his last few sovereigns, and had therefore been unfeignedly glad to accept the invitation of kind-hearted Dick Penryn, his former comrade-in-arms, to share the cottage at Kingston where, having no ties of any kind, that young gentleman was staying during his spell of shore leave. And it was Murray whom Penryn was momentarily expecting on this stormy, cold, and dismal evening in March, 1893, just a year after the catastrophe in the Channel which had ruined his career in the British Navy, and all but broken his heart.

Dick Penryn had scarcely finished another page of his very fascinating book when he heard the front door of the cottage open. A furious gust of wind tore through the little house for a moment, causing even the occupant of the easy chair to shiver in sympathy with his friend; and then the door was shut with a slam, and he heard Murray Frobisher's well-known footsteps ascending the stairs. But there was not the former light-hearted spring in them. Murray was coming upstairs slowly and heavily, like a man carrying a ponderous burden, and Dick heaved a sharp sigh as he murmured to himself, "No luck again to-day, evidently; else we should have had Murray coming up here full steam ahead. Poor old boy! I wonder what on earth will happen to him if he doesn't get a berth soon? A man can't go on like this for ever without losing heart; and there are already signs that the boy is beginning to lose hope. I wish to Heaven there was something I could do for him; but unfortunately I have not a particle of influence; I am absolutely powerless."