sighted another of the enemy’s ships, and again they had to dive and go
on their way beneath the water; but eventually they reached their port
safely, happy to have escaped, but chagrined at not having been able to
do any damage to the foe.
* * * * *
Because we do not reap the benefits in daily life of the work of the
diver, few of us give him much thought; but for a hazardous, heroic
vocation, that of the man in the diving suit is probably without equal.
A thousand little things may happen, and each one of them be sufficient
to cut the slender thread of life for the diver; a man in the boat
above, for instance, may make a slight mistake, and--but there is no
need to moralise. Take the case of John Edward Pearce, a diver, who one
day in 1868 was hard at work in eighty feet of water, where the sunken
barque _Mindora_ lay off Dover. You couldn’t have seen the diver, of
course, but the cutter riding to the swell, and the man aboard her
holding the lifeline, would have told you plainly enough that below the
water was a man working amidst the remains of what was once a proud
little ship.
That man with the line was in touch with the man below; he held the
thread of life and death. Suddenly he received a signal from below, and
called out to another man, a diver:
“Slack away the wreck rope!”
“Aye, aye!” cried the man. And it was done. Then the two men waited,
expecting to see the diver’s helmet appear above the surface, and ready
to haul him aboard.
But there was no sign of Pearce; only something was happening down
there, for the man with the lifeline could tell by the pull.
“What’s he up to?” the diver asked, for he knew that it was unusual for
a diver to give the signal to come up and then to remain below.
“I don’t know,” was the reply, “but he seems to have gone back into the
hold again.”
“Reckon you’re wrong,” said the diver. “The line’s too deep for him to
be in the hold. Something’s gone wrong.”
They signalled down to Pearce again and again, but getting no answer
began to haul away at the hoisting tackle.
After an anxious time of straining at the ropes, they succeeded
in bringing the diver to the surface, hauled him into the cutter,
unscrewed his helmet and--thought him dead. Applying artificial
respiration immediately in the hope of his being alive, and forcing
brandy between the clenched teeth, they were fortunate enough to bring
Pearce round; and then the mystery was explained. The signal man had
made a mistake; he had called “Slack away!” when he should not have
done, with the result that the diver had slipped from the deck of the
sunken _Mindora_, to fall heavily on the floor of the ocean, cutting
his air supply and knocking himself unconscious. A few moments more
down there, with the air supply cut off, and he would inevitably have
died of suffocation.
This was by no means the only adventure that befel Pearce in the course
of his work in the depths, and although the following incident took
place in a river, and not at sea, it may be included in this record. He
was at work on the s.s. _London_, which had sunk in the Tay, and his
task was to attach the bales of cotton with which she was laden to the
large drag hooks which men in the vessel above were letting down to
him. What made the job a ticklish one was the fact that the water was
thick, and, as he himself said, “I had to do all my work by feeling!”
It is easy to imagine that Pearce found it very hard to manipulate the
drag hook which, after hauling a bale up, would descend to him again,
perhaps narrowly missing knocking him on the helmet, to the danger of
the glass front, which, breaking, would mean death. However, this did
not happen; instead, after he had fixed the four-pronged hook in a
bale it slipped, and in doing so, and before Pearce could jump aside,
caught him in the palm of his hand. The winches above, of course, were
hauling away at the chain which, going up, carried Pearce with it,
and soon he found himself in intense agony on the upper deck of the
_London_. By good luck he managed to wrench the hook out of his palm
just then, and the chain went upwards without a load, and the men above
believed that the bale had slipped as it was being hoisted. They little
knew what kind of a load it had had on it--a human load! Once free of
the hook Pearce, suffering severely, and feeling faint from loss of
blood, gave the signal to be hauled up, and in a short time was on the
surface. The men in the lighter quickly attended to him, and they found
that his palm had been torn completely open, and that the hook had
penetrated the third finger. That accident cost Pearce three months’
work, and for a long time he despaired of ever being able to use the
hand again.
Jim Hartley, diver, had an adventure of another kind under the sea.
A vessel had sunk off Honolulu, and Hartley, who was stranded at the
island after roving around a bit, undertook to explore the wreck if a
diving suit could be found. The island was ransacked and a suit found,
whereupon Hartley donned it, and rowed out in a small sloop with one
man to help him. The people on the shore had told him to beware of
sharks, and Hartley took with him a large knife--and it was a good job
he did! The first time he went down he couldn’t do much good, because
he landed amongst a lot of sharp rocks which threatened to cut his
airpipe; so he went up again, and ventured down on the next good tide.
This time he lighted on the sunken ship, which had a big hole in her
port bow. Thinking he would inspect the other side Hartley started to
go round, when there was a swirl of water, a sudden darkening, and a
jerk at the signal line and air pipe.
Instinctively Hartley knew that a big fish had fouled him, and thoughts
of sharks entered his mind. Looking up through the now cloudy water,
he saw a huge shark. Presence of mind is the great thing for a diver
to possess, and Hartley had it. Quick as lightning he dropped on to
his back and lay there, waiting for the shark to come, knowing that
in that position he had a better chance if it came to a fight than he
would have if he stood upright. His great fear was that the shark might
cut the air-hose, and that if the man in the sloop caught sight of the
shark he might begin to haul up. In that case, the diver knew that he
would be at the mercy of the great fish, which would swoop down upon
him as he was going up, and while he had no leverage for his feet.
Fortunately the man in the sloop did not see the shark, and Hartley,
lying there on his back, with his large knife held in his right hand,
waited--anxiously, watchfully--wondering what the shark would do. As
though playing with its prey the huge fish swam back a few yards, then
forward again, and this time it was lower down, and so nearer to the
supine man, who expected that every minute the shark would swoop down
upon him. But no; back it went again, only to swim forward once more
until it was three feet above him.
This was Hartley’s opportunity; he knew that if the shark hauled off
again, the next time it would come right on to him, and then----Hartley
took opportunity by the forelock; he rose from his back, and, with a
terrific lunge, thrust his knife at the shark. Instantly the water was
dyed red, the great tail lashed the water angrily and caught Hartley
a terrific thwack, which sent him headlong to the ground again. The
water was now so thick that it was impossible to see anything, and
life depended on being able to find the signal line. Groping about in
the dark, by great good luck the diver caught the rope, gave it a sharp
tug that told the man above to haul away, and up went Hartley, nervous
until he reached the surface lest the blow he had given the shark had
not been sufficient to give it its quietus. However, all was well, and
in due course the diver was able to go down again and complete his work.
A more terrifying fight with a shark was that which a diver once had
in a diving bell. In this case the diver sat on a small seat suspended
in the bell, which slowly descended into the water. To the horror of
the diver, when the bell rested on the bottom forty feet down, he
discovered that he had a companion--a shark! The great fish darted
hither and thither about the bell, and a whisk of its tail knocked the
diver off his seat. Quick as lightning the man scrambled to his place
again and sat there, a hopeless prisoner, with the tiger of the seas
almost brushing against him as it swooped around the bell, seeking to
find a way out of the prison. It grew angrier and angrier every moment,
and the diver knew that it would soon turn upon him unless he could
manage to kill it at once. Round and round the bell went the maddened
fish; silent, anxious, the diver waited for his chance; and as the
shark drew near to him, he made a sudden grab at its dorsal fin with
one hand, and with the other drove a sharp tool into the gleaming side.
It was but the beginning of things. The blow seemed to make the shark
more angry than ever; and the blood-red water was lashed to a fury as
the fish turned and swept down upon the man, seeking to catch him in
its capacious maw. How he held on to his seat the diver never knew,
but he did so; and every time the shark dashed near him he stabbed at
it viciously with the tool. It was, indeed, a duel to the death, this
fight between the stabbing man and the flashing fish. The diver, who
had given the signal to be hoisted up, prayed that the men above would
not take long, for he was becoming weary of the struggle. His arms were
aching, his head was swimming, and, despite all his pluck, there was
the haunting dread that the giant fish might be victorious. Luckily
for the man the shark was also weakened, though even in its death
agonies it made attacks upon the diver, who was presently gladdened
at the sight of daylight and the ship. Quickly the crew had the bell
aboard, and before their eyes was a strange sight: a dying shark, in
death-travail, lashing its tail on the deck, and a man, faint, weary,
nauseated, who dropped beside the victim.
Here is another picture of a man’s adventure among sharks. A cattle
ship had been wrecked. A diver went below to overhaul it, and found
that a school of sharks had got there before him, attracted by the
smell of the feast they nosed about after. Laying a charge and blowing
off the hatches, the diver saw the carcasses of the cattle rise from
the hold, to be attacked immediately by the hungry sharks which swarmed
about him. There were two alternatives open to him: either to remain
below and risk having his airpipe severed, or to go up and risk being
attacked as he went. He chose the latter as being the lesser of two
evils. So the signal was given; the men above began to haul him up. As
he went he had to pass through the school of voracious fish, some of
which turned their attention away from the dead cattle to the living
man. Swinging from this side to that as he was attacked, the diver
managed to ward off the tigers of the deep, and, by a very miracle,
reached the surface with no more hurt than an injured hand.
[Illustration: “Swinging from this side to that as he was attacked, the
diver managed to ward off the tigers of the deep”]
CHASING PIRATES IN THE CHINA SEA
Tales of Modern Pirate Hunting
It must not be supposed that all pirates lived in the far distant past,
or that there are no pirates nowadays. It is true that the picturesque
gentlemen whose acquaintance we have made so far have disappeared
from the high seas, but fellow rogues of theirs still ply their trade
far away in the East. The coasts of China have always been infested
by pirates; of course, they are not so numerous or so open in their
methods to-day as they were, say, forty or fifty years ago, for China
has awakened from her lethargy of ages, and her ancient civilisation
is being supplanted by a newer one which will not tolerate pirates. As
a matter of fact, the old Chinese civilisation did not tolerate them;
but the officials were so slack, and so cowardly, that the freebooters
laughed at them and their efforts to suppress piracy. It was for this
reason that Great Britain had gunboats in the Far Eastern waters
whose mission it was to destroy the pirates--rout them out of their
strongholds, and sink or capture their junks.
The Gulf of Tonquin, the island of Hainan, and the length of coast
from that point to Macao, were--and are--what might be termed the
hunting-ground of the Chinese pirates. Macao, as a glance at the map
will show, is on the opposite side of the Canton River to Hong-Kong,
the British naval base. The trading was done chiefly from Hong-Kong
to the northward, the country below Macao being practically unknown
to Europeans. The British steamer _Takon_ was held up on April 27th,
1914, by pirates off Kian, to the north of Macao. It was late at night,
and the captain was on his bridge. The pirates swarmed along the deck,
killing as they went, and instantly all was confusion. There were two
hundred and thirty people on board, including passengers and crew, and
it was a bold attempt the pirates made. The officers and crew opposed
them nobly, and tried to force them back; but nothing could stop them.
Across the deck they went towards the bridge where the captain stood,
revolver in hand, blazing away at them as fast as he could. Here so
good a stand was made, that the pirates found they would be unable
to win, and, while some kept the captain and his few men engaged,
others rushed below and set fire to the ship. Very soon the vessel was
a blazing mass, with women and children screaming, pirates jumping
overboard to escape capture, the crew launching boats and trying to get
the women and children off.
Naturally, after the turmoil of the fight, there was much confusion,
for people had lost their heads, and though incoming steamers rescued
over a hundred and fifty from the ship, which was burnt to the water’s
edge, when the toll was taken next morning it was found that a hundred
and eighty were missing, including the chief officer, Evans, who had
been last seen clinging to a floating oar. Of the rescued, some showed
signs of the encounter with the pirates, several of whom had been
killed and a number of others wounded.
To go farther back, in 1865, a large junk, with a fine cargo of opium,
left the port bound for Swatow in the north. Now, as the junk was well
armed and well manned, having no fewer than a dozen 12- to 18-pounder
guns and some forty-five men on board, it seemed unlikely that she
would be molested by the pirates. For this reason a number of people
sailed in her, thinking themselves safe. The better not to be noticed
by any prowling piratical craft, the junk slipped out of harbour at
evening, but, the wind falling, she had to anchor about nine o’clock a
few miles from the outer roads of Hong-Kong, the crew, despite their
strength, and the passengers, despite the crew, feeling anything but at
ease in their minds; at any moment they knew they might be swooped down
upon by a number of pirate junks, and then--well, here is the “then.”
At midnight, while the passengers were tossing about uneasily, a dark
shape loomed out of the night, there was a grating of ship’s side
against ship’s side, the patter of running feet on deck, and before
the crew or the passengers could gather themselves together--before
they even knew what was afoot--they were clapped under the hatches,
prisoners to pirates. Eighty-three people had been captured by,
perhaps, half that number!
Once having secured their prisoners, the pirates set the junk’s sails,
and under cover of the darkness took her back towards Hong-Kong,
keeping well away from the coast until they were on the south side of
the island. Here, at daybreak, they ordered the prisoners to come up on
deck one by one.
They came; and as each one showed head above the hatch, he or she--for
there were women and children aboard--was seized by the pirates, bound
hand and foot, and pitched headlong into the sea; these ruffians didn’t
trouble about planks! A man stood too much chance of being saved if he
walked off a plank, and very little if flung overboard with his feet
and hands tied.
Eighty-two of the batch were treated in this way, the sole exception
being a child of twelve years of age, whom they decided to keep and
turn into ship’s boy. Then away went the pirates to a snug little
harbour near Macao, where they shared their spoil--no little lot,
either, for the ship had been well laden. Then the captured junk was
burnt, and the pirates broke up into little companies and went anywhere
they felt inclined, to spend their ill-gotten gains, and then to return
to their trade.
Seven of the rogues, taking the little boy with them, boarded a steamer
bound for Hong-Kong. The pirates, used to such ventures, maintained
a fine pose, but the poor little laddie, scared out of his wits and
wondering what was likely to happen to him, attracted the attention of
the captain.
“What’s the matter?” asked the captain. And, with nervous glances about
him, lest a pirate should catch him confiding to the kind-hearted man,
the boy told him the story of the tragic night on the junk. Telling him
to say nothing to anyone else, the captain, when the steamer arrived
at Hong-Kong, stopped in the middle of the river, and hailed the
police-boat. This arriving, the whole batch of passengers, numbering
over a hundred, was lined up, and the boy made to pick out the seven
pirates, who were taken prisoners and sent to the lock-up.
The people of Hong-Kong were in a fine stew over the matter already,
for the previous evening one of the men who had been flung overboard
had, by a miracle, succeeded in getting his hands and feet free,
and, being a good swimmer, made his way to a small island near at
hand, whence he took a fishing-boat to Hong-Kong and told his story.
But though the authorities made inquiries none of the pirates were
captured, except the seven mentioned, who were duly tried and hanged.
The terror which the pirates struck into the inhabitants of the small
coast towns--and large ones, too--is clearly shown in the following
story, told by Captain St. John, R.N., who commanded one of the
gunboats detailed to tackle the rovers. He was cruising about the coast
in 1865, shortly after the incident above-mentioned, when a sampan
hailed him, and the fisherman in it cried excitedly:
“Have got pilong!” (pirate).
“Where?” he was asked.
“Can makee see,” was the answer. And he pointed to a couple of junks
which were making out to sea. That was enough for St. John. After them
he went, and the junks had no chance against the steam gunboat, which
rapidly overhauled them. Before the British vessel could get alongside,
however, a number of other junks swung out from the shore, and there
began a miniature battle--much noise, much smoke, though probably not
much damage on the part of the official junks, anyhow; for it was
left to Captain St. John to effect the capture of the pirate junks.
Anchoring off shore with his prisoners, the captain interviewed the
mandarin who came aboard. In true Oriental fashion the latter thanked
the Britisher for what he had done, considering it a vast achievement
to have captured a couple of junks and twenty-one men.
“These two junks,” he said, “have given me a great deal of trouble
for four days; they have blockaded the place; neither a fishing nor a
trading junk has been able to get out!”
Naturally, Captain St. John was surprised that two miserable junks,
with twenty-one men and a two-pounder gun, could have effectively shut
up a port in such a way. The mandarin excused himself and his people by
saying that they were very, very scared of pirates, and on being asked
if he hadn’t any soldiers, replied that he had eight hundred ashore.
Eight hundred soldiers, and a hundred or so junks knocking about the
harbour, and yet the two pirate craft could hold up a whole port’s
trade for over half a week! And the port had 4,000 inhabitants!
“Well,” said the captain to the mandarin, “if I were a Chinaman,
I think I would turn pirate at once. They must lead very jolly,
independent lives!”
“Yes, they do,” answered the mandarin, not appreciating the captain’s
humour. “The only things they fear are English gunboats.”
Pickshui, one of the strongholds of the pirates, had already been
burned down twice by Captain St. John; but, having been rebuilt, it was
determined that once and for all it should be razed to the ground. A
large expedition, consisting of fifty-three war-junks, sixteen hundred
Chinese troops, four English gunboats and a steamer was detailed to do
this, Captain St. John being in command, though the part of his own
little force was rather to encourage the Chinese than anything else.
The armada arrived off Pickshui, which from its situation was as good
a place for the pirates to lurk in as could be found. The way in was
through a channel between two islands, and vessels passing through
were at the mercy of the pirate junks inside. The mandarin in charge
of the Chinese section of the expedition knew this, and was pathetic
in his refusal to venture in, or allow his own ships to do so, unless
an English gunboat led the way. So in went the English, followed by
the Chinese, who, indicative of their dread of the pirates, directed a
heavy fire upon the village before they dared land a single man. Then,
when they had plucked up sufficient courage, the celestial warriors
leaped ashore, and a great mass of them rushed at the village,
from which the inhabitants fled in terror. Then looting began; and
afterwards the village was burned to the ground--for the third time.
But the work was not done; large numbers of pirates were hidden amongst
the trees, and kept up a continual fire upon the Chinese troops who
were told to clear them out of the woods. Eight hundred of the soldiers
were detailed for this task, and for a time they kept up a brisk,
though useless, because ill-directed, fire upon the pirates. Then they
refused to advance a single inch; it was only courting death, they said.
“My troops cannot take the place!” cried the mandarin to Captain St.
John, in an awful agony of spirit.
“Go in at them,” exclaimed the captain, “and they’ll run as fast as
their legs can carry them!”
A blank refusal was the only answer, and the captain realised that if
the expedition was to be a success, he would have to make it so. He
therefore promised to help, and, taking one sailor and one marine,
he landed and went to where the Imperial cowards were waiting. The
mandarin, fear written all over his face, took his stand with his men,
but the captain and his two companions went forward alone, getting
close up to where the pirates were concealed.
These three intrepid men opened fire upon the lurkers, and what all the
desultory firing of the Imperial troops had failed to do, they did;
they alone sent the pirates fleeing for their lives!
And that little affair upset the ruffians at Pickshui!
How scared the pirates were of a handful of Englishmen is shown by an
encounter which Captain St. John had with them in another little bay,
where the gunboat could not enter, the entrance being too narrow and
the water too shallow. As the pirate junks would be lined up inside,
ready to meet with a heavy fire any attacking boats, some other way had
to be devised, and the captain hit on a method which, as it turned out,
was successful. He landed at a spot some distance from the entrance,
taking seven men with him, and arranging for another boat to put out
when the gunboat reached the entrance of the channel.
The way to the pirates’ rendezvous lay through a quarter of a mile of
scrubby bush and long grass, and up the side of a hill. Cautiously this
ground was covered and the summit of the hill reached. Down in the bay
lay three large junks, broadside on to the entrance, ready to give a
good fight to any who tried to get in. Their men were at the guns,
twenty-six in all--a fair armament, and one likely to cause havoc in
any boats which dare attempt to enter. As for men, there were about ten
to one against the English; but the job had to be done.
Grounded on the shore was a small sampan, hidden from the junks by some
trees; and Captain St. John resolved that he would have this sampan.
Just as he had made up his mind to obtain it, the gunboat appeared
at the entrance and the pirates began to get to business. But before
they had a chance to fire, St. John and three of his men had scrambled
into the sampan, pushed off, and took them in the rear. They were seen
immediately, before ever they got near enough to board, and the three
other men, who were coming along the shore, were also seen.