Marry her?
The packet made the coastal run in good time and it wasn’t long before Wei Hai Wei, much smaller than Chefoo, slid into view. Morrison looked towards the low brown denuded hills with their sparse covering of scrub oak and rough grass, imagining Fraser’s dismay at being ordered to erect a sturdy mast. Without the right raw materials, any enterprise descended into folly.
The man has a sense of humour.
The boat juddered to anchor at Port Edward, the compact settlement that was home to Wei Hai Wei’s small European community. Atop a flagpole, one of the British Empire’s more eccentric flags snapped in the breeze. A Union Jack in the upper left corner. Centre right a circular badge with a delicate Chinese watercolour of Mandarin ducks, the classic symbol of love and fidelity. They represented the marriage of sound colonial administration and local custom, which was intended to transform the sleepy fishing village into a veritable Hong Kong of northern China. It would be more than just a British naval base and rest station: it would be a model of colonial administration. And so the British established school and clinics. They planted trees. They vaccinated children against bubonic plague and puerperal fever, mandated the covering of night-soil buckets and organised villagers into rat-catching associations. Yet for all the energy of the administration and hopefulness of the symbolism, Morrison knew neither the British nor the Chinese expected the union to last. The 1898 convention under which the Ch’ing Court leased Wei Hai Wei to Britain granted the tiny territory to the British only for so long as the Russians held Port Arthur. Thus both sides viewed the arrangement as a makeweight by which a more stable balance of imperialist powers might be achieved. If Japan won this war, the union would dissolve. It was hard to put much stock in love and fidelity when the groom knew the bride was liable to wander off with someone else at any moment.
Morrison told himself to stop reading meaning into every deuced thing.
He and Kuan caught the first launch for hilly Liu Kung Island, the natural breakwater at the mouth of Wei Hai Wei’s harbour, which the British navy had made its base and recreational ground. It was not a big place, only two miles long and one and a quarter square miles in area. The north of the island rose steeply from the sea in forbidding cliffs. Chinese fishermen lived on the island’s pointy east and blunter west ends in stone houses thatched with seagrass; the British erected their barracks, churches and public buildings in the sheltered south and centre. Kuan pointed out a Japanese man o’ war steaming past, en route to Port Arthur.
They disembarked at the crowded quay on the island’s south side. Directly across the way was a grand old building that had formerly housed a Chinese temple. At the top of a low flight of stone steps stood massive vermilion doors. Painted with the fierce figure of the Chinese God of War, they had been swung open in welcome. A sign at the side of the door announced the premises as ‘Queen’s House’; it served as the Royal Naval Canteen. Making plans to meet Kuan later, Morrison strode up the stone steps, stepped smartly over the wooden threshold and looked around. In a courtyard where Buddhist idols once ‘ate joss’ and spirit food offered up by worshippers, British officers and civilians consumed light meals and ‘temperance drinks’ such as beer served up by the management. Seated at a table on which the latest edition of the daily Wei Hai Wei Lyre lay open and unread, Lionel James puffed furiously on his pipe, looking no less red-faced or wild-eyed than the God of War himself.
Morrison had barely sat down when James let loose a barrage: ‘the hide of…’, ‘gross insult…’, ‘outrage…’, ‘provocation…’ Morrison had to wind him back like a clock.
Admiral Alexieff, the Tsar’s viceroy for the Far East, James said, had decreed that should the Russian navy discover that any correspondents travelling on neutral vessels were utilising wireless technology to communicate war news to the Japanese, the Russians would arrest them as spies and seize their vessels and equipment. ‘I am, of course, the only correspondent who fits the description!’ James fumed. ‘And all this just as I’ve finally begun to make a mark with my telegrams. The New York Times is now publishing them after The Times. Somebody has to stare down Alexieff!’
‘Agreed,’ Morrison said. ‘But if you are not actually communicating war news to the Japanese, the Russians would have no grounds to complain. I say write a telegram for The Times in which you make clear that you use a cipher that neither Japanese nor Russian instruments are capable of recording. Put it on the record. You are doing nothing that compromises the neutrality of your position or the ship’s. If the Russians dare to act then, it will be seen as a hostile act.’
James grunted assent. His brow remained furrowed under his slouch cap. He relit his pipe and drew on it for a while in silence, his features growing hazy behind the cloud of smoke. ‘That is certainly the position of the editors of both The Times and the New York Times,’ he confirmed in a gruff voice. ‘The New York Times is making much of the fact that our wireless operators are young Americans. There is talk that if the Russians are going to threaten American lives, the State Department will have to get involved. The New York Times has gone so far as to say that Russian seizure of the Haimun would be tantamount to a declaration of war against both the United States and Great Britain.’
‘And the American government?’
‘The American State Department is considerably more cautious in its own pronouncements.’
‘What about the Foreign Office?’
‘More cautious still. The legal adviser of Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne is appalled that we may have compromised Britain’s neutrality in Russian eyes. He has not been shy about letting our editors know it. And thanks to Admiral Noel’s opposition to the project, the Admiralty Lords have weighed in as well.’ James paused to gauge Morrison’s reaction.
‘You’re right,’ Morrison said. ‘It’s a perfect night for a stroll.’
Having delivered that non sequitur, Morrison rose and strode towards the exit. James, snatching his tobacco and matches from the table, scurried after with a perplexed expression.
It was a mild and moon-silvered night. ‘Our conversation was attracting attention,’ Morrison explained once they were on the waterfront. ‘In their eagerness to eavesdrop, several correspondents were listing dangerously from their chairs. Now that we are no longer placing them in harm’s way, we are free to talk. What exactly is the opinion of the Admiralty Lords?’
‘It is that issues of neutrality aside, allowing journalists with wireless apparatus to steam willy-nilly about the theatre of war in press boats could set a dangerous precedent. They don’t want anyone trying that when it’s Britain at war.’
‘They have a point,’ Morrison conceded.
‘To make things worse, the commander of Britain’s China Fleet, Sir Cyprian Bridge, was furious to learn that Fraser had enlisted the help of the Royal Navy to raise the wireless mast. Fulminated that it was “a piece of great impertinence”. He learned about it from a guest at his table on board the HMS Alacrity.’
‘Insult to injury,’ observed Morrison, imagining the scene. ‘At least you’ve got a fine ship there with the Haimun. I’m rather fond of it for its role in transporting the British troops who came to put down the Boxers four years ago.’
‘The Haimun is a good vessel,’ James agreed. ‘She can do sixteen knots if pushed. Jolly good crew, too. Captain Passmore is a mulatto who claims a wealthy uncle in Melbourne and a place in the bed of the actress Lillie Langtry. You’d enjoy Passmore. Biggest gossip on the China coast. Our quartermaster’s a hardy Malayan, the wireless operator, Brown, is a good bloke, and Tonami, my Japanese translator, a capital sort. He’s spent time in Europe. Knows Paris as well as he does Tokio. G.E…’ James turned and gripped Morrison’s arm. ‘We sail for Nagasaki at dawn. Come with us. You’ll get a taste of the Haimun in action. You’ll see for yourself just what’s at stake. We’re going to change the future of correspondence, G.E.! We just need to be left alone to do it! Well? Will you come?’
Morrison’s mouth tightened. I should go. Of course I should. ‘Can’t do. Business in Shanghai. Urgent business. Very urgent.’ He wondered if he was as transparent as he felt. What an ass I am.
‘You can’t delay?’ James asked.
‘No.’ Morrison shook his head. ‘Sadly not.’