TOLD BY A VETERAN

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2303, 10 November 1914, Page 7

TOLD BY A VETERAN

| ADVENTURES IN CHINA !' WHEN KEPPEL MADE HIS NAMI ■ ■ ~—— THE FAMOUS FATSHAN EXPEDI TION. (No. III.) When Master-Gunner Henry Walton, formerly 'of Her Majesty's Navy, anc now spending the evening of his daye at Waikanae, last spoke through these columns, he was gunner-carpenter of the 84-gun sailing cruiser Calcutta, bound through the Indian Ocean for the China Seas, (in 1857). "One fine, day we arrived at Singapore, where we had changes of scenery and diet, but the change of biscuit was awful., VVe ÜBed to call them bamboo biscuits, because of the enormous strain they could- take without breaking. Tho ship's, armourer, being a- man of' resource. used : .to put his ration of biscuit in a bag, pound them on the anvil, and then eoak them in tea or oocoa. From Singapore we. went through the Straits of Malacca to Hong Kong. Plenty of drill, but 110 shore liberty. Wo had now. been : at sea eleven months Ivithout liberty, and were always put off when it came to tie point. The men began to get;restive. Braces were found .mysteriously .. cut, . lock-covers were lost, and other things/ happened, without any culprit being discovered. Then as the ..ferment of 7 discontent Worked," a 'plot was hatched. The plot was that on a night to be' arranged the hammocks, were to; be piled up .to form a barricade between the manures' quarters and the men, and place one of the midship guns over the main hatch and demand liberty. If it waß refused the shot was to be fired and the vessel, sunk. .Steam always issues from ; hot svater, .and I fancy our captain, who was'a close obseiver and a good reader of character, detected that something Was wrong. He piped all hands on deck and gave us a' stiff lecture on the danger of gouig ashore; and described : the pernicious character, of the places usually frequented by the men. He then gave half .the ship's company .48 hours' leave,' and the, rest of the fleet did tie same. I don't think that Hong, Kong; either before, or since, has seen so many Jack Tars ashore. ' At that time.the police' consisted of a mixture of Portuguese,' Malays, English, and irisli., On tlie; day following our release we saw one of our men being dragged off to chokey, and tho cfry .was raised —'Oalcuttas to muster I' That was enough. It seemed as if our men. were rushing "roni every dooriray, the police were lowled over like . skittles, and then' Iriven out of the ; . town; 7 ■ Later, the V Kjlico got their revenge by arresting " as ! many as possible, and I was one of-eleven; .arrested from . our ship.' Chokey was just like a huge cage, with a double fence of; bars, ana inside that a lot of Chinese prisoners. When morning' came we demanded food, and on some bread being given us we had great fun throwing it amongst the Chinamen, who dived 1 - one over the other .in tho scramble for a mouthful. The. Portuguese judge who tried us could not' make us out, so we were let off. InAotfon Again. "In .those days Bait was. collected as s, duty on vessels bound iip the Canton River. To evade this exaction, a Portuguese lorcha;'.was running the gauntlet past the -Dutch Folly (an island off Canton), flying the: English flag to deceive.' . ShS : ' was fired on,* arid' this, I understand, " was the- cause of the war. We went up the' Pearl River and bombarded and took the large island fortress at the Bogue du;: Tigres,' which stood; in the' middle .of 'the river.' Wo ■ landed and drove the enemy by tho hundred into the >water, where they were drowned like! rata. Tho fort was walled round and Had very large guns. As I was. attached to the flagship,;the repairs, of other Vessels often Became my'work as an expert carpenter. On ono occasion I was fitting.,up, a new cabin oii the frigate . Shannoii at, IHong-Kong, when Captain Peel came to me and said I would' have to got ready to go aboard my own ship, as he had to get to sea by 5, o'clock. , The Eva inailboat had just got in. from Calcutta with the news: that 50 men. had b6eb killed, there; and his orders were to proceed at, ones to Singapore to'divert; all troops (on ; tho way to China) to India. : (This was the start of the Mutiny.) I wanted to go, but my captain would not lot me. It was about this time that the Raleigh, in command of Commodore Keppel, was wrecked just outside Hong-Kong. He was'on ai roving commission, and the' Raleigh was painted yellow—she was totally wrecked. Her crew was divided amongst the" fleet; ' ' Tho Fatshan Expedition. "An expedition was then arranged to proceed against the Chinese. We started; with gunboats only, and the open boats of; the fleet being towed' behind, and proceeded sonie 22- miles up the Fatshan Creek to Fatshan City. We assembled at the mouth of the creek at about 1 o'clock; in the morning, each gunboat towing a number of ship's cutr ters (in. which we lived when on river expeditions). ' Just'as we were about to. start the: lieutenant of our boat asked me. if the gun (a 6-pounder) in tho bow was loaded. I told him I did not think so. Ho asked for a tuba to ft , J' l9 gun was clean, and then pulled the trigger. '.It was loaded! The shot went clean through the gunboat's rigging, and had' we not 'yawed' a bit Jt_ "would have been through her stern, there was at once a terrible commotion, some hot-language, and an aroused enemy, became-active; The first attack was. made on a lot of juriks rormed' in.'a crescent, with their broadside , facing the advancing boats', protected by a fort on tho hill to the ■ le ;t. A.landing party, headed' by: AdTmral Seymour, rushed;the fort and cap-; tared it,- as the junks started to pepP 6r I'* lo boats. Tho few launches wo had carried 12-pounders, the pinnaces u-pounders, and- the rest only smallarms men, whilst the junks carried from seven to nine guns cach, and very much larger ones .than ours. When we got to close quarters they fired gunny-bags full, of scrap-iron at us, which descended like a shower of hail, but we dashed in and took tho lot—and fired them. As we advanced we found the water too shallow for the gunboats, so had to depend on our boats. We fought junk after junk all. the way up. Keppel was /eadinn ta his barge, which was being propelled'with Indian paddles, and with liim was Prince Victor' of Hohenlohe and. Major-General Koriney. As wo stole up the creek we saw a number of junks ahead ; above a low-lying curve of land, which formed a bend in the rivet.-- As we neared them they opened fiiio on us with good effect. Our first pinnace was sunk; at a very narrow place, which had been staked, and tho jurilts had been placed to command tho position. A Difficult Position. Keppel's barge .was next sunk, and several others <au£feied in tho same way as they came up, causing .a block. Keppel and his crow got iiito the other boats, and the retreat was sounded. Wo retired to ' shelter behind a lightdiaught • river steamer which bad crawled up after us. But she proved no protection, as the Chinese were sending shots right through her. • MajorGonoral Kenney had his head blown off, t<nd ono of Keppel's crew bad his hand shot off. Many casualties occurred here, but Keppel ordered the 'advance' to be sounded, and we dashed on to the 'block,' and then jumped into • the water and dragged the'boats oway' to <cleai; tho ohaimels Then there was a.

regatta! The, Chinese began to jump -for their lives, arid we took the whole of the junks, but as wo went on we cam© on other fleets of them. On one junk we hoarded the natives, whilst wo were below, threw' a piece of lighted sail down below on to some loose powder. All managed to get np on deck except one before the explosion took 3 place. . The exception .was the boat- , matd, who crawled .up on deck as black as a piece of charcoal. We askod hiiii to jump overboard and we would • pull him out, but he said nothing, and just looked like a cooked fowl. At length we got-him into the boat, and emptied flour over' him. Strange, to say, be made a remarkable recovery after a long time. We still went on, de- - termined to scour out the nest com- , pletely whilst we were at it, and. having headed the other boats, we came in view of another flotilla of junks* A Hot Shot. ; "The lieutenant ordered me to climb the 'awning stanchions and signal to the other - boate to come up. We were - in it pretty hot. The ewisn of .passing shots made my position very interesting. The crew wanted me to come A. ; n °t get down . until my officer ordered me to do so. On that account he promised to speak to the' Admiral for me, but, I suppose, like powder smokei, it passed away. We pushed on. tasing and firing junks untu at eight bells (noon) we came in sight of .Fatshan. We ■ landed on the bank , of-the creek just where it joins the grand canal, and had dinner. We were ready for it I We had fought 22 miles and taken and destroyed 160 fighting junks with open boate. After dinner we. started back, as we with one boat had no . chaiice of getting any loot, the other boats having been left behind to iiro the junks as they camo up to them. On the way down we got the lieutenant's permission to go ashore, aiid what fun we iiadl Some, of the fellows chased the Chinamen round and cut their pigtails off, whilst others went for the poultry. I nearly chopped the lieutenant's head, off whilst chaaing a pig. : As I met the animal at a comer of the detached house round which I ivas chasing him, I made a terrible slash'at him with my cutlass,- and just < missed the lieutenant, who was about ' to blaze at the pig with his revolver. Our boat on the'way back resembled i something between a poulterer's and a' pork butcher's shop. When we got 1 back to our ships they played "See : the Conquering Hero Comes," and we ' made our re-appearance decked out in Chinese hats and jackets. We got a rare lot of good flannel, as each of the Chinese guns had about six.'yards tied round them to make them Took fierce or smart—l don't know which. It was the best 'flannel we ever had, and was greatly appreciated. This ended Keppel's • big battle—one which made his < name famous for all time." c