Breaking Bamboo (43 page)

Guang sighed. He lay down on the deck, protected from the dawn dew by his coarse quilt. The thought of her was merely a longing for a new life. One he had never believed possible.

When he awoke, the flying dragon paddle-wheel destroyer was in motion. True to Admiral Qi-Qi’s command they laboured upstream all day, slowed only by the merchant junks’ heavy cargoes.

Sixteen hours later, the light was thickening in a way peculiar to magnificent summer evenings, when blues darken and high clouds lose their reflected sheen. The fleet advanced, silent except for the creak of oars and bamboo sails, the low beat of drums, the constant plashing of paddle wheels.

Everything was ready for battle on Guang’s ship. Bombs of various kinds were stowed and hidden from fire arrows.

Quivers of crossbow bolts stood beside ropes and grappling irons. Buckets of mud had been strategically placed to choke fires. Chen Song, ever filial, conducted a rite to deter river-demons, involving red earth and yellow powder. It seemed every vessel in the fleet was deploying magic. Strange coloured smokes rose and the river was littered with strips of paper on which spells had been inscribed.

Thirty
li
south of the Twin Cities they encountered the first signs of the enemy. Horsemen rode along the shore where it was not too muddy, monitoring their progress and galloping off in relays to inform General A-ku. A few sailors bellowed insults. Some loosed crossbow bolts until ordered not to waste arrows. Every shaft would be needed soon enough.

At a bend in the river, the stream narrowed to a mere two
li
in width. At last the Mongols commenced their assault. A dozen large catapults had been erected behind a bamboo palisade, assisted by a battalion of archers. As the Relief Fleet crept past, the air filled with arrows and bombs trailing smoke.

A ram-vessel alongside Guang’s own was struck by a thunderclap bomb and set ablaze. For a moment he flinched, aware they could not slow to help the stricken boat.

Admiral Qi-Qi ordered his ships to reply in kind and, miraculously, the Mongol forces were soon faring worse. One by one their catapults were set on fire. As they sailed past, Chen Song ducked to avoid a flight of arrows.

‘Here we are forced near to the shore,’ he said. ‘Why do they not deploy more artillery?’

Guang shared the same doubt, yet answered airily: ‘Because General A-ku has built two splendid forts which he hopes will crush our spirits like two bricks gelding a horse!’

Chen Song laughed and loosed an arrow of his own. By now the Mongol horsemen on the shore were numerous. As dusk fell, a few lit flaming torches. It seemed every clump of reeds or copse on the bank concealed archers vying to test their skill.

Arrows whistled past Guang’s head as he stood boldly by the helmsman, who crouched under cover beside his rudder. Such a display of fearlessness had a purpose. Guang longed to conjure a name from his men – and soon enough, he earned his reward: ‘Captain Xiao! See how Captain Xiao scorns their arrows!’

But the danger was real enough and he ordered the troops to stay low.

Now the river widened considerably as they approached the Twin Cities. Twilight was deepening. Clouds drifted in the night breeze. To the west, in the direction of Nancheng, the sky bore a red tint as though the Twin Cities were ablaze.

Admiral Qi-Qi ordered the deployment of blue lanterns. At this signal, the Ineffable Winged Relief Fleet slowly took up a rectangular formation. The merchant junks and supply vessels were surrounded by four walls of attack ships. Guang’s paddlewheel destroyer had been assigned a forward corner of the rectangle – a most honourable station because especially dangerous.

When the manoeuvring ceased, the fleet drifted silently in the current, awaiting the signal to commence the final thrust. In this pause, Guang descended below decks. A hundred tired sailors lolled near their treadmills. The hold of the ship stank of sweat and lamp oil, as well as rancid bilge water. A few feeble lamps glimmered in the darkness, catching the white sheen of anxious eyes.

‘Sergeant,’ he ordered, loudly. ‘Ensure wine is passed among these men!’

For a strange moment he recollected the wineskin that had been passed to Li Tse in the fog of the Mongol camp. How the artillery officer had been captured and tortured until broken.

He shook the memory away – it seemed an omen.

Back on deck there was no time for doubt. The last ship had closed the defensive walls of the rectangle and Admiral Zheng Qi-Qi ordered a signal rocket into the star-lit sky. It exploded with a silver flash.

‘Advance!’ bellowed Guang.

His shout was matched by a thousand other voices. The Ineffable Winged Relief Fleet slowly gained momentum, each captain keeping a close eye on his neighbours’ positions until the foremost ships traversed a wide bend in the river flanked by low, bamboo-clad hills.

‘Beyond this bend we shall glimpse the Twin Cities,’ said Chen Song.

He had to shout, his voice drowned out by enthusiastic drumming and the rumbling splash of the paddle wheels. As they rounded the river-bend Guang examined the terrain ahead.

General A-ku’s forts stood on either shore like a parody of Fouzhou and Nancheng. Many torches and braziers illuminated them at night. But this did not explain the fiery glow the Relief Fleet must pass through to reach the Twin Cities. Hundreds of fires had been lit along the shore. The night stank of burning wood and damp straw. Sparks and wisps of curling hay rose towards the stars.

Every catapult and huge siege crossbow A-ku possessed had been moved to the area round the river forts – an incalculable labour, and one that required prior warning of the exact timing of the fleet’s approach. Guang met Chen Song’s startled gaze.

Both shared the same thought: treachery had woven this noose.

Then he seized Chen Song’s arm.

‘All buckets must be filled to extinguish fires,’ he ordered.

‘All crossbowmen must loose at will.’

Chen Song’s armoured figure clattered away. By now they were drawing parallel to the first, upright silhouettes of the Mongol catapults. The fires on the shore illuminated the Relief Fleet clearly and a loud, ululating cheer reached them from the enemy lines. Guang’s impulsive gorge rose.

‘Loose! Loose!’ he roared.

Their volleys of crossbow bolts and lime-bombs were handfuls of sticks thrown at a waterfall. For the sky filled with clouds of flaming arrows. Thunderclap bombs streamed down from heaven like meteors. Some bounced and exploded on the water, spreading clouds of arsenic and thick smoke. Others, iron-cased, detonated with huge, echoing reports, scattering shards of metal and stone. One bomb landed on the front section of Guang’s ship, exploding with a roar that killed half-a-dozen men and shattered two whirling tiger catapults.

The wounded lay on the splintered planking of the deck, gashed by bomb casings. Guang stumbled through smoke to the injured. Screams filled the air. He found Chen Song already there, bellowing for help.

‘The hatch!’ shouted Guang. ‘We must take them below!’

He reached down to ease a wounded man to his feet and slipped in the pools of blood on the deck. So the warning from Heaven was coming true! Guang picked himself up, a wild, reckless expression on his handsome face.

‘I defy you,’ he muttered, though only Heaven could hear him.

With unexpected tenderness, he scooped up a wounded soldier whose arm had been almost torn off by a shard of iron and carried him into the hold of the ship. At the bottom of the steps, willing hands took the man. Guang felt something drip on his head through the broken planking of the deck and glanced up. A droplet landed on his lips. It took a moment to recognise the iron taste.

Back on deck he surveyed the fleet, or what was visible of it in the darkness and smoke of the battlefield. Several ships were sinking or on fire. From one, amidst a roaring swirl of flames, he saw armoured men leaping into the river. Elsewhere a small craft had been struck by a boulder. It floundered in the water like a stricken whale. Guang watched in horror as the huge mass of Admiral Qi-Qi’s flagship ploughed into the little boat, sinking both vessel and crew, who were crushed by the whirling paddlewheels.

Yet Qi-Qi’s ship was itself constantly struck by missiles. The Mongol commanders seemed to know it contained not only the Admiral, but the Son of Heaven’s new representative in Nancheng Province. As a commander of artillery, Guang recognised a clear pattern to the missiles falling around Qi-Qi’s ship.

Whole teams of catapults on the shore were trained on the secret flagship.

The Emperor’s standard fluttered, stiff as a bamboo sail; the entire fleet advanced upstream. Now they drew close to the forts on either side of the river. From the battlements, siege crossbows poured a steady stream of giant bolts tipped with flaming gourds onto the fleet. A small war junk behind Guang’s took a hit from a thunderclap bomb, tearing open its decks. Yet the ship struggled forward. They had no other choice – the shore meant death or worse. There was no turning back.

At last the Relief Fleet passed through the snapping jaws of A-ku’s fortresses and artillery. It was said by survivors that the decks of many ships were ankle-deep with blood. Yet only a few sank from the relentless bombardment. Those that survived found themselves entering an ever-widening stretch of river, more like a long lake, with only a few
li
to traverse before reaching the safety of the Twin Cities.

Guang felt his heart lift at the sight of the city walls and towers. There was Fouzhou across the water from Nancheng!

Gallant Fouzhou! And surely that distant line of fireflies on the river, joining the two cities, was the Floating Bridge’s lamps. He noticed a yellow alarm rocket rising from Qi-Qi’s flagship, followed by another.

‘Halt!’ Guang screamed at the helmsman. ‘Halt, but maintain the formation.’

For creeping across the water, barely lit by dim lanterns, were lines of low shapes. Their shadowy approach suggested a desire to win the advantage of surprise. It was the Mongol river fleet, deploying in two phalanxes to block their way. All this had been anticipated. Yet no one had expected so many. When Guang left the Twin Cities a few months earlier, only dozens of hostile craft were afloat. Now hundreds filled the river.

*

‘How are there so many?’ asked Guang, in wonder. ‘It is not possible. And how did they get past the Floating Bridge?’

‘I suspect the answer is simple,’ replied his friend. ‘Those boats were constructed upstream and carried overland round the Twin Cities, thereby avoiding the barrier of the Floating Bridge. And see! Though their craft are numerous, all are small war barges, easy enough to carry. We may thank traitors for that.’

Guang thought of Wang Bai when Chen Song spoke of an overland route.

‘One may not blame traitors for everything,’ he said, sullenly.

‘Let us hope you are right,’ said Chen Song.

No time remained for further speculation. A blue signal rocket rose from Admiral Qi-Qi’s paddle destroyer. Once again the exhausted Relief Fleet advanced. A mere six
li
and they would reach the Water Gate of Morning Radiance! Six
li
and they would be safe!

Perhaps this prospect goaded them on, for they gathered speed quickly. Meanwhile the horde of Mongol attack ships, manned by Chinese conscripts and turncoats from the North, rushed towards them. Guang at once discerned their tactics, as did the resourceful Admiral Qi-Qi.

‘Close the gaps between ships!’ he bellowed.

Flags waved from the crow’s nest to reinforce his orders. Few could see them in the smoke and darkness. And there was no time. In a moment nimble Mongol war barges were riding between the larger vessels, trying like wolves to find the weak merchant junks at the heart of the Relief Fleet. Crossbow bolts and catapult-hurled bombs flew. Jets of naphtha fell upon several enemy ships so that they blazed fiercely. A new scent joined the reek of burning powder and smoke choking the Han River: that of roasting meat.

Yet a dozen war barges waited to take the place of every one the Relief Fleet sank. The progress of the larger ships slowed to a wallowing halt. Guang watched in horror as twenty of the small craft swarmed round Admiral Qi-Qi’s stricken paddle destroyer. It was as though, like the artillery earlier, they knew the ship’s importance. No sacrifice seemed too great to destroy the yellow ship. Naphtha grenades were being hurled from every side. Soon the river was a nightmare of flames.

‘No!’ cried Guang.

Too late. Admiral Zheng Qi-Qi, one arm protecting the terrified Supreme Pacification Commissioner, went down, punctured by crossbow bolts. Then the yellow flagship was engulfed in fire and Guang turned away, too sickened to watch.

Elsewhere the Mongol war barges were suffering. The survivors fled back towards their fellows, forming a mass of confused boats between the Ineffable Winged Relief Fleet and the safety of Nancheng. Guang slowly raised his eyes and looked around. With the loss of its great leader, the fleet seemed to falter. They were trapped. A hundred war barges lay ahead; behind lay the gauntlet of A-ku’s catapults.

All his life Guang had longed for glory. Yet when his shining hour came there seemed no nobility to it. Barely even a choice.

If valour may be called a skill he had exercised it many times –strutting on the battlements of Swallow Gate while boulders fell around him, sneaking behind Mongol lines. These preparations amounted to one thing: that he should not care whether he grew old.

‘Chen Song!’ barked Commander Yun Guang. ‘I assume temporary command of the Fleet. Order our own ship to the front of the formation.’

His lieutenant lost no time in doing so. Guang felt his blood quicken as they left the protective rectangle of the fleet. Now all eyes could see his craft. The light from Qi-Qi’s burning flagship spread across the water.

This was not enough. Guang took up a flaming torch and stood on the high stern of his paddle-wheel destroyer. He shouted to a nearby ship: ‘Commander Yun Guang orders all craft to rush the enemy, and not cease until their prows touch the jetties of Nancheng! Captain Xiao orders a complete advance!’