Trines
12.12.29
(continued
The San Nam Hoi piracy is also memor- able. About 30 pirates rushed the up when it was only 15 minutes out of the little West River port of Pekhai. A volley accounted for the Indian guard, and his comrades off duty were at once overpowered. The officer on watch, Mr. Hugh Conway, dashed down the bridge deck, but fell mortally wounded. Mr. Houghton, the chief engineer, had in the meantime braved a shower of bullets in closing the stout grille on the port side of the bridge deck. He had his revolver and was able to cover the starboard side of the deck until the master, Captain W. H. Sparke, had joined him the bridge. The starboard grille was open and desperate measures were taken to close it. With an automatic in each hand, Captain Sparke squarely faced the pirates, and under cover of his fire Mr. Houghton ran quickly aft and slammed the grille in their faces. An amazing fight followed, Captain Sparke dodging from side to side to fire at the ugly faces aft, and between whiles he had to navigate the ship, for at the first sound of danger the pilot and quartermaster had bolted forward and hidden themselves with the
Piracy in the China Seas
on
Shipowners and their officers take what pre- cautions they can, but piracy in the China seas goes on. The attempt to seize the British ship Haiching a few days ago, while she was on a voyage from Swatow to Hong-kong, was defeated, but only because of the great gallantry of her officers and guards and the chance that two British destroyers happened to be near enough to answer the master's wireless appeal for help. As the ship was nearing Bias Bay, the notorious pirates' lair, in the early morning, a number of ruffians, who had come on board at Swatow in the traditional guise of peaceable passengers, stole through a coal bunker in the boiler room and, thus avoiding the iron grille which is one of the defences of ships in those seas, got into the main part of the vessel. The pirates shot the sleeping stand-off engine guards and then attempted to rush the bridge. Three times they tried to take it; but the defence was too determined for them. Only one man reached the bridge, and he was shot down. But this successful resistance had its tragic price. MR. WOODWARD, the third officer, was shot dead by one of the pirates before the mis- creant could be killed by MR. PERRY, the first officer, who was himself wounded. The pirates suffered heavily under the bullets of the de- fenders, and when they found themselves baffled they set fire to the ship. For three hours the attackers were kept at bay, and then, with the bridge burning under the heroic officers, the destroyers came up in the dawn. That was the end of this particular attempt at piracy. The fire was extinguished, the pirates were put under arrest, and the ship was brought into Hong-kong. The matter-of-fact heroismi of that handful of sailors on the bridge of the Haiching will quicken the blood of the landsman whose life follows a less adventurous course.
The pirates preying on shipping along the Chinese coast all come from the Bias Bay district, which is not far from the Hong-kong border. The Hong-kong Governinent has struggled against them for years. Repeated pro- tests have been made to the Chinese authorities, but, in a China torn with almost incessant civil war, Governments have not the will or the strength to do more than give soothing assur- ances and promises-never fulfilled-that seri- ous action will be taken. An occasional expedi- tion against the pirates has inflicted some punishment, but no sustained effort to drive
22
thern from their lair has ever been made. After many warnings that continued failure to put an end to an intolerable danger to shipping would force the British authorities to deal with the matter themselves, his Majesty's Govern- ment took independent action in the spring of 1927, and again in the autumn. A number of villages were visited and the houses of notorious pirates were burned. But these isolated efforts, unsupported by the vigorous cooperation of the Chinese, could not avail to stop what is in effect an industry, long established, well organized, and richly endowed with capital, brains, and daring. A Hong-kong Correspondent, in an article on another page, shows how efficiently the business is conducted. There is a solemn humour in the discreet negotiations of the promoters and the drawing up of prospectuses and lists of directors, which, though not publicly circulated, are there for the enticement of those on the look-out for a good speculative investment. The stratagems by which arms and men are blandly put on board the ship that is to be rifled also have their humorous side. It is when the murders begin- and at the least sign of resistance Chinese pirates murder promptly-that the humour goes out of the business. Then the old sea spirit of the mercantile marine has to do all that can be done against odds. But more often than not the able and courageous pirate chiefs have so planned their enterprise that the ship is seized before resistance is possible. Then the successful com- pany promoters have only to share the spoil. For a while a few years ago the thieves fell out and their internecine strife roused the hope that honest seamen might come into their own; but that hope did not linger long, for the superior advantages of plundering others, rather than fighting among themselves, soon brought the various gangs into profitable cooperation again. The patrol of Bias Bay by British submarines
had an effect that was more discouraging to them. When destroyers and submarines inter- fere with their business, pirates begin to think. The profits are not what they were, and once an industry ceases to pay it begins to dwindle.