Amazing Tales for Making Men Out of Boys (17 page)

The news was transmitted to Weston along with the instruction, “Be ready to move.”

With hope rekindled, the men watched the ships steam into view—but the communist guns found their range almost at once, severely punishing both almost from the start. Neither the
London
nor the
Black Swan
had any success returning fire and, having taken many serious hits and with dead and wounded on both ships, they were forced to withdraw. Madden sent a typically straightforward signal: “Am sorry we cannot help you today. We shall keep on trying.”

It must have come as cold comfort to the men left aboard. How much longer could they hold out? What to do now?

As it was, a new commander was already making his way toward them along 70-odd miles of rough road from Nanking in a borrowed jeep. He was Lieutenant Commander John Simon Kerans, the British Embassy’s Naval Attaché, and he was determined to get things moving again come hell or high water. By the time he made it out to the
Amethyst
aboard a Chinese landing craft, some time in the afternoon of April 22, Lieutenant Commander Skinner had died
of his wounds. In fact, Kerans climbed aboard a ship that was as much a home to the dead as to the living. Corpses wrapped in hammocks lay in neat rows upon the stern gun-deck, and elsewhere wounded men suffered in steadily worsening conditions without proper medicines or painkillers.

Taking command, Kerans ordered Weston to go ashore with those others of the wounded who could still be moved.

(When I told my dad I was writing about the
Amethyst
, he told me he’d known a man who served aboard her during the Yangtze Incident. He said it was someone he’d met at his golf club years before and he’d never thought to mention it. I asked him to tell me what he knew and the first thing he said was that he didn’t want me to give the man’s name. In fact he wouldn’t even say it to me. “He wasn’t the type who would want that,” my dad said. “He only mentioned it in passing once or twice. It wouldn’t be right, he wouldn’t have liked it.”

And so it goes with the men caught up in stories like these. You come close to them at times only to have them slip away once more, elusive to the last.)

On April 23 Mao’s communist forces finally crossed the river. Their nationalist enemies had melted away before them and now they controlled both banks. The
Amethyst
was completely surrounded.

Three days later Major Kung, the local communist commander, opened formal negotiations by inviting Kerans to go ashore for talks. In no mood to trust the man who’d provoked the fight in the first place, Kerans chose to stay aboard. Instead he sent one of his officers, Petty officer William Freeman, dressed in the uniform of a lieutenant commander. Kung boasted to Freeman that it was his own shore battery that had caused so much death and destruction aboard the
Amethyst
during those first minutes. He even demanded the British admit to having opened fire first. With considerable
presence of mind under the circumstances, Freeman refused point blank to make any such admission—and even managed to persuade Kung to send fresh supplies of food to the ship.

A stalemate then ensued—with neither side ready to back down and no end to the crisis in sight. By May 18 Kung’s demands had become even shriller—with him insisting that Kerans accept that the
Amethyst
had “invaded” Chinese waters. The British ship had done no such thing, of course, and Kerans quietly told him so again and again.

And all the while, the tense stand-off had to be endured by the crew. They’d been trapped for weeks in hostile waters, enduring stifling heat and humidity as well as round-the-clock uncertainty. To make matters worse, the supplies from the Chinese were always inadequate and by the middle of May the men were existing on what amounted to half rations. Work provided the only relief from the boredom and tension. Kerans ensured the men were kept occupied repairing the worst of the shell damage and making every effort to keep the ship as clean as possible. The British Navy, like the rest of the armed forces, has always understood the value of discipline and routine—the last redoubt for men under pressure.

While Kerans played the game of diplomatic cat-and-mouse with the communists surrounding him, he had another option in mind. The
Amethyst
’s position looked bad, there was no denying it. But in spite of all the circumstances she was still a fighting ship of the British Royal Navy. They were not officially prisoners of war—since no war had been declared—but to all intents and purposes they were being held against their will.

“Move your ship and we will destroy it,” Kung had told them.

But the principal duty of all POWs is…escape.

Kerans sought continual updates from his officers regarding the state of the ship. Most frustrating of all was the news that the Chinese embargo on fuel was depriving them of the potential to
make a dash for Shanghai. Kung was so confident the ship was hopelessly disabled, however, that he authorized a delivery of oil to the
Amethyst
during the second week in July. Now Kerans faced a dilemma. For the next three weeks they would have enough fuel in their tanks to make an escape attempt; wait any longer than the end of the month and they would have used too much oil just idling at anchor. The question was: should he risk the lives of the starving and weakened men who depended on him for the right decision? He kept the answer to himself at first, but he was never in any doubt.

Without telling anyone the reasons why, he issued some unusual orders. First, the anchor chain was to be covered in blankets smothered in oil. Second, the outline of the ship’s superstructure was to be obscured by great sheets of canvas draped over her most distinctive parts. Kerans told the men it was to solve the problem of incomplete blackout at night, but at least some of them must have suspected the truth. With just days to go before the deadline, Kerans told his officers what he had in mind—as if they didn’t know—and on July 30 the rest of the men were told it was time to leave.

Once it was fully dark, the muffed anchor chain was pulled up and the
Amethyst
floated free from her moorings for the first time in months. A Chinese vessel was spotted and it was taking the line they needed, downstream toward the open sea. As stealthily as was possible for a ship weighing more than 1,350 tons, she slipped in behind the merchant vessel and began her flight to freedom. Each man aboard knew what was expected of him—and all understood that detection now would bring about their doom.

Their secret remained intact for less than an hour before the communists realized their prisoners had made a break for it. The lancing beams of searchlights cut up the sky and flares exploded overhead as they sought their prey. With the night illuminated now, the
Amethyst
’s temporary invisibility was torn away. Having found
her once more, the shore batteries opened up, filling the air with shells as they battled to find their range. It seems that in the confusion, it was the merchant vessel that initially drew the worst of the fire. Kerans ordered his own gunners to return the fire—the better to maintain the general air of chaos that arched across the Yangtze that night—and for some little while it seemed to work. It couldn’t last of course, not with so far left to run, and soon the communist shells began to find their mark. Now the telegrapher sent a familiar message: “I am under fire and have been hit.”

But there was nothing for it now but to keep on running as long as her men, hull and turbines held out. There could be no second imprisonment and no real hope of surrender. This time they were running for their lives.

And this time, the fates ran with them. After three hours of bombardment they saw they were approaching Kiang Yin, the last safe anchorage they had enjoyed before their ordeal had begun. Kerans chose his line past the guns, and with the darkness aiding their flight they made it out of range. By three in the morning they were within 50 miles of the sea.

Suddenly out of the blackness appeared the unmistakable outline of a Chinese junk. With no other option available to him, Kerans ordered full steam ahead. The timber sides of the local vessel were no match for the armored steel plate of the
Amethyst
and at a full speed of 19 knots she cut through the obstacle as though there was nothing before her bow but driftwood.

All that remained to obstruct them now was the mighty communist-held fort at Woosung, within sight of the sea. Searchlights played across the dark water and found the
Amethyst
, in all her battered, bloodied and magnificent defiance. She would not be stopping now, or even slowing down. This was the course she had chosen and she would not be thwarted by any foe.

And then the strangest thing happened. She was within easy reach
of the communist guns. The searchlights had her lit up like a fair and every pair of lungs aboard had drawn in a breath and held it. But no gun fired. The moment dragged on and the peace remained unbroken. Perhaps right there at the end the communists were simply glad to be seeing her leave their company once and for all.

A boom lay stretched across the mouth of the river and without a thought the
Amethyst
burst through the final obstruction and plunged into the open sea. Directly ahead was a second ship of war, thundering toward them. It was the
Consort
, the destroyer that had tried so valiantly to help them months before, with the loss of many lives.

As the
Consort
’s crew cheered the return to the fold of that wounded frigate, a message was received over the telegraph: “Have rejoined the Fleet south of Woosung,” it read. “No damage or casualties. God Save the King.”

The
Amethyst
returned to Britain for a refit in November 1950. Thereafter she saw active service in the Korean War before starring as herself in the 1956 film of the Yangtze Incident entitled
Their Greatest Glory
. Richard Todd played the part of Kerans. According to legend, a special effects explosion caused more damage aboard than anything the communists had manage to inflict in 1949.

A year later she returned to Plymouth, where she was sold and broken up for scrap.

In the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, a grove of ginkgo trees commemorates her dead.