Leon Uris (7 page)

As with the American buffalo, the massacre of the seals brought the Indians close to ruin. The hunter received a half-dollar or less for a pelt. Three dollars was the rate the Russians got from the fur-hungry Chinese market.

The Hudson Bay Company was having the same problem with Canadian poachers who sold their pelts for four to five dollars in the exploding London fur industry.

The tribes who depended upon the seal for survival were in a dire condition and feared that the seal was being slaughtered to extinction.

Lieutenant Tobias Storm sailed north from San Francisco with a platoon of Marines. At the same time a company of British joined
forces with them. Autumn quickly closed them down in their post on Unalaska Island, where they waited out the long winter’s night for the spring thaw.

That springtime, their joint operation stemmed the flow of seal blood and bagged two prison ships filled with poachers.

After twenty-two years in the Corps, Tobias Storm received his second promotion, a medal of commendation, and a soft cruise aboard the USS
Kansas,
which was doing a goodwill tour to open markets in the South Pacific and Asia.

•
7
•

Emperor Wu Ling Chow, as he insisted on being addressed, looked down from his hillside palace to the spellbinding harbor known as the Blue Pearl of the Orient. The USS
Kansas
skimmed into the bay at eventide with all ceremonial pennants aflutter.

The clever, dangerous warlord and self-proclaimed emperor had kept the breakaway province of Nandong and its population of twenty million as an independent state despite being hemmed in by contentious neighbors.

Wu Ling Chow had survived royal court treachery, provincial enemies, and forays by foreigners and had made the price for invading armies too high. The emperor’s hard-fisted rule had kept Nandong free of the opium scourge. With a master of artful pacts as its leader, Nandong had endured only a controlled smattering of Western intrusions.

But the guns of the foreign fleets were growing larger. Unvar
nished greed of the foreigners, now including Japan, all sought his prize. How long could he keep the noose from choking Nandong?

Wu Ling Chow reckoned that the Americans, the newest silk-seeking player in the Orient, would be less of a threat than his neighbors. There was a marked difference about the Yankees. Or was the emperor deluding himself? At any rate he would not be drawn in by homey American gregariousness. Scratch their lacquer and they would most likely be the same color as the British and French and Portuguese and Germans and Dutch and Japanese.

To satisfy himself, Wu allowed a goodwill visit. The twenty-one-gun salute from the
Kansas
whetted his appetite and he was greeted by a trio of Yankee salesmen from the State Department and the trade and government establishment.

After an unbearably pompous round of welcomes, meetings began with the Americans and Wu personally.

Wu Ling Chow was cautious, but the Americans’ open friendliness kept discussions alive. In Nandong City, Lieutenant Tobias Storm did a crack job with his Marine detachment in keeping lusty sailors from the
Kansas
under reasonable control. The ladies of Nandong long knew sailorboys’ needs and were likewise pleased that the pleasures of the crew ashore were attained without wrecking the place.

At the end of the first week, Wu Ling Chow came aboard the American warship for an evening of entertainment.

A chorus of sailors serenaded him and soloists did their bit and the band played a lovely concert. Sharpshooters put on a daring exhibition.

The final act of the night was Lieutenant Tobias Storm performing with a pair of pet seals named Stars and Stripes. The lieutenant had saved them from slaughter when he was on duty in the Bering Sea and raised them from pups. Stars and Stripes both held the rank of sergeant, although Stripes had been busted several times for his sopping-wet appearances in the bunks of Marines, scaring them half to hell.

Stars and Stripes carried the evening with juggling and balancing feats never before seen even in a land of acrobats.

When the emperor invited the officers and performers to a dinner and requested a show at the palace, maybe the foot was in the door, the Yankees thought.

The following day, Tobias Storm received a summons to come to the palace.

At the end of their meal, Wu Ling Chow had a magnificent chessboard set up with chessmen adorned with gold and jewels. The pawns alone were three inches high.

Storm, who considered himself a damned good player, pondered. Does one whip an emperor in his own palace? Tobias won two games without drawing a deep breath. He was surprised that one so wily as Wu Ling Chow would play so poorly. Or was he getting into some kind of Chinese maze? Perhaps Wu was testing the Marine’s honesty. On the other hand, had his court and concubines been throwing games for years just to please him?

In the third game, the emperor annihilated Storm’s board in quick, masterly fashion. The message did not go unnoticed.

Storm would never win another chess game against the emperor, but he sensed the tide of trade negotiations running in the Americans’ favor. The American delegation gave him great latitude to deal and held their collective breath.

It did not take long for the lieutenant to sniff out what was ailing Wu Ling Chow, who eased their discussions toward weaponry, Storm’s strong suit. Nandong required modern artillery to replace its ancient blunderbuss cannons, which could not hit an elephant point-blank. With only mild hills and a few deep gorges, the province was a tempting target for foreign incursions. Her sweeping coast was, likewise, open to pirate forays. Wu Ling Chow needed dug-in emplacements and the ability to man them properly, and the guns he needed were simply too large and cumbersome to get in undetected.

Feeling rather secure about a confidence with Lieutenant Storm, Wu Ling Chow popped the question. Could Nandong manufacture its own rifle-bored, breech-loading cannons and the shells to feed them?

“I don’t want you to go into consultations with your people, just give me your opinion.”

Tobias had seen brilliant bronze castings in the city and about the palace, but they were Buddhas and bells and made of the wrong metal.

“Does the province have an operating iron mine?” the Marine asked.

“Yes, and of excellent grade.”

“And the Chinese certainly know what there is to know about gunpowder.”

The emperor nodded.

A day later a secret protocol was drawn up between the emperor and the State Department official with Lieutenant Storm and one palace minister witnessing.

America would provide blueprints and manufacturing methods of the most modern artillery, from 5 to 14 inches and from 75 to 105 millimeters.

America would likewise provide the know-how to make shells and auxiliary equipment.

America would provide a team of civilian experts, under contract to Wu Ling Chow, to set up and operate a clandestine factory.

America would assign Lieutenant Tobias Storm, legally, under international precedent, to train officers with a specialty in artillery.

Lieutenant Storm would retain his Marine Corps rank as well as legally hold the rank of colonel in the Nandong military.

America had no financial obligation except for Lieutenant Storm’s Marine Corps salary and allowances.

There would be no further American military presence. When guns were tested successfully, the American civilian team would turn over manufacturing matters to Nandong personnel.

In return:

Wu Ling Chow would grant exclusive trade concessions as listed on the attached pages.

It was a very quiet deal so as not to send off alarm bells all over China. Few would even know of its existence.

Beyond that, Captain Dinkel, commander of the
Kansas,
had a heart-to-heart with Tobias. The navy was extremely liberal about pets aboard: dogs, of course, cats, monkeys, an occasional goat, but Stars and Stripes were eating enough fish every day to feed half the crew. Emperor Wu sensed that the gift of the seals was not Lieutenant Storm’s idea, but he most gratefully accepted.

The endgame was that Tobias Storm was promoted to captain in the Marines and commissioned a colonel in the Nandong military as superintendent of the new academy.

After returning to the States to collect his family and receiving a heavy briefing by the State Department and military, Tobias returned to Nandong with his dear wife, Matilda, their sons Norman and Jason, and their youngest, a daughter, Brenda.

In 1879, Storm founded a small military school that, over time, rose to a very high level of respect in the region.

It seemed so celestial in the beginning. Surely heaven’s gates had swung open for the Storms. They were housed in one of the lesser royal compounds—an ebony- and redwood-carved, ivory- and jade-decorated domicile of Oriental splendor—wrapped in gold- and silver-threaded silk brocades, and served on Ming porcelain.

The first bucking of heads between Tobias and Wu came almost immediately. Tobias planned an initial class to consist of twenty-five cadets to go through a very hard two years’ training.

The normal way of doing things in Nandong would be to draw the candidates from the most important families and loyal relatives. Inner-circle patronage was the ancient system and was not to be toyed with.

Colonel Storm reckoned he could abide with, say, three or four such cadets but insisted on open recruiting from the general population and countryside.

Wu Ling Chow halted the argument quickly. The loyalty lineage could never be tampered with.

“Okay, Your Majesty, it’s your fucking army,” Storm said . . . way beneath his breath. Twenty-five cadets were selected and underwent the displeasures of a brutal training regimen.

Within a month, eighteen of the twenty-five candidates had limped off in horror.

The colonel got a royal summons and learned that court shenanigans were being played by men of devious character and cowardly bent.

“Your Majesty, I cannot do what you want me to do with candidates who have soft hands and softer backbones. I am not here to play toy soldiers with a bunch of spoiled rich kids. And, Your Majesty, if you want to play with fourteen-inch coastal guns, you had better find me men who would be capable of being Marine officers.”

Easily said, but the interlocking privileged families were the source of the emperor’s power, along with the old generals who had done the ruthless work to keep Wu on his dragon throne. An influx of commoners would create jealousy in his military, and how would the important families accept the failure of their sons? Could he keep them in check?

On the other hand, Wu Ling Chow was Wu Ling Chow for good reason. He had survived since childhood with an omnipresent scent of conspiracy and, from his teenage years on, defended his throne without pity. He realized that court intrigue was bound to escalate and let it be known that he needed the new weapons and officers no less than he needed his old entourage.

Furthermore, it did not go unnoticed by Wu that the new corps would be heavily indoctrinated to ensure super-loyalty in the matter of the household guard. Wu shored up his base and assured his court that the academy was in their long-term interests.

“Otherwise our way of doing business will be carried on as usual,” he promised his retinue.

The emperor then took the plunge and issued a unique decree for open recruiting, which brought thousands of applicants from the underclass: merchants, common workmen, and peasants.

Storm sifted out those of high intelligence who passed tests of personal courage and who had the ability to travel a long way on very little rice.

Starting over with two dozen handpicked cadets, Storm saw twenty-one of them survive this training from hell, have the English language crammed into them, and learn to place honor above corruption. The academy became “The House of Illustrious Glory.”

A few more years saw the new officer corps rise to forty men. Around the hills, with sweeping lookout vistas, deep bunkers, with arsenals and connecting tunnels, the artillery went into place.