Aug 21, 2215 hours,
SS Tees, Trevor Channel, Barclay Sound.
“How about that?” said the captain of the
Tees. “I have a ship again. Deckhands! Cast off from
Saxonia. Bring up the steam! I want to put some distance between us and that great sinking hulk before she capsizes on us!”
Tees’ crewmen, who had been standing idle in the crowd, hopped to their stations. The deck of the small liner was not so crowded as it had been moments before, but was still populated by nearly 200 people: 30 Officers and men of the Royal Canadian Navy late of
HMCS Rainbow; a dozen Bamfield Lifeboat crew, medical orderlies, nurses and a couple of doctors attending to the seriously wounded; 22 assorted walking wounded Reservist sailors and militiamen from the morning’s battle, a handful of civilian passengers who had not been landed by boat earlier in the day, a newspaperman furiously scribbling notes, 64 Chinese stokers of
Saxonia’s black gang, and a dozen militiamen of the 88th Fusiliers and their lieutenant. The men of
Tees’s crew moved around them, going purposefully at their tasks. Another 11 seriously wounded Canadian and German wounded lay on stretchers out of the way.
Leipzig pulled away into the Trevor Channel to starboard. The German cruiser swept the water with her searchlight, heading for the open ocean. To port, the CPR crew cast off from the darkened German hulk. Brown smelled the smoke from the boiler, and was impressed by how quickly the oil-fired ship could raise steam. Most of the men standing on deck were quiet, like Brown, attempting to adjust to the present moment, after the rapidly changing set of circumstances that had just unfolded.
“We’ve been prisoners of war twice since breakfast,” marveled one of the militiamen to his comrade. Both wore shoulder patches of the 50th Gordon Highlanders. “What next?”
“So!” exclaimed the Fusiliers’ lieutenant, snapping Brown out of his reverie. “What’s with that lot? He said gesturing at the Chinese stokers. “They showed up on a ship, they should leave on one. They can’t stay here. This is Canada.” He started to advance towards the men of the black gang, saying something about papers. The Chinese men understood his demeanor if not his words, and seemed unsurprised. They stared back impassively.
Brown stepped into the militia officer’s path. “If it was not for these men,” he said “whom I contracted to the Royal Canadian Navy,
Saxonia would still have been bobbing out in the Strait when
Leipzig passed by, and the Hun would have another supply ship.” The Captain of the
Tees was inspecting the state of his decks, and stopped to watch this new spectacle, arms crossed at his chest.
“Hear, hear,” said Lock quietly.
The Fusilier officer tried to step around Brown, and Brown cut him off again. “And tonight,” Brown continued, “when
Leipzig had captured us, the Hun had another opportunity to take
Saxonia back, but these men helped me scuttle her, just in time.” Brown was flummoxed. He knew the Fusilier lieutenant was making a wrong decision, and Brown felt both a personal and a military duty to the stokers, who had assisted their cause so effectively. But he had only been in the navy for three weeks, and had a hard time deciphering the chain of command here. The militia lieutenant outranked him, that much was clear, but the experience of being taken prisoner had left a residual leveling and humbling effect on the morale of all the Canadians present. Lieutenant Lock was of equal rank to this militia officer, but was of a different branch of the service.
Tees’s captain was master of his ship, but was a civilian.
“Be that as it may, Sub Lieutenant,” countered the Fusilier officer, “My sworn duty is to defend Canada, and that includes defending her against illegal Asian immigration. Despite the war, it is still my duty to prevent these Chinamen from setting foot on Canadian soil.” Behind him, his men were looking uneasy. The newspaperman was furiously scribbling notes.
Someone heckled, “Jeez, keep your eye on the puck. The bloody Germans aren’t even out of sight yet.”
The militia officer again tried to step around Brown. “I am taking these Chinamen into custody, to hold them here until they can be properly deported. I am not going to have another Komagata Maru incident on my watch.”
“Nor I,” said Lock decisively, “Spirited defence Brown, appealing to reason and sentiment.” He said as an aside. “But it is done like this.” Lock raised his voice to command volume. “Lieutenant!” The Fusilier officer turned to look. “Due to military necessity and state of war, I am placing this ship under command of the Royal Canadian Navy, and thus under command of the Admiralty.” Brown noticed the captain of the
Tees raise his eyebrows, but he said nothing. Lock continued, “Stand down. I require nothing further from you at this moment, Lieutenant. You may return to your unit in Bamfield, or accompany us as you wish, at your discretion.”
“Harrumph,” exclaimed the Fusilier officer, taken aback. He considered the situation for a moment. The newspaperman stood stock still, pencil poised. Then the militia officer replied, “Yes sir,” and he withdrew with his men to another part of the ship.
“Lieutenant!” called Lock, and the departing militia lieutenant turned to look. “You won the important battle this day, the one against the Hun.” The officers paused, then nodded to each other. Brown and the Chinese stoker foreman made eye contact, and they too exchanged nods.
Saxonia was sitting 100 yards to port, and pinned in the
Tees’s searchlight. Her lowest row of portholes had now dipped into the ocean, and the flooding accelerated. The portholes first admitted a flood of water, then as the hull sank further, let out great gouts of air.
Saxonia began to take on a list. To the south, Leipzig’ searchlight could be seen to disappear behind one of the barrier islands, and was gone.
Lock and Brown watched the cruiser’s light disappear. “Captain?” Lock asked the master of the Tees. “Perchance is your wireless operational?”
“That would be handy… Sir,” the captain replied, the last word added sardonically. “But nay. Most of the set is at the bottom of the channel. Almost the first thing the Hun did when they boarded us.”
“We have to establish communication with our chain of command,” said Lock. “Who knows the situation in the town, in Bamfield?” he asked.
“That Fusilier Lieutenant who you just gave the tall hat, he would have the best idea, having recently been there on the ground.” said the captain with some amusement. “Going to talk to him, are you?”
“Oh, I suppose we do what we must,” said Lieutenant Lock with a sigh. Brown followed him to the bow of the Tees, where the militiamen sat, smoking. They looked a bit lost, having been relieved of all their weapons and ammunition webbing by the recently departed Germans. Most were watching
Saxonia, as she continued to settle.
“Lieutenant,” said Lock. “I need your assistance. We must communicate with Esquimalt, to report the situation here. What options do we have in Bamfield, now that the wireless on the Tees here is smashed?”
The militia lieutenant considered. “The Red Line is cut, on land and underwater. The lifesaving telegraph shack in South Bamfield burned down. No wireless equipped vessels are in the harbour. Pachena Wireless Station was bombarded by that Hun that captured us. We know the wireless is out there, the telegraph may be as well. I’m not sure where the next telegraph station is on the lifesaving trail.”
“Five miles east of that, at Klanawa River,” said a passing sailor.
“And too rough a trail for a horse,” said another.
“Sechart Whaling station would be the closest telegraph,” opined the first sailor.
“Or Ucluelet,” said the second.
“The Gordons, the original garrison at Bamfield, sent a boat over to Ucluelet yesterday, and they never returned,” said the Fusilier lieutenant. You could ask their CO more about that, but he died this morning in the cable station. I’m going to talk to my superiors, Lieutenant. Those Chinamen should go into the quarantine station at William Head, at the very least.”
“Noted.” Replied Lock, and he turned to leave.
“Quarantine,” scoffed Brown once they were out of earshot. “
Saxonia’s last port of call was Seattle. She was sitting in harbour there for a month.”
Lock and Brown returned to the bridge to confer with the Tees’s captain.
“We need to brief Esquimalt. We can’t do that from here,” said Lock. “And we need to get the wounded to a proper hospital.”
“I would be inclined to take the wounded to Port Alberni,” said the doctor from Bamfield. “Port has a genuine hospital, and a rail line to Nanaimo, with an even better one. And Port is half the distance to Victoria.”
Saxonia’s fantail was the first part of her rail to touch the water. Water flowing into the scuppers made a rushing sound clearly audible over the Tees’s machinery.
“You could send a boat to Sechart Whaling Station,” said the Tees’s captain. He looked at his empty boat deck. “But we have none. We would have to go to Bamfield and get them to send over a fishboat. I, for one, am not sure the Hun are truly gone.”
“A boat travelling west might meet trouble, if the Hun are still lurking,” said Brown, “especially if the boat is lighting its way. And with no moon I would not want to travel the Sound without a light.”
“Someone always wants to be a hero,” said Tees’s captain. “But I agree, it would be prudent to wait until first light. If so, we might reach the telegraph at Port Alberni first. The Hun released us with no conditions. They want us to get their wounded to safety. I intend to light my way up the Alberni Canal. But it will take us 4 hours from Bamfield at 8 knots, and we are not there yet.”
“So let us proceed, captain.” said Lock.
“Aye Aye sir!” said the Tees’s captain, and he gave an exaggerated salute.
Tees came underway, and turned towards Bamfield. Astern in the dark,
Saxonia made creaks and groans as she slipped beneath the surface of the Channel.
Tees tied up at the Bamfield wharf at 2300 hours, and landed the local civilians and the militia detachment.
Brown was still tense, because of the presence of the Germans somewhere nearby in the dark, and remained awake for the entire trip. But the voyage up the seemingly endless treelined fjord of the Alberni Canal was routine for the crew of Tees, and every nautical mile the little liner steamed put the Germans further behind. He could hear snoring from all around him on the darkened deck. He was glad that the men of Saxonia’s black gang at least could get some rest.
At 0415 hours on August 22, Tees arrived at a blacked-out Port Alberni. After successfully negotiating a challenge from a jumpy force of militia, the ship docked, and managed to connect with the capitol by telegraph. Later, 3 German wounded who had not survived the night were buried in the Greenwood Cemetery, where they rest to this day.
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