A Modern Campaign Author:David Fraser Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II ESTABLISHING THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY I ARRIVED at Weihaiwei on the evening of 6th February, and found myself in trouble ere I put foot on shore. Tr... more »avellers had told me that I was going to a place where were a club, a mess, and two hotels; that the social amenities included the society of about twenty ladies, frequent racing, a hunt, a Turkish bath, a British fleet, and a Government House. Whoever has known a British station east of Suez will understand that my heart beat pleasantly at the prospect, for in these things are comprehended all the elements of a polite existence. My mission was to be kept a profound secret, for obvious journalistic reasons. So when I heard from the agent of the ship, who stepped aboard as we dropped anchor in the Bay, that Government House, the regiment, the best hotel, and the Turkish bath were on the mainland, and that the ladies and the British fleet (both ladies and fleet had been exaggerated in number) were concentrated at the Island, I was sadly perplexed. For I could not ask whether the Island or the mainland would more effectually assist the scheme in hand. I therefore put personal predilections on one side and stepped into a dirty sampan, the skipper of which promised to take me to the mainland in half an hour, and actually did so in one hour and a half. Government House was on the mainland, and where the King's trusty servant was, there might I depend upon receiving counsel and comfort. The voyage across the Bay was rough and cold, and when landed upon the beach below the hotel I was chilled to the bone. It was also pitch dark, and the water swirled among the rocks on the shore in no inviting manner, but the boatmen carried me safely through and dropped me upon the sand, a stiff and frozen remnant of the optimist I had been. ...« less