A Titanic Story: The Missing Chinese Sailors and the Haitian President's Daughter

Fang Lang looked at his wife from across the forward deck of the merchant ship, SS Ardent, they’d forcibly boarded. “To the hold!” Josephine called to her small contingent in Creole. She drove the dagger with the gold filigree handle into the spine of the nearest sailor and led the way.

The wind blew threw her hair and it became a black hurricane over her shoulders, wild and untameable as she vowed to always be. Seeing her flowing mane riding wild on the ocean breeze reminded her of the all the days she had been pinned down by decorum. Josephine Philippa LeMercier Laroche, first daughter to the President of Haiti, a political pawn to be used, molded, and traded for advantage. “Never again,” she whispered to herself as she cut into the next man.

Her face spattered with blood, she never looked more beautiful. The fullness of Josephine’s umber lips curled into what was part grin and part snarl. Her eyes met Fang Lang’s and it was so much like the first time that Lang became giddy and nearly failed to parry the blade of the hardly formidable British merchant sailor he fought with.

The sailor had long since emptied his side arm of its ammunition. He’d been a terrible shot. The only rounds to strike a solid target could now be found in the ships mast and foxil walls. With eyes peeled wide, he flailed the unfamiliar sword he’d pulled from a compatriot’s body, a final effort to defend himself. Lang, not wishing to prolong the young man’s suffering any further took a quick swipe at the dismal fighter’s jugular. Each rejoined his men.

No Guarantee of Survival

“To the bridge!” Lang called to his crew in Cantonese. Their leisure clothes and dinner ties were long forgotten now, all resting on the ocean floor, a ransom paid to the Titanic in exchange for their lives. Now they wore the only clothes they owned, this any passerby could have detected with their eyes or nose. Every man of the bridge crew upon facing their captors fell to their knees, all but the captain.

“Radio!” Fang Lang called to the man in a tidy blue peacoat with a face that looked to be about fifty years of age. “Where, is it?”

The man answered with more than his voice. He was either ex-military or a seaman who’d seen enough big storms to be steadfast. His voice stayed steady, and his countenance never trembled. “Over yon,” he said in a thick Irish accent, pointing to the device in question. “Damn, thing dun work n’more. As it is, I’m bettin’ yer guns took down the antenna.”

That had been Lang’s intention of course but he needed to be sure. He nodded to Chip the youngest of them to check the equipment. Chip confirmed the radios were down. No military ships would be coming to the rescue anytime soon.

Ah Lam had the scarred face and calloused hands of a brawler with the demeanor and vigor of a wolverine. There was no one else Lang would choose to escort the bridge crew to the lifeboats. If they suddenly found their courage, Ah Lam would remove it from them. “Put them in a rescue boat.” Lang told his muscle. “Let them tell the world how they failed to defend their goods from the dreaded Chinese they turned away at their shores. On land they celebrate their might but on the sea, they cower, defenseless. Let them live out their days in shame.”

Ah Lam corralled the crew from the bridge on to the deck with an amused look in his eyes that Lang knew too well. Lam had his pistol pressed firmly into the captain’s back and carried his open fishing knife in hand. “Move!” He called to the yeoman ahead. “To the boat. Now!”

“Lam,” Fang Lang called out this time in Taishanese so Ah Lam couldn’t feign ignorance of his meaning, “Put all of them in the boat alive. Killing is done for today, unless you wish to be next to die.” Lam’s face soured and he tightened his mouth so he couldn’t object.

“Lifeboats don’t guarantee survival, Lam, you know that.” Fang Lang offered to soften the blow.

Ah Lam’s last experience on a lifeboat raced into his mind. He was surrounded by other members of the Titanic’s third-class decks with the black of night hanging over head and icy water below. The other men began to look around and take in the hopelessness of their situation. Their bodies shivered from the cold of the night air and the water that pooled at their feet. The smell of salt water was overpowered by the musk of adrenaline and fear. Some were dry while others were soaking wet from climbing into the boat from the water. Even now, as Lam thought of it, he could hear their teeth chattering.

Ah Lam had a blanket to cover his shoulders. He could feel the eyes of the men that encircled him warming themselves under his blanket in their minds. Among them he had no friends. His English was poorer then, but he knew what they meant when they began discussing how they might help him out of the blanket and into the frozen depths.

They began to shift their weight, moving to strike out at him as one. Nearby he heard his friends calling out in Taishanese, a peasant dialect of Cantonese that is spoken at a yell. While indoors it may be deafening, outdoors it is a cannon shot that can alert an entire village of an emergency in a single breath and at a great distance. There had only been eight Taishanese on the ship, they stayed together and they were looking for him. Ah Lam leapt from the boat in the dark, calling out as he did, still clutching his blanket.

Lam did as he was told and lowered the lifeboat to water filled with living occupants.

What lies beneath

Josephine surveyed the cargo hold of the small vessel. It was filled to the brim. There were crates marked with government seals, carrying supplies, guns, and ammunition for the war. Perhaps if the ship’s mates would have had a better idea of what they carried, they would have put up a better fight, she mused. Beyond that there were several loads of furs and many cases of very good French wine bearing the Lafargue label.

Lafargue, the thought filled Josephine’s mind with images of ballrooms mottled by intrigue and sneers. An image of her former husband, Julian LaFargue, son of a French wine merchant and winner of her hand for several large plots of land in the French countryside made her mouth taste bitter.

“Josephine,” her father smiled wide. This was a smile reserved for conquests won, acquisitions made, and power amassed.

“Come my daughter. Meet your fiancé, Julian Lafargue.” Even as he said she could feel her eyes widening as she took in the form of this stranger she'd never seen before.

“Julian's father, owns the largest vineyard in France. They have been making wine since before the revolution." No doubt this vineyard was little more than an onion patch. Her father was given to fits of exaggeration. "They will be excellent trading partners, daughter. Your union will bring great prosperity to Haiti.” Yes, and no doubt much needed cheap labor to the onion patch. Josephine's head swam with indignation and unspoken insults.

There she stood in her father's office, the office of the President of Haiti. There she stood as the daughter of the most powerful man in the country. And there she became a sack of potatoes, traded for mortar to build roads in the city and a few casks of wine for the presidential cellar. Her husband had the same stupid look on his face then as he wore for the entirety of their marriage. Lips slightly upturned in the corners, gentle empty eyes and an air of confidence in his own self-importance smothering all who surrounded him.

The Fury of Motherhood

Their daughters had those same eyes. Gentle eyes that haunted Josephine’s sleep. Simone had been so impatient and fidgety as they waited to be served in the second class dining room. Josephine remembered trying not to resent her eldest daughter as she looked at her, and struggled with her at the dining room table.

“Simone.” She snapped. Whispering curtly as she squeezed the adolescent’s arm. “You know your father booked our passage on this ship specifically so that you could eat in the dining room with us like a human child.”

The girl with the limited might of her eight years continued to struggle. “Yet here you are behaving like a savage animal. Sit down. Perhaps we should have booked on the France then you could have eaten in the cabin like the little monster you are.”

Julian glared at her from across the table. He didn’t object to her admonishing Simone, he simply despised coarse language, and deeply enjoyed correcting Josephine’s every breath.

It was the next night that the ship sank, but Josephine couldn’t remember saying anything else to the beautiful girl with her father’s eyes and her mother’s hair. Her younger daughter, Louise had been a toddler and a daddy’s girl. She stayed quiet if only so she could stay at his side.

Tired of her tedious daughter and the husband she’d been traded to, she excused herself. “I need to powder my nose.” Josephine found the nearest stairwell thinking a drink in third class might be a respite. It was then that she bumped into Fang Lang dressed in his dinner best likely planning to make his way to the second-class bar for a drink of his own.

They held each other’s gaze for much too long before Lang said, “I’ve been looking for you for so long.” Josephine smiled even now as she thought of it. “Will you join me for a drink?” He asked. She nodded and followed him to the first-class reception room. Had she left it at that she might have been with her family on the lifeboat the night the Titanic was swallowed by the ocean.

Alas, he made her heart flutter and her stomach sink. She craved his presence like she craved freedom. Being near him made her whole body hungry. It was him that she was feasting on when the alarm bells began to ring. She dressed quickly thinking of her family, but when she caught up to them and saw them boarding the tender boats to safety she froze. Fang Lang reached for her just barely touching her fingers. She looked back at him. His desperation for her was overwhelming. She didn’t look back to see her family again. She simply took his hand and walked away.

Josephine pried open a crate with a nearby crowbar and removed a bottle of Merlot. She inspected it looking for any clue it might give that her daughters were happy and well. The bottle betrayed no Lafargue family secrets, so she resigned herself to a drink. The small cargo ship had been taken in under an hour. Already the small crew of Hatian and Chinese sailors were transporting goods from the merchant ship to their smaller faster vessel.

Honest men

Only 18 months had passed since all had been honest men, career sailors moving from ship to ship saving their wages for the day they’d choose a final port of call. On the cursed ship they were little more than strangers with a common tongue in third class. All of that changed when they were rescued from the lifeboats and brought by freighter to Ellis Island.

It was Lee Bing who was first to try and pass through immigration. “No Chinese!” the customs officer barked pointing to a large poster with lots of foreign letters on it. “Can’t you read!”

“They are turning Chinese away,” he came back and told the others.

“I’m not Chinese.” Josephine said stepping forward. “I will pass through and come back. Wait here.”

Getting through customs was easy enough once she explained her father’s position and passed an intrusive medical exam. Her pockets had been so heavy that day. After returning to her cabin and seeing that her family had already evacuated, she reached for the purse of folding money and valuables that she kept hidden from her husband. She was very fortunate not to have gotten wet at the sinking of the ship, otherwise the deeds to the land that had been gifted to her after her marriage would have been destroyed.

Salt whipped her face as she stood in the bow of the ferry from Ellis Island to the port of Manhattan. She steeled herself. The buildings weren’t as large as those in Paris, but they towered over anything she’d seen in Haiti or the French countryside. It was no matter; she wouldn’t be staying long. She let her eyes scour the port for suitable ships and vessels. One of them had to be for hire. She would pay what was necessary and return to Lang, her love.

Lost and Found

Upon landing at the port, she roamed the docks until she found a few sailors who might be Haitian waiting for work on the docks. “Do you know of any ships for hire?” She asked in rusty Creole. It had been so many years since speaking to any of her more common countrymen she was almost unsure of herself.

“None for hire Miss, but there is a captain who has fallen ill and talks of selling his steamer. It is old but has served him true through rough seas.” The older one said.

A younger man who might have been his son spoke of then. “We have crewed for him many times. We know the vessel well and would prove to be faithful crewmen Miss.”

Night had fallen by the time she returned to Ellis Island but, she moved quickly as her pockets were now empty. She found her party easily, their voices carried far over the small patch of land surrounded by murky water.

“Lang!” She nearly cried. “Let’s go! Tell the others! We have a crew and a ship. We don’t have to stay here.”

“Where will we go?” He asked her still uncertain of what future could possibly be worth tears of joy.

Josephine looked at him with eyes ablaze and answered, “Wherever we want.”

Lang studied the passion permeated certainty of her gaze and said aloud what he knew from the moment they first met, “Wherever you go, I will go, always.”

Home

Fang Lang joined Josephine in the cargo hold to watch the men finish moving the goods from one ship to the other. A trick of light caught her eye and Josephine Fang moved across the space to let her fingers caress a peculiar panel on the wall in the corner of the hold.

She called to her husband in Cantonese, “Do you see this?” she pried the panel back to reveal a small chest and a single vellum scroll. After she was certain they were alone she pulled the chest out and kept it close between them. There they found a necklace, a brooch, and a pendant with eight points completely encrusted in diamonds that glimmered like million stars in the palm of Mrs. Fangs hand. “These are the Crown Jewels of Ireland!”

Lang closed her palms over the cluster of gems and precious metal. “With this we could go anywhere, any country you want.”

“I just want to go home,” she put the jewels back in the chest and smiled at Lang. “Will you take me home, my love?”

“To Haiti? But, I thought you never wanted to see your father again.”

“No, to our ship. If I don’t feed your son soon, he’ll cry all night.”

--end--

This story is a work of fiction and facts have been altered for that purpose, however it is based on historical records of actual survivors of the RMS Titanic.

Resources to read more about what really happened:

The La’Roche family

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Philippe_Lemercier_Laroche

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnatus_Leconte

https://web.archive.org/web/20130518193720/http://www.titanichistoricalsociety.org/people/louise-laroche.asp

The Six Chinese Survivors of the Titanic

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56755614

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0Am9jJN8D0LGt7aZkv_JHohVoEthgDQu

Taishanese

https://theanthill.org/toisanese

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st2O1SBvvPE

Merchant Ships during the first world war

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/a-short-history-of-the-merchant-navy

Titanic Accomodations

https://www.lovefood.com/gallerylist/69139/the-titanics-incredible-menu-revealed-for-every-class