Mandarin-Gold (19 page)

'They have already
been
here,' replied Napier. 'They came with three Edicts. I have had them translated.'

He opened a drawer in a table.

'Say not that you are not forewarned,' he read dramatically. 'Tremble here at. A special Order. Four English devils . . .' — actually there are only three of us — '. . . have been observed landing and clandestinely entering the British factory.

'This could only have happened with the knowledge and connivance and help of the Hong merchants. The Barbarian Eye must go, or else the merchants will be punished. These are the orders. Tremble here at! Intensely tremble!'

He put the papers down on the desk and smiled.

'We received these copies from a friend,' said Elliot. 'One of the Hong merchants.'

'What do
they
think about it?' asked Napier.

'They wish you would go, sir. They know they're going to be squeezed for enormous indemnities until you do. And I do not think we will achieve anything by staying here without the proper permission.'

'Maybe. Maybe not. But we'll certainly achieve nothing by returning to Macao,' said Jardine irritably. 'We've got to show we're not some subject face like Turks or Portugooses, people like that. We're
British.

‘Better to have a showdown and know where we stand than just wait here being made fools of by men in pigtails.'

'Jardine's right,' said Napier. 'I've been East before, too, and out here face is everything. We lost face when these fellows wouldn't take my letter. We've
got
to get it back. The questions is — how?'

'What do you mean,
pox?'
asked Gunn wearily. .

He was convinced that he must be delirious with some fierce, unknown fever and so imagining this Scotsman, and even the fact that he appeared friendly.

'What do I mean by pox?' repeated MacPherson. ‘I’ll
show
you what I mean.' He put down his hand to his groin; Gunn saw his phallus, swollen and raw.

'That may not be pox at all,' said Gunn. 'But in any event, I can't cure you here. I have no medicines. They're back on board.'

'But you
could
cure me, if you had your physic?'

'Of course.'

'Good. Well, what is your ship?'

'I'm surgeon in the
Hesperides.
Crutchley & Company. Captain Fernandes.'

'What are you doing here, then? The
Hesperides
is due to call within a week in any case, so my people tell me. You're lucky you've not been caught and tortured as a bloody Barbarian.'

Two Chinese stepped forward, and linked their arms behind Gunn's back and helped him into the nearest hut. He lay down thankfully on a rush mat. One of the men filled an earthenware cup with water and held this up to Gunn's lips. MacPherson came to the mouth of the tent, his thumbs hooked in his loincloth.

'Is Crutchley aboard? Tall fellow with a foul mouth?'

'Yes. He's aboard,' replied Gunn. 'We anchored down the coast. The mandarin came out to fix terms, and when he left the ship Crutchley told me he had left his purse of coins behind. Apparently, only an officer could return it. I volunteered. But as soon as I stepped ashore, the Lascars rowed off. A crowd of Chinese chased me, and I escaped into the forest.'

'Crutchley meant to maroon you, of course.'

‘I couldn't believe that at first. But I do now. The money purse he gave me was full of pennies. But why should he
want
to maroon me?'

'I never heard his name. He had a married daughter. Lived in a large house overlooking the bay. Had a room from which he could watch all the ships?'

‘I know him. Or, rather, I know of him. He controls Crutchley's company. Crutchley just supplies the English name, with a few shares, I suppose. Jardine owns a few, too. But the Parsee has the muscle. You did a deal with him?'

'You didn't expect to live to cash a
cheque
for that amount here, did you? If he'd given you gold, he'd probably have had you clubbed down. But to accept a cheque! When he wrote that, doctor, he was writing your death warrant.'

'You really mean that?'

'Of course I mean it. You'd given him three thousand sound reasons for wanting you out of the way.'

'Who are
you,
anyway?' Gunn asked him. 'And how are you living here? I thought no foreigners were allowed to live in China?'

'They bloody well aren't, mate. But I've been here a good few years now. I'm accepted. I'm not a red-bristle-arsed Barbarian anymore. Nor even a Scot with a skin full of whisky and haggis. They think I am a child of Han in disguise! Some child — some disguise! I speak their lingo, that's the reason. Learned it in Singapore when I was a lad. Who's interpreting in the Hesperides?'

'An American. Missionary called Mackereth.'

'Never heard of him. He's probably like that fellow Gutzlaff Jardine uses so much, who peddles mud with his left hand and religion with his right. Somehow he balances his books and his conscience. I do not trust him, though. He
uses
Chinks. I don't. I let them use
me
to help
them.
When the opium boats come in and there's an argy-bargy about prices, and everyone's speaking pidgin, I get within earshot and tell the Chinks whether they're being swindled or not.'

'But you weren't up the coast when we came in?'

'Of course not. There was no need to be. The mandarin there controls that trade. But an awful lot of trade, boy, is done up here. Pirate ships. Some of Jardine's captains making money on the side. Some of the Parsee's lads doing likewise.'

'How did you get here?' asked Gunn.

'Like you, or nearly like you. Off a ship. I was in the
Black Boy,
a clipper out from Sydney to Singapore. One day we came across two junks, part burnt but, sails gone, wood still smouldering, people shouting for help — or so we thought. We hove to, and before we knew where the devil we were, they'd grappling irons out and were on deck slitting our bloody throats. It was a trap. And we jumped right into it.'

'But you survived?'

'Of course I survived. I wouldn't be here otherwise, would I? I was second mate. Captain went down. So did the first mate and nearly all the rest. They're cunning swine, Chinese pirates. When they capture a foreign ship, they always leave
some
crew alive to work her, for their method of seamanship isn't ours. So they spared me to run the vessel. We were carrying grain, with hatches open because of the heat. They battened down all hatches — and the grain caught fire. Ship burned out half a mile off shore.

'We jumped into the sea, and the tide carried us in. Some of the pirates also reached the shore. They were going to kill me at first. Then they decided not to. They weren't all that certain, how the locals would treat them, for pirates are outlaws here. When they knew I spoke English
and
dialect they thought I might be more useful to them alive than dead. Maybe they could ransom me.

'We had a bit of trouble with the locals at first, then some Americans came, trying to sell a cargo of Turkish mud. They spoke pidgin, but the natives here couldn't understand them. I did. I became the go-between. And that's what I've been ever since, the man in the middle. No doubt, I'll die in bed like all good sailors. Whose bed, though, is a different matter.'

'Possibly. But now you need treatment'

'How can you get your physic?'

'When the
Hesperides
comes in, I will go back on board.'

'Don't be a fool. Crutchley will have you over the side as soon as it is dark.'

'You think so?'

'I
know
so.'

'Tell me, then, are
you
content to stay on here?' asked Gunn slowly, an idea forming in his mind.

'What else am I offered? And how the devil could I get away? These Chinks wouldn't let me go, for they need me. And I rather like the life. I've got a Chink woman and I puff a pipe of opium when I want to.'

'But would you go home — if you could?'

'Where's home?' asked MacPherson, 'I haven't been back to Scotland for twelve years. They must have given me up for dead long since.'

'But you speak the dialects. You could be useful to merchants in Macao or Canton.'

'As useful to them as
you
were useful to the Parsee, eh? They'd use me — and then get rid of me.'

'Not if you went back in a position of power.'

'What are you talking about?'

'Listen,' said Gunn earnestly, 'when the
Hesperides
arrives, let's
both
go aboard.'

'I couldn't leave Ling Fai, my woman.'

‘Take her with you.' -

'You don't know what you're talking about. How
could
I take her? I have no money. In any case, the
Hesperides
is not a passenger vessel.'

'If we took over the
Hesperides,
we could sail where we wanted, with whom we wanted.'

'Take her over? You've been touched by the sun, I think, doctor. You need treatment more than me!'

'Give me something to eat,' said Gunn. 'And I'll tell you what I have in mind.'

MacPherson clapped his hands, and spoke rapidly in a high-pitched, sing-song voice. A girl carried in a bamboo tray with a coconut split in two. Gunn drank the sharp, fresh juice gratefully. Another girl brought in a bowl of steaming rice overlaid with thin strips of boiled fish. Gunn ate with his fingers. With every mouthful, he felt strength return, and with his strength a strange cold determination he had never experienced before.

He thought of the Parsee and his talk of a promise being a debt; of Crutchley and the purse of pennies. He remembered his shock at seeing the Lascars row hastily out to sea, and the Chinese with their bamboo clubs walking slowly along the beach towards him. He thought of all these people and knew what he had to do.

'When the
Hesperides
puts in here, we're going aboard,' he told MacPherson, 'Both of us. They'll send a boat ashore, first. Maybe with Mackereth, or if he is too timid, someone who speaks a bit of pidgin, to see what the reception's like.

'You brief one of your Chinks to tell them that the local mandarin has discovered something more precious than opium here. Gold or rubies, jade — anything. But they will need, as many men as possible to carry it back. Crutchley will denude his ship, but he won't come himself. You lead the crew into the forest — and we'll bind them up. Then we take some of your fellows — put on Chink clothes ourselves — and we will row back.'

'What is the alternative? To stay here in the jungle — you rotting with what you think is pox, and the Chinks along the coast still after me?'

'It's an idea,' allowed MacPherson slowly.

'It's a certainty. We'll keep Captain Fernandes as a hostage. He'll testify to anything we tell him to.'

As Gunn spoke, he remembered how Fernandes had refused to shake hands with him; maybe he knew even then what Crutchley planned to do?

'You're bloody right,' agreed MacPherson. 'Matheson is the Danish Consul, and every now and then he hoists the Danish flag on his boats and none of the Company ships or even the Navy can lay a finger on him.'

‘The
Hesperides
will have a flag locker,too.'

'And to think I have been here for years, and it needed you to come with a plan of escape,' said MacPherson slowly.

'You're wrong,' said Gunn. 'It doesn't need me. It needs
both
of us. We are like elements in science — inadequate on their own, but joined together they produce an explosion — or a new metal. And the new metal we will discover together, MacPherson, is very precious. Gold!'

He put out his hand; MacPherson shook it firmly.

'I'll find you some Chink clothes,' he said. 'There's a stream I wash in, the other side of the clearing. I bought a dozen bars of soap from the last boat that called.'

He paused, suddenly nervous at the prospect before them.

'Are you
certain
you can do it, doctor?'

'No,' admitted Gunn. 'Nothing in life is certain — except that one day we'll all be required to leave it. But if you want to succeed, or even to survive, you don't ask questions. Can I do this?
Shall
I do the other? — you dam' well
do
them. This thing, MacPherson, we'll do together.'