The Eleventh Tiger (13 page)

Finally, in the bottom right-hand drawer, he found a folded double picture frame. When he opened it he found that one oval contained a picture of himself, rather younger and cleanshaven. The other picture was of the face of a lady of about the same age. She was dark-haired and rather striking. Her image stirred a feeling of comfort and peaceful warmth that, just for an instant, smoothed out the turbulent waves in the maelstrom that was his wounded head.

It was both reassuring and strangely disappointing that his life so far could be summed up by a few items in an office. A girl, his service record, and images and souvenirs of places to which he had been posted. It wasn’t much to show for the distances he’d travelled, or the hundreds of people he must have met, or the thousands - millions, probably - of words spoken.

It was as if he had simply chosen one day to reinvent himself as a character for a novel or the stage, except that he had no choice in the matter. The chaplain would be horrified at the idea, but the major decided that his Maker had a twisted sense of humour.

Logan was about to take a patrol across to the shore when he saw a commotion at the gate of the garrison. Two guards were remonstrating with a local and he walked over to see what was going on.

The visitor was a Chinaman with shaggy hair and an equally disreputable moustache. Despite this, his clothes were the finest available from Kwantung’s silk markets and he carried himself like an athlete. Logan recognised his bearing at once, as that of a master from one of the city’s Chinese boxing schools. He also looked vaguely familiar, and Logan was sure he had seen the man before as a member of the part-time Kwantung militia.

‘It’s Captain Jiang, isn’t it?’ he asked.

Jiang nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

He seemed excited about something, in a smarmy sort of way that made Logan uneasy.

‘It’s in that capacity that I have come.’ His English was slow and stilted, and heavily accented. ‘I have information of a crime against an Englishman.’

Logan was immediately interested and alert. ‘Well, out with it, man!’

‘As you know, I am deputy at the Po Chi Lam surgery and
gungfu
school. My
sifu,
Wong Kei-Ying, is holding English travellers hostage. One of them, a young man, has been tortured, and there may be women in the group.’

‘Tortured?’ Logan exploded. He knew immediately that he’d need to mount a punitive raid, and had no doubt the major would agree.

‘Beaten severely by several experts,’ Jiang specified.

‘And this man, he’s still there?’

‘Yes.’ Jiang frowned. ‘At least, I think so. The travellers may have been killed already.’

‘Then there’s no time to lose. Sergeant Major!’

Anderson appeared in a doorway immediately.

‘I want ten men. Captain Jiang of the militia here will tell you where you’ll be going with them. I’ll fetch the major.’

‘Aye sir,’ Anderson rapped and was gone, Jiang with him.

Logan dashed across the parade ground into the main company building, and hurried along to the major’s office. He knocked and was called in immediately.

‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,’ the major said, looking up from the reports he was reading.

‘If we’re not quick we might see a new one, sir. An English one, at that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve just been given a pretty queer story by one of our liaisons in the militia. He says that a group of English travellers is being held hostage at Po Chi Lam. At least one has already been beaten within an inch of his life.’

The major looked startled. ‘I’ll come at once.’

Outside the office window the giant, Pang, was unloading crates from a wagon. Glass clinked tellingly within them.

Pang’s understanding of English was limited, to say the least, but the words Po Chi Lam’ tripped all manner of alarm bells in his head.

Without finishing the unloading he hopped back on the wagon, and made for the bridge back to the shore.

Kei-Ying was taking morning tea in his hall, and greeted the Doctor with a polite ‘Good morning’ when he walked in.

‘What? Yes, I suppose it’s as best as can be expected,’ the Doctor said.

Kei-Ying smiled to himself. Some people were not morning people, and he found no shame in that.

‘My son and your friends will be back soon.’

‘I sincerely hope so. I must confess to a certain impatience to see Chesterfield, er, that is, young Chesterton there, back on his feet.’

‘He is important to you?’

‘Everyone is important to me, young man.’

Kei-Ying was a little bemused at being called ‘young man’

for the first time in over a decade.

‘Who did those ruffians think he is?’ the Doctor continued.

‘Neither Chesterton nor myself have been in China for several cen-for a very long time.’

‘There’s a Chesterton with the British garrison here. He looks very much like your friend, and I suppose the people who attacked him must have thought they were one and the same. Then when they heard that your friend’s name is Chesterton...’

‘I see.’

‘I myself thought they were the same man, but if you and he have only just arrived, then it cannot be so. The man they wanted to hurt has been here for two years.’

‘The same man,’ the Doctor said thoughtfully. He looked troubled. ‘Is it possible?’

Kei-Ying thought better than to ask what he was talking about.

The Doctor looked into the distance. ‘Perhaps if we knew when he had first arrived, and where he was before,’ he said.

He pursed his lips and looked out through the gates at a figure running through the street. ‘It’s that one-eyed fellow from the inn where we were set upon.’

‘Cheng?’

Kei-Ying turned, thinking the Doctor must have exceptional eyesight by anyone’s standards, let alone someone of his generous years. It was indeed Cheng, running, dodging basket-laden merchants and almost slipping on fallen fruit.

‘Wong-sifu,’ he gasped, out of breath. ‘Pang just told me.

The English are coming for you.’

‘What?’

Kei-Ying wondered why on earth they would be looking for him. He and his son helped to train the Guangzhou militia, who collaborated with the foreign soldiers.

‘They think you’ve kidnapped, or killed, someone.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’ Kei-Ying shivered.

‘I know, but they’re coming.’

Kei-Ying turned to the Doctor. ‘If they see you and your injured friend here, it -’

‘I understand. It might make them think we are your prisoners, or that your people mistreated Ian. But, on the other hand, perhaps I can help you by putting in a good word.’

‘They’d only arrest you too,’ Cheng prophesied. ‘Say you’re a traitor or something.’

‘There is that, I suppose,’ the Doctor admitted.

Kei-Ying put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I think the best thing would be for you to keep watch over Ian until my son and the women return. His recovery is the most important thing at the moment.’

The Doctor’s gaze was drawn back indoors. ‘You’re right, of course.’

‘Stay quiet. Just in case.’

‘As you say.’

The Doctor disappeared into the sprawling surgery and Kei-Ying seated himself comfortably on a stool on the veranda.

Presently, there was a knocking on the gates at the far side of the courtyard. One of Kei-Ying’s students rushed across to see who it was.

‘That will be the British army,’ Kei-Ying called out to him.

Let them in, then tell Cousin Yee to bring tea and
yum cha.’

The student paused only to bow before opening the gates.

The visitors were indeed soldiers. The enlisted men looked nervous, but their rifles were slung over their shoulders and not in their hands. In the lead were two officers. The younger one had a plume on his helmet and a Vandyke beard. The older man had some sort of cloth wound round his helmet in lieu of a plume, and a handlebar moustache.

‘Master Wong?’ the bearded one asked. Kei-Ying nodded.

‘I’m Captain Logan. We have been given information -’

‘Suggestions

and

supposition,

perhaps,

but

not

information.’

‘We’ve been told that you are holding some English prisoners.’

‘Prisoners?’ It was all Kei-Ying could do not to laugh.

‘That’s insane.’

‘We have a reliable witness. He says that there’s a beaten man, and possibly female hostages as well.’

‘There are no Englishwomen here.’

‘And Englishmen?’

‘There are six standing in front of me, so I can hardly deny that.’

‘Perhaps if we could look around inside?’

Kei-Ying shook his head with a smile. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and meant it. ‘But I have patients who must not be disturbed.’

‘Master Wong, you strike me as an honourable man, yet you’re shooting yourself in the foot here. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get me to take you back for questioning.’ The captain sighed. ‘All right, we do need to ask you a few questions, if only to determine how honest our informant is. I have no choice but to place you under arrest for the moment.’

Kei-Ying had expected no different from such a professional man. He admired professionalism. ‘I can only tell you the truth, Captain, and you won’t believe it when I do. So you will be arresting me whatever happens.’

‘We don’t know that. You’re well respected by the Kwantung militia, and I sure as hell don’t want to arrest you.

So why not try me?’

Kei-Ying nodded. Fate couldn’t be cheated. ‘Some men attacked an Englishman at the Hidden Panda. Cheng brought him here for treatment.’

‘Where is he now?’

Kei-Ying took a deep breath. ‘Standing next to you.’

Inside, in the shadowed coolness of the hall, the Doctor had been listening. He looked through the interior door to where Ian lay unconscious, then peered through the latticework shutters at the soldiers.

The major turned and the Doctor could finally see his face.

His hair had a few streaks of grey in it, and he had a handlebar moustache the shade of faded ink, but it was a face the Doctor had become accustomed to over the last couple of years.

The Doctor’s eyes widened slightly, and he whispered,

‘Chesterton.’

Major Chesterton had been sweating under the sun, as much from the heat inside his skull as from the heat outside. He had been perfectly content to let Logan do the talking so far as he didn’t trust himself to avoid slurring his words, forgetting them altogether or betraying his mental fogginess.

And then Wong Kei-Ying had pointed to him. Chesterton couldn’t quite deny what he had said, though Logan and Anderson clearly expected some such outright dismissal.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever been treated by you, Master Wong.

I’m sure I would have remembered.’

Kei-Ying looked him up and down, and his lip curled as if he was suppressing a pain. ‘I don’t know how or why you don’t remember, but I treated you last night.’

Chesterton hesitated. Wong looked and sounded sincere, and if he’d made this statement about someone else he would certainly have believed him. But since Chesterton knew he had been with Logan and Anderson and the rest of the garrison last night, he knew Wong was lying. He suddenly felt a tinge of admiration for the man’s barefaced cheek.

‘You have to come with us, I’m afraid,’ he said.

‘I told you so,’ Kei-Ying said. He looked around at the students, who were starting to gather around the courtyard.

‘Might I give instructions to my staff to look after the surgery and school while I’m with you?’

Chesterton agreed immediately.

Kei-Ying went into the hall and spotted the Doctor hovering in the doorway to Ian’s room, neither quite in one place nor the other.

‘Doctor,’ he began, uncertain how to proceed. ‘That man outside... it’s him.’ He pointed to Ian.

‘Yes, I saw. This is a most unfortunate turn of events, my friend. Unfortunate and dangerous.’

Kei-Ying couldn’t disagree. ‘I will have to go. Somehow I must make that Chesterton...,’ he gestured to the major, ‘...

understand that I am not his enemy.’

‘I will come and speak to him later,’ the Doctor promised.

In the meantime, I have a favour to ask.’

‘Anything, Master Wong. My friends and I are... well, we are in your debt.’

‘Someone must take charge of Po Chi Lam while I am at Xamian. I would like you to do so.’

‘Me, sir?’ the Doctor protested. ‘But I am -’

‘You are a man of medicine, and of reason. Don’t worry about the
gungfu
school, my son will handle that side of things. But Po Chi Lam must stay open for people to visit it for help when they are ill.’

The Doctor drew himself up, clutching his lapels. ‘I shall do my best to honour your request, Master Wong.’

‘Thank you.’

Barbara wanted to run all the way back to Po Chi Lam from the old temple, but her tired legs and feet would never have been up to the task. She suspected that Fei-Hung might have managed it - he seemed the athletic type - but in the end their pace was much the same as when they had walked to the temple.

As a result, they arrived at Po Chi Lam just in time to see a British captain with a Vandyke beard escorting Kei-Ying to a small carriage outside the gates. Another carriage filled with uniformed men was already rattling unsteadily away.