So when I was aboard the sloop, and its young commander had listened to little Fisher’s report and my own terse embellishments, and whistled softly at the sight of the lorchas’ cargo, I was perfectly prepared for the inevitable question, asked with respectful bewilderment:
“But … how came you to be aboard of them, sir?”
I looked him in the eye with just a touch of tight-lipped smile. “I think, commander,” says I, “that I’d best report direct to Mr Parkes at Canton. Least said, what? You received no message from him about … ?” and I nodded at the lorchas. “Just so. Perhaps he was right. Well, I’ll be obliged if you’ll carry me to him as soon as may be. In the meantime,” I permitted myself a wry grin, “take good care of these Chinese villains, won’t you? I’ve been after ’em too long to want to lose ’em now. Oh, and by the way – that boy Fisher shapes well.”4
He couldn’t get me to Canton fast enough; we were in the Whampoa Channel by noon, and two hours later dropped anchor off Jackass Point, opposite the old factories. Then there was a delay while the lorchas and their crews were taken in charge, and the commander went to make his report to his chief, and to Parkes – I didn’t mind, since it gave me time to polish the tale I was going to tell – and it wasn’t until the following morning that I was escorted through the English Garden to the office and residence of Harry Parkes, Esq., H.M. Commissioner at Canton and (bar Bruce at Shanghai) our chief man in China. From all I’d heard, he was formidable: he knew the country better than any foreigner living, they said, for though he wasn’t thirty he’d been out since childhood, served through the Opium Wars, been on cutting-out expeditions as a schoolboy, done all manner of secret work and diplomatic ruffianing since, and carried things with a high hand against the Chinese – whose language he spoke rather better than the Emperor.
He greeted (I won’t say welcomed) me with brisk formality, stiff and upright behind his official desk, not a hair out of place on the sleek dark head. Energy was in every line of him, from the sharp prominent nose to the firm capable hands setting his papers just so; he was all business at once, in a clear, hard voice – and suddenly, convincing him didn’t seem quite so easy.
“This is a singular business, Sir Harry! What’s behind it?”
“Not much,” says I, hoping I was right. Clever and easy, I don’t mind – I’m that way myself – but clever and brusque unsettles me. I handed him the “requested and required” note Palmerston had given me when I went to India – the usual secret passport, but pretty faded now. “You had no message from me?”
“I did not know you were in China, until yesterday.” He glanced up sharply from the passport. “This is more than three years old.”
“When I left England. What I’ve been doing since will have to stay under the rose, I’m afraid –”
He gave a little barking laugh. “Not altogether, I fancy,” says he, with what he probably imagined was a smile. “Your knighthood and Victoria Cross are hardly state secrets.”
“I meant since then – this past year. It has nothing to do with this affair, anyway – that’s a tale that’s soon told.” I breathed an inward prayer, meeting the steady grey eyes in that lean lawyer face. “I’m due home on the Princess Charlotte, sailing on the eleventh –”
“In three days? Grant is due on the thirteenth. I beg your pardon, pray continue.”
“Aye, well, two nights ago I was over in Macao, looking up an old chum from Borneo, when I was with Brooke.” No harm in dropping in that glorious acquaintance, I thought. “I needn’t mention his name, it’s of no importance, but he’s a downy bird, Chinese, with an eye in every bush – an old White Lily Society man, you know the sort …”
“His name might be valuable,” says Parkes, and his hand went ever so casually to a vase of flowers on his desk; he lifted it with three fingers round the stem, and set it down again. Clever bastard.
“Exactly,” says I, and ran my thumb over three fingertips5, just to show him. “Well, we talked shop, and by way of gossip he let fall that a shipment of arms was going up-river to the Taipings – Shih-ta-kai’s people, he thought. Which was nothing to me – until he mentioned that they were British bought-and-paid-for, though he didn’t know who. Not strictly my indaba, you may say, but it struck me that if it got about that British arms were going to the Long-Haired Devils, it might cause us some embarrassment with Pekin, you know?”
I looked for a nod, but he just sat there with his fingers laced on the blotter before him. I’d a feeling that if you’d fired a gun in his ear he wouldn’t have taken his eyes from mine.
“So I thought I should have a look. Nothing official to be done on Portuguese territory, of course, but my friend knew where the lorchas were preparing to weigh – and there they were, sure enough, ostensibly loaded with opium, if you please. On the spur of the moment I approached the skipper –”
“That would be Ward.”
It was like a kick in the throat. I couldn’t help staring, and had to improvise swiftly to explain my obvious astonishment.
“Ward, you say? He told me his name was Foster.” The sweat was cold on my spine. “You knew … about him, and the shipment?”
“Only his name. My agents in Hong Kong and Macao send notice of all opium shipments, vessels, owners, and skippers.” He lifted a list from his desk. “Lorchas Ruth and Naomi, owned by Yang Fang and Co., Shanghai, commander F. T. Ward. No suggestion, of course, that he carried anything but opium.” He laid it down, and waited.
“Well, on impulse, I asked him for a lift to Canton.” By gum, he’d shaken me for a second, but if that was the extent of his knowledge I was still safe – but was it? This was a foxy one – and on instinct I did the riskiest thing a liar can do: I decided to change my story. I’d been about to tell him I’d stowed away, full of duty and holy zeal, and come thundering out at the critical moment, to prevent the rascals escaping when our sloop hove in sight. Suddenly I knew it wouldn’t do – not with this cold clam. I’ve been lying all my life, and I know: when in doubt, get as close to the truth as you can, and hang on like grim death.
“I asked him for a lift to Canton – and if you ask what was in my mind, I can’t tell you. I knew it was my duty to stop those guns – and placed as I was, without authority in a foreign port, that meant staying with ’em, somehow, and taking whatever chance offered.”
“You might,” he interrupted, “have informed the Portuguese.”
“I might, but I didn’t – and I doubt if you would, either.” I gave him just a touch of the Colonel, there. “Anyway, he refused me, mighty curt. I offered passage money, but he wouldn’t budge – which settled it for me, for any honest trader would have agreed. I was going off, wondering what to do next, when he suddenly called me back, and asked did I know the river, and did I speak Chinese? I said I did, he chewed it over, and then offered to take me if I’d act as interpreter on the voyage. I had only a moment aside to tell my Chinese friend to get word to you, or Hong Kong, of what was forward. But you’ve had no word from him?”
“None, Sir Harry,” and not a flicker of