God, it sounded lame – especially the true parts, which I thought was damned hard. I waited; if the man were human, he must say something. He did.
“You must have formed some plan by this time – what did you hope to do, alone, against so many?” He sounded impatient – and downright curious.
“For the life of me, Mr Parkes, I wasn’t sure.” I grinned him straight in the eye, bluff, honest Harry. “Tackle the crew with my revolver? Try to scuttle her? I don’t know, sir. By the grace of God the sloop hove in sight just then … and I did tackle ’em! And the rest you know.”
He sat for a moment, and I braced myself for the incredulous questions, the outright disbelief – and then he gave his sudden bark of a laugh, and struck the bell at his elbow.
“Some coffee, Sir Harry? I’m sure you deserve it. That, sir,” says he, shaking his head, “is the most damned unlikely tale I ever heard – and what I’d say to it if I didn’t know it for true, I cannot imagine! Well, it is unlikely, you’ll own?” He chuckled again, and it seemed to me an indignant frown was in order, so I gave one, but it was wasted since he was talking to the bearer with the coffee-tray. Relief and bewilderment filled me; he’d swallowed it … he knew it was true … ? What the deuce … ?
“Speaking in my official capacity, I have to say that your actions were entirely irregular,” says he, handing me a cup, “and might have had serious results – for yourself. You risked your life, you know – and your honour.” He looked hard at me. “A senior officer, found aboard an arms-smuggler, without authority? Even with your distinguished name … well …” He stirred his own cup, and then smiled – and, d’ye know, I realised he was just twenty-nine, and not the fifty-odd he’d sounded. “Between ourselves, it was a damned cool bit of work, and I’m obliged to you. But for you, they might have given us the slip; they’d certainly have made some sort of fight of it. My congratulations, sir. I beg your pardon – more sugar?”
Well, this was Sunday in Brighton all of a sudden, wasn’t it, though? I’d hoped for acceptance, with or without the doubtful glances that have followed me round the world for eighty erratic years – but hardly for this. It didn’t make sense, even – for it was a damned unlikely tale, as he’d said.
“Saving my poor veracity,” says I, “you say you know it’s true?” Flashy ain’t just bluff and manly, you see – he’s sharp, too, and I was playing my character. “May I know how?”
“I’d not deny myself the pleasure of enlightening you,” says he briskly. “We have known for some time that arms shipments, provided by a syndicate of British and American sympathisers, have been going up the Pearl to the Taipings – Shih-ta-kai, as your Chinese friend said. Who these sympathisers are, we don’t know –” that was good news, too, “since the work was entirely overseen by a most skilful Chinese, a former pirate, who brought the arms to Macao, shipped them up the Pearl in lorchas, and passed them to the Taipings … where? To be brief, we smoked the pirate out a week ago, and he met with an accident.” He set down his cup. “That forced the syndicate’s hand – they needed a new man, and they chose Ward, heaven knows why, since he knew nothing of the Pearl, or of China. But he’s a good seaman, they say, and from what we know, devoted to the Taiping cause. The idiot. And at the last moment, when he must have been wondering how the deuce he was going to find his way up-river, without a word of Chinese in his head, and rendezvous with the Taipings, you dropped into his lap. We may guess,” says he, “what your fate must have been if he had reached his destination. But I’m sure you weighed that.”
I gave an offhand shrug, and when we’d picked the shattered remnants of my cup from the floor, he pinged his bell again. “Fortunately, we now had Mr Ward and his convoy under observation at Macao, and our sloops were waiting for him beyond the Second Bar. Come in!” cries he, and the door opened to admit the prettiest little Chinese girl, in a flowered robe and high block shoes; a Manchoo, by her coiled hair and unbound feet. She smiled and bobbed to Parkes, and glanced sidelong in my direction.
“An-yat-heh!” snaps Parkes, and she turned and bobbed at me. I could only nod back, mystified – and then my heart lurched. She was washed and dressed and painted up like a Mandarin’s daughter, but there was no mistaking. She was the Hong Kong boat girl.
“Thank you, An-yat-heh!” says Parkes, and she bobbed again, shot me another slantendicular look, and pitti-pittied out.
“An-yat-heh,” says Parkes drily, “is a most capable and, I fear, most immoral young woman. She is also the best spy on the Pearl River. For the past week she has been keeping close watch on Frederick Townsend Ward. She saw his lorchas sail from Macao, and followed in a sampan manned by other of our agents. She would have contrived to get aboard the lorchas,” he went on impassively, “even if you had not been there, for it was her task to see where the cargo was landed, in the event that Ward had eluded our patrols. She was surprised to learn, from eavesdropping on the crew, that you were apparently unaware of the true nature of the cargo – for of course the smugglers were not to know that you already had their secret, and spoke of you as a dupe, to be disposed of when you had served your purpose. She was pleased, she tells me, to discover that you were not one of the smugglers; in some ways she is a naive, affectionate girl, and seems to have formed an attachment to you.”
Whether this was accompanied by a leer, a frown, or nothing at all, I can’t say – knowing Parkes, probably the last. I was in too much mental turmoil to notice – by God, the luck! For it fitted – my tale to Parkes corroborated exactly what she must have told him of the voyage. But if I’d given him the stowaway yarn … it didn’t bear thinking about. I put it by, and listened to the brisk, impersonal voice.
“She is, as I said, a resourceful young woman. When the sloop was sighted, she determined to draw your attention to the cargo, in the hope that when you saw how you had been deceived, you might cause some disturbance, and hinder their escape – as indeed you did. Having no English but pigeon, and doubting her ability to make you understand Cantonese, she hit on the novel plan of persuading you to open a chest by pleading with you for opium.”
I sat quiet for a moment – and if you want to know what I was thinking, it wasn’t what an almighty narrow shave I’d had, or of prayers of thanksgiving, or anything of that sort. No, I was asking myself when, if ever, I’d been so confoundedly fooled by two different women in the space of four days. Mrs Phoebe Carpenter and An-yat-heh, bless ’em. White or yellow, they were a hazardous breed in China, that was plain. Parkes, with the satisfied air of a rooster who has done crowing, was regarding me expectantly.
“Well, she’s a brave girl,” says I. “Smart, too. And you, sir, are to be congratulated on the efficiency of your secret service.”
“Oh, we get about,” says he.
“I’m sorry that rascal Foster – Ward, did you say? – got clear away.” I scowled, Flashy-like. “I’ve a score to settle with that one.”
“Not in China, Sir Harry, if you please.” He was all commissioner again. “He served you a scurvy trick, no doubt, but the less that is heard of this business the better. I shall require your word on that,” and he gave me his stiff-collar look. “It has all been quite unofficial, you see. No British law has been broken. The gun-running offence took place within the Imperial Chinese Government’s