China Flyer (10 page)

While Jingee laid out supper on the desk, Horne reread Governor Pigot’s orders. The trip north from Macao had begun at midday, a slow trek up the winding Pearl River with no breeze to fill the sails, so that they were dependent on the tow-lines of the oared escort boats.

Earlier, in Macao, Jingee had purchased chickens and vegetables from the sampan vendors. He had stewed Horne’s supper over a galley fire and now, as he served the tasty meal, he chattered about the morning’s events.

‘When the Chinese came aboard ship, Captain sahib, I thought our men were going to dive into the water. They were so frightened, Captain sahib. Everyone thought the Chinamen had come to rob and kill us or take us away at sword-point.’

‘Ummm,’ responded Horne noncommittally, spooning up the chicken stew, his attention focused on the
instructions
which Governor Pigot had given him concerning the respect to be paid to Chinese officials—how to
kowtow,
how to fall on your hands and knees on the floor and tap your head in front of the honoured person’s slippers.

Jingee filled Horne’s glass with the rice wine he had purchased in Macao, continuing, ‘I didn’t know what to do when I saw the Chinese rowing towards the
Huma
in their junks, Captain
sahib.’

‘Ummm,’ repeated Horne, folding Pigot’s letter and setting it aside on the desk. He could not imagine the porcine governor ever falling to his hands and knees in
front of any offical, Chinese or otherwise. He appreciated that respect must be shown to foreign officials but did not believe that he could ever prostrate himself before any autocrat.

‘Who was there to understand the language they were shouting at us?’ Jingee went on. ‘Remember, Captain sahib, that the interpreter had gone ashore with you.’

‘Of course.’

Allowing Jingee to chatter on, Horne reached for the ledger of cargo records he had left open beside his supper tray. He should be excited by the Hoppo’s report that George Fanshaw and the
China
Flyer
had arrived at Macao and preceded the
Huma
up river; a confrontation might take place very soon. But for the moment he was concentrating on trying to understand the Chinese procedure of etiquette and gift-giving. Tomorrow the Co-Hung in Whampoa would also expect a
cumshaw,
and Horne intended to be prepared for them. He did not want to depend totally on the recommendations of Cheng-So Gilbert.

From the desk, Jingee turned to tidying Horne’s cabin. ‘One Chinaman counted everything on beads, Captain sahib—ping, ping, ping. He snapped little green jade beads on a silk thread, counting the chests they carried from the hold.’

The Hoppo’s men had taken eleven chests of opium from the
Huma,
leaving a balance of seventeen. But as yet Horne had no figures from Babcock to indicate how many bolts of Madras cotton the harbour officials had taken as part of their
cumshaw.

On the other side of the cabin, Jingee was gathering up laundry, complaining, ‘What right have they to come and take what they want when they can’t even explain why they’re doing it?’

Horne reminded Jingee as he copied figures from the ledger, ‘Mr Gilbert says it’s the Manchu way.’

‘Mr Gilbert.’ Jingee sniffed disapprovingly. ‘I would like
to know how much of a percentage Mr Gilbert receives from the Hoppo.’

Horne’s pen
hesitated on the paper. He had not considered that aspect. Did Cheng-So Gilbert receive a percentage of a
cumshaw
?
Humm. He must ask.

A round moon hung low in the sky, illuminating the
tow-lines
strung between the
Huma
and the rowing-boats, and making their hemp cables look like the silvery strands of a spider’s web. The night’s stillness was broken by the steady splash of the oars in the eddying waters, and the rhythmical chirrup of cicadas in the tall grass bordering the Pearl River.

Jingee knelt in the ship’s heads, scrubbing Horne’s laundry as the frigate inched up the river. Thankful that he was not on tonight’s late dog watch, he was using the time to finish the work he had been prevented from doing earlier today in Macao, when the Chinese had boarded the
Huma.

Still angry about the intrusion, he was fretting, too, about Cheng-So Gilbert. The Chinese could not be trusted, he decided. The Chinese were shifty, he told himself. Cunning. They smiled while they plotted intrigues against you.

Jingee’s cousins in Riau conducted a pepper trade between India and China. They had told him about the disingenuous Chinese, and how the merchants of Canton cheated, lied and stole in their bargaining with them.

Jingee rinsed soap ash from the clothes with fresh drinking water as he considered the growing importance of understanding foreign customs. More and more ships were sailing to distant lands nowadays, and travellers must be prepared to learn the codes of conduct they found there—whether or not they approved of them.

Jingee had always been curious about other people’s ways. His interest had led him to learn languages, and his ability to speak a diversity of tongues and dialects had enabled him to find work as a
dubash
—a secretary and translator. Before becoming a Bombay Marine, he had been employed by an English factor in Hyderabad, a man with no respect for local mores, who one day had yoked a man of the
Brahmin
caste to a lowly
Panchama
and set them to work ploughing his garden. Jingee had pleaded with the Englishman not to defile the high caste man by attaching him to an untouchable, but the foreigner had scoffed at Hindu law and ignored the appeal. Jingee had had no choice but to slit the Englishman’s throat.

Memories of the murder reminded him of the knife he had used earlier tonight to prepare Horne’s supper.

As he wrung out the clean clothes in the moonlight, Jingee pictured the scarlet necklace he would draw around the neck of Cheng-So Gilbert if the pudgy Chinaman betrayed Captain Horne sahib. He would slit his throat as easily as he had butchered the plump chicken.

Jingee knew, too, that, deep within him, his distrust for Cheng-So Gilbert stemmed from a jealousy that the Chinaman spoke so many more languages then he did himself.

While Jingee laboured under the moonlight, in his cabin below Horne was pushing a glass of rice wine across his desk to Cheng-So Gilbert as he asked, ‘Do you receive a share of the
cumshaw
I gave to the Hoppo in Macao, Mr Gilbert?’

Cheng-So Gilbert replied without hesitation. ‘I receive a share from the mandarins in Whampoa.’

Horne raised his wine-glass and both men sipped the golden-yellow wine, Horne aware that Gilbert had not answered the question.

‘Excuse my dullness, Mr Gilbert, but I still do not understand the procedure. Did the Hoppo in Macao also give you a share of my
cumshaw
?’

‘The Hoppo is an Imperial office, Captain Horne,’ Gilbert explained patiently, dabbing the corners of his cupid lips. ‘It is beneath the Imperial officers to give gifts to a common linguist such as myself. I receive a percentage from the
Co-Hung
merely because they are mandarins—men involved in trade.’

‘So to all intents and purposes you receive a percentage because it is similar to a commercial transaction.’

‘In China, Captain Horne,
cumshaws
do not fall into the category of percentages, taxes, or gratuities. They are tokens of respect.’

‘But tied to the value of a ship’s cargo or its inspection?’

‘That is frequently the case, yes, Captain Horne.’

Pleased that Gilbert was answering the questions so readily, Horne continued, ‘Will the mandarins in Whampoa give you part of the cotton and opium they receive from me?’

‘Such an arrangement, Captain Horne, would not be unusual.’

‘Can you specify to them what commodity you would prefer? Cotton or opium?’

‘I would prefer opium, of course. There is always a ready market for poppy tar in China. But the mandarins will make the decision.’

Horne recrossed his booted feet beneath the desk. ‘Tell me about the mandarins, Mr Gilbert.’

‘Mandarins are the leading merchants in China, Captain Horne. The Emperor formed them into the Co-Hung. They are beneath the Hoppo in rank, but many men are now whispering that they are gaining too much power. Some predict that they will soon control the Imperial throne.’

He added, ‘Already the mandarins have allowed the
opium trade to grow to an extent which the Emperor greatly disapproves.’

‘Opium is not indigenous to China, is it, Mr Gilbert?’ Horne said. ‘What is its history here? How did it become such a key import?’

‘Many years before your disciple Christ was born, Captain Horne, opium was brought to China by holy men from India. They travelled the country, impressing people with the endurance of their meditation and abilities to pray for long periods of time. They cured sicknesses with mysterious powers unknown to the Chinese. When the local priests learned that the foreign holy men’s strength came from opium, they, too, began exploring the magic of the poppy tar.’

‘So religion introduced opium to China.’

‘To the Buddhist and Taoist priests, yes, Captain Horne. From them, members of the Ming Court discovered that opium vapours held in the lungs could induce luscious dreams. Through the courtiers, the practice filtered down to the populace.’

‘By this time were the Chinese trying to grow their own poppies?’

‘The Chinese indeed tried cultivating poppies, Captain Horne. So, indeed, did a few islands where the practice had also spread—the Philippines and Sulus. But the bulk of it still comes from the clement districts of India. To this day, opium is one crop which the mandarins do not pay for in porcelain or silk. Opium has come to be valued so highly by the Chinese people, that the foreigners know they can demand payment in silver. There are even special
warehouses
for storing opium chests arriving from abroad.’

‘These warehouses are in Canton?’

‘Some. But the main opium depot is called Kam-
Sing-Moon
. It is an island beyond the mouth of the Pearl River.’

‘Is the entire opium trade controlled by the government?’ Horne sipped at the wine.

‘That is the Manchu wish, Captain Horne. But the mandarins have been greatly troubled lately by illegal trade conducted by small merchants along China’s southern coastline. The territory is too vast for total control and the Manchu fear that foreigners will go to those small traders. The monopoly would be in great jeopardy. The Manchu jealously protected their monopoly and condemn all illegal traders to the Dragon Prison in Canton.’

The conversation ended on a sombre note, with
Cheng-So
Gilbert explaining how opium had eventually become the ruination of the Ming Dynasty. Horne thanked him for the evening’s enjoyable companionship and, after bidding him good night, decided to take a breath of fresh air before ending his day.

On the quarter-deck, he found Groot and Babcock on the last dog watch. Babcock was grumbling about the slow progress up-river, Groot jabbering nervously about the possibility of the Chinese ambushing them in this
defenceless
position. ‘I feel like a tied pig,
schipper,’
he complained.

Horne had weighed the likelihood of being entrapped by the Chinese as they were towing them up the winding Pearl River. The snail’s pace would leave little or no way of escape; the guns would be useless against clamouring assassins. But what alternatives did he have? To keep the crew armed and alert would definitely offend the Chinese. To have waited at the river mouth for the
China
Flyer
to return down river from Whampoa would have been another possibility, but how long would the wait have been? Fanshaw might have heard of their presence and escaped overland. A third alternative would have been to leave the
Huma
in Macao and travel up river in a native vessel. But Horne saw such action as little better than abandoning ship to the enemy at sea.

Saying goodnight to Babcock and Groot, he descended the companionway and made the round of hands playing dice in small groups around the deck. They thanked him for
the rice beer he had paid for in Macao and talked about China, the visit from the Hoppo’s guard, the night’s journey up river.

‘Captain, sir, this beer must be the best thing in China,’ said a sharp-faced Javanese. ‘May the gods all smile down on you for your kind generosity.’

‘I’ve been to China as a boy, Captain,’ bragged a short man from the Philippines. ‘Most of the people there are as poor as a wharf rat. But the rich ones, sir, they have money to loan God.’

‘Excuse my humble opinion, Captain, sir, but have you thought of letting us man the rowing-boats up river?’ asked a muscular young Mauritian.

Horne listened to each man, then, telling them to finish their dice games before the next watch, he bade them
goodnight
and returned to his cabin.

The moonlight was streaming through the stern
windows
. Horne lay on his bunk and listened to the cicadas’ serrated chorus. His conversation with Cheng-So Gilbert had reminded him of how, years ago, Elihu Cornhill had discussed the use of poppy tar in warfare: opium, he had said, could be as effective as physical torture in obtaining vital information from captives. Men often mumbled secrets they would never divulge in a normal state of mind. Some men, too, feared the hypnotic sleep that opium induced and readily answered a captor’s questions rather than be made to suffer the drug’s effect, a form of torture in itself.

His eyes heavy with fatigue, Horne felt himself slipping into unconsciousness, his mind becoming hazy, his thoughts disappearing like clouds. At the back of his mind he wondered if the feeling was similar to opium’s initial effects.

Suddenly, he heard noises above him.

Sitting upright, he grabbed for his sword, looking for his breeches as there came sounds of running on deck.

At the same moment, the door crashed open and the cabin filled with men in black hoods. In the bright moonlight Horne saw that they carried the same curved blades as the Hoppo’s guard in Macao.