Mandarin-Gold (13 page)

Crutchley poured himself five fingers of rum, drank them all, and then poured himself another hand! He was six foot four, broad at the shoulders, with a huge gut on him as though he had swallowed a giant cannonball. He wore a loose shirt without a collar and blue duck trousers and high-button, soft leather boots.

He stood now in his cabin, listening to Fernandes' orders, being shouted and repeated, and the 'Aye, aye, sirs,' the scream of the anchor chain as it came up slowly, and the slap as the bo'sun smacked it with a fat wet hand.

The deck creaked and moved under his feet and he braced himself automatically to meet the roll of the current. He was carrying some idiot aboard who had to be dropped off. He wasn't sure why, but he'd told Fernandes to engage him in any capacity he wanted.

The Parsee was very rich and, under another name, he owned a share in the schooner. Like Jardine and Matheson and all the rest of the
taipans,
he owned shares in so many enterprises, so many ships, so many dreams, one would think he must, lose count of them all, but he didn't. He never forgot anything.

The Parsee could also say whether Crutchley or Fernandes worked again, or whether they went hungry; or whether their usefulness was at an, end and they were simply to be tossed, throats cut, into the Roads. Crutchley was a big man, but he was soft inside, like melting butter, and his stomach ran when he thought of the ruthlessness of the rich. They could buy anything and. anyone, and they did, whenever they wanted. Well, he'd be one of them soon. And this voyage would help. They were carrying five hundred chests of opium, valued at a hundred and fifty thousand Spanish dollars. At four dollars to the English pound, this was thirty-nine thousand pounds. Much of that would be profit. There was a risk, of course, but life was full of risks. You could be knocked down by a carriage in the street and die; and the risk on this run was slight.

Crutchley poured out a third rum and wiped his thick lips with the back of his right hand. Five thousand pounds of the profit would be his, buttoned down in his back pocket, with no deductions. He already had nearly four thousand pounds in coin stored in the room he rented in Macao, where he kept four locks on the door because he could not trust the bank.

He was making a lot of money. But the trouble with money was that you either had none, or you didn't have enough; you could
never
have enough. Even the Parsee and Jardine and Matheson hadn't enough, and they must have several hundred times more than he had.

But why should he grumble? He was making more in a single voyage than he could make in ten years in any other job. He had been a grocer's assistant in England, and then had tried his luck with the East India Company in Calcutta. Then he had sailed farther east in the galley of a merchantman, and at Singapore the cook had gone mad and blown out his brains and Crutchley had taken over. He discovered that the cook had been buying the cheapest provisions, but prudently putting the highest prices on his tally. So Crutchley had taken over this arrangement, too, and adulterated the sugar and weakened the coffee and, by the time he had served for six months, he had made a few hundred pounds for himself. And all the while the East had lured him on because of the stories he heard about other men's quick fortunes.

In Whampoa he started as a cook in one of Jardine's ships, and then crossed over to a rival firm, Dent & Company, and then returned. Now, four years later, he had a clipper of his own. Well, not quite his own; not yet; but at least he had a share in its profits.

He went up on deck unsteadily, suddenly eager to feel the cool breeze on his huge, soft, pustuled body. The other Englishman was there. He nodded to him distantly.

'There are other shareholders.' There always were; like the Parsee and Jardine. The Chinese called Jardine the Iron Headed Old Rat, because once he had .taken some petition to the Canton City gate to hand to the local mandarin. There, Chinese police or thugs — you. gave them one name or the other, according to whether you were Chinese or European — had set on him, and beaten him about the head with sticks and bamboo staves. But they hadn't hurt him at all. He had been quite unharmed, even unalarmed, and had just stood calmly smoothing back his thick black hair with one hand and presenting his petition
with the other.

Well, one day, Crutchley would own
every
share of his company. Then by God, he'd cut down on all expenditure and squeeze a fortune out of each run. Soon, too; very soon.

'Right. Well, we've two objects. We've got to hand over some mud to buyers at Namoa Island, in the Bay of Swatow, up north. We're picking it up first at Lin-tin. And then on up the coast. We've got so much mud, we can't shift it fast enough.'

The ship surged through the green sea, and the bows ducked and the figurehead pointed her wooden breasts at the water and raised them again, and her sightless wooden eyes peered ahead and saw nothing. But Gunn saw Lintin Island grow larger, and then they swung beneath the shadow of the mountains into the Roads. Half a dozen other ships already lay in the bay, anchored fore and aft. They were barque-rigged, with shining decks, twenty gun-ports, and big heads of sail, all furled. They seemed a curious cross between warship and trader, clearly built for speed rather than for carrying the maximum amount of cargo or passengers. He guessed these were the opium clippers, built in Calcutta, copies of American gun-runners, and capable of such speed that nothing under sail — or even with the new steam engines — could catch them.

On the way out, he had heard how a steam tug in Calcutta had attempted to race one of these clippers for a few miles, but all that had happened was that the clipper had drawn steadily and gracefully ahead, while the crew of the tug poured into the roaring furnace all the coal they carried, and then fell farther behind until, finally humiliated, they had to turn back to port.

The anchor chains ran out, and Gunn saw they were near one of three tarred mastless floating hulks with decks walled in by planks and roofed over. They could be prison ships, and although they appeared deserted, almost derelict, people were obviously living in them, for they had chimneys and small windows and even verandahs with flowers in earthenware pots.

Double anchor chains fore and aft held them firm against winds and tides and currents. They looked sinister and evil and he wondered what they were. He heard a movement, and Fernandes came alongside him, and leaned on the rail.

‘That's where we take on the cargo,' he explained. 'From these floating warehouses, packed to the rafters with mud. The Chinese have boats with fifty oars — we call 'em centipedes or scrambling dragons — and they run supplies ashore from these hulks to make some money for themselves. We have to load up with chests, which is a bit more difficult.'

'What about the clippers?' asked Gunn.

'They'll sail right up the coast for several hundred miles. They bring them down from Calcutta, and nothing can catch them — or harm them. Look at those swivel guns. They're better than you'll find on many British men-o'-war. Even the crew are armed with muskets. They're pretty tough to touch, those.'

'Do the Chinese ever try?'

'Not often,' admitted Fernandes. 'The bribes are too high. Every now and then, of course, as I said, when there's a new Viceroy or some local mandarin who feels he should send a. report that the Foreign Devils have been driven off by the loyal Chinese, they indulge in a bit of play acting.

'They wait until one of the clippers is going to leave and, once she's under way, they follow her. The clipper captain enters into the joke. He doesn't hoist all his sail. He lets the Chinese nearly come up with him, but if they draw too close, they'll fall back themselves to give him a chance.

'This goes on for a while, but once he's out of range they'll shoot every round they've got after him, including arrows. But, of course, they never hit anything. They don't mean to. Why
should
they hit their own livelihood? They receive more from the captain for allowing one visit ashore than they make in a year from the celestial Son of Heaven, or whatever the Emperor calls himself.

'But they've done their duty. They've put up a show. Everyone reports that the Foreign Devils fled away and, of course, a memorial to this effect is written out laboriously and sent over the mountains to Peking. And, if the Emperor ever reads it, he sends back his thanks in vermilion ink, which is the highest praise any Chink ever gets. Vermilion bloody ink!'

'You take a cynical view of these proceedings?' suggested Gunn.

'Not cynical, doctor. Realistic."

As he spoke, small boats were butting alongside the vessel and men were shouting in high sing-song voices. Oddly shaped bundles, wrapped in sacking and bound with thin ropes, were being handed up; the opium was coming aboard. Within two hours, the holds were full. Up came the anchors and the ship turned north; Lintin's rock finger shrank on the southern horizon.

Gunn went down to his cabin, kicked off his shoes and lay on his bunk. So he had achieved what he wanted: a place in an opium runner. Now what he made of his chance was entirely up to him. He thought of the Parsee girl with her round breasts, and the big nipples with wide, brown aureoles and her warm, firm thighs. He felt her legs gripping him, the inside of her knees against the small of his back, and he wanted her. Or was he only trying to convince himself that he did?

It was a passing need, and he knew that with every day, her attraction, and then her memory, would fade, just as Marion was only a name now to him, nothing more. There would be other days and nights and he would find other women to fill them. He fell asleep, and when he awoke, it was five o'clock in the morning and he was cold. He took off his clothes crawled under the sheets, and slept until eight.

A steward brought him tea. He drank it, washed and shaved and went up on deck. The open sea stretched on their right, endless and blue as cobalt. On the left, lay the coast, a dim green smudge, lined with orange and lemon trees. Mackereth came up behind him silently.

'Good morning,' he said. 'Blowing hard for this time of year.'

Gunn looked at him; this must be the missionary interpreter. Mackereth's head seemed big for his body; he appeared squat as a toad in white linen trousers, a black jacket, a greasy cravat, and he had cut himself while shaving; beads of blood had dried brown on the soiled silk.

'We haven't met,' said Gunn, and introduced himself.

'I am a missionary, a traveller in the service of Our Lord,' replied Mackereth proudly. 'Do you, as a physician, also hope to help the heathen natives?'

'No. Only the crew, if they need me. Are you planning to go ashore?'

'This is my first trip so far up the coast,' said Mackereth, leaning on the rail and breathing the salt air deeply. Only the first, I hope, of many. The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Matthew nine, verse thirty-seven. Certainly, if the Lord wills, I will go into the vineyard.'

'I am travelling now largely as an interpreter, for it is difficult even to understand pidgin English up the coast, so they say. I speak several dialects.

'That is a very rare accomplishment.'

'It sure is. Any Chinese found teaching a Foreign Devil his language faces the death penalty.'

'That explains how, when we stopped at Singapore, I was told that although three hundred thousand Chinese lived on that island, yet not
one
Britisher spoke any of their lingo.'

‘I am not a Britisher,' said Mackereth shortly. 'I am American.'

'I am sorry,' said Gunn. 'No offence meant. Do you attend to the crew here, spiritually?'

'If they wish to receive the message, I will gladly preach the wonder-working power of God to them. But so far I have not had words with them. Apart, of course, from the captain.'

'How long do you think the voyage will take us?'

'It depends on the business they do. It could be weeks or months. There's a timelessness in the East, Dr Gunn, that personally I find attractive. In America, as in Europe, all is hustle and bustle and rush. And for what purpose? Here, we can apply ourselves to the things that really matter. We can enjoy the passing moments - like now - and God's beautiful handiwork on every side. The sun, the sea, the distant coast.'