Mandarin-Gold (35 page)

As MacPherson had said once, it was indeed strange how out of all the flowers and trees in the forest, their ancestors had discovered that the poppy could be persuaded to deliver up its deadly milk. Mackereth had seen poppies growing in India; fields red as blood in the Himalayan foothills, and others white as snow around Patna and Ghazipore, where they cultivated the white-flowered variety. There seemed something symbolic in the colours: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, Isaiah, chapter one, verse eighteen.

That meant forgiveness, of course, but there was nothing about the poppy juice that held any mercy, whether the petals were scarlet or white. The opium seemed soft and sweet and harmless at first, and you welcomed the gentle oblivion that it brought. But once you had tasted it or smoked it, you rarely could escape from its terrible spell. The poppy's petals, soft as a butterfly's gossamer, wings, turned to iron; the attraction was that of the chain and the manacle. You could not break free from the bondage of the iron poppy on your own; and how" could anyone else help you when so many were so eager to see others enslaved?

And he, Selmer Mackereth, had played his part in spreading this evil drug, the fruit of the iron poppy, the flower that held the sweetness of the grave.

How I have fallen short of the glory of God, he thought wretchedly. But what if war came, and he could earn no money, even in so vile a fashion as interpreting the commands of opium-traffickers? What would he do then: What
could
he do?

Mackereth knelt down at the side of the table, his face pressed against the cool wood, and prayed to God that if this happened, there might somehow be a place- found for him. Or if he had nothing left to do on earth, would it be possible for the Almighty to accept his servant at last into Heaven?

Gunn hurried into Elliot's office in Macao.

'Have you heard about this merchantman,
Thomas
Coutts?'
he asked him.

'What about her?'

'Her master has taken some lawyer's opinion in Calcutta as to whether your order forbidding British ships to go to Canton is sustainable. He says it is not. Since the ship is not carrying mud, the lawyer says he has nothing to fear. He has accordingly applied personally to Commissioner Lin, and had been given a safe conduct pass.'

'The damned fool!' shouted Elliot, jumping up from his seat. By doing this the captain had placed a British ship and crew in Lin's power. Lin would now insist that
every
ship could only sail on the same conditions. Those who refused could be threatened with destruction.

How incredible that a British captain seemed incapable of understanding that every order Elliot issued had a meaning, and was part of his strategy for restoring equilibrium to the area, not simply a personal whim or wish!

'How many ships are waiting down river?' asked Gunn.

'Sixty, at least. And Smith's two frigates. I'll inform him of this immediately. Have you a fast gig to send him a message by MacPherson?'

'Of course,' said Gunn. 'It can leave within the hour.'

Elliot sat down to write his instructions. First, in this grave conjuncture menacing the liberty, lives and properties of British subjects, Smith was to collect the entire merchant fleet and anchor it opposite the village of Tungku, near Chuenpee, the position of which he already knew.

Then he was to take his two frigates to the Bogue and address a moderate but firm communication to the Chinese admiral there to the effect that they could not be held to ransom in this fashion.

MacPherson delivered the letter personally to Captain Smith aboard the
Volage.

'This looks like trouble,' said Smith, not without some pleasure. He had felt a fool waiting for six hours in the hot sun, while Gutzlaff and Mackereth rowed around the junks asking for provisions. He had thoroughly enjoyed the brief action that had followed, but. such a one-sided engagement could not be dignified by the name of a battle, even in his most optimistic despatch. But what Elliot now proposed might well be eventually described in such terms — if he handled his side of things properly.

It was not, in Smith's nature to wait. He believed that the man who got his blow in first invariably won the fight; and nothing in his career so far had disturbed his faith in this belief.

'I used to be mate in the
Black Boy,'
said MacPherson, gauging his man: 'You'll have a strong wind against you if you're sailing up-river.'

'We sail better against the wind,' retorted Smith sharply; he did not need some ex-merchant sailor to instruct him in the art of seamanship.

'We also passed a big fleet of Chinese junks waiting for any approaching vessels.'

'The bigger the fleet, the better the target,' replied Smith shortly, and went to his cabin to draft out two letters, one to the local Chinese admiral, .with a copy to Viceroy Lin.

That evening, the two frigates sailed north, tacking laboriously against wind and current. They took four days to reach Chuenpee, where they thankfully dropped anchors a mile beneath the shore battery.

Ahead of them lay fifteen war junks with painted eyes and painted guns, and fourteen fireboats stacked high with kindling wood and saltpetre. If the Chinese released these vessels at night, with sails lashed and rudders locked, they would sweep down river and either collide among themselves or hit the British frigates. In either case they would start an inferno that, with the wind, could reduce all ships in the area to floating stacks of kindling-wood.

A number of armed British merchantmen, and all Gunn's clippers, with armament mounted and charges ready, now joined the two British men-of-war. Elliot arrived in a gig as MacPherson, with Mackereth to interpret, was setting off in the
Volage's
longboat, against the running tide, to row to the Chinese flagship.

They shouted up the sheer wooden wall, ornamented with grotesque red and blue and yellow dragons with staring eyes, and garish representations of blazing cannon mouths. An officer received both letters, engaged in some high-pitched chatter with Mackereth, and then they rowed away.

'What's the admiral's name? asked MacPherson.

'Kuan T'ien-P'ei. He's a great friend of Lin. They paint fans together and write couplets. He is a scholar as much as a sailor, and a very fine one, I hear.'

MacPherson grunted; he had nothing in common with such a man. They climbed up the ladder into the
Volage.

'Until then,' Elliot told Smith, 'I want every ship to mount a double watch in case swimmers with explosive mines, or fire boats, are put out against us, or even come against us accidentally if their moorings break. Lin has either to engage us or back down. I am not sure which choice he will take.'

Next morning, at nine o'clock, the Hour of the Snake, as the sun turned the river to liquid gold, they had their answer. A fast crab, a small boat bristling with oars, bumped alongside the
Volage
and an officer handed up a package, bowed, smiled, and withdrew.

'Open it,' ordered Elliot tensely.

Mackereth, expecting a scroll with painted Chinese characters, cut the string with a knife and carefully unwrapped the paper. Inside, lay Captain Smith's letter to the Chinese admiral, unopened.

The flags making the signal fluttered up to the mast-head. On every ship crews, stripped to the waist, bodies brown with the sun and oiled with sweat, their long hair in tarred pigtails, leapt to the guns. One man with a glass aboard each vessel watched the
Volage
for the signal flags that would give them their orders.

Not knowing all this, ignorant of the significance of the flags, one above the other, and secure in their own delusion of supremacy, the Chinese junks and fire-boats came on downstream, moving fast with wind and current.

'When shall I engage, sir?' asked Smith. After all, Captain Elliot was in command of all British vessels, and so, would claim the credit if the day went well. Since he advocated allowing the Chinese to approach what Smith thought was unnecessarily close, it was only right that he should issue the crucial order.

As the junks and fireboats came within two hundred yards, Elliot was about to say,
'Now,'
when the. Chinese captains dropped anchor and the strange fleet, long banners streaming in the wind, stopped.in a line that stretched from bank to bank.

'Send another message to the admiral,' said Elliot. 'This looks like a show of force. I think they are bluffing. Order them to turn back.'

'And threaten them if they do not?'

'Not yet. Just give them that order.'

Again, the longboat set off to the admiral's, flagship. This time, the admiral gave orders for it to wait while he composed a reply.

Back aboard the
Volage,
Mackereth translated in a trembling voice: ‘All that I, the admiral, want is the murderous Barbarian who killed Lin Wei-Hi. As soon as a time is named when he will be given up, my ships will return to the Bogue. Otherwise, by no means whatsoever will I accede. This is my answer.'

'Who is Lin Wei-Hi?' asked Smith curiously.

'A Chinaman some drunken sailors killed in a brawl in a village months ago,' said Elliot. 'We could never find out who killed him. I have explained all that to them time and again.'

'We have been anchored here so long they could practically build new batteries, with all guns laid on us',' retorted Smith bitterly. 'It seems to me, sir, that I have only two choices. One is to retire downriver to our merchantmen, and the other is to engage these yellow swine.'

'It would never do for the Navy to retire,' said Elliot slowly. But, on the other hand, how could he sanction what was virtually war between two empires, one young and restless and expanding, the other old and soporific, locked in its fading dreams of a past when there had been no gunboats, no steam engines, nothing at all of danger or value beyond its own Great Wall?

Elliot bit his lower lip in perplexity. The waves lapped and chuckled beneath the bows of the frigate, and beams creaked as the running tide persuaded her hull against the anchors. He had no idea what the government in London proposed to do about the pressing matters on which he had sent them reports, or if they intended doing anything. It would be months before he had their replies, if indeed he ever received them.

And here he had to decide within minutes, otherwise it was possible he might not have the opportunity of making any decision at all. If the Chinese released their fireboats, they could be beaten before they had begun to fight. Yet to retire now would be a loss of face from which they might never recover.

'I would engage them,' said Gunn, guessing Elliot's thoughts. 'We did not make an Empire by running away, or waiting for instructions from people at home who have never been farther east than Herne Bay.'

How odd that homely name sounded in this context of a battle no-one wanted!

'I do not
want
to engage them,' replied Elliot. 'I have always believed that discussion is more adult than force.'

'They aren't adults,' said MacPherson shortly. ‘They're Chinese. Heathen.'

'Until the Lord moves among them,' said Mackereth hastily.

'Even if we do retire, sir,' said Smith, 'and they follow us and put their fire-boats in among our merchantmen, I submit I can do nothing to save our ships. Nothing at all. We couldn't even rescue the poor devils aboard them. As I see it, we have
no alter
native
but to fire. With your permission, sir?'

'You have my permission,' said Elliot sadly, and turned away.

Up went the signal:
Engage.

One by one the British armed merchantmen fell into line behind the
Volage.
A
sudden wind filled their white sails which swelled like the .breasts of giant pouter pigeons, and they began, to run broadside across the Chinese line. Up went the next signal:
Fire.

The first broadside, from the
Volage
hit a fireboat, which blew up with an explosion that numbed Gunn's ear-drums. The second lifted a war junk right out of the water. Men, arms and legs waving frantically, spars, fragments of the latticed, sail, ropes, gun barrels, fluttered up and then down into the sea, already foaming from the fury of the attack.

The Chinese were also firing, but their guns were locked in one position and could not move. And as their ships were anchored, they could not raise the anchors in time to steer into the men-of-war. Also, the, British ships were now so close that the Chinese cannonballs were trundling harmlessly twenty feet above, their decks to splash into the sea two hundred yards behind them.

The Chinese crews wrenched at their anchor chains to turn and scatter, for they were like pinioned targets. Some were blown to pieces; others sank instantly on their anchors. Several crews deserted their ships in fast crabs and rowed away furiously. The Chinese admiral Kuan T'ien P'ei, astonished and mortified by the overwhelming fire power of the supposedly effete Barbarians, stood bravely on the high stern of his junk as it sank slowly, shouting desperate orders that none of his crew heard, and could not have carried out if they had heard.