Mandarin-Gold (37 page)

There had been many other women in Macao and in the
Hesperides;
in the new house he was building at Singapore, and the other mansion he rented in Manila, because Spanish merchants there were eager to invest in the opium trade. But of them all, matrons with husbands away at Canton, or daughters fresh and passionate and soft as wild hibiscus, he only remembered a few.

The Parsee's daughter and Ling Fai were both like gentle voices on the evening wind, brought back by a sudden scent or a snatch of melody that transported him instantly over chasms of time, down the long cold aisles of the past, where unforgotten things remained.

It was better that they should remain there, too, he thought, for if they came too close, if they impinged on the present, they proved you were not as self-sufficient as you seemed. They would show others that deep down inside you lay a patch of longing and loneliness that might grow and colour all your achievements, if you allowed it to do so, as you never would, because you could never dare to.

But MacPherson was still talking, splintering his dreams; MacPherson, who had saved his life, who trusted him; who he had rewarded by seducing his woman; and now she had gone from both of them.

'Glad to see the home government is acting at last Sixteen men-o'-war, twenty-seven troop transports packed with Irish, Scots and Indian troops, four armed steamers from the Company's fleet — all to teach Lin a lesson.'

'We taught him a lesson back at Chuenpee,' said Smith, anxious to establish- his importance with these two richer men.

'I hear that he didn't pass on to the Court what
ac
tually
happened there. He made it put to be a victory. Said he'd had
six
victories, in fact. He called them the Six Smashing Blows. I wonder if the Emperor believed him?'

'Even the Son of Heaven has to believe someone,' said Gunn. But then, he thought, we all do; even when it is only ourselves.

‘They'll be forced to believe we mean business now,' said MacPherson. 'It will change life here, though, as we have known it for years.'

'For the better,' promised Gunn.

'I wonder,' said MacPherson. 'I really do wonder. Truth is, doctor, I like living here as it is. I like the food, the atmosphere, the sun. I even quite like the Chinese. But it will all change now. Even the Chinese. The good days are ending, doctor.'

'Everything's ending,' said Gunn. 'But it will see our time out. Come up and have a
claret with me and the Reverend Mackereth. I was very touched by his service.'

'He'll be saying one for us one day, no doubt,' said MacPherson lugubriously, as they began to climb the stairs into the coolness of the huge stone house.

Lin laid down his fan, listening intently as the emissary's astonishing story unfolded.

'Are you
certain
about this number of Barbarian troops?' he asked him.

'Absolutely, Your Excellency. Our agent has relations in Singapore. They personally counted the number of men aboard each vessel.'

‘We still outnumber them ten thousand to one.'

'Agreed. But they have qualities our troops do not possess, Your Excellency.
Discipline. A plan.
Also, they are not half asleep through opium, or in the mud-smugglers' pay, like so many of our soldiers and their officers.'

'You are right,' agreed Lin bitterly. 'Our leaders are no doubt admirable calligraphists. But they know nothing of war as the western Barbarians wage it. Now — withdraw!'

The man scuttled away, and Lin was left alone with his thoughts. They made sombre, unhappy company. What would the Emperor say to this news? The approach of the Barbarians in such numbers could not be ascribed to rumour and lying report. And that they were .determined to march on Peking as well as Canton? This was desperate news.

Lin knew how easily the painted fortresses with their painted cannons would fall before any determined assault. He knew how thousands of locals would turn out enthusiastically to look at the Barbarians, just as they filled the streets to see travelling circuses with sideshows; anything to enliven dull lives. They would not realize the danger these Red-Bristled Ones represented, but then they offered no danger to the peasants, for the peasants had nothing to lose. The Barbarians were only dangerous to mandarins, to governors, to the Emperor, who could lose everything.

How deplorable that events should have come to this! He had heard surprisingly good reports of the Barbarian Elliot; that he was a gentle, kind man who worshipped his own strange God, who adhered to the odd code of honour the Barbarians called their own. If only it had been possible for them to meet over black tea or rice wine and discuss their problems and search for a happy and just solution. But now their discussion would take place through the mouths of cannons, and the tongues that talked would be tongues of flame and death.

Lin. gave a sigh of sadness at the folly of it all.

Then he straightened his shoulders. He would have to inform the Emperor what he had just heard. Or at least as little of it as he thought prudent to pass on. Reluctantly, he rang his bell and called for his secretary

The Emperor looked up slowly from his three goldfish in their crystal bowl into the unhappy eyes of the familiar young man of good family who had brought him the news.

'You mean that these unspeakable Barbarians are even now approaching Our capital, the centre of the Celestial Kingdom — as well as Canton?'

'Not only does His Excellency the Commissioner Lin say they are approaching Canton, Your Majesty, but I have seen their vessels and heard their soldiers sing as_ they sail towards Pei-ho River. I have seen their guns and the iron ships propelled by fire and steam. They will be here within days.'

'Days!' repeated the Emperor in astonishment. Days are nothing in the face of eternity. We are the timeless ones. We will absorb them and destroy them, and those who do not die We will send back naked and ruined. Are We not right? Answer, with honesty! The Imperial Wish!'

'Since you seek an honest bpinion, Your Majesty, however unworthy I am. for that honour, it is with deepest humility and the greatest respect and reluctance that I have to disagree.

'The Barbarians have guns of such, power they can fire from so far away that they cannot even see their target. They have ships that will outsail our whole fleet. And they have determination, because they are far from their own barren little islands. This last quality, Your Majesty, is one that some of our commanders, with generations of easy living behind them, would appear to lack. They have nothing to lose, but Your Majesty has everything.'

The Emperor looked at the young man and realized he spoke the truth. He felt also much to blame for this incredible situation. He had allowed himself to be cocooned in a world of make-believe and illusion, where a painted gun was as deadly as one that fired, a reported victory as important as a proper conquest. Fantasy had replaced reality, and he had been lulled into a soporific dream by the honeyed words of men who told him not what was happening, but what he wished was happening.

Of course, as the Son of Heaven, the one man in all-the world who stood closest to God, Tao could never admit fallibility. So he would have to throw the blame on the weakness and gullibility of others. That would not be difficult; he was surrounded by dissemblers as a great tree in the forest is hemmed in by hollow, rotten elms.

The Emperor dismissed the messenger and sent for his secretary.

'To Special Commissioner Lin,' he said briefly. You have dissembled to Us, disguising in your despatches the true colour of affairs.

‘So far from having been of any help, you have caused the waves of confusion to arise. A thousand interminable disorders are sprouting. You have behaved as if your arms were tied. You are no better than a wooden image. And as We contemplate your grievous failings, We fall a prey to anger and melancholy.

'Your official seals shall be immediately taken from you, and with the speed of flames you shall hasten to Peking, where We will see how you may answer Our questions. Respect this! The words of the Emperor.'

Lin read the Emperor's Scroll and then rolled it up, no inkling of his feelings showing on his face, as deliberately expressionless as a water-melon. He nodded a dismissal to the messenger, and only when he was alone did he stand wearily, shoulders hunched, allowing himself the rare luxury of showing his feelings in his face.

He looked into the ornamented mirror in the, wall and a defeated old man stared back at him. He had achieved more than any other Commissioner for a hundred years in subduing the Coast Trade. He had even set up a clinic outside Canton, where the worst opium addicts were admitted: men with distorted necks, fingers clutched like claws, teeth blackened, gums separated, their skins yellow as lemons, too enfeebled to walk or even to think for themselves. Here these living caricatures, had responded to a special treatment of. hunum-aloes, crushed orchid petals, and saxifrage, a rock plant whose yellow and red flowers symbolized his bright hopes,
^:
now all withered and dead.

He had also proved to the Barbarians that a Chinese Edict could be backed by Chinese determination, and that all officials were not corruptible. But what were these achievements by a man who had made his own way, against a nest of aristocratic sycophants at Court? And now he knew he was beaten, not only by them, but also by distance and communication; the time a message took to reach Peking, and an answer to return, the basic weakness that the Emperor knew nothing about events and conditions in Canton, and could not be bothered to learn.

For how could Lin alone deal effectively with Barbarians when even the Chinese marines stationed in Canton boasted that their official pay was but one hundredth part of what they received — and the other ninety-nine came from .opium dealers? Was it likely that such troops would act with vigour against the unspeakable Barbarians who had made them rich?

He realized what fate awaited him in, Peking: the long and humiliating trial with its predetermined end, and then exile in some remote mountainous spot where winds howled endlessly like hungry wolves, where mists blotted, out the jagged peaks, and the damp humours of high altitude would, eat into his joints like rust into iron. And because he had tried so hard, and had so nearly achieved his Emperor's aims, his fall would be all the greater, all the harsher, and the more grievous to bear.

But at least he was not to be led away over the mountain roads on chains like so many other officials who fell short of some impossible Imperial edict. Even so, how different would be his departure from his triumphant arrival a year before! Why — and Lin smiled at the thought — he might even meet his predecessor, Viceroy Lu, in exile. No doubt they would find much to discuss.

But it was useless dwelling on what might have been, and what so nearly could have been. He would accept defeat, humiliation, even the ultimate disgrace of strangulation, if the Emperor so wished, as he had accepted his successes of the past months. How wrong that piece of roebuck flesh had proved! It was not promotion of which Lin had been assured, but degradation and defeat

'I hear Lin's gone,' said Gunn, pouring more claret.

'Yes,' agreed Elliot. 'The Emperor's sent down a new viceroy, a Manchu. One of his own family. A very rich man, apparently. Name of Kishen.'

'How far are our troops now from Peking?' asked MacPherson.

'They could take it at any time they like,' said Gunn. 'They've already blockaded the mouths of the Yangtze River and the Pei-ho.'

'It's impossible, dealing with these people,' said Elliot testily. 'I received a personal letter from Lord Palmerston, marked for the Chinese Government, by the last mail ship. It described these chests of opium we gave up as being the ransom for the lives of all of us in Canton, and demanded that this opium must be restored or its equivalent in money paid. But how the devil am I to deliver this?

‘I gave it into the hand of one of the men-of-war captains, and he took it to Amoy and attempted to land in a small boat under the flag on truce. But the Chinese had never heard of such a flag and refused to let them land. So we can't deliver the letter that contains the terms under which we'll stop fighting! Did you ever hear of such an absurd situation?'

'They are asking to be destroyed,' agreed Gunn. Even as he spoke, he felt uneasy that all this was happening. The attack in such force had been unnecessary, and neither side would be the victor. Both would nurture their own legends of duplicity or glory, to be inflated and handed down in the folklore that schoolmasters dignified by the name of history.

If only it had been possible for both sides to talk, to explain what they wanted, what they could not allow, what concessions they were prepared to give, how different the outcome would have been! If only. Were they not the two saddest words in any language?

He poured himself more claret; He felt suddenly overwhelmingly weary, jaded and jaundiced. Maybe he had been out East for too long; perhaps the heat and humidity were to blame.

'Did you hear what's happened to Gutzlaff?' he asked Mackereth; anything to break the spell of gloom that would otherwise cast its chains around him.

'No.'

‘They've appointed him a magistrate at Ningpo, one of the four new ports where the Chinese are to grant us trading rights.'

'Gutzlaff has done very well,' agreed Mackereth, and bitterly contrasted his own wretched situation and indefinite future. He should have managed things better when he had money and authority, for now he had neither. He was an object of contempt, not only to the Chinese and the British, but worst of all, to himself.

He turned and went out of the room, and walked back to his own house. He walked slowly because his eyes were blinded with tears of mortification and defeat.

16

In Which Some Winners Appear as Losers

Kishen the Manchu sat in Lin's chair and sipped his milkless, sugarless tea, his narrow eyes flickering like lizards' tongues around his predecessor's room.