After he had left I called for paper and pens and wrote to my mother like a good son. “This London is a fine place,” I wrote, “and I think I shall do good business here. Please send more pots so that I may make all our fortunes. Tell my father that I read the Josephus whenever I am not too tired with my incessant labour.”
Then I went to bed, replete with virtuous feelings and contentment.
I lay awake for quite an hour, for my head was buzzing with half-formed plans, plans only indirectly concerned with pottery and porcelain.
I did not have a reply from my Mama until eight days later for the posts in those days were bad and slow: sometimes a letter posted in the afternoon just to another part of London would not be delivered until the next morning; it was disgraceful.
Her letter was loving but crisp. She hoped I was well and that I was not conversing with bad girls from whom I might catch a disease. She was ready to send me more Delft and Chinese wares so soon as I remitted the money for the first lot. My father, she said, sent his love. She, for her part, sent me hers and hoped that I was eating properly, eschewing the notorious English puddings and pies.
I considered this letter carefully for many an hour. Honesty and filial affection ruled my actions in the end: I went to Coutts’s excellent bank and arranged for two hundred and three pounds and fifteen shillings to be sent to my mother: she would, I knew be delighted. It shewed her a handsome profit on the wares for I knew her buying habits well.
Then I went to find my good Mr Jorrocks.
“Vy!” he cried “’Ow delighted I am to see you! Binjamin! I say Binjamin you young warmint! Fetch a pair of bottles of the strong stout from under the sideboard and two clean rummers, mind, clean not viped with the tail of your shirt, for I knows your ’abits! Now, my dear young friend, ’ow can I serve you? Delighted to do anything in my power. The Surrey Subscription ’Unt meets at Croydon tomorrow, perhaps you’d care for a day with the ’ounds? Would do you a power of good, for you looks a little peaked – not quite the plump currant – ’opes it’s only dewotion to business,” he added, looking at me keenly, “and not wicious living? ‘Mens sane in Corporal saner’ as my illustrious friend Nimrod says.”
I reassured him; vowed that I was in bed by ten each night (which was, in fact, true, so lustful I was in those days) and swallowed the strong, nourishing stout with many an appreciative smack of the lips, for this was his way of drinking and it seemed civil to emulate him.
“Compliments you on your tog, Mr Dutch,” he said, wiping the froth from his upper lip, “looks quite the thing, werry gentlemanlike.” (My coat, you may recall, was modelled upon his.) “But I feels the kickseys – for trowsers I shall not call them – is somewhat below your station in life – have a kind of groomish look. Pantaloons is the harticle; pantaloons and boots. Marks you out as a sportsman of quality.”
“Yes,” I said humbly.
“Now, ’ow can I serve you?”
“Mr J., I have been thinking about your edifying remarks on the opium trade and your statement that, had you been free to do so, you would have had a venture in it yourself.”
“True, true. But it’s werry risky.”
“I understand that, but, if you will forgive me, I am still a young man and the riskishness appeals to me; moreover, it seems to me that on such a voyage I would have the opportunity of buying superior Chinese porcelains of a kind for which there seems to be a brisk demand in London Town and which I cannot obtain in sufficient quantity either here or, indeed, in Holland.”
“My dear young Sir, the hopium-carrying trade is almost hentirely in the hands of a most reputable firm vich we calls Jardine Matheson (although Dent & Co. is bursting into the market), because the Hon. East India Co itself does not vish to sully its hands with so noxious a trade except for growing the poppies and taking the profits. Also, I understands that warious American colonial upstarts is carving themselves a knotch of the loaf and coming back with it buttered. But there is also wot they calls the country-trade, vich does not much frequent the treaty-ports, choosing rather to range up and down the Hokken Coast, running the goods in where they can and obtaining higher prices, despite the depperedations of pirates and wenal mandarins, then running back to the River to lay out the bar-silver on the new teas and bolts of silk.”
I thought about this as best I could, because I was not, in those days, clever, only avaricious.
“Mr Jorrocks,” I said at last, “could you introduce me to a person engaged in the country-trade part of this commerce, in order that I might buy a share in such a venture?”
He shifted his bottom uneasily in the capacious chair.
“I am not asking you to guarantee my credit,” I said, perhaps a little stiffly. He raised both hands protestingly.
“Nothink was further from my mind, Mr Dutch, pray do not for a hinstant think that my mind was dwelling on anything of the kind. Wot consarned me was the thought of a innocent young cock like you inwesting your tin in so werry perilous a wenture.”
“Well, Mr J.,” I said mildly, “I shall be there myself to look after my tin, do you see.”
He gaped at me in a droll way, then inserted a finger under his wig and scratched his pate.
“The risks,” he said at last, “are hatrocious; ’opes I’ve made that clear?”
“Oh, yes,” I said in an off-hand way, for I was young then and brave, brave.
“Werry well, since I sees you’re intent on fetching up at the ‘cold cook-shop’, I’ll do my best for you.”
He fished out a great pen-knife, went to his scrutoire, as he called it, mended one pen after another, settled on one which would drop ink to his satisfaction and scratched and spluttered away with it until he had drafted some letters of introduction for me. I thanked him cordially but he wagged his great pink head with some sadness.
“Vishes you safe,” he said. “Leave your gear in my ware-’ouse – it’ll be there when you return.” It showed a rare and grateful sensitivity on his part to say “when” rather than “if”.
“Thankyou, Mr J.”
It was to be a long time indeed before I again saw my good friend, who had fostered in me a great love for England and all things English.
Part Three
THE HIGH SEAS
Chapter Six
“ ‘You’,” I said to “You” two days later, “have you never longed for a life on the ocean wave, a home on the bounding deep? Does not the blood of your sea-faring ancestors surge in your veins at the very words?” His reaction was piteous: he fell upon his knees, cowering and quaking.
“Oh Sir, pray Sir, do not send me off to one of those floating hells to be flogged and keel-hauled and worse; I have been a good boy and kept myself clean as you bade me, I do not deserve such a fate, indeed I do not!”
“Come,” I said sternly, “pull yourself together. There is no talk of hell-ships and floating orphan-asylums: I am newly appointed a supernumerary officer in a fine, lavishly-fitted opium clipper, all mahogany and brass and famed for comfort and lavish food. Why, they call it the ‘Coffee Ship’ because of the generosity with which its people are treated. All officers are expected to have a servant; the Captain keeps a butler, two Chinese boys and a wife to boot, the owners tell me. Moreover, I have just purchased a share in the venture, subject to my being able to come to terms with the Captain: my only duties are to supervise the ‘schroff’s’ and the ‘comprador’s’ accounts; yours are to keep my linen clean, fetch my victuals from the galley at suitable times and, when there is a grand dinner in the Captain’s Cabin, to help wait at table. I would not have thought this too arduous for a biddable foundling such as you. However, if the spirit of adventure does not stir in your breast, if you have no lust to sniff the scented breezes of tropic isles, if, in short, you pine to return to the Foundling Hospital …?”
“Sir,” he cried, “I shall follow you to the ends of the earth, I swear I shall, for you are a good and kind master, no boy could ask for a better. Let me, I beg you, go a
-seafaring in your service.”
“Very well,” I said.
“May God bless you, Sir!” he said.
I could not, at that moment, recall the useful English word ‘hrrumph’, but I made a non-committal grunt which sounded quite like it. Even in those days, long ago, I was hard, hard and had no affection to waste on little charity-school bastards.
“Tell me your name,” I said curtly, “for I have never mastered it and I need to inscribe it upon the ship’s papers this afternoon.”
He sneezed.
“Good luck,” I said civilly, “but now, the name.”
He seemed to sneeze again. My patience ebbed.
“The name, if you have one!” I cried. “Sneeze later, in your leisure time. At present, give me your name.”
He scuttled under the counter, scrabbled there a while, fished out a wax-bespattered copy of Pilgrim’s Progress. There on the fly-leaf, many times repeated, was the name “Horace Ashley Urquhart”. Clearly, there could be no such name. I looked at him sternly.
“Do you realise, ‘You’, that boys who mock their masters are often whipped?”
“Sir, it is my name, I swear.” He sneezed again. In a little while I could say it myself, in a sneezing fashion, while ‘You’ kept his face solemn.
After a while we agreed that his name was Orace, which I could pronounce without seeming ridiculous, and off we went to the East India Docks.
The East India Docks presented a scene of indescribable confusion; it was as though the Tower of Babel had collapsed alongside the Slough of Despond. A turmoil of cursing stevedores, ship’s chandlers, longshoremen, wharfingers, slop-slop touts and other desperate wastrels jostled and reviled the decent money-lenders, lodging-house crimps and pickpockets who were about their lawful occasions, while the sewage-enriched waters of the Thames flopped fatly against the filthy sides of the ships. The snarlings and shrieking of obscene words were horrifying, deafening; it was like the Stock Exchange on a hot afternoon with gilt-edged shares tumbling, I was quite “taken aback”, as sailors say. “You” – Orace, I should say – seemed not to mind, he felt at home, he had survived countless dinner-times at his charity-school.
We fought our way along our particular Dock towards the good ship John Coram, with whose master, Captain Knatchbull, I had made a tentative compact, although not yet his acquaintance. He had a forty-five per-centum share of the venture and was ready to sell me a morsel of it for £1,750, along with the right to sail as a supernumerary officer, unpaid but with merely nominal duties, the right to officer’s food for myself and ship’s rations for my servant, and, above all, the concession to buy a chest or two of opium at the Calcutta auctions on my own account and to ship home the proceeds in the form of some fine Chinese porcelains.
As we approached the John Coram we were halted by a mob of fellows who were plainly salt-water seamen, staring at a huge notice, painted on a square of old sail-cloth and displayed beside the brig next before our vessel. “THIS SHIP, THE YANKEE CLIPPER ‘MARTHA WASHINGTON’ WILL BE FIRST THIS SEASON IN THE CANTON RIVER. A FEW PRIME HANDS MIGHT STILL BE TAKEN ON: COGMEN & SEA-LAWYERS NEED NOT APPLY. FREE SLOP-CHEST & FINEST GRUB ON THE 7 SEAS”.
On the next ship – our John Coram – a little, bearded man was dancing up and down and raving through a shouting-trumpet. As he finished, the captain of the Yankee ship appeared on his bridge, spread his arms open wide in the most confidential fashion and roared in turn.
“By Gosh and by Golly, are you bully-boys about to swallow that slop? Ask that old turtle-back to show you his holds: why, they’re spading the goddam dry-rot out of her with shovels and her keelson’s as soft as a dad-blamed cabbage!”
“By thunder!” bellowed back our Captain Knatchbull, “that’s all roly-moly and Yankee spit! Just cast your eye on his bottom, that’s all I ask, his bottom!” The seamen and I walked to the edge of the dock and, to be sure, there was something like a kitchen-garden growing on the planks of the Yankee ship, for all its gleaming brasswork at the rails.
“Now,” roared on the little British captain, “come aboard a good British ship like brave British tarpaulins and make your marks on my watch-bill and your fortunes, likely enough! I’ll warrant my ship’s heart of oak is as sound as your own!”
The men shuffled and mumbled; a few of the younger ones sidled up the gang-plank of the Martha Washington, the rest put their heads together then went aboard the John Coram.
I looked at Orace. He was quaking a little.
“Be of good cheer,” I said kindly, confidently, “no one shall hurt you.” I was young then and foolish, you see, foolish.
We went aboard. At the break of the poop we were met by a great, coarse bear-like man who addressed me in a strange accent which I later learned was that of the former American Colonies of Great Britain. He was wearing a sort of uniform and so I touched the brim of my hat in a civil fashion, at which he sketched out a gesture towards the brim of his.
“Carolus Van Cleef,” I said. “Calling on Captain Knatchbull. With my servant.”
“He’s swearing in new hands,” he said curtly. “Wait here.” I thought about that. It did not seem to me a courteous reply.
“No,” I said. “I shall come back tomorrow. Pray tell him that I called.” With that I turned on my heel.
“Just a minute, brother,” he called, “don’t be so all-fired tetchy; suppose you go to Dirty Annie’s on the wharf there and get a mouthful of maw-wallop – Captain Knatchbull will be free in half an hour, I guess.”
“Very well,” I said. “Thankyou.”
Dirty Annie’s was a filthy shanty on the wharf-side: it was full of rough sailor-folk. I ordered some “Blind Scouse” for that was what was chalked on the “Ordinary” board – it proved to be a tasty and nourishing sort of vegetable stew – and some porter. There was no porter, I had to drink something called “cold four”, a thin, sour ale; I gave most of it to Orace to drink with his bread and cheese, telling him that it would make a man of him. He drank it gratefully, he was a good boy.
When we returned to the John Coram the American officer – he was, it turned out, the First Mate and named Lubbock – greeted me with a grudging civility and shewed me into the Captain’s cabin, telling Orace to remain outside the door. The cabin was sumptuously furnished; a comprador with a brown face but splendid livery gave me a chair and a glass of brown sherry or perhaps Marsala; I was young and green, I could not tell the difference. After a little while the inner door opened and the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life came in. Her breasts were trained on me like twin carronades, her hair was the colour of a lion’s mane, her mouth was a moist invitation to sin and her eyes were languorous, drowsy. My loins stirred. It seemed an age before I could collect myself and rise to my feet: she did not seem to mind, she was, perhaps, used to such an effect. Indeed, it may even have pleased her.
“Carolus Van Cleef,” I mumbled, bowing stiffly.
“I am Mrs Knatchbull. You may not call me Blanche, for you are to be only a supernumerary officer, I believe.” Her accent was not quite British, nor were her mannerisms.
“How do you do?” I said.
“Captain Knatchbull will be with you presently,” she said, “he is praying just now. He always prays after he has had his will of me; I wonder why that is?” With great sang-froid I offered her a chair and watched entranced the sinuosity with which she settled her person into it. Her great, violet eyes were fixed on me, as though awaiting an answer to her question.
“The weather is fine, is it not,” I said carefully, “for the time of the year?”
“Why do you speak of the weather?” she asked. “You are clearly not an Englishman. Who else remarks on these matters?”
I thought of saying “hrrumph” but could not, at that moment, command the pronunciation of the word. I was saved by the opening of the inner door and the entry of the small, bearded Captain.
“Carolus Van Cleef,” I said, rising to my feet again. “Supernumerary officer.
”
“Queen Anne’s dead and her bum’s cold,” he retorted. “Have you any other news from the Indies?”
Clearly, this was an English joke.
“No, Captain,” I said, “except that I have come aboard.”
“Don’t trifle with me, Sir, and you call me ‘Sir’, not ‘Captain’.”
“Yes, Sir,” I said.
“No, damme! You don’t say ‘yes’, you say ‘aye aye’!”
“Aye aye,” I said, anxious to please in so small a matter.
“SIR!” he shouted.
“Sir,” I agreed. He simmered awhile, like a kedgeree-pot.
“You shall have a drink with me,” he said at last.
“Aye aye, Sir,” I said.
“Boy! Bring a jug of piss-quick, and look sharp!”
In the twinkling of an eye a smartly-liveried Chinese boy appeared with a tray. “Piss-quick” proved to be gin with marmalade stirred in and topped up with hot water. It was not very good to drink, but better than Dirty Annie’s “cold four”. Indeed, at that moment the Captain cocked an ear, leaped up and strode to the door.
“Your servant’s spewed across two square yards of my deck!” he thundered. “Fined two shillings, Mr Van Cleef!” And then, in an even greater voice: “Mr Mate! The watch is idling, get this deck swabbed if any of your quinsied cripples and quim-stickers’ touts are on their feet!” He had a fine command of language, I could not understand one half of what he said, but it was fine to hear, fine.
“Now, Sir,” he said, swallowing his glass of “piss-quick” and munching the pieces of orange-peel, “I hear you’re ready to take up a piece of my share in this venture. How’s this?”
“I have heard you well-spoken of, Sir,” I said carefully, “and that your ship is a fast and happy one. I have decided to join the venture, subject to my being satisfied that what I have heard is correct.”
“Satisfied?” he cried, raising his voice thunderously again (I could not understand how so little a man could command so great a volume of sound). “Satisfied, Sir? Does it not occur to you that this interview is so that I can determine whether I am satisfied with you?”
All the Tea in China Page 8
