Flashmans' Lady fp-6

by George MacDonald Fraser

  For there was no doubt about it, he changed as the voyage progressed. He took the sun pretty strong, and was soon the brownest thing aboard, but in other ways, too, I was reminded that he was at least half-dago or native; instead of the customary shirt sleeves and trousers he took to wearing a tunic and sarong, saying jokingly that it was the proper tropical style; next it was bare feet, and once when the crew were shark-fishing Solomon took a hand at hauling in the huge threshing monster - if you had seen him, stripped to the waist, his great bronze body dripping with sweat, yelling as he heaved on the line and jabbering orders to his men in coast lingo … well, you'd have wondered if it was the same chap who'd been bowling slow lobs at Canter-bury, or talking City prices over the port.

  Afterwards, when he came to sit on the deck for an iced soda, I noticed Elspeth glancing at his splendid shoulders in a lazy sort of way, and the glitter in his dark eyes as he swept back his moist black hair and smiled at her - he'd been the perfect family friend for months, mind you, never so much as a fondling paw out of place - and I thought, hollo, he's looking d--d dashing and romantic these days. To make it worse, he'd started growing a chin-beard, a sort of nigger imperial; Elspeth said it gave him quite the corsair touch, so I made a note to roger her twice that night, just to quell these girlish fancies. All this reading Byron ain't good for young women.

  It was the very next day that we came on deck to see a huge green coastline some miles to port; jungle-clad slopes beyond the beach, and mountains behind, and Elspeth cried out to know where it might be. Solomon laughed in an odd way as he came to the rail beside us.

  "That's the strangest country, perhaps, in the whole wide world," says he. "The strangest - and the most savage and cruel. Few Europeans go there, but I have visited it - it's very rich, you see," he went on, turning to old Morrison, "gums and balsam, sugar and silk, indigo and spices - I believe there is coal and iron also. I have hopes of improving on the little trade I have started there. But they are a wild, terrible people; one has to tread warily - and keep an eye on your beached boat."

  "Why, Don Solomon!" cries Elspeth. "We shall not land there, surely?"

  "I shall," says he, "but not you; the Sulu Queen will lie well off - out of any possible danger."

  "What danger?" says I. "Cannibals in war canoes?" He laughed.

  "Not quite. Would you believe it if I told you that the capital of that country contains fifty thousand people, half of 'em slaves? That it is ruled by a monstrous black queen, who dresses in the height of eighteenth-century fashion, eats with her fingers from a table laden with gold and silver European cutlery, with place-cards at each chair and wall-paper showing Napoleon's victories on the wall - and having dined she will go out to watch robbers being burned alive and Christians crucified? That her bodyguard go almost naked - but with pipe-clayed cartridge belts, behind a band playing `The British Grenadiers'? That her chief pleasures are torture and slaughter - why, I have seen a ritual execution at which hundreds were buried alive, sawn in half, hurled from—"

  "No, Don Solomon, no!" squeals Elspeth, covering her ears, and old Morrison muttered about respecting the presence of ladies - now, the Don Solomon of London would never have mentioned such horrors to a lady, and if he had, he'd have been profuse in his apologies. But here he just smiled and shrugged, and passed on to talk of birds and beasts such as were known nowhere else, great coloured spiders in the jungle, fantastic chameleons, and the curious customs of the native courts, which decided guilt or innocence by giving the accused a special drink and seeing whether he spewed or not; the whole place was ruled by such superstitions and crazy laws, he said, and woe betide the outsider who tried to teach 'em different.

  "Odd spot it must be," says I. "What did you say it was called?"

  "Madagascar," says he, and looked at me. "You have been in some terrible places, Harry - well, if ever you chance to be wrecked there"— and he nodded at the green shore —"pray that you have a bullet left for yourself." He glanced to see that Elspeth was out of earshot. "The fate of any stranger cast on those shores is too shocking to contemplate; they say the queen has only two uses for foreign men - first, to subdue them to her will, if you follow me, and afterwards, to destroy them by the most fearful tortures she can devise."

  "Playful little lady, is she?"

  "You think I'm joking? My dear chap, she kills between twenty and thirty thousand human beings each year - she means to exterminate all tribes except her own, you see. When she came to the throne, some years ago, she had twenty-five thousand enemies rounded up, forced to kneel all together in one great enclosure, and at a given signal, swish! They were all executed at once. She kept a few thousand over, of course, to hang up sewed in ox skins until they rotted - or to be boiled or roasted to death, by way of a change. That's Madagascar."

  "Ah, well," says I, "Brighton for me next year, I think. And you're going ashore?"

  "For a few hours. The governor of Tamitave, up the coast, is a fairly civilized savage - all the ruling class are, including the queen: Bond Street dresses, as I said, and a piano in the palace. That's a remarkable place, by the way - big as a cathedral, and covered entirely by tiny silver bells. God knows what goes on in there."

  "You've visited it?"

  "I've seen it - but not been to tea, as you might say. But I've talked to those who have been inside it, and who've even seen Queen Ranavalona and lived to tell the tale. Europeans, some of 'em."

  "What are they doing there, for God's sake?"

  "The Europeans? Oh, they're slaves."

  At the time, of course, I suspected he was drawing the long bow to impress the visitors - but he wasn't. No, every word he'd said about Madagascar was gospel true - and not one-tenth of the truth. I know; I found out for myself.

  But from the sea it looked placid enough. Tamitave was apparently a very large village of yellow wooden buildings set out in orderly rows back from the shore; there was a fairish-sized fort with a great stockade some distance from the town, and a few soldiers drilling outside it. While Haslam was ashore, I examined them through the glass - big buck niggers in white kilts, with lances and swords, very smart, and moving in time, which is unusual among black troops. They weren't true niggers, though, it seemed to me; when Haslam was rowed out to the ship again there was an escorting boat, with a chap in the stern in what was a fair imitation of our naval rig: blue frock coat, epaulettes, cocked hat and braid, saluting away like anything - he looked like a Mexican, if anything, with his round, oily black face, but the rowers were dark brown and woolly haired, with straight noses and quite fine features.

  That was the closest I got to the Malagassies, just then, and you may come to agree that it was near enough. Solomon seemed well satisfied with whatever business he had done ashore, and by next morning we were far out to sea with Madagascar forgotten behind us.

  Now, I said I wouldn't weary you with our voyage, so I shall do no more than mention Ceylon and Madras - which is all they deserve, anyway, and take you straight away across the Bengal Bay, past the infernal Andamans, south by the heel of Great Nicobar, and into the steaming straits where the great jellyfishes swim between the mainland of Malaya and the strange jungle island of Sumatra with its man-monkeys, down to the sea where the sun comes from, and the Islands lie ahead of you in a great brilliant chain that runs thousands of miles from the South China Sea to Australia and the far Pacific on the other side of the world. That's the East - the Islands; and you may take it from one who has India in his bones, there's no sea so blue, no lands so green, and no sun so bright, as you'll find beyond Singapore. What was it Solomon had said —"where it's always morning." So it was, and in that part of my imagination where I keep the best memories, it always will be.

  That's one side of it. I wasn't to know, then, that Singapore was the last jumping-off place from civilization into a world as terrible as it was beautiful, rich and savage and cruel beyond belief, of land and seas still unexplored where even the mighty Royal Navy sent only a few questing warship
s, and the handful of white adventurers who voyaged in survived by the speed of their keels and slept on their guns. It's quiet now, and the law, British and Dutch, runs from Sunda Strait to the Solomons; the coasts are tamed, the last trophy heads in the long-houses are ancient and shrivelled,13 and there's hardly a man alive who can say he's heard the war gongs booming as the great robber fleets swept down from the Sulu Sea. Well, I heard 'em, only too clearly, and for all the good I've got to say of the Islands, .I can tell you that if I'd known on that first voyage what I learned later, I'd have jumped ship at Madras.

  But I was happily ignorant, and when we slipped in past the green sugar-loaf islands one fine April morning of '44, and dropped anchor in Singapore roads, it looked safe enough to me. The bay was alive with shipping, a hundred square-riggers if there was one: huge Indiamen under the gridiron flag, tall clippers of the Southern Run wearing the Stars and Stripes, British merchantmen by the bucketful, ships of every nationality - Solomon pointed out the blue crossed anchors of Russia, the red and gold bars of Spain, the blue and yellow of Sweden, even a gold lion which he said was Venice. Closer in, the tubby junks and long tradingpraus were packed so close it seemed you could have walked on them right across the bay, fairly seething with half-naked crews of Malays, Chinese, and every colour from pale yellow to jet black, deafening us with their high-pitched chatter as Solomon's rowers threaded the launch through to the river quay. There it was bedlam; all Asia seemed to have congregated on the landing, bringing their pungent smells and deafening sounds with them.

  There were coolies everywhere, in straw hats or dirty turbans, staggering half-naked under bales and boxes - they swarmed on the quays, on the sampans that choked the river, round the warehouses and go-downs, and through them pushed Yankee captains in their short jackets and tall hats, removing their cheroots from their rat-trap jaws only to spit and cuss; Armenian Jews in black coats and long beards, all babbling; British blue jackets in canvas shirts and ducks; long-moustached Chinese merchants in their round caps, borne in palkis; British traders from the Sundas with their pistols on their hips; leathery clipper men in pilot caps, shouting oaths of Liverpool and New York; planters in wideawakes making play among the niggers with their stout canes; a file of prisoners tramping by in leg-irons, with scarlet-coated soldiers herding them and bawling the step - I heard English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and Hindi all in the first minute, and most of the accents of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the American seaboards to boot. God knows what the native tongues were, but they were all being used at full pitch, and after the comparative quiet we'd been used to it was enough to make you dizzy. The stink was fearful, too.

  Of course, waterfronts are much the same everywhere; once you were away from the river, out on the "Mayfair" side of the town, which lay east along Beach Road, it was pleasant, and that was where Solomon had his house, a fine two-storey mansion set in an extensive garden, facing the sea. We were installed in cool, airy rooms, all complete with fans and screens, legions of Chinese servants to look after us, cold drinks by the gallon, and nothing to do but rest in luxury and recover from the rigours of our voyage, which we did for the next three weeks.

  Old Morrison was all for it; he had gluttonized to such a tune that he'd put on flesh alarmingly, and all he wanted to do was lie down, belching and refreshing his ill nature in a hot climate. Elspeth, on the other hand, must be up and doing at once; she was off almost before she'd changed her shift, carried in a palki by menials, to pay calls on what she called The Society People, find out who was who, and squander money in the shops and bazaars. Solomon pointed her in the right directions, made introductions, and then explained apologetically that he had weeks of work to do in his 'changing-house at the quays; after that, he assured us, we would set off on our tour of his possessions, which I gathered lay somewhere on the east coast of the peninsula.

  So there was I, at a loose end - and not before time. I didn't know when I had been so damnably bored; a cruise of wonders was all very well, but I'd had my bellyful of Solomon and his floating mansion with its immaculate appointments and unvarying luxury and everything so exactly, confoundedly right, and the finest foods and wines coming out of my ears - I was surfeited with perfection, and sick of the sight of old Morrison's ugly mug, and the sound of Elspeth's unwearying imbecile chatter, and having not a damned thing to do but stuff myself and sleep. I'd not had a scrap of vicious amusement for six months - and, for me, that's a lifetime of going hungry. Well, thinks I, if Singapore, the fleshpot of the Orient, can't supply my urgent needs, and give me enough assorted depravity in three weeks to last the long voyage home, there's some-thing amiss; just let me shave and change my shirt, and we'll stand this town on its head.

  I took a long slant, to get my bearings, and then plunged in, slavering. There were eight cross-streets in the Mayfair section, where all the fine houses were, and a large upland park below Governor's Hill where Society congregated in the evening - and, by Jove, wasn't it wild work, though? Why, you might raise your hat to as many as a hundred couples in two hours, and when you were fagged out with this, there was the frantic debauch of a gig drive along Beach Road, to look at the ships, or a dance at the assembly rooms, where a married woman might even polka with you, provided your wife and her husband were on hand - unmarried ladies didn't waltz, except with each other, the daring little hussies.

  Then there were dinners at Dutranquoy's Hotel, with discussions afterwards about whether the Raffles Club oughtn't to be revived, and how the building of the new Chinese Pauper Hospital was progressing, and the price of sugar, and the latest leaderette in the "Free Press", and for the wilder spirits, a game of pyramids on the hotel billiard table - I played twice, and felt soiled at my beastly indulgence. Elspeth was indefatigable, of course, in her pursuit of pleasure, and dragged me to every soirée, ball, and junket that she could find, including church twice each Sunday, and the subscription meetings for the new theatre, and several times we even met Colonel Butterworth, the Governor - well, thinks I, this is Singapore, to be sure, but I'm shot if I can stand this pace for long.'"

  Once, I asked a likely-looking chap - you could tell he was a rake; he was using pomade - where the less respectable entertainments were to be found, supposing there were any, and he coloured a bit and shuffled and said:

  "Well, there are the Chinese processions - but not many people would care to be seen looking at them, I dare say. They begin in the - ahem - native quarter, you know."

  "By George," says I, "that's bad. Perhaps we could look at 'em for just a moment, though - we needn't stay long."

  He didn't care for it, but I prevailed on him, and we hurried down to the promenade, with him muttering that it wasn't at all the thing, and what Penelope would say if she got to hear of it, he couldn't imagine. He had me in a fever of excitement, and I was palpitating by the time the procession hove in view - twenty Chinks beating gongs and letting off smoke and whistles, and half a dozen urchins dressed in Tartar costumes with umbrellas, all making a hell of a din.

  "Is that it?" says I.

  "That's it," says he. "Come along, do - or someone will see us. It's - it's not done, you know, to be seen at these native displays, my dear Flashman."

  "I'm surprised the authorities allow it," says I, and he said the "Free Press" was very hot against it, but the Indian processions were even worse, with chaps swinging on poles and carrying torches, and he'd even heard rumours that there were fakirs walking on hot coals, on the other side of the river.

  That was what put me on the right track. I'd seen the waterfront, of course, with its great array of commercial buildings and warehouses, but the native town that lay beyond it, on the west bank, had looked pretty seedy and hardly worth exploring. Being desperate by this time, I ventured across one evening when Elspeth was at some female gathering, and it was like stepping into a brave new world.

  Beyond the shanties was China Town - streets brilliantly-lit with lanterns, gaming houses and casinos roaring away on every corne
r, side-shows and acrobats - Hindoo fire-walkers, too, my pomaded chum had been right - pimps accosting you every other step, with promises of their sister who was, of course, every bit as voluptuous as Queen Victoria (how our sovereign lady became the carnal yardstick for the entire Orient through most of the last century, I've never been able to figure; possibly they imagined all true Britons lusted after her), and on all sides, enough popsy to satisfy an army - Chinese girls with faces like pale dolls at the windows; tall, graceful Kling tarts from the Coromandel, swaying past and smiling down their long noses; saucy Malay wenches giggling and beckoning from doorways, popping out their boobies for inspection; it was Vanity Fair come true - but it wouldn't do, of course. Poxed to a turn, most of 'em; they were all right for the drunken sailors lounging on the verandahs, who didn't care about being fleeced - and possibly knifed - but I'd have to find better quality than that. I didn't doubt that I would, and quickly, now that I knew where to begin, but for the present I was content to stroll and look about, brushing off the pimps and the more forward whores, and presently walking back to the river bridge.

  And who should I run slap into but Solomon, coming late from his office. He stopped short at sight of me.

  "Good God," says he, "you ain't been in bazaar-town, surely? My dear chap, if I'd known you wanted to see the sights, I'd have arranged an escort - it ain't the safest place on earth, you know. Not quite your style, either, I'd have thought."

  Well, he knew better than that, but if he wanted to play innocent, I didn't mind. I said it had been most interesting, like all native towns, and here I was, safe and sound, wasn't I?

  "Sure enough," says he, laughing and taking my arm. "I was forgetting - you've seen quite a bit of local colour in your time. But Singapore's - well, quite a surprising place, even for an old hand. You've heard about our Black-faced gangs, I suppose? Chinese, you know - nothing to do with the tongs or hues, who are the secret societies who rule down yonder - but murderous villains, just the same. They've even been coming east of the river lately, I'm told - burglary, kidnapping, that sort of thing, with their faces blacked in soot. Well, an unarmed white civilian on his own - he's just their meat. If you want to go again"— he gave me a quick look and away —"let me know; there are some really fine eating-houses on the north edge of the native town - the rich Chinese go there, and it's much more genteel. The Temple of Heaven's about the best - no sharking or rooking, or anything of that kind, and first-class service. Good cabarets, native dancing … that order of thing, you know."