‘You’ll have to accept our apologies. In Britain we believe in giving a man a fair trial before we hang him.’
‘In China we also have proper legal procedures.’
‘Judicial torture, you mean?’
Huang inclined his head. ‘You are a clever man, Lieutenant Killigrew. I hope for your sake you are clever enough not to fall foul of it.’ Huang turned to Bannatyne. ‘Perhaps now you should introduce me to Mr Bonham, Bannatyne-qua?’
‘Of course. If you’ll excuse us, Mr Killigrew?’ The tai-pan led Huang across to where the governor stood talking to Mrs Staveley.
Killigrew was still pondering his encounter with Huang when Peri appeared at his side. ‘You promised me the second waltz, Kit.’
He turned with a smile. ‘Have I missed it already, Peri? I’m sorry. Perhaps the next?’
‘I have already promised that to Captain Verran.’
Killigrew glanced across to where Verran had cornered an uncomfortable-looking Mrs Bannatyne. ‘From where I’m standing, I’d say Jago’s got his hands full as it is.’
‘You are a fine one to talk, Kit. I saw you fawning to our hostess in the reception room earlier.’
‘I was merely admiring her bust.’
‘So I noticed,’ Peri said coolly. She gazed around at the gathering. ‘It is strange. The last time I attended a ball at the Grafton, Bannatyne and Co. factory here I was only a child. That was when Sir George was tai-pan, of course, when we were based in Canton. Tell me, is Sir George as renowned for his balls in London as he was here in Hong Kong?’
‘Only the ones he talks in the House of Commons,’ Killigrew murmured absent-mindedly.
‘What were you discussing with Admiral Huang?’
‘Talking shop, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t want to bore you.’
She smiled. ‘I would rather be bored by you than fascinated by any other man.’
They danced the next waltz together, and when they had finished promenading the band struck up a lively polka. ‘Shall we?’ suggested Killigrew.
‘Oh, no, I could not!’
‘You don’t know until you’ve tried. Come on… just follow me… and one two, one two…’
She struggled at first in her sari, but he supported her. Eventually she fell into the rhythm of the lively step and relaxed enough to enjoy it, laughing with delight as he whirled her round and round. When the polka ended, it was too soon for both of them, although both were breathing hard.
‘Oh, Kit! That was wonderful!’
‘Aren’t you glad I persuaded you to change your mind? You see? You should never close your mind to new experiences.’
‘You dance superbly.’
‘Better than Dwyer?’
‘Why? Are you jealous?’
‘Should I be?’
She shook her head, making her curls dance prettily. ‘No,’ she said, and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘He kept treading on my toes.’ She wafted her face with her fan.
‘Warm?’ he asked her. She nodded. ‘Come on.’
He took her by the hand and they slipped through a door. He was unfamiliar with the layout of the factory but he had a good sense of direction and it did not take him long to find the verandah overlooking the landing stage at the back.
It was a warm night for February, even in Hong Kong, and the clear sky above was peppered with stars. The rainy season would not start for a few weeks yet. Across the harbour, the lights of the fishing station at Kowloon glittered in the shimmering waters. A long, low shape glided into the harbour from the direction of the Cap-sing-mun Passage.
‘There’s a smug boat over there without any lights on,’ remarked Killigrew. ‘Can’t be smugglers…’
Peri took him gently by the lapels of his tail-coat and turned him to face her. ‘Are you a customs and excise man now?’
He slipped his hands around her waist and drew her closer. ‘Why? Are you carrying any contraband?’
‘You will have to search me to find out,’ she teased archly.
He drew her closer to him and at the touch of their bodies felt desire well up within him. She pushed back against him so forcefully he had to brace himself against the balustrade. He felt the thrill of mutually recognised need and was about to suggest that they find a more secluded nook where he could carry out his search more fully when he became aware of someone standing in the doorway.
‘I came out to tell you that dinner is served,’ said Mrs Bannatyne. ‘I can see that you’re both hungry,’ she added drily.
‘Pardon me.’ Blushing furiously, Peri squeezed past Mrs Bannatyne and went back into the ballroom where the other guests were already filing through to the dining room.
‘Your timing could be more perfect, ma’am.’ Killigrew was about to follow Peri inside when Mrs Bannatyne moved to block his path.
‘From whose point of view, Mr Killigrew? Yours? Or Miss Dadabhoy’s?’
‘I’d rather got the impression that in this instance they were one and the same thing. Or are you concerned that my intentions towards Miss Dadabhoy might not be strictly honourable?’
‘It’s difficult to see where a romance between a naval officer and the daughter of one of the richest Parsi merchants in the world can go.’
‘It’s early days yet, but a short walk down the aisle hasn’t been ruled out.’
‘You think her father would approve of you?’
Killigrew smiled. ‘Why? Do you think he’d object to the colour of my skin?’
‘I think it’s the colour of your money he’d be more concerned about.’
‘You do both myself and Miss Dadabhoy an injustice if you think I’d marry her for her money.’
‘Then perhaps you should think about how Society back in England would view a naval officer who married an Indian girl.’
‘If you knew the first thing about me, Mrs Bannatyne, you’d know I’m not the kind of man who gives a damn what other people think.’
‘I’ll try to bear that in mind.’
‘Hadn’t we better go in ourselves, ma’am? The turtle soup will be getting cold. Besides, if we stay out here unchaperoned much longer, it will be us people start to talk about.’
‘You needn’t concern yourself on that account, Mr Killigrew. If they do, I shall be the very first to correct any misapprehensions they may entertain on the subject.’
With a thin smile, Killigrew gestured for her to precede him into the banqueting hall.
Bannatyne might not do much entertaining at the factory, but that had not stopped his architects from building an impressive dining hall, which probably doubled as a boardroom during the day. The grandiose proportions of the pillars which lead up to the vaulted ceiling were clearly designed to awe.
Most of the other guests had already found their places at the immense, damask-covered dining table. A massive silver candelabra dominated as the centrepiece. Footmen were lined up on either side of the hall, as precisely arrayed as guardsmen on parade. Footmen the world over tended to be chosen for their imposing size rather than their competence, but there was something about these which suggested the muscles beneath their uniforms were very real indeed. A broken nose here, a scarred face there, their ramrod-straight backs all hinted that these were veteran sepoys of the Honourable East India Company’s army.
Killigrew easily found his place with the other officers of the Tisiphone, near the bottom of the table, a long way away from the Framjees who sat with Governor Bonham, General Staveley and Prince Tan near the head of the table, where Bannatyne himself sat. Peri avoided Killigrew’s gaze.
The small talk was stilted, as it tended to be at such functions. ‘So, you were at Chingkiang-fu, Mr Killigrew?’ Bannatyne remarked as the main course – stewed beef à la jardinière – was served. He spoke loudly to make himself heard at such a great distance, and the lieutenant had to respond with equal volume, conscious that the conversation was being listened to by everyone at the table, from the governor of Hong Kong down to… well, probably himself and
Strachan, in order of social rank.
‘Yes.’ The monosyllable was intended to deter further enquiries.
‘You should be more proud of having done military service for your country.’
‘You’ve never done military service, have you, sir?’
Bannatyne smiled. ‘My goodness, no. I’m a man of peace. Why do you ask?’
Killigrew shook his head. ‘If you had, you would know that military service is nothing to be proud of.’
‘A strange thing to say for a young man who has chosen service in Her Majesty’s navy as a career.’
‘There’s more to active service than waging war, sir. Think of all the good work the navy does against slavers and pirates.’
‘Making the seas safe for trade,’ said Rear-Admiral Collier. ‘You should be grateful for that, Bannatyne,’ he added, trying to keep his tone jovial.
‘When the pilongs cease to be a threat to my shipping, I’ll be grateful.’
‘That’s something we intend to take care of in the very near future, sir, I can assure you,’ said Collier.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Bannatyne. ‘But tell me, Mr Killigrew: do you not feel that war can also be an honourable enterprise?’
‘It’s conceivable, I suppose, though I cannot think of any recent examples in history.’
‘What about the war against China? After all, that too was in defence of British trade.’
‘Perhaps you should ask Admiral Huang here how he feels about having opium smuggled into his country.’
‘Are you not a believer in free trade, Mr Killigrew?’
‘Oh, I’m a staunch defender of free trade. What I don’t approve of is extraterritoriality.’
Bannatyne arched his eyebrows at that and a few of the other European men present looked shocked. ‘British law for British subjects? Surely you can have no quarrel with that, Mr Killigrew?’
‘British law in British jurisdiction would be a more reasonable policy. If a Chinaman were to murder an Englishman in London, would you think it reasonable if the Chinese insisted he were tried by a court of law in Peking?’
‘Of course not!’ spluttered General Staveley.
‘Yet that is exactly the principle we insist on applying when British sailors cause trouble in Canton,’ Killigrew pointed out.
‘We make sure that justice is done,’ asserted a justice of the peace. ‘There’s no favouritism in my court on account of nationality.’
‘Yet we do not trust the Chinese courts, when anyone who has taken the trouble to study the Manchu penal system knows it is much less harsh than our own.’
‘To their own people, I dare say…’ snorted Staveley.
‘Interesting that you should express righteous dissatisfaction with the terms insisted upon by your own people in the Unfair Treaties,’ said Huang, speaking for the first time during the course of the meal. ‘However, I trust that we will all get a fairer picture of British justice when Zhai Jing-mu is put on trial in your admiralty court tomorrow.’
‘You may be assured of that,’ said Bonham. ‘Is it your intention to attend?’
‘Regrettably, my own work will keep me in Canton. But I shall follow the law reports in the Hong Kong Register most closely. So too, I suspect, will the unrighteous Brotherhood of Heaven, Earth and Man.’
‘Who’s that?’ asked Strachan.
‘Triads,’ growled Staveley. ‘Chinese thugs.’
Bannatyne shook his head. ‘The Triads are more than mere criminals, general. You must remember that to many Chinese the Daoguang Emperor, as a member of the Ch’ing Dynasty, is still seen as a foreign invader. The Triads are a political movement, a ruthless, sinister organisation whose tentacles reach into every quarter of society, intent on overturning the social order with no regard for the anarchy into which their own country might subsequently fall.’
‘Rather like the Whigs,’ elucidated Killigrew, well aware that Bannatyne was the president of the Hong Kong Chapter of the Reform Club.
The tai-pan was unamused. ‘A good deal more dangerous than the Whigs, Mr Killigrew.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask the victims of Lord Palmerston’s foreign policy what they think?’
Bannatyne smiled thinly. ‘Laugh if you will, Mr Killigrew. But I tell you this: if you intend to testify against Zhai Jing-mu you should watch your step very carefully. The Triads are dangerous and vengeful enemies, and their reach is long.’
‘If they try anything here on Hong Kong they’ll soon have cause to regret it,’ asserted the justice of the peace.
‘You seem to be singularly well-informed about these Triads, Mr Bannatyne,’ remarked Killigrew.
‘Information is power, Mr Killigrew. In my business it pays to be well informed.’
‘I regret to have to contradict what you say,’ Huang told the justice of the peace. ‘But my information is that since Hong Kong was stolen from the direct control of the Imperial Government by the Unfair Treaties, the island has become a refuge for the worst dregs of the Brotherhood of Heaven, Earth and Man.’
‘There was nothing unfair about those treaties!’ snapped Staveley. ‘If the Chinese weren’t so damned arrogant and had accepted the not unreasonable demands of Western trade, then there would have been no need for the war in the first place.’
‘There would have been no need for war if the rebellious high-nosed barbarians had not persisted in defying the edicts of the Occupant of the Dragon Throne by perfidiously smuggling their foreign mud into the Celestial Kingdom.’
‘Rebellious!’ Staveley ignored Bonham’s attempts to calm the situation. ‘Damn your eyes! Great Britain is a sovereign nation, and not part of your heathen, degenerate, so-called Celestial Empire!’
Huang was on his feet in an instant. ‘It is your barbarians who are the degenerates, profaning the Celestial Kingdom with your opium, your war and your missionaries! ’
‘All right, William,’ Bonham told Staveley. ‘That will do.’
‘Damn it, George, they make me sick!’
‘For heaven’s sake, General! There are ladies present.’
‘I can’t help that! Yellow-belly scum, calling us high-nosed barbarians! They’re the arrogant ones…’
Killigrew glanced at Bannatyne. The tai-pan sat back in his seat with a faint smile playing on his lips, as if he was enjoying it all immensely.
‘Oh!’ Mrs Bannatyne threw a faint, doubtless with the specific intention of trying to claw back some semblance of decorum from the shambles of the evening. Verran caught her before she fell from her chair – her cry gave him plenty of warning – and was all gallantry as he wafted a napkin in her face to give her air. The sight of a woman in a sorry plight was enough to make even the general realise he had gone too far, and he sat down, his face as scarlet as his tunic with anger and embarrassment.
Admiral Huang had risen to his feet. ‘I humbly apologise, but I fear this assault on my dignity tonight is beyond harmonious toleration.’
The tai-pan stood up and bowed. ‘Please accept my sincerest apologies on behalf of the general—’
‘You’ll do no such thing!’ snarled Staveley.
‘For God’s sake, William!’ hissed Bonham. ‘Haven’t you done enough damage for one night?’
‘I do sincerely regret that this most unpleasant scene should have occurred under my roof,’ Bannatyne told Huang gravely. ‘I must humbly accept all responsibility for what has happened here tonight, and offer my apologies.’ He made a half-hearted attempt to persuade Huang to stay and, when he saw the Chinese admiral was implacable, escorted him to the door.
‘Well done, William,’ Bonham muttered while Bannatyne was out of the room, mopping his brow with his napkin. ‘Another startling diplomatic coup.’
The general was all contrition, but it was too late. Bonham was going to have to spend weeks repairing the damage that had been done in a few short minutes.
The ladies had withdrawn to leave the men to their port and cigars by the time Banna
tyne returned. ‘I think I managed to calm him down a little,’ he told Bonham. ‘You know what the Chinese are like. So worried about losing face. No need to be concerned. I’m certain this will all blow over.’
‘I wish I shared your optimism,’ said Bonham. ‘I suppose I shall have to send his excellency some particularly generous gift to smooth it over.’
‘You know, sometimes I wonder if we don’t bend over backwards a little too far when it comes to handling Chinese sensibilities,’ Bannatyne said airily. ‘It’s not as if we have anything to fear from another war with them. We beat them easily before, we can beat them easily again.’
‘Do you think so?’ said Killigrew, lighting a cheroot. ‘It didn’t seem so easy from the battlements of Chingkiang-fu.’
‘You’re missing the point, Mr Killigrew,’ said Bannatyne. ‘The fact is that the Chinese have no grasp of reality. Do you know their philosophy of the world? They believe that Heaven is circular, and the world is square. China is that part of the square which benefits from the celestial influences of being directly beneath that circle. All the rest of the world – the corners – are uncivilised in their eyes. To them we’re no more than barbarian states which should bow down before them. We’ll never be able to trade with them on equal terms until they realise that China isn’t the centre of the world.’
‘Neither is Great Britain. If we wish to trade with them on equal terms, perhaps we should find something they actually want to buy.’
‘There’s no question that the Chinese wish to buy opium, Mr Killigrew. The profits of Grafton, Bannatyne and Co. prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.’
‘I was thinking of something more beneficial than opium, Mr Bannatyne. If opium is the best merchandise our culture can offer the Chinese, then perhaps we should accept their view of us as barbarians.’
‘You do not consider opium to be beneficial, Mr Killigrew? You would do well to consider that it is the wealth made by men such as myself which makes Britain great. And it is that wealth which pays for the Royal Navy.’
‘As it should, since the Royal Navy keeps the seas safe for your opium clippers.’
‘I haven’t seen much evidence of that recently, Mr Killigrew. Nine opium clippers disappeared between Singapore and Hong Kong last year, three are missing already this year, not counting the one you found attacked by Zhai Jing-mu.’
Killigrew and the Golden Dragon Page 14
