At almost the line of the equator they approached the southern tip of Malaya. Artemis ghosted along in the sultry stillness preceding the usual regular dog-watch deluge. Under the awning aft muslin clung damply to female limbs as the women chattered excitedly, exclaiming at the riot of jungle greenery and coconut palms.
Over the still water came the clatter of wings as a covey of parrots rose into the air, their squawks ignored by the troop of monkeys swinging through the dense foliage underneath.
‘Enchanting!’ said Lady Elmhurst. ‘I say, Mr Prewse,’ she said to the Master, ‘have we time do you think to take a small picnic on the land over there?’
‘My lady, I don’ think it so advisable, if you takes me meaning,’ Prewse said, removing his old tricorne to mop his forehead.
‘No, I do not at all take your meaning,’ Lady Elmhurst snapped. Her fan increased its tempo as she turned to Powlett. ‘Captain Powlett, surely an hour or two on the land will not discommode you — we have after all been cooped up in this little ship for weeks now.’
Powlett removed his cocked hat with a pleasant smile, but thwacked it at his side. ‘Mr Prewse, do you think it advisable for the ladies to step ashore in this particular place?’
Prewse rubbed his chin. ‘It’s a lovely part o’ the world, that I’ll grant, but there’s a mort o’ bother ashore. First, we have the tigers.’
‘The tigers? This seems—’
‘The tigers, milady. Over there they runs free, an’ you can’t see ‘em in these woods until theys on you, all roarin’ and big teeth. Then there’s y’r snakes.’ He paused — the fan stopped. ‘Biggest in th’ whole world, they is here, long as y’r main yard,’ he said quietly, pointing out the largest spar in the ship. ‘Hides near a brook, hangin’ down from the tree quiet like. Eats a whole goat at one gulp when it comes down t’ drink.’
He scratched his head. ‘Then you’ve got y’r Dyaks. Bad joss, is they. Nasty cannibals they are, saves the head f’r to decorate their homes, but eats the rest on a slow fire. Comes down the coast fast in their three-piece canoes, on y’ quick, ‘cos you can’t see ‘em in this. S’pose I could land a party of marines, armed seamen, with ye. You’d have a good chance then—’
‘Thank you, there will be no need. I now recollect that my husband has impressed upon me the need for despatch. We need to press on, I believe.’
Once around the peninsula they were in the South China Sea. Imperceptibly, the seascape changed. The glaring equatorial seas gave way to a hard cobalt blue, and then by degrees, as they progressed northward against the winter monsoon, to a particular shade of jade-green.
The fishing boats they encountered as they tacked towards the China coast were of an unknown appearance. Their keel-less hull form, more like a banana than a seaboat, had a baleful multi-coloured eye painted on the bow. Kydd’s seaman’s eye, however, saw that the violent bobbing and rolling was an effective method of keeping the craft dry. There was not an inch of water shipped, despite the considerable seas, and the tiny fisher-children were entirely at home in the tumultuous motion. Closer to the mountainous grey-green seaboard there were more of the strange three-masted craft, their ribbed sails distinctive against the coastline.
The winter monsoon was cold off the sea, and had the seamen rummaging in their chests for Channel warmers. Artemis closed with the anonymous shoreline, bound for the Pearl river and Canton, their landfall in China.
‘What does it all mean, Nicholas?’ Kydd asked over his grog, pointing at Renzi’s book. There was a real need for rum to warm the cockles, the streaming north-westerly monsoon being so stern. He had seen hardly anything of his friend since Calcutta: Renzi’s interest in the Orient was insatiable and he had spent every spare minute with his volumes and in discussion with the savants.
‘To understand this, my friend, you must know that the Chinese have now the most mighty civilisation on this earth.’
Kydd opened his eyes wide. Others were not so sure, and looks were exchanged. ‘You’re saying as …’
‘Yes. They can trace their history in a straight line from before the ancients of our race right up to the present Emperor, Chien Lung. You may believe that in that time they have learnt something of the arts of civilisation. And its size! A hundred or more times ours, stretches from the frozen north to the tropics, and from the Pacific half across all Asia. It’s amazing! The people - why, there are so many that it is thought that one out of every three or four souls on earth is Chinese.’
The mess members paused in their meal to stare at him blankly or with troubled expressions. This was not a subject that was often brought up at mess-table in a man-o’-war.
‘Then tell me this, mate,’ said Cundall, waving his grog can in Renzi’s face, ‘why ain’t they conquer’d the world, then, if it’s like you said?’
Renzi recoiled from the can with faint distaste. ‘I said a mighty civilisation, and that is what it is. Their government under the Celestial Emperor is a just one, for it requires every officer to compete for his post by written examination — every one, from beadle and magistrate to general and governor. This makes certain that only the very best can reach the high offices of the land, and true and just governance is the sure result.’
‘Cundall has a point,’ Kydd pressed.
‘Therefore they have disdain for lesser attempts at civilised conduct, and have withdrawn from the world. They have no need for its paltry achievements, and so they keep the world at a distance - and that is why we are quarantined in Canton, to keep their civilisation pure.’
The table broke into indignant rumbling.
Kydd snorted. ‘Be damn’d to the scrovy crew! They got no right—’
‘They have every right! It’s beholden on us to step quietly in their land — if nothing else, I would not like to be the one to tread on the Dragon’s tail.’
‘Sounds jus’ like you’re one o’ their yeller stripe, Mr Chinaman,’ Cundall spat, the grog thickening his voice.
Renzi looked at him speculatively. The mess fell silent, for Renzi as an aggrieved party was still an unknown.
‘Nicholas …’ Kydd began.
‘No, fair question.’ Renzi looked down at the table, and when his face looked up again, it was with a smile touched with a degree of serious introspection, a look Kydd recognised immediately. ‘I do confess to a liking - no, a respect and honour for their metaphysick. They approach matters of logic in a curious and obscure way, and I am determined to learn of it at origin. And I am not too proud to say that it may reveal truths that might in fact reflect ill on our own polity.’ He drained his pot and left.
The final approach of the two vessels as they stood towards the coast saw a strengthening of the wind and a steepening of the waves, which obliged them to shorten sail. On deck foul-weather gear made its appearance in the thickening spray, and the few sightseers disappeared below.
Next to the Master was the stumpy figure of the just-boarded China Seas pilot, who looked more confident than the near proximity of a rocky coast would have seemed to justify. In sight there were only islands dark green with bamboo clumps interspersed with grey rocky outcrops, against which the seas surged in soundless white explosions.
The brisk gale whipped the wave-tops to an angry white, leaving tiger claws in their wake, and the vessels lurched awkwardly. Even the doughty fishing junks were retiring towards the land, and the two foreign ships found themselves converging with them on an obscure passage opening up to leeward.
Helm over, Artemis bore away downwind, and slipped down the narrow channel between the steep sides of a large island on one side and the mainland on the other. A cluster of hovels, a small jetty and bobbing sampans of a tiny fishing village and they were through. The seas moderated, and the ship settled for the run into a fine harbour of at least five miles of roadstead sheltered on three sides.
Apart from one or two more of the stilted fisher-villages there was nothing to break the barren appearance of the steep rocky island, but ahead ther
e was a flat peninsula pointing directly at the centre of the island.
‘Pray what is this place?’ said the envoy.
The pilot started, then gave a jerky half-bow. ‘They calls it Heung Kong, m’lord, means “Place of the fragrant waters” on account o’ the good waterin’ to be had after a long sea v’yage.’
There were masts and yards visible beyond the peninsula, and Lord Elmhurst gestured at them. ‘It would seem that we are not the only mariners to appreciate its qualities,’ he said.
‘Well, now, m’lord, that’s ‘cos we have here a port o’ refuge that’s good enough even f’r a tai fung — what they calls a regular goin’ hurricane hereabouts.’ The pilot noticed the envoy’s eyebrows rise and hastened to add, ‘Not as we’re likely to get one this late in th’ season.’
They passed the tip of the peninsula and its scattering of huts. The harbour opened up spectacularly, steep islands and sea passages in a maze on all sides. Sampans and fishing junks passed them by with not even a curious look at the trim and deadly frigate.
‘Haaaands to moor ship!’ With best bower anchor cleared away, Artemis took in sail and glided to a standstill, her anchor tumbling down into the jade-green waters and leaving the man-o’-war to her longed-for rest.
‘Mr Merrydew.’
‘Sir?’ The boatswain touched his hat unwillingly. There was much to do in a ship that had travelled so far.
‘Lord Elmhurst will proceed upriver to see the Chinese Viceroy in Canton. As you know, the navigation is hazardous for great ships - sandbars and shoals - so he will instead take passage in a John Company cutter. We will provide the crew. Find five men you know are reliable and tell them to muster in the waist at six bells in their best rig.’ Powlett’s head thrust forward and his eyes narrowed. ‘And should they be taken by barrel fever and bring dishonour to this ship, I will personally see their liver at the gangway. Do I make myself clear?’
The East India Company cutter Leila leant to the keen wind, slashing through the waves like a knife. It was Kydd’s first experience of true fore-and-aft rig — the tiny square topsail did not really count — and it was a revelation. There was no way the craft could take to the open ocean, but inshore its speed and ability to lie close to the wind made it ideal.
Now on their way up the Pearl river, Kydd saw ahead: where the two sides of the bay rapidly swept together into twin high bluffs, the river constricted to less than a mile. High above, frowning down from the eminence of the craggy rock face, were two facing forts exceptionally well placed to command the approaches.
‘Chuen Pi,’ the pilot said to Lord Elmhurst, who sat in an ornate canvas chair on the after deck. ‘Or, as the Portuguese have it, Boca Tigris — the tiger’s mouth.’
Kydd, tending the main sheets with Adam, was able to take in every word. He would try to remember the details, for Renzi had not been selected for this duty. ‘Like a pusser’s shirt on a marline spike,’ was the boatswain’s unkind comment; the tropics had indeed left Renzi thin and rangy. With a twinge Kydd remembered the forlorn devastation on Renzi’s face as he had left to go on to witness the marvels of the Orient at first hand without him.
A puff of smoke jetted from one fort, followed a little later by a hollow boom. The sound reverberated between the high sides of the passage and Kydd thought he could detect the almost tuneful resonance of bronze cannon.
Minutes later, the gaudy ribbed sails of a war-junk appeared from behind a prominence. The three lateen-rigged sails worked against each other to achieve remarkable manoeuvrability.
‘Back yer topsail an’ brail up!’ growled Quinlan, the Master’s mate at the tiller. The cutter slowed to a stop as the sails were dowsed, and she wallowed uncomfortably.
‘Shouldn’t have any trouble,’ the pilot said. ‘We does the run every week, an’ there’s no squeeze unless y’r carryin’ cargo.’
The war-junk dipped and plunged towards them, pennants and streamers in the wind, a big painted eye on each bow. It passed down one side; Kydd saw weed and sea-growth hanging long and unkempt, the sailors in their curious conical hats lounging, bored.
Going about, the vessel came up the other side of them; on the turn there was the same wild rocking to the waves as the fishing-boats he had seen earlier, and the same astonishingly dry decks. It passed close by, and Kydd could see guns on deck, green-streaked bronze cannon with muzzles in the form of rudimentary dragon mouths. It passed ahead, and from its leeward guns came a perfunctory three-gun salute.
‘Let go an’ sheet in,’ snapped Quinlan, and shaped course to follow. They passed between the bluffs and into the land beyond. The cliffs gradually subsided and the river widened to a quite different prospect; hummocks and the flatness of paddy-fields stretching away to the grey-blue of distant mountains. The river slowed and dissipated into a maze of sandbanks and waterways. Two merchant ships lay at anchor in a tidepool, their sails carelessly draped in a loose furl, men hanging listlessly over the rail.
‘C’n only get over at the top o’ the tide, deep sea vessels/ the pilot said. ‘With three sandbars, means ye can’t make it up in under two days.’
They pressed on, the pilot standing close to Quinlan and muttering instructions. It was physically strenuous negotiating the tortuous bends, with the sudden tacking and gybing. Kydd worked hard at the mainsheets. As he hauled, he couldn’t take his eyes off the land. It was outside his experience: subtly foreign vegetation, an exotic cooking smell on the air and the uniquely Oriental sights - stilt houses, a blindfolded water buffalo driven by a small boy in an endless circle, a monstrous sized water-wheel, and dotting the paddy-fields inland, several many-storeyed pagodas.
Lord Elmhurst remained on deck, choosing not to join his equerry in the comfortable half cabin. With his face set in a frown he scanned the unfamiliar panorama. ‘How far is it to Canton?’
The pilot swung round. ‘In large, it’s forty-three miles from Boca Tigris, m’lord, but we notes that deep-water packets can only reach to Whampoa, jus’ a dozen miles short.’ He smiled and added, ‘An’ we’ll be takin’ our vittles there within the hour.’
The river narrowed again and as they surged past a stilted village Kydd heard for the first time the garrulous, noisy chatter of the Chinese against the lowing of water buffalo and squealing of pigs. Around the bend the river widened considerably. A large island occupied the middle of the river and anchored all along its shoreline were merchant ships, loading bales. From the shore rickety jetties ran out to the ships.
‘Whampoa, m’lord,’ the pilot said unnecessarily.
Neatly, Leila ran alongside an Indiaman. Stirk expertly dowsed the headsails and, turning quickly, grappled the boathook to her main-chains. It became apparent that Lord Elmhurst would not be swarming up the rope ladder to get aboard the merchant ship, but would be dining aboard Leila.
‘Two hours to find scran,’ warned Quinlan, who lost no time getting himself over the bulwark. The Indiaman’s hatches were off, and a continuous line of coolies brought cedarwood tea-chests for loading; others were in the hold stowing, tomming down the cargo securely for the stormy trip home.
A man in breeches and shirt-sleeves glanced at them curiously, his eyes following every move of the coolies. Quinlan nodded to him and crossed the deck to the precarious planks of the brow down to the jetty.
Kydd’s mind whirled at the impact on his senses — an unmistakable sickly stench from the vegetable plots, the charcoal smell of cooking fires and the sheer rich stink of land after months at sea. The flank of the central spine of the island was one long alley with shanty shops on both sides, each with its blank-faced proprietor in white gown, shaved head and slender pigtail to the waist. There was every kind of knick-knack and curio.
‘Keep together,’ Quinlan muttered. He seemed to have directions, and strode forward purposefully. There were occasional European sailors, but they were of another world, the merchant marine, and were in loose, serviceable sea-clothes that were as different from their own smart man-o’
-war’s rig as they were from the Chinese. Some even wore the baggy petticoat breeches of a previous age.
At the natural boundary of a stream they turned right and soon were in much more congenial surroundings: notwithstanding the bamboo walls and roof it was unmistakably a tavern. In fact, there were several — and more! They wasted no time and crowded into the first. The Cantonese pot-boy seemed to understand their needs and scurried away. Before they had chosen their rattan table and settled into the odd straight-backed chairs he was back, whisking foaming tankards before them.
‘Well, stap me!’ Stirk marvelled. ‘Died ‘n’ gone t’ heaven!’ The pot-boy remained, standing quietly. His eyes were fathomless black buttons.
‘Er, yair — anyone got some loot?’
Quinlan held up a Spanish silver dollar. ‘This makee two rounds, you sawy, John?’ he said, making a twirling motion with his finger. The man glanced back, with considerable dignity, thought Kydd. Apparently the answer was an affirmative for he nodded and left soundlessly.
It was nectar, the first beer ashore. The taste was more watery than their English palates would have preferred, but it was fresh and went down very rapidly.
‘Hey, John! Next round - chop, chop!’
As swifdy as the first, another round was before them, and they raised their tankards. ‘T’ the poor bastards back aboard, an’ workin’ their hearts out.’
Kydd raised his tankard, thinking of Renzi. He didn’t notice the men looming behind until one spoke. ‘An’ what are King’s men doin’ here, c’n I ask?’ The speaker was bulky, unshaven, and there were several others with him.
‘Yes, yer might ask, mate,’ Stirk said mildly.
‘Well?’
‘Well, cully, we’re not the press-gang — but we could make an exception in your case,’ he said, with a chuckle.
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