by Porter Hill
‘Your scheme will never work, Fanshaw,’ Horne said unexpectedly from the pallet. ‘No matter how well you think you have laid your plans, you will never succeed.’
Fanshaw turned away abruptly. He rapped on the iron-banded door, calling, ‘Guard! Open the door, guard. The interview is over.’
Horne jumped to his feet, insisting, ‘The East India Company will never let you rest, Fanshaw. Don’t be a fool. There’ll be other men following me. You’re a wanted man, Fanshaw.’
The door opened; the two Chinese sentries in black capes entered the cabin, the gaoler standing by the door with his keys.
Horne moved towards the Company agent. ‘Where are my men, Fanshaw?’ He pointed to a junk anchored between him and the shore. ‘Are they out here, too? Awaiting trial?’
From the doorway Fanshaw answered, ‘Mr Horne, the only thing you should concern yourself with is the defence you must give to the Hoppo next week for presenting false documents in Whampoa.’
‘Where are my men?’ Horne repeated, fists clenched at his side.
The guards stepped forward, pushing him back towards the pallet.
Half-in, half-out of the doorway, Fanshaw called over his shoulder, ‘Wherever your man are, Mr Horne, let’s hope for their sake that they are being more sensible than you.’
The door slammed in Horne’s face.
* * *
How much of what Fanshaw had said was true? Had the Huma really been taken down river to the opium depot? Was the Hoppo indeed planning to move him to a prison on land? Would he have to defend himself against allegations of presenting false documents in Macao? Or was it all a fabrication that Fanshaw wanted him to believe? Horne paced the cabin after the agent’s departure, his thoughts in turmoil.
Fanshaw had divulged nothing about himself, he realised. But the mention of Lothar Schiller’s name had angered him. Why? Had there been a rift between the two men?
Horne ran one hand through his tangled hair, his thoughts jumping to his Marines.
He looked to left and right out of the cabin’s double line of narrow windows. Were the men imprisoned in one or both of those other boats? Or had they been taken down river aboard the Huma … if there was any truth in that story.
Horne had last seen his men the night before last, when the Chinese Black Hoods had dragged them and Cheng-So Gilbert from the Huma, hurling them into one barge while they threw Horne into another and then brought him blind-folded up river. The crew had been left aboard ship.
Horne sank onto the pallet. He knew that the sensible thing to do was to prepare a defence for the Hoppo’s council … He tossed restlessly. Was that story, too, a red herring? Did Fanshaw want him to concentrate on one point so that he would ignore more important possibilities? Was the man as clever as Horne assumed him to be, or was he crediting him with too much guile and cunning?
One thing was certain: the scoundrel had courage. Fanshaw was challenging the largest, richest company in the history of the world. Whether for his own advantage or for the benefit of others, Fanshaw had singlehandedly tackled the might of the Honourable East India Company.
Chapter Twenty-Three
PRISON
Aboard the largest and outermost of the three war junks, Groot peered through a crack in the planking of the hold. As the rich purples and reds of the setting sun streaked across the harbour, he strained his eyes to see the activity aboard the distant European frigate.
‘She’s weighing anchor,’ he reported to Babcock, Jingee and Jud, waiting anxiously behind him. ‘She’s going back down river.’
‘Can you see the name on her prow,’ whispered Jud in the near-darkness.
‘She’s the China Flyer,’ answered Groot. ‘I’m certain of it.’
‘Any more sign of that fop Fanshaw?’ asked Babcock.
The men had been taking turns watching the harbour activity since the rowing-boat had carried a white man in a frock-coat and tricorn hat out to the frigate. His second stop had been the junk anchored to the east of their own. Although they could not see Horne aboard the adjacent ship, they were certain he was imprisoned there. Last night and early this morning they had seen the yellow glow of a lantern inside the cabin on its main deck and a man pacing back and forth, someone who looked very like Horne. They were certain, too, that the white man in the frock-coat, who had visited the frigate and then the junk, had been George Fanshaw.
‘Did Fanshaw’s boat take him back ashore?’ Jingee asked.
‘I can’t see any more,’ complained Groot. ‘The light’s changing too quickly and too many sampans have come this way.’
As the sun had started its descent towards the distant pine forests, sampans had begun venturing out across the oily black water towards the Imperial junks, selling fish, vegetables and arrack to the seamen for their evening meal. A few boats, more brightly painted than the others, carried women who the men had guessed were the courtesans called ‘flower women’, coming to the war junks to entertain the Hoppo’s guard.
Groot waved his hand, eye to the crack. ‘The schipper’s lit his lamp again.’
Babcock reminded him, ‘We don’t know if that’s Horne over there.’
‘It’s the Captain sahib,’ said Jingee. ‘Why else would Fanshaw have gone there?’
‘To speak to the guards.’
‘No, it’s the Captain sahib,’ insisted Jingee. ‘I can recognise him a hundred miles away. Nobody paces back and forth, back and forth like the Captain sahib.’
Behind them, Kiro crept aft from the hatch, reporting excitedly, ‘The grille’s not locked into the frame. The peg slides.’
‘What about guards?’ Babcock asked.
‘There’s a clear view of them all seated on the poop deck. They’re eating and drinking and getting very friendly with the women.’
‘If you can get a clear view of them, they sure in hell can get a good look at the hatch,’ Babcock said.
‘Perhaps, but—’ Kiro shook his head. ‘They’re too busy with their supper and the girls.’
Babcock was still unconvinced about their plan to escape from the junk. ‘Fine,’ he conceded. ‘Suppose we manage to climb out of this stinking hold. What do we do then?’
‘Swim ashore and get boats.’
‘Kiro’s right,’ said Jingee. ‘Those sampans clustering around now makes a perfect cover for us.’
Babcock pulled his big ear. ‘I don’t know. It seems pretty daft. Escaping to shore then stealing boats to come right back out here again to get Horne.’
He nodded at Cheng-So Gilbert sitting forlornly on a bolt of hempen rope. ‘And what about the Chinaman?’
‘He goes with us,’ said Kiro.
‘What if we gag and tie him and leave him behind,’ Jingee suggested. ‘That would keep him from making a noise and giving us away while we escape.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘He’s Chinese,’ said Jingee disapprovingly.
‘He’s also in gaol with us,’ Kiro argued.
‘He could be a spy.’
‘He could also divulge what he’s heard if we leave him behind.’
Jingee remained unconvinced. ‘I don’t know. I don’t trust him.’
Babcock suggested, ‘Let’s find out once and for all how much we can count on him.’
He leaned forward, beckoning to Cheng-So Gilbert, and whispered, ‘You. Come over here.’
Cheng-So Gilbert crawled reluctantly towards the small group crouched in a circle. His clothes were ripped and soiled from the journey up river in the prison barge.
‘Can you swim?’ whispered Babcock.
Quick, deep nods.
‘You sure? From here to the shore?’
‘I learned to swim with the Jesuit fathers.’ he whispered.
‘Another reason not to trust him,’ whispered Jingee.
Cheng-So Gilbert took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
‘Give him a chance,’ said Babcock, then continued his questions.
‘Would you pre
fer to stay aboard here?’
Cheng-So Gilbert gasped. ‘While you go ashore?’
Babcock nodded, saying to the others, ‘That means he’s heard us talking about our plans.’
Groot intervened. ‘Perhaps he can help us. He knows this harbour. Maybe he can tell us where to get boats.’
‘It’s never going to work,’ Cheng-So Gilbert warned them. ‘The surrounding wharves are dangerous, not only because of the Hoppo’s guards and the soldiers but also because of the wharf people who will recognise you immediately as strangers.’
He leaned further, whispering, ‘The wharf people will do anything for money. Rob, steal, slit your throats, betray you to the authorities. They are the lowest of human life. Thieves and footpads and prostitutes …’
‘Prostitutes?’ asked Jingee, suddenly alert. ‘The same women who come out here aboard their sampans? The girls from the flower houses?’
‘Oh, there are many more bad women than those few who have paddled out here tonight. Whampoa has house after house of flower girls. They all have sampans and make life miserable for good, respectable—’
Jingee interrupted, looking at the others. ‘That’s where we could get a boat. A flower house.’
Gilbert was instantly critical. ‘A crazy idea, mister. A crazier and more dangerous idea I have never heard!’
Babcock liked the idea but added, ‘If it’s so dangerous we should have an alternative plan.’
‘We could divide into two groups,’ said Kiro. ‘One group could try to get a boat from a flower girl house. Another group tries somewhere else, like a fishing boat or a vendor.’
Despite Cheng-So Gilbert’s protestations, the plan for two groups began to take shape.
* * *
Groot was the last to climb the bamboo ladder from the hold. Babcock had gone first, carrying a rope and knotting it around a capstan to make an escape route over the starboard side. Jud and Kiro climbed up next and crawled across deck to the gunwale, followed by Jingee and a reluctant Cheng-So Gilbert. Groot watched Jingee urge Gilbert over the side before he himself scrambled out. The voices hummed behind him on the poop deck as he gently replaced the iron grating over the hatch.
Crawling across deck, he peered down at the sampans bobbing between the three war junks. Beyond, the night’s darkness had swallowed the other men swimming to their agreed destinations. He climbed over the side and lowered himself down the rope until he felt the greasy black water envelop his bare feet.
Putting strength into his strokes, Groot swam silently towards the western wharves, too frightened to look back at the war junks. In an attempt to calm himself, he forced his mind back to his boyhood, when he had swum in the canals of Amsterdam, sneaking away from his aunt’s house to go swimming with his friends.
Would he ever return to Holland, or save enough money to buy a passage home on a Dutch East Indies merchantman? As he cleaved his way across the harbour, he realised that he had no real reason to go back to Holland. He had no family there now, no friends. His closest friends were the other four Marines and, of course, the schipper.
With each stroke, Groot counted the men he had seen killed since Horne had taken them from the prisons of Bombay Castle. The crew aboard Horne’s first command, the Eclipse … The convicts on Bull Island … The first Marines: Bapu … then Mustafa …
The night air felt warm against his dripping body as he pulled himself up to a wooden pile. Clinging to the encrusted wood, he looked around him in the darkness, catching his breath. The China Flyer had disappeared from her anchorage across the harbour. The three junks still lay quietly at anchor, giving no sign that the Hoppo’s men had discovered their escape. The Merchant’s Pier was too far away for Groot to see if Jingee, Kiro and Cheng-So Gilbert had reached their destination.
Summoning his strength, he shinned up the pile and grabbed the edge of the clay-packed pier, cautiously raising his head to see if Babcock and Jud had already arrived.
Two bodies lay face-up in the darkness.
Groot hissed quietly.
Jud raised an arm.
Babcock whispered from his prone position, ‘Groot, if you start talking now I’ll choke you.’
Grinning, Groot clambered on to the pier. Why did Babcock always say he talked too much?
The night sky was starry above the three men as they lay on the pier, listening to the waves slapping and the harbour sounds rising all about them—the call of a woman’s voice, the plucking of a stringed instrument, the caterwauls of cats.
Jud rolled onto his belly and, feeling the wharf’s clay between his fingertips, suggested, ‘Rub this on your face and arms, you two. Darken yourselves like me.’
As Babcock and Groot followed his advice, he added, ‘Rub some in your hair, too, Groot. Keep it from shining so white in the night.’
Then they crawled along the pier in single file, standing upright only when they reached the shadowy warehouses.
A dog barked inside a flat-roofed building.
Jud listened for men’s voices. Satisfied that no one had been alerted by the alarm, he dashed across an alleyway. Peering round the corner, he beckoned Groot and Babcock to follow.
Jumping from shadow to shadow, lane to lane, Jud raised his hand when they reached a narrow lane festooned with dimly-glowing paper lanterns.
‘This must be one of those places,’ he whispered.
Groot and Babcock surveyed the double row of reed-fronted shacks; the street was empty except for a grass-hatted man dragging a large bag behind him along the garbage-strewn street.
Jud pointed at the door nearest them. ‘Is this the house we agreed on?’
‘First on the right?’ Babcock looked around him. ‘Has to be it.’
Groot smiled at the thought of Cheng-So Gilbert knowing such a place.
‘Let me go first,’ whispered Jud.
‘Scare the ladies good and proper,’ quipped Babcock as he dug into the pocket of his sodden breeches.
Producing a leather pouch, he withdrew three coins, passed one to Jud and, giving the second to Groot, said, ‘Enjoy yourself, mate.’
Taking the coin, Groot thought of the last woman he had been with in Bombay, how she had driven him from her hut for jabbering too much. Tonight he hoped that he would be able to keep quiet. It was no secret that he talked incessantly when he was nervous …
Chapter Twenty-Four
FISHERMEN AND FLOWER GIRLS
A midnight mist had begun inching across the harbour by the time Jingee, Kiro, and Cheng-So Gilbert waded ashore in a swamp beyond the Merchants’ Wharf. Anxious to get out of the oily water, Gilbert ran in long, splashing steps, looking for a tree or branch to grip on to for support in the marshy shallows.
‘Shhh,’ cautioned Kiro, motioning Gilbert to stop making so much noise. Before the interpreter had time to explain his actions, Jingee grabbed both him and Kiro by the arms and pulled them down to water-level.
Pointing through reeds, he whispered, ‘Boat.’
The three men knelt chest-deep in the filthy swamp, watching a sampan drift slowly along the edge of the reed beds. A lantern swung from the boat’s low prow, one man standing above it with a spear poised high over his shoulder, a second man gently poling the sampan through the water, eyes trained on the light’s phosphorescent reflection.
‘What are they doing?’ whispered Cheng-So Gilbert.
‘Octopus,’ Kiro answered.
‘Octopus?’ Cheng-So Gilbert looked anxiously around him in the swamp.
‘The lantern attracts the octopus to the surface,’ whispered Kiro, pleased to be the one explaining facts to the Chinese interpreter for a change. ‘They are drawn to the light and the fisherman stabs them.’
Jingee was more interested in the plan to find a boat than in hearing about octopus fishermen. He said, ‘There are only two of them and three of us. Why don’t we tip over the sampan and take it?’
Kiro disagreed. ‘Even if we could surprise them and take it, another sampan might be followin
g close behind and would rush to their aid.’
Determined to seize the fishermen’s boat, Jingee moved through the reeds, looking up and down the harbour for approaching craft. To his right, another lantern appeared in the hazy darkness—two men armed with spears instead of one.
Jingee crouched while the second sampan passed and then waded back to Kiro. ‘We wait longer,’ he admitted.
Gilbert asked impatiently, ‘What if they only come in twos and threes? We can’t stay here all night.’
Kiro remained calm. ‘Then we swim down the harbour and steal a boat from the wharf.’
‘Oh, we’re certain to get caught,’ Gilbert moaned. ‘We’ll all be thrown into prison. I’ll be beheaded as a traitor.’
Irritated by the Chinaman’s cowardice, Jingee chided him, ‘Stop complaining. You knew the risks before we started.’
Cheng-So Gilbert was not cowardly; he merely wished he was not here tonight, not involved with the Bombay Marines in a rescue attempt for their leader. He remembered how excited he had been when he had originally been hired by the East India Company to serve traders as an interpreter between Macao and Madras. The Chinese considered Europeans inferior, avoiding their companionship, calling them barbarians and unclean. Being half-caste, Cheng-So Gilbert not only suffered prejudice in China but also found difficulty in obtaining employment. As Englishmen were equally suspicious of the Chinese, they welcomed a man of mixed blood more than someone of pure Chinese descent. Heartened by that acceptance, Gilbert began to entertain hopes of travelling to England and making his fortune in the great capital of London. But what would happen to his dreams if the Manchu found him involved in a covert plan to abduct Adam Horne from an Imperial war junk?
‘Look.’ Kiro pointed out into the bay.
Gilbert and Jingee sloshed forward through the marsh and saw a small junk with a gold dragon fluttering from its mast.
‘The imperial flag,’ gasped Gilbert.
‘A patrol boat,’ said Kiro.
