The Eleventh Tiger

by David A. McIntee

  Barbara stepped outside the house and went round the corner. Ian stayed where he was, looking for signs of hidden doors or some way out at the back. He didn’t find anything.

  ‘Ian!’ Barbara shouted suddenly, ‘Come quickly!’

  Ian was moving at once, crashing through the overgrown garden to the back of the house. Barbara was keeling in a clearing, rubbing at a plank of wood that jutted up from a low rise. She wasn’t in any danger, so he slowed to a walk to cover the rest of the distance.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Ian, I think it’s a grave.’

  Ian looked at the plank. It was carved with Chinese characters that he couldn’t read. ‘It looks like one, I agree. But what difference does that make?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s hers; the girl from last night, I mean.’

  Ian suppressed a laugh. ‘Why should it be? This could be anybody’s grave - if it even is a grave.’ He pointed to the inscription. ‘Unless you’ve suddenly developed an ability to read that.’

  ‘No, I just have... I don’t know, a feeling.’

  He was tempted to push the issue further but something about her tone stopped him. She was serious and, while she had no proof, neither did he. It was just a matter of her feeling against his, and he knew she wasn’t really any more superstitious or gullible than he was. Her earnestness also surprised him, and he liked it when this happened. They’d been travelling together in the Ship for two years now, and knew each other pretty well, but moments like this still kept her surprising and fresh.

  He realised she was looking at him while he was standing there smiling, and cleared his throat.

  ‘You seem happy,’ she said.

  ‘I was just thinking about this place. This isn’t too bad an era, Barbara. The height of the British Empire, London the premier city of the world. Not a bad era to live in.’

  ‘I suppose not. But what would our children think?

  Workhouses? The trenches? The Blitz?’

  ‘You’ve got a point there.’ He looked back at the house, then at Barbara. ‘“Our” children?’

  The human race’s generally.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Barbara looked at the house again, thoughtfully. ‘She said something, you know.’

  ‘Who? The girl last night?’

  ‘Yes. She said that her only regret was not seizing the day.

  Apparently someone she loved said he’d go off to the army if she didn’t want him, and she didn’t talk him out of it. When he got killed she realised her mistake.’

  Ian had heard this story before, several times. ‘It’s a tradi-tional ghost story plot, I’ll give you that.’ He squatted beside the grave, if a grave it was, and patted it. ‘Perhaps this is his, rather than hers. Maybe she comes up from the city now and again to tend it, and got caught in the rain.’

  This, Ian felt, would satisfactorily explain Barbara’s encounter without recourse to the supernatural.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ she admitted. ‘It’s hard to tell the ages of Chinese girls. I suppose she could have been older than I thought.’

  Something in her voice sounded different and alerted Ian.

  He had the sudden uncomfortable feeling that they had been talking at cross-purposes, and that something was about to hit him out of the blue, but he couldn’t think what. All he knew was that his stomach was suddenly jittery about what it might be.

  He realised what was going to happen, just a heartbeat before Barbara kissed him.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Seizing the day.’

  ‘I thought we’d seized this day before.’

  Eighteen hundred years before, he added mentally.

  ‘But I didn’t say I love you. And I do.’ So saying, she kissed him again.

  Major Chesterton dozed in his quarters, trying to seek respite in unconsciousness. Whichever way he lay seemed to make the ache in his skull feel worse, which was as frustrating as it was tiring.

  Finally, he gave up and went to the officers’ mess for something to eat. On the way he met Anderson walking with an old man Chesterton had never seen before. The old boy had long, silver hair and was wearing a frock coat and checked trousers, with only a panama hat of sorts acknowledging the warmer environment.

  ‘Major Chesterton, I presume,’ he began before Anderson could introduce him. ‘I had rather been hoping to meet you.’

  ‘I like to think of myself as approachable, Mr... ?’

  ‘Oh, just Doctor will do.’

  ‘Doctor?’ Had Logan sent for this man? The captain had been expressing a lot of concern about Chesterton’s head injury lately. Had he become suspicious enough of its effects to bring in a medical man against his wishes? The man was vaguely familiar, but Chesterton couldn’t place him.

  ‘That’s right.’ The Doctor leant slightly on his cane and shook his head sadly. Chesterton could see lost hope in his stance, and disappointment too.

  ‘I was rather hoping that I could pick your brains on a matter,’ the Doctor said, ‘but I don’t think now that I’ll be able to.’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’ Chesterton chewed his lower lip for a moment, deliberating, then said, ‘Let’s go to my office. We can talk there.’ He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk, especially to a doctor, but maybe some good would come of it.

  The Doctor followed him back to his office and stood for a moment, looking around at the collection of souvenirs.

  ‘You’re still a traveller, I see.’

  ‘Yes,’ Chesterton replied happily. ‘The army keeps me moving around. Sometimes we have to teach someone a lesson, but other than that I enjoy it.’

  ‘Other than that?’

  ‘I don’t much like hurting people. At least, I don’t think I do.’

  The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘How very unusual. A man who doesn’t know whether he likes violence.’

  ‘Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.’

  ‘A very healthy attitude. Yes, very healthy. Though I think perhaps violence is more the first refuge of the incompetent.’

  Chesterton laughed. ‘You might be right there.’

  He went to a small drinks cabinet and lifted out a bottle of brandy. ‘Care for a snifter? For purely medicinal purposes, of course.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you, sir. Yes, thank you.’

  ‘I keep some around to chase away the aches and pains.

  Age doesn’t come by itself.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ the Doctor agreed as Chesterton poured. ‘And what aches and pains are those? Perhaps I might be able to help?’

  Chesterton froze, his suspicion that Logan had sent the Doctor resurfacing. He handed his visitor a glass of brandy and decided that if the game was up, it was up. ‘I took a fall from my horse while chasing some bandits out of Qiang-Ling, and landed on my head. Since then, most things prior to that have been a blank.’

  He sat back and gazed at the group photograph of himself with his staff at Jaipur. ‘This post, these men and the souvenirs in here are all I have, and all I know. I don’t remember how long I’ve been here or what my family did before I joined the army... If anyone found out that I was hiding this damnable...,’ he tapped his skull, ‘...void, it would be straight back to England.’

  The Doctor nodded to himself, as if he were measuring this information against something else he knew.

  ‘I see. A side effect of a concussion, I wonder?’

  Chesterton winced as even the word sent another bolt of pain through his head. ‘Oh, I have a concussion all right. The granddaddy of them all.’

  The Doctor seemed to reach a decision. ‘Your secret is safe with me, Major. And, as it happens, I think I can arrange some painkillers for you. A herbal remedy. You may or may not know that I’m looking after Po Chi Lam surgery for the moment?’

  ‘I heard someone was looking after it.’

  ‘I shall have some analgesics sent up. But I should like to ask for something in return. I would like to speak to Kei-Ying.’


  Chesterton wasn’t sure about letting this stranger see the prisoner, but then he also wasn’t sure the prisoner was guilty of anything. And the man wasn’t a Chinee, so he was hardly likely to try to break Kei-Ying out of jail. And, for some reason he couldn’t fathom at all, Chesterton found that he trusted the Doctor.

  Wong Kei-Ying rested on the floor of his cell, even though there was a cot. The cell in the Xamian Island prison was small, but at least he had it to himself - if he didn’t count the rat in the corner. It smelt of the grime and mould that had taken hold in the small channels between the bricks, but it was still cleaner than he could have expected if he had been sent to a Guangzhou prison. Here he wasn’t sharing his captivity with a couple of dozen others, some of whom would be dead under the straw.

  In the distance he could hear the garrison at work: shouts, clanging, murmured conversations. The scent of the foul form of tea the white man liked, laced with sugar, paid him a fleeting visit, but didn’t come all the way in to his cell.

  Suddenly he heard keys jangle at the end of the corridor outside. He resisted the urge to look to see who it was and whether they were coming to his cell. The short soldier - the one who looked as though someone had been practising Iron Palm techniques on his face - appeared outside the bars, and started to unlock the door. Kei-Ying rose smoothly to meet him.

  ‘Visitor for ye,’ the man said. He opened the cell door and the Doctor stepped inside.

  ‘Doctor,’ Kei-Ying greeted him. ‘I hope everything is going well.’

  ‘As well as can be expected. Your cousin Yee is a very adept nurse, my friend, and follows orders very well. And that son of yours doesn’t seem to have let the change in management interfere with his training, either his own or the training of others.’

  ‘He’s a good man,’ Kei-Ying said.

  ‘Not everyone is as accommodating as your son,’ the Doctor admitted. ‘As a matter of fact I have received - and, I might say, accepted - my first challenge.’

  ‘Challenge? To a duel?’ Kei-Ying hadn’t expected this. He had thought the Doctor would simply take over the surgery and the administration of the school. There was no reason to challenge him as if he were a master. ‘Who?’

  ‘A young man in your employ, named Jiang.’

  ‘Jiang? I might have guessed.’ The man was a hothead and always had been. He was also good at what he did. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor. I had no idea this might happen. If you can persuade the English to let my son visit me, I will have him make sure Jiang’s challenge is withdrawn.’

  ‘You will do no such thing, sir! As a matter of fact I intend to go ahead with the match.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  The Doctor leant on his walking stick, and his expression softened. ‘I have never been one to back down from difficulties. And if I do, your staff would have reason to believe me unworthy of the trust you place in me.’

  Kei-Ying couldn’t help but smile. The Doctor was indomitable, and showed iron in his backbone. He would make an excellent Han, if not for the misfortune of being born in the west.

  Jiang knelt before the abbot once more, one knee and both fists on the junk’s deck, keeping his eyes lowered.

  ‘My Lord, I have discredited the man who would most oppose your position in the Black Flag. He is in jail and cannot harm us. I have also challenged the man he forced into my rightful place, a gwailo who calls himself the Doctor.’

  Jiang felt sudden heat on his head, the sensation of being a little too close to a lamp. When the abbot spoke again Jiang had to restrain himself from committing the disrespect of looking up at his face to see if it was still him who was speaking. The voice was different, louder, yet more distant, an echoing sound from the depths of hell. ‘Describe this hu-this man.’

  Jiang found that his voice refused to work until he had swallowed a few times. ‘He...he is a gwailo, of normal height for a Han. He has long, white hair and a nose like a hawk.’

  ‘And his companions? Do they wear strange clothes?’

  ‘Yes, a new fashion from Europe, I think.’

  ‘But you have never seen such a material before?’

  ‘No... no, I haven’t. It is not silk, or cotton, or wool, or -’

  ‘You have told me enough. This man who calls himself the Doctor is known. He must be destroyed.’

  ‘Yes, my Lord. I will kill him.’

  3

  Major Chesterton walked along the north wall of the fortress at Xamian, taking in the fresh air. There was a hint of sea salt breezing in from the delta to the south. Behind him, men were drilling on the parade ground, and to either side sentries strolled around the walls. Across the river, Kwantung city’s waterfront was jumbled together in a thoroughly chaotic way.

  Chesterton liked it. It was a symptom of a natural growth, not some imposition of order, and this appealed to him.

  Though he enjoyed the ordered and regimented life of a soldier, he preferred to have nature around him. He wondered if being outdoors was part of the reason he had joined the army. He didn’t fancy the idea of spending his whole adult life working in an office or a factory, trapped indoors out of the fresh air.

  The diabolical agony that had impaled his head for the last few days was finally abating, thanks to the powders the Doctor had delivered - along with a strong warning not to drink brandy with them. His headache was down to being a low throbbing above his ears, which was moderately annoy-ing, but thankfully it no longer felt as though a red-hot poker had been slid through his head from ear to ear.

  With his headache finally fading, calm came over him at last. He knew it was really just normalcy returning, but for the moment it felt like a wave of happiness and calm at the centre of his life. The last time he had felt this was in Italy, watching the sunrise in the afterglow of making love.

  He resisted the urge to shout with joy. He had remembered something! He and the dark-haired woman from the photograph in his office, making love in a villa. If there was anything better in life than the touch of a lover’s lips, he had yet to find it. He wondered where she was now, and why she wasn’t here in China with him. The joy left him, though a part of it remained, just close enough to suggest that things were going to be fine and that he needn’t worry.

  He didn’t feel any pain or heartache when he thought about her, so he doubted that she had left him or died. More likely she was waiting for him somewhere. The truth was undoubtedly buried in some part of his scrambled brain, but he could hardly ask Logan or Anderson about details of his own love life.

  He descended from the wall, wondering how many of the soldiers on duty knew him better than he currently did himself.

  Logan watched Major Chesterton from the armoury door. The major looked a little better to him, and Logan was mentally grateful to the Doctor for helping. He wasn’t quite right yet, though, and this made Logan sad.

  He had surreptitiously taken on a few extra duties, taking the workload off the major, and felt the extra effort and fewer hours for sleeping were worth it. The major deserved every chance to get better.

  Ian and Barbara arrived back at Po Chi Lam to find the Doctor glaring at three rows of children in the warm and welcoming courtyard. He himself stood on the veranda that held the courtyard in a relaxed embrace. The children wore grey smocks and were sinking into leg stretches. This seemed to be the intent, anyway. But half of them were running around yelling and threatening to bowl over the others.

  ‘You there, stop that!’ the Doctor said, pointing his cane at a boy who was trying to leapfrog over one of the children who was stretching.

  Neither Ian nor Barbara could suppress their laughter. The Doctor threw them a withering look. ‘And what are you two chuckling about, pray?’

  Ian cleared his throat to stifle the laughter, and put on a mock-serious tone. ‘We were just admiring your skills, Doctor.’

  Yes,’ Barbara agreed. ‘It’s very important to pass on knowledge and educate the young. We would never dismiss such an important task. Bu
t you have to admit you seem to be having trouble keeping discipline.’

  ‘And what do you suggest I should do, eh? Give them a sound spanking?’ This last was directed more at the misbe-having children than the two teachers.

  ‘Ah,’ Ian said. He tutted theatrically. ‘So quick to violence.’

  He lowered his voice, so only Barbara could hear. ‘All the same, I think I’m very happy I didn’t become a junior-school teacher.’

  ‘Me too.’ Barbara raised her voice and addressed the Doctor: ‘Perhaps if you demonstrated?’

  Ian snorted, trying and failing to imagine the Doctor doing the splits. ‘Those who can, do, those who can’t, teach?’ he offered.

  ‘And those who can’t teach, try to teach teachers,’ the Doctor replied acidly.

  ‘Touché.’ Ian walked round the edge of the courtyard to the veranda, and Barbara followed him. ‘Barbara’s right about the demonstration,’ he said more seriously. ‘There must be a more senior student here who could do that for you.’

  ‘My dear fellow,’ the Doctor said, his tetchiness apparently an illusion. ‘How very kind of you to offer.’

  Before Ian could ask what he meant, the Doctor had handed him a sheet with diagrams of warming-up exercises on it. This is what they need to be doing. I’ll just go and fetch a senior student.’

  He scuttled off with surprising speed, chuckling to himself.

  Ian bit his tongue to hold in the curse that wanted to burst forth. Barbara patted his shoulder in sympathy. ‘There are two of us,’ she said. ‘We’ll manage.’

  Vicki and Fei-Hung were having lunch and watching the exercise class through a window. Fei-Hung seemed distracted and Vicki knew he must be worried about his father. She understood his sense of loss all too well, though she envied him the fact that he would see his father again.

  ‘They work well as a team,’ Fei-Hung said, nodding towards Ian and Barbara, who had gone into full teaching mode. ‘It’s rare that a man and wife share the same trade, but I think I like the idea.’