He felt a sense of disgust. Before, when the British attacked the forts, the Chinese weapons were no good, their gun batteries useless. They were bound to lose. But last night, the Chinese could have won. Why did they lose? Because they were foolish. They lost face. And although his own interests lay with the British now, he felt a sense of shame.
So he was glad, two hours later at the governor’s yamen, when one of his informants told him: “It wasn’t General Yang who sent in the fire ships last night. He didn’t even know. It was his boss. The emperor’s cousin. He’s the one who gave the order and sent them at the wrong time.” A Manchu. That explained it, Nio thought. No Han Chinese would do anything so stupid.
* * *
—
By chance, Cecil Whiteparish was the first one to recognize Nio in the small sampan coming towards them. There was still so much confusion along the waterfront and in the river that few people would have noticed one vessel more or less. But when he caught sight of Nio, Whiteparish smiled and waved at once. And by the time Nio reached the Nemesis, he had Elliot at his side, ready to receive the news.
Nio’s report was precise and to the point. The fact that General Yang didn’t even know about the plan of attack was interesting.
“It sounds as if their command’s in disarray,” Elliot remarked to Whiteparish. “I believe we can finish this entire business in short order. I shall call on Canton to surrender.”
Whiteparish looked at the city’s massive walls. “But surely, it’s not like a fort. We can’t knock down and storm those walls. Besides, there may be a million people in there. If it came to house-to-house fighting, we’d just be swallowed up.”
“I didn’t say I wished to take the city. And I certainly wouldn’t destroy it, even if I could. We came here to trade with Canton, not ruin it. I just want them to surrender.”
“How will you do it?”
“Look over there.” He pointed. “Do you see that small hill a few miles away, with a pagoda on it? It’s right on the city’s northern wall. If I could get some cannon up there, they’d command the entire city. We could easily hit the governor’s yamen, for instance. And an impressive body of troops as well. Enough to frighten the Chinese. My guess is that if we’re bombarding from here, to the south, and they see us about to bombard and attack with a first-rate regiment on their north as well, they’ll offer terms in no time.”
“But how will you get the cannon to their destination? You can’t drag them for miles across the marshes, surely?”
“No. I need to bring the cannon and the troops up close to that hill by ship.” He looked towards Nio. “Ask him if it can be done. Are there inlets, water channels we could use? I’ll wager he knows.”
So Whiteparish asked Nio. And Nio remained silent for a time, apparently thinking, then shook his head.
“Tell him there’ll be a big reward,” said Elliot.
But still Nio sadly shook his head. “I don’t know those channels,” he replied.
“I think he’s lying,” said Elliot. “He’s always been helpful in the past. Why has he clammed up now? I could have him flogged, I suppose, if I must.”
Whiteparish gazed at Nio. “Let me talk to him,” he said, and took Nio to one side. “You think we’re going to kill many people, don’t you?” he murmured. “Like we did at that fort. Ordinary Chinese. Your people.”
Nio said nothing.
So Whiteparish explained that Elliot had no intention of killing the people or destroying the city. “It’s just a blockade. We might shoot at the governor’s yamen. Something like that. But when the defenders see our cannon and our troops, they’ll give up. We’ve proved it many times. This is Elliot’s plan. Nothing else.”
And at last Nio said, “I know you are a good man. Do you promise me this is true?”
Whiteparish paused for only an instant. After all, he’d said nothing that wasn’t true. This was Elliot’s plan. “Yes,” said the missionary earnestly, “I do.”
“I will be your pilot, then,” said Nio, “and show you the way to the pagoda hill.” He seemed sad. He didn’t ask the price.
* * *
—
Whiteparish could only thank God that the siege of Canton had been over in just a few days. People had lost their lives, of course, but there was no great massacre. Once the cannon began pounding the governor’s yamen from the top of the pagoda hill, the governor soon gave in.
Thank God that so many innocent Chinese lives had thus been saved. That was the main thing. But there was something else as well.
He’d given his word to Nio that his people would not be destroyed. And Nio had trusted him.
And what was Nio? A poor Hakka boy. A spy for hire. A drug smuggler. Probably a pirate, too. But he was not without honor. He’d initially refused to take them to the pagoda hill in order to save his people. If I’d betrayed his trust, Whiteparish reflected, I’d never have forgiven myself. Indeed, he realized, I probably care more for his good opinion than I do for that of my own cousin John Trader.
The deal that Elliot had agreed with the governor was very simple. “I’ve stopped the bombardment,” he told Cecil, “and agreed to withdraw all our warships and troops from Canton. In return, Canton will pay us six million silver dollars. At once.”
“So Canton is paying the opium compensation?”
“Certainly not. The emperor has forbidden that. The money is being paid by the city on condition that we cease hostilities and remove our troops. It’s an old Chinese practice, you know, paying tiresome barbarians to make them go away.”
“But it’s the same amount of money the British demanded for the opium.”
“Mere coincidence.”
“The British merchants will get the money, though.”
“Oh, I daresay. But the point is—from the Chinese point of view—that the emperor’s orders have been obeyed. He has not lost face.”
“So our warships and troops will all return home?”
“Oh no. I still have many demands that have not been addressed. I expect to attack up the coast again shortly. But that is not the concern of Canton.”
“What about the opium trade?”
“It was not mentioned at all.”
“It will continue?”
“Nobody has said that it will not.”
Whiteparish thought for a few moments. “So where does this leave us?”
“It leaves Canton exactly where it was before Lin came to confiscate the opium.” Elliot gave him a seraphic smile. “Where it leaves China is quite another matter. By the way, I have something for you. For Nio.” He handed Whiteparish a small bag of coins. “Tell him it’s my thanks for showing us the way to the pagoda hill.”
* * *
—
Emptiness. Nio felt only emptiness now. When he’d first run away from home, it had seemed an adventure, a life of freedom with the smugglers in the gulf, a chance to make money. And now he had money, well over a hundred silver dollars. So why should he be depressed?
He was older and wiser. Perhaps that was all. It had been one thing, as a boy, to resent the distant Manchu rulers in Beijing; but it had still been a shock to discover that China’s mighty empire could be humiliated by a handful of barbarians. He had only contempt for the Manchu emperor now. And the Han Chinese, and the mandarins like Shi-Rong, were scarcely better.
It seemed to Nio that the best Chinese man he’d met in the gulf was Sea Dragon. A pirate, of course, who’d been quite ready to kill him. But a pirate who never gave the members of his gang away. Died under torture. Kept his honor. A true Chinese hero, in his way. A man in a thousand.
What about the British barbarians? The missionary was a good man. But the British were not his people, and they never would be.
So what was left? What was he? With whom was he to live? I am a Hakka, he reminded himself. I belon
g with them. But for some reason even this didn’t seem enough.
* * *
—
One evening, a couple of days after the settlement was agreed, he heard a commotion outside his lodgings near the factories. The summer monsoon had begun, but there was only a light rain falling as he hurried outside, where he found a small crowd of people. Several of them were shouting angrily, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“What’s happened?” he asked an older man.
“It’s the barbarians,” the man explained. “Out in the villages. They’ve raped some women,” he said with disgust.
“That is terrible,” said Nio.
“There is worse,” said the fellow. “They’re attacking the dead.”
“To the cemeteries,” someone cried. “Protect the ancestors.”
And most likely they’d all have gone out there and then if the monsoon had not chosen that moment to burst and the rain to fall so heavily that it made the expedition impossible.
The storm continued for two days. During that time, Nio learned exactly what had happened. A party of British soldiers, a little drunk, had gone for a walk and blundered into one of the many cemeteries in the surrounding countryside. For some reason, they were curious to see how the Chinese were buried. They ripped open a grave. Then another.
Such a thing would have been sacrilege in Britain, too. But in a land where the entire population visited their ancestral graves for the Qingming Ancestors Day after the spring equinox each year—often traveling great distances to do so—it was a horror past all telling.
The local villagers had seen them and intervened with force. Fighting broke out. A village was attacked. Within the hour, the whole area was up in arms, and only the heavy rain had saved the drunken soldiers’ lives.
* * *
—
It was the first clear morning after the rain when Nio heard that an army was approaching the city’s northern wall. Along with several hundred others, he went up to see what it meant.
The army—there was no other name by which to call it—was huge, more than ten thousand men. Judging by their dress and the horses they rode, the leaders were mostly members of the local gentry, accompanied by men bearing spears and bows and arrows. These must be the old local militias. But there were also huge crowds of peasants carrying more rudimentary arms—clubs and sickles or no weapons at all.
The army showed its unity in two ways. Throughout its ranks were improvised black flags, whose combined effect was frightening. But more significant to Nio were the banners that every militia contingent seemed to carry. For each banner bore, in bold Chinese characters, the same simple legend: Righteous People.
The countryside had risen. And they declared to the people of Guangzhou that they had come to relieve the city from the barbarians who defiled their ancestors and everything that was holy. Having arrived, they waited, ready to fight, but uncertain what to do.
Some time passed. A fellow about his own age, who’d been standing beside Nio, turned to him and remarked: “We should never have let this happen.”
“What should we have done?”
“Killed the barbarians, of course.”
“They have better weapons,” Nio said.
“I know that. But look at the numbers. All we had to do was let them land, come into the city, make them welcome, then kill them. At night when they’re asleep. A million of us, to a few hundred of them.”
“And their ships?”
“Same thing. Row out to them in the dark. Hundreds of sampans. Swarm on board. It’s all in the numbers.”
Just then, from the northern city gate, four riders appeared. Three were city prefects. The fourth was a British officer. They rode out to the army. Some of the gentry rode to meet them and confer.
“What do you think they’re saying?” asked Nio’s companion.
“I should think the prefects are telling them that the barbarian troops are already starting to leave. A few more days and they and all their ships will be gone. They’re telling them to disperse.”
“Why’s the barbarian officer there?”
“To confirm it’s true, I suppose.”
“Or to make sure our prefects do what they’re told. They’re all traitors.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re on the barbarians’ side then, aren’t you? Another traitor.”
“No.” Nio gazed across at the peasant army with its banners. “I’m just a peasant from a village down the coast.” He paused and nodded, as much to himself as his companion. “I’m one of the Righteous People.”
“I doubt it,” said the other, and moved away.
But I am, thought Nio. He knew it now. That’s what he was. Or at least what he wanted to be—whatever form it might take. One of the Righteous People.
* * *
◦
The marriage was set. It was agreed up at the hill station. With the fall of Canton and the payment of the six million dollars, it seemed clear that John Trader’s fortune and the opium trade in general were as secure as such things can ever be. Or perhaps Colonel Lomond was just getting bored by the long engagement. Whatever the reason, the marriage would take place in October.
“As I’ve no family, I’m afraid the guest list will be rather one-sided,” Trader remarked to Mrs. Lomond. Charlie Farley would be his best man, of course. Aunt Harriet and her husband would be coming. Quite a few former colleagues and friends from Rattrays would be on the list. There were a number of people he knew on Macao whom he could invite, though whether any of them would be able to come all the way to Calcutta was another matter. Both the Odstock brothers were coming. That was good. And then there was Read. He’d sent an invitation for Read to Tully Odstock, asking him to give it to the American.
In mid-September, back in Calcutta, he got a letter from Tully telling him that Read’s invitation could not be delivered.
Our friend Read has gone on his travels again. I believe he plans in due course to return to America. But his departure was a little strange in one respect. I don’t know if you knew—I certainly did not—but before leaving, he told me that he’d received word in early May that his wife had died in America, leaving him a widower, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, a free man.
He has taken another wife. I’m not sure where he married. Not on Macao, certainly. But it seems he has married Mrs. Willems’s niece, the girl called Marissa. Wherever he and his wife may be now, therefore, Read will not be at your wedding. But I look forward to it.
So it seemed he’d been right to wonder about Read and the girl. But he had to admit that as he was going to be living with Agnes Lomond as his wife in the small community of Macao, it was probably just as well that, even if Marissa were ever to return there, she’d be safely married to Read.
* * *
—
On a sunny day in October Trader was walking along the Esplanade. It was only a week to go before he was to be married, and he was in love, and it seemed to him that God was in His Heaven and all was right with the world. He passed the mighty portals of the Bengal Military Club, and even that stern building seemed to look on him with a friendly gaze.
The day before, Agnes had told him about a children’s charity that she and her mother favored, and he was thinking about the contribution he would make, in his name and Agnes’s, as a surprise wedding present to her. Something strikingly generous. God knows, he could afford it. And he was so busy with this thought that he did not notice the person coming towards him, who was equally busy with his own thoughts, so that neither of them observed the other until it was too late.
Cecil Whiteparish hesitated, thought rapidly, and then rightly concluded that there was only one decent and Christian thing to do. “Good morning, Cousin John,” he said politely. Friendly but cautious.
“Mor
ning.” Trader did his best to smile. “What brings you to Calcutta?”
“I’m spending a month with the London Missionary Society. They have an office here, you know.”
“Ah. Then back to Macao?” He’d realized that at some point, once he and Agnes were living in Macao, she’d become aware of Cecil Whiteparish’s existence, but he’d thought he could deal with that when the need arose. Was there any chance, he wondered, that this visit to Calcutta might mean Whiteparish was being sent somewhere else?
“Yes, back to Macao. At least for a while.”
“Ah.”
“I hear that I should congratulate you on your forthcoming marriage.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Trader paused, then said nothing more.
Cecil Whiteparish watched him. His expression seemed quite without rancor, perhaps a little amused. “Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t looking for an invitation. Not my sort of party, you know.” He smiled. “I wish you every joy in your marriage.” He was quite sincere. Trader could see that. “Goodbye,” said his cousin, and went on his way.
* * *
—
Early that afternoon, he sat with Mrs. Lomond in her private sitting room. “I’m in a bit of a fix,” he confessed, “and I don’t know what to do.”
“And you’ve come to me?” Mrs. Lomond smiled. “I’m so pleased. We’re family now, you know. Families rally round. Tell me everything.”
So he told her, quite simply and straightforwardly, how Cecil Whiteparish had appeared in his life. “The only time I’d even seen his family’s name was in the note my guardian left me, and I’d actually forgotten it.”
“Did you hate him?”
“No. But we’ve nothing in common, and I certainly didn’t want him as a friend.”
“Not one of us?”
“I’m afraid not.”
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