Mandarin-Gold (15 page)

A small boat, with two Lascar sailors at the oars, had already been lowered and was bumping against the gangway. Crutchley handed him the pouch and a folded piece of paper, the ink still wet on vertical rows of Chinese characters.

Gunn climbed down the companion way, buttoned the paper and the pouch in the right hand pocket of his jacket, and climbed into the little rowing boat.

'Cast off,' Crutchley called to the sailors, and the little craft creaked against their straining oars. Slowly, the clipper shrank behind them until it was only a toy boat on a painted sea. They had anchored farther out than Gunn had imagined; distances over water are invariably deceptive.

Gunn settled back comfortably in the stern and trailed his hand into the salt, warm sea. Gradually, houses and the pagoda and the junks grew larger. Then he could see fish swimming in clear water beneath him, and formations of rock and weeds like long green beards on the sandy seabed.

The two sailors, trousers rolled over their knees, jumped out and pulled the boat up the shore so that he would not wet his feet.

He climbed out on the white sand. It stretched back for about twelve feet, and then degenerated into scrub and marshy grass and thick high bushes. The pagoda was of pinkish bricks, dilapidated and fading. The beach was quite empty.

'Where is the secretary, do you think?' Gunn asked the two Lascars. Neither spoke English, but one pointed to the pagoda, as though Gunn should go inside. Gunn nodded and walked up the beach. His feet sank in the soft sand over the tops of his shoes with every step. He pushed open a wooden door in the side of the pagoda. Inside, it was dark and smelled of cats' urine. He walked in, sniffing the foul air, nose wrinkled in distaste. As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he could see rafters above his head hung with bats; a plump gilded image of Buddha smiled against the far wall, with some wilting flowers in glass jars at its feet.

He came out into the sun, not wishing to become involved with any native heathen rites of worship in case this might cause hostility. Where the deuce was the mandarin's secretary? He turned towards the sea. To his astonishment, the Lascars were already rowing hard out towards the clipper.

They paid no attention to him. Of course, they did not understand his lingo. But surely they understood they were to ferry him back to the clipper? Crutchley or Fernandes would send them back as soon as they reached it, but what a ridiculous misunderstanding!

Gunn shaded his eyes to look along the beach; there might just be some other boat he could hail, but distances seemed much greater than from the clipper. From the sea, the town had appeared compact. In fact; the nearest houses were several hundred yards away, and, from them, twenty or thirty Chinese men were now walking towards him across the beach.

There was something sinister and menacing about their steady, slow purposeful pace, up to their ankles in sand, each man carrying a thick bamboo club. Gunn's .heart fluttered in his throat like a bird.

These were no friendly peasants, nor any mandarin's secretary. They were coming to catch him, maybe to kill him, certainly to beat him as a Barbarian for having the temerity to land on China's celestial soil.

He turned, but there was nowhere he could run. The beach petered out in some huge boulders and other rocks too large to climb. He thought for a moment of running back into the sea and swimming towards the boat, but it was already too far off, and there were bound to be sharks.

It was no good trying to speak to these heathen either, or to reason with them: they would not understand a word he said. He ran up the beach, past the pagoda, into the jungle. He would only have an hour or two to wait at the most, until Crutchley or Fernandes sent back the oarsmen, and until they returned he would have to hide here.

The trees stood close together. Their leaves were thick as fans and fleshy and soft, shutting out the sun, so that-he was almost instantly engulfed in a green twilight. The ground beneath his feet felt soft with moss, and marshy; his feet sank into unexpectedly cold mud. Once, he lost his left shoe and had to scramble about for it on his knees, sobbing for breath, listening for his pursuers crashing through branches after him. He ran on again, and paused to get his breath and listen, and then ran on farther into the forest. Finally, he stopped running, convinced no-one was still following him. He looked behind him, but the trees and the bushes had closed up over the hurried path he had forced through them, and it was impossible to say from which direction he had come, or where the sea lay. Was he running inland or sideways — or back towards the beach?

Gunn's heart beat like a drum beneath his jacket,, and as he stood, sweat streaming down his back, soaking his clothes, running into his eyes and making them smart, he heard jungle birds begin to laugh. And he realized they were not laughing at each other; they were laughing at him.

8

In Which the Son of Heaven Makes an Important Decision

The Emperor sat beneath a parasol on a promontory in the flower garden of his country' palace at Jehol, some miles from the Great Wall, on the road to Inner Mongolia. A table had been set before him with a crystal, bowl containing three golden fish should he weary of the sight of flowers and trees.

His predecessors had built this palace, to which the court retreated every, year in the hot weather, and the gardens were so beautiful that poets called them The Paradise of Countless Trees. Here were planted rows of apple-trees and apricots and pears, and corianders and walnuts. Clusters of willow trees trailed thin green branches by the shores of a wide lake covered with lotus blossoms and water lilies, and fish darted like arrows through the clear water.

Summer houses dotted artificial hills, and streams were cunningly routed to pour over small waterfalls, under bridges and between porcelain lions. Two roads led to this scented garden. One only the Emperor used when he travelled from his palace in the Forbidden City. The other was used by men of lower birth; by visitors, such as mandarins and local governors, and by messengers bringing tribute and news. At The Hour of the Snake, nine o'clock in the morning as the Barbarians counted time, the Emperor, seated on the small hill to which both these roads led, looked down them towards the south. Now that rain had replenished the rivers and the lakes he felt relaxed and at ease, and an infinity away from the stinking streets of Peking, inches deep in dung, and blue with flies.

Tao was thinking of a couplet he might compose to mark the felicity of this pleasing place, and raising his eyes to heaven for inspiration, his attention was caught by a faint, cloud of dust some miles down the common road. This was too small to mean an approach of important visitors; it must be a single messenger. His heart immediately sank at the prospect, and some of .his pleasure drained from the day. How sad and also how significant that, now, whenever anyone brought news, one assumed in advance that the tidings must be bad: some new insurrection, a flood, a drought!

As the rider approached the outer gatehouse of the palace, guards with whips and bamboos went out to him. He flung himself from his horse and almost collapsed. The animal stood exhausted, head down, mouth foaming, flanks going in and out like bellows.

'We bring from the illustrious Viceroy at Canton, to the all-supreme, most high, his most puissant Majesty, the Son of Heaven, Greetings and Intelligence,' announced the rider.

He was a young man of high birth, proud at being selected for such a fearful journey of fifteen hundred miles through hard and sometimes hostile country. His face was caked with dust and sweat, his eyes red from staring into the sun. Royal servants led him into a bath-house, where he bathed, dried himself with warm towels, put on a white robe, and then barefoot, as a mark of humility, he was led into the presence of the Emperor.

The young man flung himself prostrate in front of Tao, and even when the Emperor graciously commanded him to rise, he remained on his knees as he handed over the roll of vellum on which was painted the Viceroy's account of Lord Napier's intentions.

The Emperor skimmed through it. Canton was a long way off and, in the scented groves of Jehol, what happened there the endless sordid wranglings with Barbarian traders from beyond the Outer Seas seemed even more remote and unimportant. But Lu was a sound man; he would not have sent a special messenger unless he had something important to impart.

Tao read on. Some Barbarian Eye seeking to land without Royal permission? But of course these Barbarians knew nothing of civilized conduct, otherwise they would have followed the Confucian rule; when you seek to enter the frontiers of a country, you enquire respecting its prohibitions and laws.

This Barbarian Eye, to whom Lu's secretary had so aptly and amusingly given the ideograph of Laboriously Vile, was seeking to enter the frontiers of the Celestial Empire as an uninvited person, like a thief. It was meaningless for him to claim to be an official and not a merchant. In any case, the Emperor had no wish to see any British officials or ambassadors. For generations, his forebears had tried to make this clear, but even so, like blunt-nosed hogs, the Barbarians butted their bristled bodies against his rules. They would have to be taught a lesson.

He called for a' Secretary and dictated a quick reply.

'Whereas Barbarian merchants of all nations' are graciously permitted to trade without suspicion or anxiety, this man must be cut off from the Celestial Empire. Let all with trembling awe obey! Oppose not!'

He nodded agreeably to the young man, who reminded him slightly of one of his own sons; upstanding, vigorous, ready to do some great thing if only he knew what it was. But then, were not the saddest words in the world, if only? How pleasant Jehol would be if only its peace was not penetrated by news such as this. Maybe he could involve some such thought in his couplet? But meanwhile, he would speak with this youth, and draw news from him as one draws milk from a coconut.

'Tell me,' he began, 'what do you
know
of the Barbarian? Have
you
seen this Eye?'

'No, Your Most Celestial Majesty. It has not been permitted for my humble eyes to gaze, upon his horrific countenance. But I have heard his hair is red, his skin is raw, his body long and thin. Truly he typifies and embodies all that is detestable about the subject barbarian peoples beyond the farther seas.'

'You speak well, my son,' said the Emperor. 'We know little of these people. We hear facts as small as grains of sand. It is said that American men take only one wife each. We have learned, with surprise and astonishment, that they also have surnames, and respect such family distinctions as father and brother and wife. In short, We understand that they and the English do not live like brute cattle, as one could easily assume from their habits and behaviour.

'We have heard it said that in a battle, when the English take prisoners, they eventually repatriate them, instead of keeping them as slaves, as we do.

'They wear armour of what we call elephant skin, but which comes from trees and plantations as some kind of gum. A sword cannot wound them through this coat. They wear strange clothes for our climate, so heavy, so tight, that we have heard it said when their soldiers fall down they cannot rise again.

'And in the English capital city of London, which.is only a huge emporium, we hear that three bridges span the main river, and water pipes bring clear drinking water to all the inhabitants: They have there, as everywhere, prostitutes, but illegitimate children are reared and fed and clothed and housed, and not destroyed as ours are. Men and women wear white clothes on happy occasions and black for mourning.

'When their trading junks go overseas and meet a vessel in distress, they send out boats to succour it, and feed the survivors and even return them to their countries under penalties of law. So they have some, merits of civilization.'

'What of America, Your Majesty?'

'That is another small island, ten days sailing to the west of England. The English once owned it, but there was a war. The Americans are chiefly distinguished by their mechanical ingenuity. They have ships that need no sails. They claim they are driven by great fires that cause water to boil and wheels to turn, but our admirals disbelieve this, and say their paddle wheels turn through teams of oxen below decks.

'When either of these races meet others of their kind they remove their hats and shake their hands. We believe this last custom is to show that their hands are empty, that they carry no weapons. Now they seek like serpents to enter the confines of Our Kingdom under the guise of trade, or as ambassadors, or tribute-bearers. But once inside, we will never see them out.

'Ride, young man. Remember what you have heard. It is Our pleasure that you will bring Us despatches from the Viceroy in future! Proceed! Delay not! An Imperial edict!'

He bowed dismissal. The young man backed out of his presence.

The gold fishes swam round, and round in their bowl, and Tao. sat looking at them. Not for the first time, he thought, their existence was curiously symbolic of human life, endlessly seeking after something they would never find; something they would never know.

He sat down at the table and called for his parchment, his brush and his vermilion Imperial ink. But the muse had left him; his thoughts had fluttered like a flight of starlings. He was worried about this news from Canton. Lu was sound enough, but he was not a hard man, and what was needed there was a man like a hammer who could beat down Laboriously Vile and his upstart underlings and, at the same time, show the Hong merchants and any bribeable officials that death awaited all who opposed the Emperor's wish. But who could he send, who could he trust? He sat, thinking. Then the gods helped him, the shades of his ancestors came graciously to his aid. He remembered the name of the one man he knew in his bones and blood was above and. beyond all temptations of money and women and power, Lin Tse-Lsu, the Governor-General of: the important provinces, Hupeh and Hunan. And as he thought of him, the Emperor's contentment returned, and once more the day seemed sweet as scented honey.