Mandarin-Gold (17 page)

Quickly, they tied his wrists behind his back, then his knees and his ankles. One of them cut down a long bamboo pole, and they bound his whole body to this so that, head drooping, they carried him away in triumph through the secret paths of the forest.

Gunn could see nothing but the ground receding or growing nearer with every jolting step they took. He tried to speak, but he had no voice left, and his swollen throat would not fashion any words, so he let his head fall and shut his eyes and prayed the end would be quick.

Presently, their pace slowed. He raised his head as much as he could and opened his eyes. He was in a clearing of some kind, with a few huts made of wattle, thatched with straw and plantain leaves.

His captors lowered him to the ground. Someone cut his bonds and brought him a big shell, with water in it. He seized it greedily, and then forced himself to sip slowly because he knew the dangers of drinking too fast in his exhausted condition.

Half a dozen Chinese men in loincloths, some with bows and arrows, others wearing short swords, squatted on their hams, looking at him. Some lit cigars made from single rolled black leaves; the smell of the smoke was pungent and not displeasing. Gunn saw they were looking behind him, and he turned to see why.

A man, much taller and fatter than airy of the Chinese, had entered the clearing from one of the huts. Gunn struggled to his feet. The man held out his hand.

'It's a bloody fine thing,' he said in English, 'when we've got to bring you in trussed like a chicken before you'll sit down to dinner with us.'

'Who are you?' Gunn asked him hoarsely.

‘The name's MacPherson,' said the man; he had a Scottish accent, and was about fifty years old. His body was brown, his arms tattooed with daggers and foxes' heads and the words 'Death before Dishonour.'

'I was a sailor in a British ship once,' he explained.

'I was in a ship, too,' said Gunn.

'You chose a bad place to come ashore,' said MacPherson. 'But now you're here, we'll try and make you as welcome as we would if we were back in my home town, Coupar Angus, in Scotland.'

'I was at St Andrews University,' said Gunn. 'I am a doctor.'

'Are you now?' asked MacPherson with interest. 'Well, then, you can do some treatment on some of us here. Me, for a start. I'll tell you frankly, doctor, it's the pox I think I have.'

9

In Which Laboriously Vile Loses Face and Dr Gunn Finds an Answer

Lord Napier sat back in his chair in the dining-room overlooking the river inside the English factory at Canton.

On the table were the remains of breakfast he had just eaten with William Jardine and Captain Charles Elliot, a former naval officer in his late thirties, and now attached to his staff.

The room was wide and airy; a life-sized portrait by Lawrence of King George IV in his royal robes, looked down on them superciliously from one wall. It had been hung there by Lord Amherst, a nephew of the Lord Amherst who had commanded the British forces in North America during the Seven Years War, and who had advised headquarters in the American War of Independence.

The British Government had sent this young man to Peking some years previously, in the hope that the Emperor would allow him to stay as British Ambassador. Among his gifts, he had brought this picture of his King. But the Emperor had rejected both his presence and his present, and finally the portrait had been brought back to Canton and given to the English factory.

'Well, gentlemen,' said Napier. 'We've landed, we've slept the night, we've breakfasted, and we've had no trouble whatever. Nothing. I tell you, Jardine is right. What these Chinese need is firmness. Civility, too, of course, but firmness of purpose first.'

'I am glad you agree with me, my lord,' Jardine replied in his clipped way. 'The trouble is, we're all far too eager to agree to any kind of extortion they suggest. But that's like Danegeld. You can keep on paying the money, but you will never get rid of the Dane. It's high time we took a stand here. So far and no farther, is my motto.'

'I wouldn't entirely agree,' said Captain Elliot. 'I would rather handle this in a more diplomatic way.'

'That's because your-father was a diplomat for so long, Elliot. Times have changed — and remember, we're not dealing with Europeans here but Chinese.'

'Most people react better to reason than to rudeness. At least, that is my experience.'

But what
was
Elliot's experience? Jardine thought irritably. He-knew he had entered the Navy at thirteen as a first-class volunteer on board the
Leviathan,
and served in the East and West Indies, where he had reached the rank of captain, and then the government had seconded him to British Guiana with the quaint title of Protector of Slaves.

The very nature of this title was naturally obnoxious to the sugar planters, who were understandably less interested in protecting slaves than in getting the most work out of them. But Elliot, partly because of his patrician manner — the fact that his uncle was the Earl of Minto meant that he was not forced to endure the heat and humidity of Guiana for commercial profit — helped to secure better working conditions for the blacks.

He had persuaded the owners to allow them free time from sunset every Saturday to sunrise on the Monday. And the hours they could work in the fields were limited from six in the morning to six in the evening, with two hours break. No overseer could carry a whip in the field, and no women could be whipped. Owners had to keep records of all punishments, and, under Elliot, slaves were granted the privilege of marriage. He even arranged for them to be allowed to buy property, and to save their wages to buy their own freedom.

Elliot knew more about subject peoples than either Napier or Jardine, and he watched the two men now with a certain cool detachment.

Napier he trusted, because of his background, which made him above bribery or the love or need of money. He would do all he could, as well as he could, and as quickly as he could because he wanted to go home.

Jardine was an animal of a different kind. An apothecary was hardly a gentleman, and certainly his insistence on driving as hard a bargain as he could with the Chinese was not to Elliot's liking. He might be clever and brave and rich, but he lacked sympathy, and in dealing with Eastern peoples, this quality was essential.

Elliot turned to Napier.

'What will you do now, sir?' he asked.

'Send for the interpreter, and write a personal letter to the Viceroy, explaining why I'm here. He can pass this on to his Emperor if he so wishes, and then we can meet and discuss this whole matter, speedily and harmoniously.'

'It is not so simple as that, I'm certain,' replied Elliot. 'With respect, sir, these Chinese have their own way of going about things.'

'Well, we'll teach them
our
way. They've been stuck out here, behind their Great Wall, for so long they simply don't know what's going on outside in the world. Damn it, I didn't come here to try to
annexe
their wretched country. I want to open it up for the good of the Chinese, as much as for our own. Can't they
see
that?'

'They'll see nothing, sir,' said Jardine.

'Maybe,' agreed Elliot. 'But they are still the indigenous aboriginals of this country, and we are the strangers. I think we should proceed cautiously. Gain their confidence first.'

'We'll do as
I
say,' retorted Napier shortly and rang the bell for his interpreter. As he began dictation, one of his staff knocked at the door.

'What do you want?' asked Napier irritably. The heat was very trying, and since his arrival in Canton he had been feeling feverish and short-tempered.

'Two Chinese Hong merchants are here to see you, my lord.'

'I do not wish to see them. I am dealing direct with the Viceroy.'

'With your permission, my lord. They say they tried to see you earlier in Macao, but you had left. They have an urgent letter to lay before you.'

‘Thank them, but explain that I am communicating with the Viceroy in a manner befitting His Britannic Majesty and the honour of the British nation. You may go.'

The servant bowed and withdrew.

The two Hong merchants stood, hands folded, faces impassive as this reply was relayed to them. Then they called for their litters and hurried back to Viceroy Lu.

Over cups of milkless tea, with hot damp towels pressed comfortingly against their foreheads, the three men considered the situation. All admitted its gravity, for when Barbarians behaved badly in terms of Chinese etiquette, then, after being fined heavily, the threat of being beaten with bamboos on the Emperor's orders — or, worse still, being taken on foot in iron chains to Peking — loomed unpleasantly near.

In Peking they would be ‘unbuttoned' — which meant losing this Oriental emblem of rank and wealth — and sentenced to exile in the Colo, the cold, snowy border country. The best they could hope for there would be some tedious job, such as a sweeper in a temple, and death would generally be their only release from disgrace.

The knowledge they could do nothing to influence this foolish, uninvited envoy Laboriously Vile made their fears even more grievous. The warmest towels on their faces could not melt the chill in their hearts.

As soon as Napier had finished his letter, he had it translated, and his private secretary took it to the Petition Gate, where, by long custom, important missives intended for the Viceroy personally had to be delivered. Here a mandarin would normally accept it, and convey it personally to the Viceroy's office.

But at the Gate, although the mandarin was waiting, he refused to take the letter.

'What's the matter with the man?' the secretary asked his interpreter. 'It's addressed to the Viceroy. Explain he
must
take it.'

'I must tell you, sir,' the interpreter replied haltingly. 'Honourable mandarin says the letter is headed with the ideograph that means
Letter.'

'What else does he expect a letter to be headed with?'

'It should be headed with the character
Pin
for Petition, sir.'

'To the devil with Pin and Petition. This is a personal letter, not a petition. I'm not petitioning to set someone free, or asking a favour. This is a letter from His Majesty's representative here in Canton to the Viceroy. We're not
asking
anything. We're
saying
something.'

‘I am sorry, sir, He will not accept it.'

By now a crowd of Chinese had gathered around the gate, amused at the discomfiture of the Englishman. Some began to make chopping motions with the edge of their hands, as though cutting off invisible heads.

'This is ridiculous,' said the secretary. 'Find someone else to accept it.'

'There is no-one else, sir.'

'There
must
be. Explain I am not leaving this Gate until I have delivered this letter. Find a military officer if this fool won't take it.'

He stood sweating in the heat, in the stinking, dung-heavy air. It never occurred to him to be frightened; although he was surrounded by hundreds of increasingly hostile Chinese, some with bamboo staves, others with swords, who could cut him down as easily as he would swat a fly. He was English and so above all these heathen races with their filthy habits and cringing unmanly ways, bowing down to stone gods and spirits in rivers and the sea.

Finally, a general arrived with a junior officer at his side. The secretary handed the letter to the young man, who bowed politely but refused to accept it.

'Explain to him, man,' the secretary shouted to the interpreter, who jabbered away hastily. The young man smiled, but still would not take the letter in his hand. The crowd were jeering now, shouting at the secretary, mimicking his annoyance. Then the secretary saw one of the Hong merchants, who had called that morning, and who spoke a little English.

'Can you help me?' he asked him, as calmly as he could.

The merchant bowed, his hands concealed in the wide, loose sleeves of his robe.

'His honour the general is infinitely distressed that you should have come all this way in vain,' he explained, 'but there are obstacles — as I am sure you appreciate — in the way of him
personally
handling this
petition.
Strong gales do not make smooth seas. Nevertheless I will take it from you, and we will both lay it before the Viceroy.'

'No,' said the secretary. 'We could have given it to you this morning if we had wanted you to take it. And it is
not
a petition. It's a letter.'

Now the crowd began to hoot. Some threw up their round hats in the air, and jostled him, coming so close that he could smell their filthy breath. He put up his fists to defend himself, and for the first time he realized the danger of his own position. He turned and walked back to the factory, not hurrying or looking over his shoulder, although hundreds ran behind him on their bare feet, all but beating him on the back with their sticks, yet not quite daring to touch him for fear that, although ludicrously outnumbered, he still might harm them in some magical western way.

The Hong merchant hastened to report his meeting to the Viceroy.

'You will tell this Barbarian Eye, this Laboriously Vile,' Lu ordered him, 'that he must
immediately
return to Macao, nor presume to return here without permission.

'It is the most established of all our rules that a traveller from devildom must
always
obtain a Red Pass before he enters the celestial regions. And no such pass is ever issued without reference to the Emperor.

'Every nation has its laws; even England, and how much more so in this Heavenly Realm? Subject to its soothing care lie ten thousand kingdoms. The four oceans of the world rest within its shelter. This said Barbarian Eye, having come a myriad leagues over the sea, must know that I, the Viceroy, administer the Imperial Wish by cherishing with tenderness such men who come from a distance.