My Splendid Concubine (7 page)

Before leaving for the Lookong receiving station, Robert instructed Guan-jiah to return to Ningpo. “But, Master, my place is beside you. If you are going into danger, I should be there too.”

“
And if you die, Guan-jiah, who will take care of your father and mother? Has anyone else in your family sacrificed as you have?”

Guan-jiah
’s expression was unreadable. “You are right, Master. I will return to Ningpo and await your return.” He nodded and left to pack his meager belongings. As he walked off, Robert followed his servant’s frail slender frame with his eyes. He looked too young to think so old.

Chapter 3

The Yangtze had a metallic smell like blood mixed with manure. There was no breeze and it was hot and humid. The creak of the rigging and the sounds of oars dipping into the muddy yellow colored water were the only noises. The men in the small boats strained and sweated to tow the armed merchant ships into position to destroy an enemy.

The schooner had eight cannons; the brig, the
Maryann
, had twelve. Although the merchant ships could bring ten of those cannons to bear on the shore, those eight and six pounders didn’t offer much firepower, so every gun was loaded with sections of chain and iron balls the size of grapes.

Robert imagined the carnage
—the yard long pieces of chain twirling through the air ripping flesh and bone rending men like swine being slaughtered. He stared past the boats strung out along the twin cables and studied the multitude of campfires flickering along the far shoreline. There were too many. He feared death. It was warm and humid. When he shivered, it had nothing to do with the temperature. It was as if he were shaking fear off as a dog shakes water from its coat. He turned from the sight and went below deck to the main cabin of the
Maryann
where Captain Patridge was meeting with the officers.

As Robert entered the cabin, he saw Patridge spreading a map on the table and putting lead weights on the corners, so the map wouldn
’t curl up. Captains Bainbridge and Roundtree stood on either side of him. The junior officers crowded the rest of the table. Robert found a spot behind two of the men and watched over their shoulders.

Patridge pointed a stick at the map.
“At the north end of the camp is a crude stockade,” he said. “This is where our boat people are held. I have heard that tomorrow before the Taipings break camp, the boat people will be executed. Usually the Taipings allow their prisoners the choice of joining the rebellion or losing their heads, but because they were involved with us and the cargo was opium, it was decided they are all to die.”

Robert knew next to nothing about the Taiping rebellion. He had heard that the leader of the rebels was a man named Hung Hsiu-chuan, a Christian convert, who claimed he was the new Messiah and the younger brot
her of Jesus Christ. Robert learned this from the Ningpo missionaries, who said that Hung did not comprehend the importance of the Trinity and had taken it on himself to add a third book to the Old and New Testament—this third book was the Taiping Bible.

“
Excuse me,” Robert said. All eyes turned on him. He hated being the focus of attention. It made his stomach queasy.

“
Yes, Robert,” Patridge replied.

“
Will the Taiping leader, Hung Hsiu-chuan, be there? Will we get a chance to capture or kill him and end this rebellion?” Robert had no idea how large the rebellion was.

There was nervous laughter around the table.
“No, Robert,” Patridge replied in a condescending tone that caused Robert to burn with embarrassment. “Hung is in his capital city of Nanking surrounded by tens of thousands of his soldiers. His generals do his killing for him. He set himself up as an emperor, and he lives in a palace with hundreds of concubines. To make Nanking his capital, he slaughtered an Imperial army of thirty thousand in 1853. Today he has an army estimated to be more than a million strong. We will be going against a thousand of them—a trifling number considering the whole. Does that answer your question?”

“
Yes, thank you.” A few of the officers chuckled, and Robert was sure they were laughing at him. His question had revealed how ignorant he was. He should have kept quiet.

Patridge turned back to
the map and tapped a spot north of the stockade. “The cargo of opium is piled here close to the river. After the beheadings, the opium will be set on fire. Once it is burning the Taipings will break camp and leave.”

“
Where did you hear this?” A junior officer asked.

“
Money buys spies,” Patridge replied. “That’s all anyone needs to know.” He glared at the junior officer until the man squirmed. “No, you aren’t the one. You haven’t worked for me long enough to be who I’m looking for, or I’d suspect you gave the Taipings the information about this opium shipment.”

“
Surely, you don’t suspect one of us,” Captain Bainbridge said.

“
I suspect everyone who works for me and has been in China long enough. Thefts and losses like this have plagued us in this region for two years now. That means someone is selling information about our opium shipments to the Taipings.”

Patridge looked at the faces in the crowded cabin, as if he were attemp
ting to discover the guilty party. “Know this,” he said. “There is a traitor working for me. Anyone who turns that man in will receive a comfortable reward.”

Robert w
ondered who the traitor was. He jumped at the sound of a sharp crack and saw that Patridge had slapped the table with his stick. “Enough!” He leaned over the map. His hand moved south, below the stockade, where he marked out a wide oval—most of it inland away from the river. “The majority of Taipings are camped here around the prisoner stockade. The situation does not offer us a good range of fire for our cannons.

“
The camp extends inland and the Taipings have dug shallow trenches for protection and filled them with spikes. However, they have no defensive positions facing the river. This is where we’ll bring to bear all the firepower of the canons.” He tapped the map below the stockade along the shoreline.

“
We want panic among the Taipings, and we do not want to hit our boat people. The landing will take place near the opium. We’ll recover the cargo first then free the prisoners.”

Robert had been in China
a year, and the suffering and poverty he had witnessed were the reasons he’d volunteered for this fight. He hadn’t come to recover opium. The boat people were looked down on by almost everyone. He felt it was his duty to do what he could for them. It was wrong to make opium more important than human life.

On impulse, he said,
“Captain.” All eyes shifted to Robert. He felt a hot flush spreading up his neck and over his face, and he had second thoughts about speaking. However, since he’d committed himself, he wasn’t going to back down. “Would it be possible for at least one of our boats to land closer to the boat people? If we free them, we’ll have more hands to load opium and fight.”

“
Hmm,” Patridge replied. Robert watched the captain’s expression change. His face said he did not like being interrupted. Then his face became thoughtful. “Yes, you are right,” he said slowly, as if he were still weighing his response. “The boat people could help us get in and out faster.”

Patridge pointed his stick at one of the junior officers stan
ding to Robert’s right. “Unwyn Fiske,” he said, “you will take your boatload of men and make for the shore below the stockade. Get in there and get the boat people out and rejoin the main column over by the opium where I’ll be.”

“
Bloody hell,” Unwyn said. “How am I supposed to do that? I don’t speak Chinese and none of my men does either. The original plan was better.” He cast a dark glance at Robert.

Patridge
’s eyes swiveled back to Robert, who felt the heat in his face again. “You speak some Mandarin don’t you, Hart?” he asked. “After all, you do work in the British consulate in Ningpo.”

“
That’s right, Captain,” Robert replied.

“
Then Unwyn will make room in his boat for you. You will be the one to tell these boat people what they are to do. Am I clear?”

Robert nodded and wondered what kind of mess he
’d gotten himself into. Instead of being with more than a hundred armed men, he was going to be with a score. He stared at the map and saw that where he was going was closer to what the cannons would be shooting at.

Earlier, Robert had seen an undermanned gun crew clums
ily practicing with an eight pounder. The man carrying the bucket full of chain and grape had slipped and dropped the heavy load spilling its contents. When they fired the practice shot, they missed the floating target by several yards. It occurred to him that one of the cannons could miss the Taipings and hit his group. He should have kept his mouth shut.

Robert considered mentioning his concerns about the ca
nnons, but this time he refrained from speaking. He wished that even one small sloop from the British navy had been with them.

“
That’s settled,” Patridge said.

With the attention off Robert, he glanced around and looked at Unwyn, who was glaring at him. They locked eyes for a moment, but Robert broke first
and focused his attention on Patridge. He felt his face heating again. What kind of man was this Fiske fellow? Robert squirmed uncomfortably while not looking at the man.

Captain Patridge wa
ited for everyone’s attention before speaking again. “If we lose the initiative of surprise, I don’t have to tell you what these thousand maniacs will do to us.

“
We are only two hundred, but we may not be alone in this fight. There is an American in Shanghai, a man called Frederick Townsend Ward. He’s a soldier of fortune, a mercenary. The Chinese government commissioned this Ward to build an army to take the city of Sungkiang back from the Taipings. Before we left the Lookong receiving station, I sent a note to Ward letting him know what we’re up to in the hope he might want to get in on the action as a first move to take Sungkiang.

“
To lure him here to help us, I offered part of the opium as a reward. It is the reason we are here. This was a major shipment, and we are not going to lose it. I want you to tell your men I will pay a bonus to all involved if we recover all the opium.”

Does that offer include me?
Robert thought.
After all, I don’t work for him or his company
. Then Robert felt ashamed. After all, he hadn’t volunteered to join Patridge in this venture out of greed. If any of that bonus came his way, he’d have a little more to send home to his family. He wouldn’t turn it down, but he wouldn’t ask for it either.

Patridge rubbed his c
hin while his eyes examined the faces in the room. Then he said, “I’ve met Ward several times. He is recruiting his army in Shanghai from the waterfront scum, deserters and Filipino cutthroats. The money to finance this army is being squeezed out of the Chinese government and the merchant associations. They want to be rid of the Taipings, because they are bad for business. My company paid too. That’s enough. Dismissed.”

On the way out
, Unwyn put a hand on Robert shoulder and pulled him aside. “What were you doing in there?” he asked.

Robert felt his back stiffen, and he stood a bit straighter.
“Stating my opinion.” He didn’t like the tone of Unwyn’s voice and this time he kept contact with the man’s eyes.

“
Well, next time you decide to open your mouth, keep it shut. How much combat experience do you have?”

“
Aside from a few fistfights in Belfast when I was drunk, none,” Robert replied.

Unwyn pushed
his face closer to Robert. The man’s sour breath spit at him, as he said, “When we reach that prisoner stockade, Hart, you are going in alone. Unlike you, I have been in combat. I joined the Royal Navy when I was thirteen and served fifteen years before I went to work for Captain Patridge. The reason I left is that I saw too many men wanting to be heroes blown to bits.” Without saying another word, Unwyn stepped away and climbed the ladder to the deck. Robert used his sleeve to wipe the spittle from his face.

He discovered he was holding his breath, so he forced hi
mself to breathe. Robert didn’t doubt what Fiske had said, but he was more afraid of looking like a coward than of dying. His greatest fear was that he’d not perform properly. He had no desire to be a hero.

The small merchant army climbed down the boarding nets and crowded into the boats. The way they were armed and dressed made them look like a band of rowdy pirates. There were just enough men le
ft behind to work the cannons.

A young ship
’s boy sat crowded against Robert in the stern of the boat. He felt the boy trembling and noticed a dazed look on his face. “How old are you, son?” he asked.

“
Eleven,” the boy replied in a small, quivering voice. His frightened eyes rotated to Robert.

“
And your name?” Robert asked.