Shanghai (8 page)

Maxi nodded again.

“One more thing?”

“What, brother mine?”

“Control yourself.”

Maxi gave the smile that had for years terrified his enemies and made ladies swoon. “Knife in its sheath, dick in me pants. Right?”

“Right, Maxi, right.”

* * *

AFTER THE TROOPS were put ashore, steamers pulled two warships up the Huangpo River and the siege of Shanghai began. The mariners and infantrymen, Maxi at the head of his irregulars, made their way overland on an all-night march that swung them all the way around the city, ending at a ridge north of the city gates.

The morning came up fast and caught the British advance contingent unawares. The long march had exhausted the troops, and many had curled up on the ground and slept without taking off their boots.

Maxi never slept the night before battle. He climbed to the far side of the ridge and watched the sun rise. Then he saw them, small, crouched silhouettes coming from the east, not from the city at all. He watched as they skirted the British encampment and flanked out in small groups. He was too far away to give a warning cry and a gunshot would have been lost at that distance, so he began to run.

* * *

THE EAST PERIMETER SENTRY SIGHED. His watch was almost over. He thought of good British ale and his young wife. Then he lit a cardboard-wrapped Turkish cigarette and breathed in deeply—and felt the smoke somehow come out his neck! He turned, and a wiry Chinaman, clad all in white, smiled at him. In his long fingers a slender, blood-slick knife twirled round and round.
How does he do that?
the sentry thought, then watched helplessly as the knife sank deeper into his throat then tore sideways
.

“Wake up, you slackers!” Maxi screamed as he crested the nearest hill. Quickly, two Chinese assassins were on him, then on the ground writhing in pain. Maxi's second shot awoke the camp, and screams quickly followed.

Maxi saw the Manchu banner and raced toward the man carrying it. The man saw Maxi and ran at full speed toward him. Three yards from Maxi he lowered the banner and, to Maxi's surprise, planted it in the
ground and pulled himself up and over it as his feet thrashed at Maxi's head. One of the blows landed squarely, flattening Maxi's nose and sending him smashing to the ground.

Maxi hit, then immediately rolled. Only the friction of the banner whistling through the air saved him from the downward thrust of the lance at its end. It stuck several inches deep in the soft ground. Maxi rolled again and came up with a pistol cocked and aimed at the bannerman's head.

The man took his hands from the banner and stood very still. He said something—calmly, totally without fear. Maxi wished Richard were at his side to tell him what the brave man had said, but he wasn't. The man repeated himself. Not arrogant, clearly accepting what was going to happen to him.
The way the opium farmers accepted their lives in India,
he thought.

Maxi reached down and pulled the banner from the ground and handed it to the man. The man canted his head, Maxi matched the head bob precisely, then each turned and left—the bannerman to his army, Maxi to the south gate of the city.

Chen met Maxi just outside the south gate and signalled the
Fan Kuei
to follow him.

Maxi did, through the rickety streets of the Old City, then down a particularly long alley and through a hovel, then down a wooden ladder into a web of tunnels that Maxi knew were called the Warrens. The massive web of underground passages ran beneath the west section of the walled city, all the way to the river.

Maxi knew that above him was the old walled town, with the Huangpo River on the east and the Suzu Creek to the north. To the west were lakes and canals that led back into the southern reaches of the country. Cotton
grew down by the delta, and rice paddies came right up to the southern walls.

Even beneath the ground Maxi could sense the energy of this place. After the first hundred yards or so, he saw lit torches in carved niches in the walls. Chen picked up his speed and Maxi matched him stride for stride. The walls were wet to the touch, but the tunnels had been well tended, and many places were worn smooth from the endless years of running feet.

After many turns and cut stone stairs both up and down, Chen held up his hand and Maxi stopped close behind him. Chen whistled a single, shrill, high-pitched note. Moments later, after the echo had ceased, a low-pitched whistle responded and a rope ladder was lowered from directly overhead. Chen and Maxi climbed it. At the top, strong hands grasped their wrists and hauled them up to a mahogany-floored chamber.

It took a moment for Maxi's eyes to adjust. The room was large and quite cold. A formal lacquered table stood to one side. Behind it stood a High Mandarin and three lesser authorities, all wearing the flowing silk robes and conical hats that were their badges of office. One of the officials, dressed in the purple robe of a scholar, was a certain Confucian.

All eyes were on Maxi.

He bowed low, then got down on one knee and performed the formal kowtow that Richard had taught him. When his forehead touched the wooden floor, his broken nose sent shards of pain through his entire body, but he didn't wince. Finally finished with the elaborate prostrations, he stood.

The Mandarin crossed to the table, reached into his long sleeve, and extracted a map.

As he did, the Confucian thought,
Here is my first deed in fulfilling my family's commitment to the Ivory Compact and returning Confucians to their rightful place in China.

Maxi accepted tea from Chen—and the planning began.

* * *

LATER THAT AFTERNOON, the British, following Maxi's instructions, entered the city by climbing over the roof of a hut built illegally close to the outer wall—and owned by a certain courtesan named Jiang. Resistance in the city melted away as the man with the cobra tattooed on his hand advised against “overt action.” The dawn sally of assassins from the walls proved the total extent of the defence mounted by the Shanghainese to protect their city.

By noon a delegation of the wealthiest merchants had come from the city walls and set up a large silk tent. Inside, on shiny black lacquered tables inlaid with designs made from mother-of-pearl, they served tea and fine sweetmeats to the British—then agreed to pay three million silver dollars in return for the safety of their city of two hundred and fifty thousand souls.

Maxi stood in the back of the tent, a cloth to his broken nose. He saw their man, Chen, at the conference table and wondered if he'd had something to do with the ease of the city's capitulation. The entire city had cost the British three dead and sixteen wounded.

The city's Jesuit translator made some final amendments to the document of Shanghai's surrender as the head merchant chattered on, seemingly no more concerned than if he had been bargaining for a slightly better price for the summer's second rice crop.

The money was put on the treaty table. Pottinger's representative, a chubby man named McCullough, didn't deign to touch it, acting as if such trifles were beneath a man of his station in life.

McCullough waited for the head merchant to sign the last of the documents, then stepped up to the table and took up the quill pen. He dunked it in the ink and poised it over the parchment. Then he turned to his lieutenant, who fired a shot through the silk roof of the tent. Before anyone in the tent could respond, a loud explosion caused them all to turn to the city.

The south gate of the city flew into bits, killing several Chinese bird and fish merchants whose stalls were adjacent to the gate.

“Just to show these Celestials who runs this town now,” he announced, then turned to the Jesuit and ordered, “Translate that for your friends.” Before the Jesuit could comply McCullough placed his pen on the signature line of the peace agreement and dashed off his name with some considerable flourish. When he'd finished, he turned to the interpreter again and said, “Three of my men were murdered this morning before dawn by your heathens. I will expect ten times that number handed over to me for execution by sundown—or the rest of your city will be put to the torch.” Then he inexplicably switched to pidgin, despite the fact that the Jesuit's English was missionary-school perfect. “Understandee, boy? Quickee, go go, chop chop.”

When the Shanghai delegation left, the tent flap was momentarily held open by the wind—and there in the bright sunlight stood the bannerman Maxi had encountered that morning. He glared at Maxi—and Maxi believed he had never seen so much hate in the eyes of any individual in his life.

Later, as Maxi lay on the surgeon's table in the belly of HMS
Cornwallis,
he thought that the hate in the bannerman's eyes was totally justified. Then the surgeon yanked the cartilage of his broken nose back into place and the pain that rocketed through his body removed any sentimental feeling Maxi had for the bannerman, the man's children, if he had any, or the lowliest beast of burden in the Middle Kingdom.

* * *

FOUR FULL DECKS ABOVE Maxi, in the Captain's well-appointed quarters, Gough reported on the securing of Shanghai to Governor General Pottinger, who was perched like an old owl over a table covered with river charts.

“We'll leave a battle frigate in this harbour and send another back to here,” Pottinger stated, pointing to the mouth of the Yangtze by the village of Woosung.

That made sense to Gough, and he nodded.

“Glad you agree, Admiral,” Pottinger said, then added, “I want the commander of the frigates to be instructed to intercept and sink any and all Chinese vessels heading up or down the river.” He lifted his head from the charts.

“A blockade, sir?” Gough asked incredulously.

“Yes. That's the word I've been searching for. A blockade.” Pottinger seemed to be tasting the word. He smiled, an ugly thing to witness as it exposed the diminutive creature's rotted front teeth. Then Queen Victoria's appointed man in China mumbled something unintelligible and abruptly left the cabin.

For a moment Gough didn't know what to do, then he raced after Pottinger and managed to corner the
Governor General on the forecastle deck. “I have misgivings about a full blockade, sir.”

Pottinger turned to Gough and a quizzical look crossed his surprisingly large facial features. “Are you questioning my command, Admiral?”

“No, sir. But why can we not allow trade in common goods to continue?”

Her Majesty's representative in China drew himself up to his full five-foot, four-inch height and said, in his fulsome Oxford lisp, “We will take no half measures, my good sir. We have come to this God-forsaken place to accomplish a task, and nothing, nothing, will stand in the way of our endeavour. Our period of operations is limited. The government and people of England look to me for decisive results. We will let the monkey emperor see that we have the means, and are prepared to exert them, of increasing pressure on his damnable country to an unbearable degree.” A small smile creased his glistening lips. “Once the armada is fully on the river we will stop and loot every Chinese vessel we come across. Is that clear?”

Gough understood the advantage of raiding Chinese coal vessels to take the coal for their own steamers, but why all the vessels? And had the Queen's representative in China really legitimized looting? Finally he said, “We want to trade with the Chinese, not starve them to death.” He added the word
sir
just in time to avoid a formal reprimand.

Pottinger thought about that for a moment, then replied, “A few starving Chinamen might prove advan-tageous—very advantageous.”

London December 1841

The Vrassoon Patriarch signalled for the matron to take the beautiful madwoman from his arms. “Gently, gently now,” he cooed after her as the matron took her and marched her back across the room.

The beautiful madwoman broke free and ran back to Eliazar, clutching at his arm. “Will you dance with me?”

“Surely. Surely I will dance with you,” he said, removing her nailless fingers from his coat and turning her to face the matron once again. “Be gentle with her. She's not dangerous.”

The matron ignored him and yanked the bedraggled creature by the fleshy part of her upper arm. Two stalwart
guards stepped forward and reaffixed the buckles and belts of her outer restraining garment.

Vrassoon looked away. He wanted to wash his hands, but not while she could see him. He owed her that, at least.

“Why bother seeing her at all?” It was his elegant eldest son, Ari, who thought of the woman as his mad older cousin.

Because she's my heart,
Eliazar wanted to say but didn't dare. Then he turned on his son. “How dare you interfere with my privacy?”

“I had no choice, Father.”

“And why exactly is that? Why are you here?”

“There's news. News that couldn't wait for your return to the office.”

Vrassoon raised a single bushy eyebrow. His son signalled him to follow.

Ten minutes later they were in the family's luxurious carriage. The company's two China hands sat across from the Vrassoons. The Patriarch demanded, “They've been authorized by the government to do what?”

“To blockade the Yangtze if they see fit, sir,” said the elder China hand, then added, “so that not a single ship can get into the river. And on the river itself they've been given permission to stop every boat—to take the goods and burn the vessels.”

“They're fools, Father,” said Ari
.

Eliazar Vrassoon looked out the carriage window and thought about that. The men on the British Expeditionary Force were men in search of riches, not so different from himself. He reached out and flipped the latch. The window folded outward. The stink of London entered the carriage. Finally he asked, “Will there be hunger?”

“Surely,” the younger China hand replied.