The Secret Mandarin (17 page)

We were both nervous of what lay ahead. That night we would eat in a Chinese hostelry as Chinese gentlemen. Would we get away with it? Robert cleared his throat and his voice took on an air of formality.

‘Mary, you do understand what we are doing, don’t you? You do know the penalties for this if we’re caught?’

I nodded. He continued, earnestly.

‘Should they find us, should anything happen to me, then you must get away. They will kill me if they find out. They will kill you too. So if anything goes wrong you must
make for Ning-po. Make for Bertie. Any Catholic priest on the way will help you. There are missions at Hang Chow Foo and one at Yen Chow Foo as well. Don’t worry about me. Just run.’

His concern touched me.

‘It won’t come to that,’ I said. ‘I’m sure of it. And besides, if they capture me rather than you I will fully expect you to stage a rescue, you know. No heroic stoicism for me. No “just get away if you can”, Mr Fortune.’

Robert laughed. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll come with guns blazing, Mary. You are a lady, after all. I am only worried because, well, I realised today, that perhaps I have taken advantage of having you here—you are so good with the plants and your Cantonese is better than mine. I have often treated you harshly and you have done nothing but help. If I succeed it will be worth it, you know. An Indian harvest will leave England with no need of China. This is my chance to change the world.’

I knew that. Every British household drinks tea. To have a regular supply from our own source rather than a rival nation would make millions.

‘It is all right,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to explain. And I chose it, remember?’

Robert’s voice softened. ‘Yes, but you perhaps did not understand and I wanted to say to you that you do not have to stay if the seriousness of it scares you. We are still close enough to send you back to Ning-po.’

‘No. I want to be here, Sing Wa. Truly,’ I bowed, cutting in on him. I was surprised to hear him say the words. He had changed more than his appearance today. ‘I know what we’re doing. Don’t worry.’

Robert took a deep breath.

‘Well then. Shall we try our luck with these costumes? If we fail at this hurdle it will be back to the drawing board
in Bertie’s study for the pair of us, I’m afraid. Am I passable, do you think?’

I tried to see him as a stranger. It is difficult when you know someone. A famous actor playing a part is just that. Miss Penney as a Chinese secretary still resembles Miss Penney if she is the familiar face. This kind of charade was about not being noticed. There is talent in that too, I realised, and I knew in me it was untested. I imagined passing Robert in the street in Hong Kong or Chusan. He did not seem extraordinary in any way. I too must adopt that demeanour I decided. I must vanish. Our lives depended on it. I drew up my courage.

‘Let’s go,’ I said.

Wang prepared the way. He spoke for us. In China it is as common as at home for a servant to express his master’s wishes. He had a table set and ordered some food. The hostelry was rough but it looked over the shimmering lake with its quilt of green, yellow and white flowers. Inside the place smelt of wood smoke and acrid, hot oil, which wafted from the kitchen. The dining room was half full with perhaps a dozen men sitting at the rough-hewn tables. I stayed mindful that I didn’t want to attract any attention and kept my eyes very low. The innkeeper who came to greet us hardly glanced at me but his gaze lingered on Robert’s finery as if counting the exact value of the intricate embroidery on the jacket. He was, I noted, just as dazzled by the money as Robert had hoped. As a mere servant, I merited no such attention—I was a man of no consequence. A man.

As I sipped my tea it was the first time in almost a year I had not been stared at. The first time in as long as I could remember that men were not interested in me—not so much as a glance. I watched my dining companions across the room and I mimicked the movement of their hands, the way they held their rice bowls and how they gestured as they talked.

‘It is like disappearing,’ I whispered, for we were far enough from everyone nearby to be able to speak English, low. Though it made me feel like a naughty schoolchild, I admit it, there was a wonderful freedom too. Here we were.

Robert nodded. I expect for him it was not dissimilar. Such was the attention the colour of our skin had attracted over the months that to fit in was a strange kind of relief and much to be wished for.

At the end of what was, if I’m honest, an indifferent meal, Robert chanced his luck and questioned the innkeeper about the variety of tea he had served us. He took a note of its name—Dragon Keep. With his eyes lowered respectfully, the innkeeper asked about Robert’s accent.

‘I speak firstly Kwan-hwa,’ Robert claimed loftily, warming to his role. Court dialect. The man bowed lower.

‘You are very far from home,’ he said and Robert nodded sagely.

We were further than the poor man could ever have imagined.

On the short walk back to our barge we were elated. Stars studded the dark sky and the lake glowed a soft, bluish green set off by the low moon. The darkness went on unbroken for miles. Robert caught a firefly and held its glow cupped in his hands.

‘Can you believe we got away with it?’ I said.

Robert was beaming ear to ear. He set the firefly free.

‘We must not be complacent. It may be different in the town. Hang Chow Foo is the capital of the province. There will be guards and they will know more of the world.’

But we were walking on air. For a moment our hands touched and I felt a jolt of electricity snap between us.

‘I hope you do change the world,’ I said.

Besides the mulberry trees, there were fruit groves that wafted waves of sweet air across the water, for the weather was warm and the fruit ripening. I sat on the deck and sketched everything I saw. A day or two from the town, in the wake of the fruit crop, we passed prodigious bird life. There was a rush of mina with white wings and flapping flocks of white-necked crows. Kingfishers darted in the bushes at the water’s edge and I spotted an Indian kite. Robert determined this moment to start the collection of bird skins he had planned. He ordered Wang to fetch the rifle and then conscripted the poor fellow as his hunt dog.

The pace of the barge had not quickened though it was still a stretch for Wang to run and fetch, particularly when Robert shot beyond the immediate vicinity of the riverbank. Sing Hoo concerned himself making congee and blithely ignored the pink-faced Wang each time he returned with the quarry. Robert shot a good pile of unusual birds, though they were thin and wild and none proved easily edible. After an hour he tired of it and Wang came back on deck and sat near the prow recovering his energy.

Robert ordered Sing Hoo to bring the kitchen knives to split the carcasses. He skinned them expertly while Robert and I constructed cane drying-horses and set the feathered skins out in the sun to air. It looked gruesome, I thought, the empty skins along the deck, dead heads hanging down.

‘It is like some terrible Red Indian custom,’ I said.

It made me shudder. The bargeman was fascinated. He walked past the racks making a minute inspection of each bird, and asked Robert why he had made this display.

‘To send to the North,’ Robert replied, for after our success at the inn the night before he had taken on the persona of Sing Wa.

The bargeman nodded sagely, not questioning Robert’s belief in his new identity, while I smiled wryly.

Further inland and south west there were many villages and small towns. The canals brought industry and the settlements were well fortified and in good condition. Robert took notes of everything whether it was of horticultural interest or not, though what he intended to do with the information I could not say. I saw him deep in concentration on two occasions referring to the blue notebook that contained the code. I liked that Robert had a seemingly unbounded capacity and there was constantly more to him than met the eye.

In two days we reached Hang Chow Foo. It was a fair-sized city and bustling inside its walls. At the unloading terminus there were many curiosity shops with stuffed animals, fine blown glass and rough lacquer-ware. It was here that we first encountered Chinese soldiers and had the chance to see if our disguises passed muster among those more in the know than rough country publicans and ill-educated bargehands.

‘I shall send news to Hong Kong today,’ Robert confided as he surveyed the dockside from the little window in the cabin. Our trunks were packed for we were set to transfer to another boat to continue further inland.

‘Is the information you’re collecting for Pottinger?’ I hazarded. ‘For the military?’

Robert nodded solemnly.

‘There is no harm, I suppose, in you knowing of it, Mary. They simply wish to be kept informed of any details of the interior, particularly the Chinese supply lines and fortress towns. That garrison we passed on the way in. Two hundred men I think. Vernon did mention here particularly. Hang Chow Foo is one of the closest army bases
inland. It is the least I can do for them after all the help they have afforded me.’

‘How will you get a message through?’ I asked simply.

My curiosity was piqued by this more glamorous side of my brother-in-law’s mission. Robert smiled.

‘There is an intermediary who can receive it.’

It seemed all those weeks in Hong Kong, Chusan and Ningpo there had been more than planting schedules and lists of horticultural interests organised.

‘I cannot believe you are a spy,’ I whispered in incredulity, half looking over my shoulder at the feet passing by on the dock.

‘Not at all,’ Robert said blithely. ‘Don’t be silly, Mary. I’m just British. It is better though if you do not know the details of the messaging system. Lest we are caught.’

I asked nothing further, though as time passed I came to realise that the information was coded as orders made to Chinese merchants. Robert had Wang dispatch these, addressed in Chinese, of course, with other mail heading for the coast. Robert had no interest in buying pork bellies or need for quantities of fresh soil for planting. Mr Thom, no doubt, would unravel this information, and pass it back to Vernon or Pottinger in Hong Kong. I studiously ignored the Chinese writing on the covering paper—Robert was right, I did not want to be in possession of such secrets, which in the event of our capture might be painfully extracted by the Chinese guard. Though I did wonder if Robert was paid for this kind of thing. I expect, given the circumstances, he took it on out of sheer patriotism—noblesse oblige. If he was captured he stood to be killed for his mission anyway, so why not win the respect of the establishment while he was at it?

On deck, we thanked the boatman gravely and pressed a couple of extra dollars into the man’s hand in thanks for
his discretion once more. After all, outside our party it was only the boatman who knew our true identities. We had not got away with it yet. As we turned to leave, a small phalanx of soldiers marched towards us and stopped directly in front of the barge. The soldiers were smartly turned out, stony faced and armed to the teeth. They had the right to inspect any of the canal traffic.

Robert and I froze. The captain in charge of the squad saluted and Robert had the presence of mind to nod sagely.

‘Foreign goods?’ the captain barked.

Robert called Wang forward.

‘My servant will help you,’ he said, dismissively.

I noticed our bargeman. Unnerved by the inspection, he was trying to back slowly away along the deck.

‘You!’ the captain insisted, spotting the man sidling away and homing in on him. He pulled the poor wretch forward.

‘Your barge?’

The boatman nodded, terrified. I felt my stomach turn over and my hands start to shake. If the man broke down we were dead. I stood stock still and tried to show no emotion.

‘Foreign goods?’ the captain demanded again and I realised they intended to levy taxes on anything not made in China. This was strictly against the recent treaty.

‘No. Nothing. Only to ferry the honourable Sing Wa. I carry no cargo,’ the man swore, petrified.

The captain was not satisfied by this and motioned two of his men to board our vessel. They moved ropes along the deck carelessly to see if anything might be stowed under them and then disappeared into the cabin to search. By now my skin was crawling with terror. We had foreign goods, of course, among our belongings, most obviously our notebooks. I thanked my stars that these were safely stowed inside the hidden compartments along with strings
of money and our English clothes. For a brief moment I had a vision of the soldiers finding my corset, petticoats and bloomers and wondering what on earth they could be, though of course, all that would have mattered to them was that they were clearly, undeniably, foreign. I held my breath. After a few moments in the cabin, one man came up on deck with two bird skins balanced on his sword and I felt a flood of relief that that was the worst he could find.

Robert, seeming relaxed, motioned towards him.

‘Ah yes. To make the journey more bearable for me. I collect these. I shot them on the bank of the canal. Perhaps, captain, you would like to have them, as a souvenir. You are very welcome.’

The man stared. Then he laughed. He ordered the soldier to replace the bird skins.

‘Go and help,’ Robert dispatched Sing Hoo, who disappeared below deck.

The waiting was agony. We could hear them banging about and only guess what they might find. However, the truth was that the vast part of our luggage was either Chinese or horticultural in nature. The foreign goods they were after were very few and thankfully well hidden. After a few minutes the men came back on deck. They rejoined their comrades. I counted a dozen swords and as many knives. I tried to stay calm or at least to appear so.

‘Thank you, sir.’ The captain saluted again.

‘You are doing a good job for China,’ Robert told him.

I felt weak as the soldiers marched off smartly through the crowded dock.

‘Blaggards,’ Robert muttered as they disappeared. ‘They are raising taxes on our goods still. That is directly against what they signed to. Pottinger must know of it. I will write again. Are you all right, Mary?’