it’s getting rottener and more corrupt and decadent by the minute. Look at their ramshackle government –”
“Look at the Taipings, if you like!” cries he. “That’s the new China, mark my words! They’ll stand this whole country on its head, ’fore they’re through, see if they don’t!” He took a big breath, smoothing his long black hair with both hands in an odd nervous gesture; his eyes were shining with excitement. “The new China! Boy, I’m going to get me a section of that, though! Know what, colonel? – after this trip, I might just take myself a long slant up the Yangtse and join up with ’em. Tai’ping tieng-kwow, eh? The Kingdom of Heavenly Peace – but can’t they fight some? I guess so – and you may be sure they’re on the look-out for mercenaries – why, a go-ahead white man could go right to the top among ’em, maybe make Prince even, with a button on his hat!” He laughed and slapped his fist, full of ginger.
“You’re crazy,” says I, “but since they are too, you’ll fit right in, I dare say.”
“Fred T. Ward fits in anywhere, mister!” cries he, and then he was away along the deck again, chivvying the boatmen to trim the great mainsail, yelling his bastard pigeon and laughing as he tailed on to the rope.
Not only China-struck, but a well-fledged lunatic, I could see. Of course he wasn’t alone in having a bee in his bonnet about the Taipings; even the European Powers were keeping an anxious eye on them, wondering how far they might go. In case you haven’t heard of them, I must tell you that they were another of those incredible phenomena that made China the topsy-turvey mess it was, like some fantastic land from Gulliver, where everything was upside down and out of kilter. Talk about moonbeams from cucumbers; the Taipings were even dafter than that.
They began back in the ’40s, when a Cantonese clerk failed his examinations and fell into a trance, from which he emerged proclaiming that he was Christ’s younger brother – a ploy which, I’m thankful to say, I never tried on old Arnold after making a hash of my Greek construes at Rugby. Anyway, this clerk decided he had a God-given mission to overthrow the Manchoos and establish “the Tai’ping” – the Kingdom of Eternal Peace or Heavenly Harmony or what you will. He went about preaching a sort of bastard Christianity which he’d picked up from missionary tracts, and in any normal country he’d either have been knocked on the head or given a University Chair. But this being China, his crusade had caught on, against all sense and reason, and within a few years he’d built up an enormous army, devastated several provinces, thrashed various Imperial generals, captured dozens of cities including the old capital, Nanking, and come within an ace of Pekin itself. Getting madder by the minute, mark you, but among the millions of peasants who’d rallied to him and swallowed his religious moonshine, there were some likely lads who plotted the campaigns, fought the battles, and imposed his amazing notions of worship and discipline on a sizeable slice of the population.
This was the famous Taiping Rebellionb, the bloodiest war ever fought on earth, and it was still going great guns in ’60. Countless millions had already died in it, but neither the Imperials nor the rebels looked like winning just yet; the Imps were besieging Nanking, but not making much of it, while various Taiping armies were rampaging elsewhere, spreading the gospel and piling up the corpses, as not infrequently happens.
There was some sympathy for the Taipings among those Europeans (missionaries mostly) who mistakenly thought they were real Christians, and a few enthusiasts, as well as rascals and booty-hunters, had enlisted with them. Meanwhile our government, and the other foreign states who had some trade interest in China (and hoped to have a lot more) were watching uneasily, afraid to intervene, but devilish concerned about the outcome.
So there you are: a Manchoo government with an idiot Emperor who thought the world was square, fighting a lethargic war against rebels led by a lunatic, and preparing to resist a Franco-British invasion which wasn’t to be a war, exactly, but rather a great armed procession to escort our Ambassador to Pekin and persuade the Chinks to keep their treaty obligations – which included legalising the opium traffic at that moment personified by H. Flashman and his band of yellow brothers3. And in case you think I was incautious, heading up-river at such a time, take a squint at the map, and be aware that all the bloodshed and beastliness was a long way from Canton; you’d not have caught me near the place otherwise.
We were into the Bocca Tigris, where the estuary narrows to a broad river among islands, before I started to earn my corn. Out from Chuenpee Fort comes an Imperial patrol boat with some minor official riff-raff aboard, hollering to us to heave to; Ward cocked an eye at me, but I shook my head, and we swept past them without so much as “good day”; they clamoured in our wake for a while, beating gongs and waving wildly, but gave up when they saw we’d no intention of stopping. Ward, who’d been anxiously scanning the big forts on the high bluffs overlooking the channel, shook his head with relief and grinned at me.
“Is it always so easy?” cries he, and I told him, not quite, we’d meet more determined inquiry farther on, but I would talk our way past. Sure enough, in late afternoon, when we were clearing Tiger Island, up popped a splendid galley, all gold and scarlet, with dragon banners and long ribbons fluttering from her upper works, her twenty oars going like clockwork as she steered to intercept us. She had three or four jingalsc in her bows, and fifty men on her deck if there was one; under a little canopy on her poop there was a Mandarin in full fig of button-hat and silk robe, seated in state – and flying a kite, with a little lad to help him with the string. Even the most elderly and dignified Chinese delight in kites, you know, and no city park is complete without a score of sober old buffers pottering about like contented Buddhas with their airy toys fluttering and swooping overhead. This was a fine bird-kite, a great silver stork so lifelike you expected it to spread its wings as it hovered hundreds of feet above us.
To complete this idyllic scene, the galley carried on its bows a huge wooden cage, crammed with about twenty wretched coolies so close-packed they could hardly stir – criminals being carried to their place of punishment, probably. Their wailing carried across the water as the galley feathered her oars and an officer bawled across, demanding our business.
“Ruth and Naomi, lorchas from Hong Kong, carrying opium to the factories,” shouts I in my best Mandarin, and he said he must come aboard and examine us. I told Ward to keep way on the lorchas, and on no account to heave to. “If those thieving bastards once get on our deck, they’ll have the stoppings out of our teeth,” I told him. “But if we keep going, there’s nothing they can do about it.”
“Suppose they fire on us?” says he, eyeing the jingals.
“And start another war?” I nodded at the Union Jack at our stern, and hollered across the water:
“Our licence is in order, your excellency, and we are in great haste, and must proceed to Canton without delay. So you can bugger off, see?”
This provoked a great screaming of instructions to heave to immediately, but no one moved to the jingals, so I jumped on the rail and pointed to our flag.
“This is a British vessel, and I am a close friend of Pahsia-li, who’ll have your yellow hide if you get gay with us, d’ye hear?” In fact, I’d never met Harry Parkes, who was our man at Canton – and pretty well lord and master of the place – but I guessed the mention of his name might cause ’em to think. “Sheer off, damn you, or we’ll have half the oars out of you!” She was gliding in to head us off, not thirty feet away, and in a moment her oars would be crumpled against our hull; it was a question of who gave way. Suddenly she veered on to a parallel course, with the officer shrieking to us to heave to; I made a rude gesture, and he ran to the Mandarin for instructions.
I
