say?”
“As ever was, my son. What’s your name?”
“Fisher, sir,” says he. “Jack Fisher, midshipman.”
“Come along, Jackie,” says I, clapping him on the shoulder like the cheery soul I was – no side, you see. “And I’ll show you the wickedness of the world.”
I took him below, and he gaped at the sight of the Hong Kong girl, who was crouched shivering and bare-titted. But he gaped even wider when I showed him the contents of the “opium” chests.
“My stars!” says he again. “What does it mean?”
“Guns for the Taiping rebels, my boy,” says I grimly. “You arrived just in time, you see. Another half-hour and I’d have had to tackle these scoundrels single-handed. Your captain got my message, I suppose?”
“I dunno, sir,” says he, owl-eyed. “We saw your lorchas, turning tail, and I was sent to investigate. We’d no notion …”
So Ward’s guilty conscience had been his undoing – if he’d held his course the Navy would never have looked at him, and if they had, why, he was just carrying opium, and had the famous Flashy to vouch for him. For he wasn’t to know I’d sniffed out his real cargo. Gad, though, if that slut hadn’t begged for a pipe of chandoo, I’d have been in a pretty fix, with Ward panicking, the Navy’s suspicions aroused, and myself flat-footed when they came aboard and started rummaging. Thanks to her, I’d had those few minutes to plot my course.
“Mr Fisher,” says I, “I think it’s time I had a word with your skipper, what? Perhaps you’d be good enough to take me aboard?”
You see, of course, what I was about. It was the ploy I’d used on the slave-ship Balliol College in ’48, when the Yankee Navy caught us off Cape San Antonio, and to save my skin I’d welcomed our captors with open arms and let on that I’d only been with the slavers to spy on thema. Then, I’d had Admiralty papers to prove my false identity, but here I had something infinitely better – my fame and reputation. For who, boarding a gun-runner and finding valiant old Flashy holding the miscreants at bay single-handed, would suspect that he was one of the gang? Heroes who have led the Light Brigade and braved the heathen hordes at Cawnpore and Kabul, are above suspicion; Master Fisher might well be fogged as to what I was doing there, exactly, but it never crossed his innocent young mind that I was anything but what I’d announced myself – an army officer apprehending villainous foreign smugglers. And since I was from intelligence, no doubt there was some splendid mystery behind it, and explanations would follow. Quite.
Nor did the prospect of explaining trouble me – much. After all, I was Flashy, and it was well-known officially that I’d been up to my ears in secret affairs in India and Central Asia, and here, they would think, was more of the same. Once I’d determined what tale to tell, it was simply a matter of carrying it off with modest assurance (trust me for that) and a pinch of mystery to make ’em feel confidential and cosy, and they’d swallow whatever I told ’em, nem. con. There wouldn’t be a soul to give me the lie, and some of it would be true, anyway. (I’m proud to say it never occurred to me to tell the real truth, with Mrs Carpenter, etc. They’d never have swallowed that – which is ironic. Anyway, it would have made me look an imbecile.)
So when I was aboard the sloop, and its young commander had listened to little Fisher’s report and my own terse embellishments, and whistled softly at the sight of the lorchas’ cargo, I was perfectly prepared for the inevitable question, asked with respectful bewilderment:
“But … how came you to be aboard of them, sir?”
I looked him in the eye with just a touch of tight-lipped smile. “I think, commander,” says I, “that I’d best report direct to Mr Parkes at Canton. Least said, what? You received no message from him about … ?” and I nodded at the lorchas. “Just so. Perhaps he was right. Well, I’ll be obliged if you’ll carry me to him as soon as may be. In the meantime,” I permitted myself a wry grin, “take good care of these Chinese villains, won’t you? I’ve been after ’em too long to want to lose ’em now. Oh, and by the way – that boy Fisher shapes well.”4
He couldn’t get me to Canton fast enough; we were in the Whampoa Channel by noon, and two hours later dropped anchor off Jackass Point, opposite the old factories. Then there was a delay while the lorchas and their crews were taken in charge, and the commander went to make his report to his chief, and to Parkes – I didn’t mind, since it gave me time to polish the tale I was going to tell – and it wasn’t until the following morning that I was escorted through the English Garden to the office and residence of Harry Parkes, Esq., H.M. Commissioner at Canton and (bar Bruce at Shanghai) our chief man in China. From all I’d heard, he was formidable: he knew the country better than any foreigner living, they said, for though he wasn’t thirty he’d been out since childhood, served through the Opium Wars, been on cutting-out expeditions as a schoolboy, done all manner of secret work and diplomatic ruffianing since, and carried things with a high hand against the Chinese – whose language he spoke rather better than the Emperor.
He greeted (I won’t say welcomed) me with brisk formality, stiff and upright behind his official desk, not a hair out of place on the sleek dark head. Energy was in every line of him, from the sharp prominent nose to the firm capable hands setting his papers just so; he was all business at once, in a clear, hard voice – and suddenly, convincing him didn’t seem quite so easy.
“This is a singular business, Sir Harry! What’s behind it?”
“Not much,” says I, hoping I was right. Clever and easy, I don’t mind – I’m that way myself – but clever and brusque unsettles me. I handed him the “requested and required” note Palmerston had given me when I went to India – the usual secret passport, but pretty faded now. “You had no message from me?”
“I did not know you were in China, until yesterday.” He glanced up sharply from the passport. “This is more than three years old.”
“When I left England. What I’ve been doing since will have to stay under the rose, I’m afraid –”
He gave a little barking laugh. “Not altogether, I fancy,” says he, with what he probably imagined was a smile. “Your knighthood and Victoria Cross are hardly state secrets.”
“I meant since then – this past year. It has nothing to do with this affair, anyway – that’s a tale that’s soon told.” I breathed an inward prayer, meeting the steady grey eyes in that lean lawyer face. “I’m due home on the Princess Charlotte, sailing on the eleventh –”
“In three days? Grant is due on the thirteenth. I beg your pardon, pray continue.”
“Aye, well, two nights ago I was over in Macao, looking up an old chum from Borneo, when I was with Brooke.” No harm in dropping in that glorious acquaintance, I thought. “I needn’t mention his name, it’s of no importance, but he’s a downy bird, Chinese, with an eye in every bush – an old White Lily Society man, you know the sort …”
“His name might be valuable,” says Parkes, and his hand went ever so casually to a vase of flowers on his desk; he lifted it with three fingers round the stem, and set it down again. Clever bastard.
“Exactly,” says I, and ran my thumb over three fingertips5, just to show him. “Well,
