But I imagine that there will always be some practised person at hand who will be able to shoot all that is necessary for food.’
‘Food? Oh, yes. I was thinking … but it’s of no importance,’ said Sullivan.
At Tientsin they berthed the Wanderer, laying her up in a mud-berth in the charge of an ancient ship-keeper whose family had done nothing but keep ships in that particular piece of mud since the time of the Ming emperors. The Malays were paid off, but Li Han and Olaf remained through the days of preparing the ship for her long repose in the mud. They grew more and more despondent as the preparations neared their end, and Derrick remembered uneasily that he had promised to ask whether they could go along with the expedition. He could not very well forget it, because Li Han kept reminding him, either by strong hints or else by unexpected delicacies, a shark’s fin, an unusually large sea-slug or a basket of loquats, all of which were intended to spur him on. One day as he was passing the Professor’s cabin he suddenly plucked up courage and went in. The Professor was reading: he looked up at Derrick and pushed his spectacles on to his forehead.
‘I hope I am not interrupting you, sir,’ said Derrick.
‘Not at all, not at all,’ placing a small stone seal on the page to mark his place. ‘No, no, not in the least. What were you saying?’
‘I hadn’t said anything, sir.’
‘Then you had better begin, you know. We cannot carry on a conversation if you will not say anything.’
‘I was thinking of saying –’
‘But, my dear boy, do you not see that such a dialogue would lead to no useful result? We should sit gazing at one another indefinitely. However, now that you are here, let me read you a most interesting account of Shin Mei’s travels in the Gobi – he was Ssu-ma’s grandson, you know.’
‘But, Professor –’
‘Ah, yes, I know. You are going to say that this has no bearing on the matter. But you are mistaken. It is about the Mongolian fashion of beginning a conversation. Listen …’
Half an hour later Derrick was still listening.
‘There, you see?’ said the Professor at last. ‘Is it not extraordinary that just as I reached that point you should have come in with the intention of beginning a conversation too? Tell me, what was it to be about?’
‘I was going to ask if Li Han and Olaf could come on the expedition. Li Han is a very good cook, and he says he would come without any pay for the privilege of cooking for a – for a worthy philosophical scholar. Those were the words he used. But he hasn’t the nerve to ask. And Olaf is very keen, too. He is a wonderful seaman. Please could they come, sir?’
‘Olaf is the very large person with a voice like a bull in pain, is he not?’
‘Yes, that’s him.’
‘That is he, Derrick. And Li Han is the cook. Did he cook our dinner when first I came aboard the Wanderer, and all the wonderful meals since?’
‘Yes, sir. And he can read and write English as well as I can.’
‘Really, as well as that?’
Derrick went red. ‘No, I mean – but really, he is very clever. He told me what archaeology was right away, when I asked him.’
‘Did he, indeed? Do you remember his definition?’
‘He said it was disinterment of ancient fragments.’
The Professor smiled. ‘Well, upon my word,’ he said, ‘an erudite sea-cook – and such a cook, too. Hotcha,’ he added, after some thought.
‘Hotcha, sir?’
‘Yes. Hotcha. It is an expression that denotes vehement approval.’
‘Then they can come? Oh, gee, Professor, thanks a lot.’
‘Come? Where?’
‘Why, to Samarcand, with us.’
‘Oh, yes. Of course. You refer to the expedition. I remember now: you mentioned it before. But, my dear boy, that has nothing to do with me, has it? You must suggest your plan to Mr Ross, or to your uncle. I am sure that he will be delighted. But before you go, let me read you a fascinating passage that I chanced upon this morning.’ He hunted through the pages and up and down the close-packed columns of Chinese print, but before he could find his place Ross and Sullivan came in.
‘Ah, here you are,’ said Professor Ayrton. ‘We were just talking about you. Derrick was asking me whether we should not take some of your crew along, and I proposed that he should refer the question to you.’
‘He was, was he?’ said Sullivan. ‘Derrick, perhaps you will have the kindness to wait for me in the saloon.’
As Derrick passed the galley Li Han popped his head out and asked, ‘Bad news?’ Derrick nodded, and rapidly outlined the situation. Li Han passed him a small mat, saying, ‘Provision against wrath to come.’
The wrath came, very quickly, and a great deal of it. Sullivan was a big man, with red hair and blue eyes; but when he was angry he seemed to be a great deal taller, his hair blazed, and his eyes emitted sparks that were very disagreeable to behold. He picked Derrick up by the shoulder with one hand, held him there for some time on a level with his face, then put him down and said quietly, ‘Listen to me, young fellow. Suppose an ordinary seaman were to go to the owner and say, “My dear sir, don’t you think it would be an excellent idea if the main to’garns’l were struck? It is blowing rather hard.” And then if he were to go to the captain or the mate and say, “Mr Mate, the owner would like the main to’garns’l struck,” what do you think the mate would say? If I were the mate, the man wouldn’t walk for a week, if he ever walked at all: but in your case, young fellow, I think I can promise you that you won’t sit down for a week.’
Afterwards, he said: ‘It may comfort you to know that we were going to take Olaf and Li Han anyway: you can go and tell them, if you like.’
Li Han greeted him with an anxious face. ‘Soothing embrocation?’ he said. ‘A little Tiger Balm? A cup of nourishing tea? Repose the weary frame in this chair.’
‘Thank you, Li Han, but I think I’ll stand up for the moment. You’re coming, and so is Olaf. And I heard them say that we shall start for Peking on Thursday morning.’
Sullivan and Ross had a strange knack of knowing people in the most unlikely places: Derrick had almost ceased to be astonished when his uncle was greeted with open arms by odd-looking men of all races and colours – there had been the Portuguese monk in Macao, the Dyak chieftain on the Limpong river, the enormously wealthy Armenian merchant in Canton, the one-eyed Ibn Batuta navigating his Arab dhow through the Hainan Strait – but here in Peking he was astonished once more, for instead of leading him to some walled-in, many-courted Chinese house, his uncle stopped at a neat, trim villa that would have looked perfectly in place in the suburbs of Lausanne, but which looked wildly incongruous in the shadow of a pagoda and surrounded on all sides by the upward-curving tiles and dragon-trimmed roofs of its Chinese neighbours. It was a Swiss boarding-house, and Sullivan walked in as if he had known it all his life. It stood just under the walls of the Inner City of Peking, the Tartar City, but once you were inside you found it hard to believe that you were in China
