Flashman and the Dragon
‘You see how difficult it is for me to give you guidance,’ says he. ‘We do not even know what kind of folk they truly are. The Heavenly King himself has hardly been seen for years – he keeps himself secluded in a great palace, surrounded by a thousand female attendants, thinking wonderful thoughts!’ I was willing to bet he didn’t spend all his time thinking. ‘If he could be persuaded to inaction … to hold Lee in check …’ He shrugged. ‘But who is to say if he is even rational, or if you will be allowed near him? If not, you must do what you can with Loyal Prince Lee.’
A splendid choice, you’ll agree, between a recluse who thought he was Christ’s brother, and a warlord who’d done more murder than Genghiz Khan.
‘The only other who may be open to reason is the Prime Minister, Hung Jen-kan. He’s the wisest – or at least the sanest – of the Taiping Wangs. Mission educated and speaks English. The rest are ignorant, superstitious zealots, drunk on blood and power, and entirely under the sway of the Heavenly King.’ He shook his head. ‘You must use such tactful persuasions as seem best; you will know, better than I could tell you, how to speak when you are face to face with them.’
In a high-pitched shriek, probably. Of all the hopeless, dangerous fool’s errands … supposing I even got there.
‘How do I reach Nanking? Aren’t the Imps blockading the river?’
‘A passage has been booked on Dent’s steamer Yangtse. She got through to Nanking last week – the Imps give our vessels passage, and the river will be clear as far as Kiangyin still. If she’s stopped there you must go on as seems best; one of our people, a missionary called Prosser, will be looking out for you – you’ll have papers from the London Missionary Society, in the name of Mr Fleming, but the Taipings will know precisely who and what you really are, although neither they nor you will acknowledge it.’
So it was settled; I was for the high jump again, and not a damned thing to be done about it. He went over it all a second time, impressing on me the delicacy of the task, how H.M.G. must be in no way compromised, that every week of delay would be a godsend – but the main thing was to convince this crew of homicidal madmen that, whoever they killed next, it shouldn’t be done at Shanghai.
‘Well, sir,’ says I, all noble and put-upon, ‘I’ll be honest; I’ll try, but I don’t think there’s a hope of success.’
‘Another man might say that out of reluctance to go, for his safety’s sake,’ says he solemnly. ‘I know that with you, the thought of danger has not crossed your mind.’ He was right there; it had stayed rooted. ‘God bless you, Sir Harry.’ And with the angels choiring above us, we shook hands, and I marched out, and bolted for the lavatory.
I had my Adams in my armpit, a Colt in my valise, a hundred rounds, a knife in my boot, and a bulky notebook containing every known fact about the Taipings, courtesy of Messrs Fat and Lin, when I boarded the Yangtse on the following evening. It was a good two-day run to Nanking, in ideal conditions; at present, it might take a week. I was too sick and scared and furious to pay much heed to my surroundings, and as I remember the Yangtse was like any other river steamboat – half a dozen cabins aft for the Quality, of whom I was one, a couple of saloons below for those who couldn’t afford a bunk, and forward a great open steerage for the coolies and the like. Her skipper was one Witherspoon, of Greenock, a lean pessimist with a cast in his eye and a voice like coals being delivered. I’ve no doubt I spent the time before we cast off brooding fearfully, but I don’t recall, because as I leaned on the rail looking down on the quay and the oily water, I saw about the only thing that could have provided any distraction just then.
The steerage gangway was swarming with coolies, and poorer Chinese, and a few white riff-raff – Shanghai was well stocked with poor whites and shabby-genteel half-castes and scourings from half the countries on earth, even in those days. There was Lascars, of course, and Dagoes of various descriptions, Filipinos, Greeks, Malay Arabs, and every variety of slant-eye. Some of ’em were half-naked; others carried valises and bundles; the half-dozen Sikh riflemen who acted as boat-guards shepherded ’em aboard none too gently under the great flickering slush-lamps which cast weird shadows on the dockside and the steerage deck.
I was watching with half my mind when I noticed a figure stepping from quay to gangway – and even in that motley assembly it was a figure to take the eye – not only for the outlandish cut of attire, but for style and carriage and … animal quality’s the only phrase.
I like tall women, of course. Susie Willinck comes to mind, and Cleonie of the willowy height, and the superb Mrs Lade by name and nature, and Cassy, and that German wench in the Haymarket, and even such Gorgons as Narreeman and Queen Ranavalona. Mind you, there’s much to be said for the little ’uns, too – such as the Silk One, Ko Dali’s daughter, and the little blonde Valla, and Mrs Mandeville the Mad Dwarf, and Whampoa’s playmates, and Takes-Away-Clouds-Woman, and that voluptuous half-pint, Yehonala (but we’ll come to her presently). On the whole, though, I ain’t sure I don’t prefer the happy medium – like Elspeth, and Lola, and Irma, and Josette, and Fetnab, and … Elspeth.
It is no disrespect to any of these ladies, all of whom I loved dearly, to say that when it came to taking the eye, the female coming up the steerage gangplank was the equal of any and all. For one thing, she was six feet six if she was an inch, with the erect carriage of a guardsman, and light on her feet as a leopard. She was Chinese, beyond a doubt, perhaps with a touch of something from the Islands; when she laughed, as she did now, to the squat fellow behind her, it was with a deep, clear ring, and a flash of teeth in a lean, lovely face; not Chinese style, at all. She had a handkerchief bound tight round her head, and for the rest her clothing consisted of a blouse, cotton breeches ending at the knee, and heavy sandals. But round her neck she had a deep tight collar that seemed to be made of steel links, and her arms, bare to the shoulder, were heavy with bangles. As to the lines of her figure, Rubens would have bitten his brush in two.
With the plank crowded ahead of her, she had to wait, holding the side-rail in one hand and lolling back at full stretch, carelessly, laughing and talking to her companion. She chanced to look up, and met my eye; she said something to the man, and looked at me again, laughing still, and then she was up the plank like a huge cat and out of sight.
I’m not the most impressionable of men, but I found I was gripping the rail with both hands, and clenching my jaw in stern resolve. By gum, I couldn’t let that go unattended to. Built like a Dahomey Amazon, but far taller and incomparably more graceful. And possibly the strongest female I’d ever seen, which would be an interesting experience. No common woman, either; how best to coax her up to the cabin? Probably not money, nor a high hand. Well, the first thing was to get a closer look at her.
I waited till we had cast off, and the screw was churning the water, with the lights on Tsungming Island glittering in the dark distance far ahead. Then I asked the steward where the ladder was to the steerage; he pointed down the companion, and said I would find the mate by the saloon door, he’d show me. Sure enough, a fellow in a pilot cap came out of the saloon and started up the ladder as I started down. He glanced up, smiling, starting to bid me good evening, and then his jaw dropped, and my hand shot under my jacket to the butt of the Adams.
It was Mr Frederick Townsend Ward.
For perhaps five seconds we just stared at each other, and then he laughed, in the pleasantest tone imaginable.
‘Well, damn me!’ says he. ‘It’s the Colonel! How are you, sir?’
‘Keep your hands in front of you – sir,’ says I. ‘Now come up, slowly.’ I stepped back to the cabin deck, and he followed, still grinning, glancing at my hidden hand.
‘Say, what’s the matter? Look, if that’s a piece under your coat – this is a law-abiding boat, you know—’
‘You mean she isn’t running guns to the Taipings?’
He laughed heartily at this, and shook his head. ‘I gave that up! Say, and you took a shot at me – two shots! What did you do that for? You weren’t going to come to any harm, you know. I’d ha’ taken you back to Macao when we’d delivered the goods!’ He sounded almost aggrieved.
‘Oh, forgive me! No one told me that, you see. It must have slipped everyone’s mind, along with the trivial fact that you were carrying guns, not opium.’
‘Listen, Carpenter said the less you knew the better,’ says he earnestly. ‘Those were his orders. The damned dummy,’ he added irritably. ‘If he’d ha’ given me a real Chink pilot, we’d never ha’ seen that Limey patrol-boat. Hey, how did you come out of that, though?’
‘Perhaps I didn’t.’ I said it on the spur of the moment, and his eyes widened.
‘You don’t mean they broke you?’ He whistled. ‘Gee, I’m sorry about that! I sure am, though.’ Absolutely, he sounded shocked. ‘Over a passel o’ guns. Well, I’ll be!’ He shook his head, and smiled, a mite sheepish. ‘Say, colonel … why don’t you let that hog-leg alone, and come on in my berth for a drink? See here, I’m sorry as hell – but t’wasn’t my fault. ’Sides, it’s over and done with now.’ He looked at me, half-grinning, half-contrite. ‘And you’re ahead o’ me by two shots. No hard feelings. Okay?’ And he held out his hand.
Now, I know a rogue when I see one – and I was forming a strange suspicion that Mr Ward wasn’t a rogue at all. Oh, I’ve known charming rascals, bland as be-damned, and the eyes give them away every time. This fellow’s were bright and dark and innocent as a babe’s – which you might say was all against him. And yet … he sounded downright pleased to see me. I couldn’t credit he was that good an actor; and why should he trouble to be? There was nothing I could do to him, now; certainly not here.
‘I ought to blow your blasted head off!’ says I.
‘You dam’ near did!’ cries he cheerily, and when I continued to ignore his hand: ‘Okay, you’ve got a right to be sore, I guess. But why don’t we go lower a couple, anyway? I’m off watch.’
Indeed, why not? I can only say he was a hard man to refuse, and the truth is I was curious about him. He was a rare bird, I felt sure, so I followed him out of the warm night into the stuffy little cabin, where he seated me on the bunk and poured out two stiff tots. ‘Say, this is fine!’ says he, sitting on the locker. ‘How’ve you been?’ And without letting me reply he rattled off into a recital of his own escape through the paddy, and how he’d smuggled himself back to Macao, and thence up the coast to Shanghai, where he’d flourished his papers at Dent’s, and got himself a mate’s berth. I watched him like a hawk, but he was easy as old leather, prattling away. Crazy, undoubtedly, but if he was crook, it didn’t show.
‘It’s not a bad berth,’ says he, ‘but I won’t stick. Fellow called Gough, one of your people, commands a gunboat flotilla for the Imps. He’s offered me second place on the Confucius; reckon I’ll take it.’
‘What happened to the notion of being a Taiping prince?’ I asked, and he grinned and pulled a face.
‘No, sir, thank you. I’ve had a look at ’em, these past few weeks. They’re not for Fred T.’ He shook his head so firmly that, thinking of my own mission, I pressed him for information.
‘Well, all this stuff about being Christians – they don’t have the first notion! They have a lot o’ mumbo-jumbo about Jesus, that they’ve picked up an’ got wrong, but … Listen – to give you an idea, when they get a new recruit they give him three weeks to learn the Lord’s Prayer, and if he can’t – whist!’ He chopped his hand against his neck. ‘No fooling! Now, what kind of Christianity is that, will you tell me? And they treat the people something shameful. Take all their goods – ’cos no one can have property in the Taiping, it’s all in common, ’lessn you’re one of the top Wangs. And they put ’em to work in companies, like it was the army, and if they’re too old or sick to work – whist again! And everybody has to work for the Taiping, see, and obey all their foolish rules about religion, an’ learn the proclamations of the Heavenly King by heart – and, boy, they’re the wildest stuff, I tell you! The Thousand Correct Things, an’ the Book of Celestial Decrees, and nobody understands ’em a little bit!’
I said the missionaries were all for them, and he shook his head again. ‘Maybe they used to be, but now they’ve had a good look. You go upriver, into a Taiping province, you see the ruin, the gutted villages, the bodies laying about in thousands – and it ain’t as if all their rules and discipline made things better – why, they make it worse! Nobody has land, so nobody can plant ’cept the Taiping tells him, an’ the local governors, why, they have to wait for orders from further up, an’ the fellow further up … well, there’s nothing in it for him, and he probably used to be a shoemaker, anyway, so what does he know about crops? He knows the rules, though, and learns a new chapter of the Bible each day, and thinks Moses was a Manchoo Mandarin who thought better of it!’
I recalled that the Heavenly King himself had been an educated man, and while he was crazy there must be some Taipings who knew how things should be run; he scoffed me out of court.
‘That kind of person – you mean merchants and clerks and fellows with some schooling – they have no time for the Heavenly Kingdom; they’re mostly dead, anyway, or made themselves scarce. Why should they truck with a crowd that just robs ’em and says they’re no better’n the peasants? ’Sides, they can see the Taipings are only good at killing and stealing and laying waste.’
‘You seem to have learned a lot in a short time,’ I said, and he replied that one trip up to Nanking, and a look at the country around, had been enough for him. ‘They’re so mean and cruel,’ he kept saying. ‘Sure, the Imps are worse – their army’s rotten, and they just use the war as an excuse for plundering and killing wherever they go – but at least they’ve got something behind them, I mean, a real government, even if it doesn’t work too well … a … a … sort of like the Constitution. I mean … China.’ He grinned ruefully, and poured me another drink. ‘I don’t make it too clear, I guess. But the Taipings just have this crazy dream – and they’re no good at making things work. Well, the Imps aren’t much better, maybe, but at least they can read and write.’
I asked if he had seen anything of the leading Taipings at Nanking, and he said, no, but he had heard plenty. ‘They do all right, from what I hear – that’s what really got my goat. There’s all this fine talk about love and brotherhood and equality – but the Wangs live in palaces and have a high old time, while the people are tret no better’n niggers. You know,’ says he, all boyish earnestness, ‘at the beginning, they made the women and men stay apart – there was a special part of Nanking for the girls, and if they and the boys … you know … why, they just killed ’em. Even now, ’lessn you’re married – well, if you … you know … they just – whist! The poor people are allowed one wife, but the Wangs …’ He blew out his cheeks. ‘They have all the girls they want, and aren’t there some doings in those palaces? So I heard.’ I found this quite cheering, and pressed him for further details, but he didn’t have any. ‘It’s one law for the rich and another for the poor, I guess,’ says he philosophically. ‘Mind, they’ve done some good things, like not letting girls bind their feet, and don’t they come down hard on crooks and shysters, though! Stealing, opium-smoking, girls selling themselves, anything illegal at all – or even just talking out of turn – and off comes the head. I’ve seen that.’
I wondered how long the people would endure a rule quite as despotic as the Manchoos’, and even less efficient, and he laughed.
‘Wait till you see those Taiping soldiers! One thing they’re good at is discipline – putting it on the people, and taking it themselves. That’s why they can whip the Imps, easy; they’re real good, and so are their generals. I’ll tell you something, an’ the sooner all our people realise it, the better – this here’s going to be a Taiping China, for keeps, unless we – I mean you British and us Americans, and the French maybe, do something about it.’ He’d become very earnest, rapping his finger on the locker; a serious lad, when he wasn’t being crazy. But all his talk about the Wangs and their women had reminded me of what I’d been about in the first place, so presently I left him and strolled down to the steerage. Besides, my chat with him had almost been in the way of duty, and I was due for a spell of vicious recreation.
It was full night now, and we were thumping upstream with the Tsungming lights to starboard and the last warmth dying from the night wind. The great steerage deck, poorly lit, was littered with sleepers, and I was about to turn back, cursing, and wait until daylight, when I heard voices forrard. I picked my way over the bodies and rounded the deckhouse in the bows, and my heart gave a lustful little skip – there was the slim, towering figure at the bow-rail, talking with a couple of Chinese rivermen; they turned to glower at me, and then the girl laughed and said something, and the Chinks melted into the dark, leaving the two of us alone under the bow-lamp. She lounged with her elbows on the rail – Jove, what a height she was, topping me by a good four inches. I stepped up to her, lustfully appraising the play of the superb muscles on the bare bangled arms, the lazy grace of the splendid body, and the sensuous hawk face above the strange chain collar. Aye, she was ready to play; it was in every line of her.
‘Hiya, tall girl,’ says I, and she shot me an insolent, knowing look, like a vain tart.
‘Gimme smoke, yao,’ says she, extending a palm. ‘Yao’ is ‘foreigner’, and not at all polite from a Chinese to a white man.
‘The black smoke, or one of these?’ I offered my cheroot case, and the slant eyes flickered.
‘A fan-qui who speaks Chinese? A cheroot, then.’ Certainly not a common woman; she spoke Pekin, albeit roughly. I lit her a cheroot, and she held my hand with the match in slender fingers whose grip made me tingle; not a whore’s touch, though, just simple strength. She inhaled deeply – and so did I, gloating.
‘Come to my cabin,’ says I, slightly hoarse, ‘and I’ll give you a drink.’
She showed her teeth, gripping the cheroot. ‘There’s only one thing you want to give me,’ says she – and named it, anatomically.
‘And right you are,’ says I, quite delighted. This was something new in Chinese women – coarse, insolent, and to the point – so to show my own delicacy and good breeding I gripped her port tit; under the thin blouse it felt like a large, hard pineapple. She gave a little grunt, and a long, slow, wicked smile at me, drawing on her cheroot.
‘How much cash?’ says she, narrow-eyed.
‘My dear child,’ says I, gallantly relinquishing her poont, ‘you don’t have to pay me! Oh, I see … why, I wouldn’t insult you by offering money!’ Wouldn’t I, though – I was boiling fit to offer her the Bank, but I guessed it wouldn’t answer with this one, in spite of her question. She had a damned leery look in her eye, sensual and calculating, but with a glint of amusement, unless I was mistaken.
‘No cash, hey? But you expect me to——?’ Her vocabulary was deplorable, but at least it left no room for misunderstanding.
‘That’s the ticket,’ says I heartily, ‘so instead of further flirtation I suggest that we—’
Suddenly she chuckled, and then laughed outright, with her head back and everything quivering to distraction. I was preparing to spring when she came up off the rail, bangles tinkling, and stood looking down at me, the ogre’s missus contemplating a randy Jack-the-Giant-Killer. It’s a rum feeling, I can tell you, being surveyed by a beauty half a head taller than you are. Stimulating, though.
‘Suppose,’ says she, in that soft deep voice, ‘that I took payment? I might rob a rich fan-qui.’
‘You might try, Miranda. Now then—’
‘Yes, I might. And if you, big clever fan-qui, caught me …’ She put her hands on her hips, with that lazy smile. ‘… you might beat a poor girl – would you beat me, fan-qui?’
‘With pleasure,’ says I, slavering at the prospect. She nodded, glanced either way, gave me her insolent grin again, drew deep on the cheroot – and pulled the front of her blouse down to her waist.
For a moment I stood rooted, hornily agog before all that magnificent meat, and then, as any gentleman would have done, I seized one in either hand, nearly crying. Which was absolutely as the designing bitch had calculated – she suddenly gripped my elbows, I instinctively jerked them down to my sides, and without stooping, or shoulder movement, or the least exertion at all, she lifted me clean off the deck! I was too dumbfounded to do anything but dangle while she held me (thirteen-stone-odd, bigod!) with only the strength of her forearms under my rigid elbows, grinned up into my face, and spoke quietly past the cheroot:
‘Would you really beat a poor girl, fan-qui?’
Then before I could reply, or hack her shins, or do anything sensible, she straightened her arms upwards, holding me helpless three feet up in the air, before abruptly letting go. I came down cursing and stumbling, clutching at the deckhouse for support. By the time I’d recovered my balance, she was modestly replacing her blouse, taking a last pull at the cheroot, and flicking it over the rail. She put a hand on her hip, grinning derisively, while I seethed with rage and shame – and awe at the realisation of that appalling strength.
‘All right, then, damn you!’ I snarled. ‘Twenty dollars? Fifty if you’ll stay the night!’
God, how she laughed, the strutting, arrogant slut – and she’d lifted me like a kitten! I don’t know when I’ve felt so mortified – or so determined to have my way with a woman. Well, it wasn’t going to be rape, that was sure – nor money, apparently.
‘Fifty dollars?’ She laughed. ‘No, fan-qui – nor fifty thousand, from a weakling. But a strong man, now …’ She waited, with that taunting, confident smile, daring me, as I fell to raging at her and then to whining, saying it had been a trick, she’d taken an unfair advantage, damn her … and then I gave a great gasp, like Billy Bones in apoplexy, rolled my eyes, clutched my heart, and reeled fainting against the deckhouse … well, she’d not have been human if she hadn’t stepped up for a closer look, would she?
I bar hitting women, except for fun, especially when they’re strong enough to uproot the town hall clock, but I was choking with vengeful fury – toss me about like thistledown, would she, the infernal slut? I let out a whimpering groan, and as she advanced, alarmed, I let drive my right into her midriff with all my force; she doubled up like a rag doll, her knees buckling, and I was on her back in an instant, twisting the chain collar like a garotte, flattening her by sheer weight. She clawed back at me over her shoulder, and I shot my left hand under her arm and on to the nape of her neck in a half-nelson. I was blind with rage and fit to murder, and if she’d been less abominably powerful I might have done it. But as she heaved and strained beneath me it was all I could do to hang on, doing my damnedest to choke her with the steel links biting into her throat. We thrashed and rolled about the deck, her long legs flailing; thumping against the bulkhead, then against the rail, my aching fingers twisting the collar ever tighter, her splendid shoulders heaving to break my grip – God, she was strong, and I knew in a few seconds she must break the lock.
I gave one last despairing heave on the collar, and suddenly felt her slacken beneath me; her head gave a little beneath my left hand, and I roared with triumph. Suddenly her free hand was slapping the deck, in the age-old wrestler’s submission; I clung to the chain like grim death.
‘Had enough, damn you?’ I wheezed. ‘Give over, you bloody monster?’ Slap-slap, on the deck, I let the collar slacken an inch – and suddenly she reared up, breaking the headlock and tearing the collar free. I rolled away, preparing to fly for my life, when I realised she was scrambling back, holding her throat, her other hand up to ward her face. Was she beat? Was this the moment to set about her with my belt? – and then I realised that she was poised on one knee, ready for battle … and she was absolutely grinning at me, bright-eyed … and we were no longer alone.