The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  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, homily 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.

  The unholy row had attracted half Kiangsu Province, by the look of it, certainly every coolie on the steerage deck, and a ragged mob was staring from either side of the deck house, with her Chinese rivermen to the fore, looking mighty truculent. As they pressed forward I put my back to the rail, reaching for the Adams – which I’d forgotten until that moment. The sight of it stopped them dead, the rivermen’s hands came away from their knife-hilts – and the girl stood up, her shoulders shuddering and heaving, and grunted something in river dialect. Then she looked at me, gasping and rubbing her throat, and so help me, she was grinning again, positively amiable.

  Tuckered as I was, I wondered bemusedly if that murderous struggle had been the usual courting ritual of this female Goliath; lust revived as I observed her fine dishevelment, with one udder peeping provocatively out of her blouse; I put up the Adams, scowled back at the mob, and then jerked my head at her. She grinned broader than ever, taking in great breaths and rubbing her throat, but then she shook her head.

  “Good-night … fan-qui,” says she, pretty hoarse, and then she turned and disappeared into the staring rabble behind her. Truth to tell, I didn’t much mind; I was bruised and exhausted, and another bout would have carried me off; if that was what she was like merely fighting for her life, God knew how she’d behave in amorous ecstasy. I straightened my coat and pushed through the crowd, marvelling at the minds (and bodies) of women – treat ’em civilised, and they swing you round their heads; strangle ’em, and suddenly they’re all for you. Because there was no doubt about it, now; she fancied me. It’s all a matter of the proper approach.

  I knew better than to seek her out next day, as we steamed up the sluggish Yangtse; the consummation of our wooing would be all the better for keeping. I saw her once, as I paced the upper walk after tiffin; she was standing in the steerage, gazing up, and raised a hand and gave her lazy smile at sight of me. I smiled back, surveying her carefully like a farmer at the stock-ring, then nodded as one satisfied for the moment, and turned away to resume my stroll. Aye, let her wait. I had other matters to occupy me, during the day at least; I chewed the fat with Ward, boned up on my Taiping notebook, wondered when the devil Bruce’s agent would turn up, and was first in quest of news at every village landing-place.

  The crisis was plainly at hand up-river. Off Tungchow, a downriver boat informed us that the great battle about Nanking had become a rout, with the Taipings everywhere victorious; Chen’s Celestial Singers were driving through to relieve the capital, while General Lee was driving the Imps like sheep and breaking their blockade on the river.

  “And ye ken what that’ll mean,” declares Skipper Witherspoon ominously. “Every scoondrel in an Imp uniform’ll be castin’ awa’ his coat and turnin’ bandit. It’ll be worse than Flodden. Goad help the country! We’ll no’ see Nanking this trip, I’m thinkin’; we’ll dae well if we get the boat’s neb twenty miles past Kiangyin.”

  This was serious, for it meant that the last fifty miles of my journey would be through lawless country scourged by Imp deserters and Taiping fanatics. Well, they could count me out; if there was no sign of Bruce’s man, I’d turn back with Yangtse when Witherspoon decided he’d reached the safety limit; I couldn’t be blamed, if the country was impassable. But I knew Bruce wouldn’t care for that, and I was still studying to find a good excuse when we pulled in at Kiangyin late in the afternoon. It was the usual miserable hole of mud buildings and rickety bamboo wharves, with the usual peasants gaping apathetically, and stinking to wake the dead – the peasants and Kiangyin both. Beyond the town, stale paddy stretched away to the misty distance, with a few woods here and there, and the inevitable agriculturists and bullocks standing ankle-deep. A depressing spectacle, in no way redeemed by the appearance of the Rev. Matthew Prosser, B.A., God rest him.

  He came aboard like a vessel of wrath, stamping up the gangway and roaring, a small, round, red-faced cleric with corks hanging from his hat like an Australian swagman, a green veil streaming behind, an enormous dust-coat, and a fly-whisk which he used as a flail on hindering Orientals. Behind him tottered an urchin with his valise, and Prosser was furiously demanding the cabin steward when his eye lit on me, and he started as though he’d been stung. He kept darting furtive glances at me while he hectored the steward, and was no sooner inside his cabin than the door opened again, and his crimson face appeared, crying: “Hist!”

  I went over, and he dragged me in and slammed the door.

  “Not a word!” cries he, and stood, listening intently with his corks bobbing. Then, in a thunderous whisper: “I’m Prosser. How-de-do. We shall be bearing each other company, I believe. Say nothing, sir. Remember Ehud: ‘I have a secret errand unto thee, oh King; who said, keep silence’.” And he gave an enormous wink, which in that furious red face was positively alarming. “Be seated, sir! There!” He pointed firmly to the bunk, and began rummaging like a terrier in his valise.

  As it happened, I remembered Ehud, the Biblical left-hander who was adept at sticking knives in folk, which was a portent if you like. As to Prosser, he seemed such an unlikely agent that I asked him if he knew Bruce in Shanghai, and he rounded on me with bared teeth. “Not another word! Discretion, sir! We must bind our faces in secret. Now where,” he snarled, rummaging again, “did I put it? Aha, I have it! The cup was found in Benjamin’s sack!” And he lugged out a rum bottle which must have held half a gallon. He beamed, peered at the level (which was marked in pencil), set it on the table, and caught my eye.

  “Well, Balshazzar drank wine, did he not?” cries he. “But only after sundown, sir. And then but a small measure, against the evening chill. Yes. Now, sir, attend to me if you please. I believe you speak Mandarin? Good.” He seemed vastly relieved. “Then when we have reached our destination, I shall make you known to a certain personage, and leave you to your business.” He nodded heavily, glanced at the bottle, and muttered something about the Lord being good to them that wait.

  “But you’ll be staying with me in … where we’re going?” says I. He might not be much, but he’d be better than nothing.

  He shook his head angrily. “No such thing, sir! I am known, you see, and they watch me, and send forth spies that they may take hold of my words. You will do better without me – indeed, the less we are seen together, the better, even now. And once I have made you known, discreetly, to one who, like Timothy, is faithful in the Lord … faithful, I say … then my task is done. Besides, I have my own work!” And he glared at the bottle again, while I concluded that the faithful one must be the Loyal Prince, General Lee Hsiu-chen of the Taipings. Why the devil couldn’t he say so, instead of acting like Guy Fawkes?

  This was disconcerting. I’d supposed I would be dry-nursed to Nanking by some capable thug who not only knew the Taipings backwards, but could give me all manner of useful tips, and do most of the work, with luck. Instead, here was this bottle-nosed parson, who didn’t want to be seen near me, couldn’t wait to get shot of me, and daren’t even say the simplest thing in plain language.

  I said I must have some information, and he said, quite short, that he hadn’t any. I pointed out that the boat might not go as far as Nanking, in which case he’d have to be seen in my company, probably trudging through bandit-infested country. He didn’t take this kindly, but growled that if the hosts of Midian were prowling, the Lord must see us through, and cheered me up no end by producing an ancient muzzle-loader revolver from his valise and jamming rounds into it, twitching towards his bottle t
he while.

  I gave up, and left him with a nasty reminder that sundown wasn’t for another half-hour. As soon as the door closed I heard the cork pop. Be not among wine-bibbers, thinks I, and recalling that that verse ended with reference to riotous eaters of flesh, went in search of dinner.

  Well, it was all sufficiently hellish. How, I asked myself for the thousandth time in my life, had I got into this? A couple of months earlier I’d been homeward bound, and now I was heading on a secret mission that made my flesh crawl, into the bloodiest civil war ever known, on a rickety steamboat in company with the likes of the Reverend Grogpickle and Frederick Townsend Ward who, between them, probably had as sure a touch for catastrophe as any pair I’d ever struck. Stay, though – there was my wrestling wench down on the steerage deck. A bout with her in my cabin might not disperse the blue-devils entirely, but God knows when I’d have another chance. I finished my dinner quickly, and went out on the upper deck.

  We were well up from Kiangyin by now, but what kind of country we were in it was impossible to tell. The sky overhead was clear enough, with a bright silver moon, but the river itself was shrouded with fog, and we were pushing into the fleecy blanket at slow ahead, the siren hooting dismally. Traces of it hung like wraiths on the narrow promenade outside the cabins, with a clammy touch on the skin; the sooner I was snug with my giantess, the better.