China Seas

by John Harris

‘I was a sailor.’ It sounded more interesting than clerk, and just then he wished he were still a sailor because there were no Boxers at sea. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Abigail,’ she said. ‘Abigail Caddy. Abigail’s biblical. It means “Father’s joy”. I guess I was my father’s joy. At least until he died, I was. He just fell down dead. His heart, I guess. My mother died soon afterwards.’

  ‘I’m an orphan, too,’ Willie said.

  ‘That’s curious, isn’t it? Two of us.’ She seemed to be recovering a little as they talked. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I went to live with my brother. He was seven years older.’

  ‘Were you happy?’

  Willie considered. He had never really thought about that aspect of his youth. ‘I think I must have been,’ he said. ‘We argued a bit, but he looked after me. One day, when I’ve made some money, I’m going to make it up to him. Were you happy?’

  It was her turn to consider. ‘Not really,’ she said after a little thought. ‘When my father died, my mother worked to keep me, but then she died and I was sent to an aunt in Seattle. She was a praying Baptist and there wasn’t much fun. Church a lot. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Is that why you came out here?’

  She eyed him steadily. ‘I had a call,’ she said. ‘It seemed the thing to do.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  Her eyes never wavered. ‘I had a call,’ she said again. ‘I told you. When you get a call, you don’t argue with it.’

  ‘What’s a call like? Like receiving a telegram. “Report to God. You’re needed.”’

  She flushed crimson. ‘Now, I guess, you’re being insulting.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know much about these things. I didn’t intend to hurt you. We’ve got a long way to go still so it would be barmy to quarrel. Besides, I wouldn’t want to upset you.’

  She paused, then, like all Americans, didn’t stand on ceremony and started to use his first name instinctively and easily. ‘How old are you, Willie?’

  ‘Old enough.’ He was sensitive about his age. ‘How about you?’

  She, too, ignored the question. ‘Why did you come to China?’

  ‘I came to make my fortune.’ Willie frowned. ‘But I reckon fortunes aren’t that easy to make, judging by what’s happening at the moment.’

  She smiled again. ‘I expect you will, eventually.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘I guess we know all about each other now.’ The girl started to collect her belongings. ‘Perhaps we ought to make a move.’

  Willie took her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘I reckon when we reach safety, we ought to celebrate.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘A couple of drinks.’

  She frowned. ‘I’ve never touched intoxicating liquor,’ she said. ‘I took a vow.’

  ‘You could break it just this once. After all, it’ll be something to celebrate if we get away with–’ Willie stopped, aware of dropping a brick ‘–our lives,’ he ended lamely.

  Six

  Before long they lost all count of time and had no idea where they were. Zychov’s map seemed to be useless, but the truth was that they didn’t really know how to associate the knobs and hills with the markings on the paper.

  Every night, without thinking, they crowded close together and slept like two children. During the day they trudged on, bartering anything they could for food when their rations ran out. On one occasion, Willie managed to catch a guinea fowl – more by accident than design because, as he chased the flock, one of them darted under his feet and he fell over it, and it was Abigail who snatched it up and twisted its neck. When she set it down and looked at Willie, it promptly staggered to its feet and she screamed with horror, so that Willie had finally to despatch it with a blow from a stick.

  They plucked the carcass and disembowelled it, then entered a wood where they cooked it over a fire of twigs. It was half-raw, but they devoured it hungrily, feeling full for the first time since they had left Shantu. His face greasy, his clothes covered with feathers from the plucking, Willie looked at Abigail, who smiled back at him. Now that they were away from Shantu, away from fear, she had recovered her spirits. The dark rings had gone from below her eyes and she even seemed to be enjoying herself.

  Willie grinned back at her and, leaning over, kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘You’ve been smashing, Abigail,’ he said.

  ‘Most people call me Ab,’ she pointed out quietly. She sat still for a long time, her eyes on the dying fire. ‘I’ve never been kissed by a man before, Willie,’ she said. ‘Only my father and I don’t remember that much. My uncle never kissed me. He considered kissing bad.’

  ‘Didn’t he ever kiss your aunt?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He once tried to touch me.’

  ‘Where?’

  She placed her fingers on her breast. ‘Here. I was frightened. That night I thought I ought to leave, so I went to the Pastor, and he suggested I leave home for my own safety.’

  ‘And you came here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That was the call?’

  She blushed, frowned and looked angry, then she lifted her head and stared him straight in the face. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I guess that was it.’

  Willie was silent for a moment. ‘I bet he kissed a few other people on the quiet,’ he said eventually

  ‘I guess he probably did,’ she agreed quietly.

  When the rain came it turned the road into a quagmire and saturated them. But it was warm and humid and, huddling close together at night, they were able to hold off the worst of the night’s cold. Because there was nothing else to do after dark they talked.

  ‘That fortune you’re going to make, Willie,’ Abigail said. ‘How’re you going to set about it?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Willie admitted. ‘I don’t think I really gave it much thought. I think I felt that all I had to do was arrive here and there it would be – waiting.’ He described his first transaction with the opium and how he had decided he couldn’t reconcile it with his conscience.

  ‘I think that was wonderful of you, Willie,’ she said admiringly.

  Willie thought so, too, but he had to admit that the real reason he hadn’t touched it again was because he had been scared of being found out.

  ‘There must be a thousand ways of making money in China,’ she went on thoughtfully.

  ‘I suppose you’re right. But it never occurred to me that to sell goods in England – or China, for that matter – you’ve first got to have money to buy ’em. I wonder how many of these great taipans who’ve made their fortunes out here were dishonest at the beginning.’

  Three days later, with the rains gone and the sun turning the mud into dust once more, they saw the glint of the river ahead.

  ‘It must be the Peiho,’ Willie said. ‘It can’t be anything else.’ They consulted the bloodstained map and decided he was right. Sitting down, Willie took out his binoculars and studied the distant water. His gaze roamed over the banks idly. He could see a string of junks and sampans moving slowly upriver. They meant nothing at all to him until, as the binoculars shifted, he realised he was looking at a string of mules. They appeared to be pack mules, all heavily laden, and there appeared to be hundreds of them.

  He sat up abruptly. Mules in that quantity surely weren’t Chinese!

  He glanced at Abigail, who was watching him intently, her eyes on his face, then stared through the binoculars again. This time he noticed there was a sameness about the clothes of the men who were working the mules, and it dawned on him he was staring at men in uniform, tall men, taller than Chinese, and wearing khaki trousers and dark shirts and what looked like cowboy hats. They were soldiers!

  ‘Ab,’ he yelled. ‘It’s the army! It’s the relief force! They’re coming up to relieve Peking! There they are. Hundreds of them! Mules and carts and junks! All moving up together! Look!’

  He handed her the binoculars and she stared through them. It was a long time bef
ore she spoke, then she turned and stared soberly at Willie.

  ‘That’s the American uniform, Willie. Those are American soldiers.’

  ‘Ab, we’re saved! We’re saved.’ He flung his arms round her and hugged her, his cheek against hers. It was some time before he noticed she was hugging him back. He held her at arm’s length, and they stared at each other, shining-eyed, then clutched each other again and started to dance in a lumbering sort of waltz on the rough ground, until they tripped and fell, rolling in the grass. When Willie sat up, he found Abigail’s face within an inch of his own, tears running down her cheeks, her hair over eyes that were bright with joy.

  He kissed her ecstatically and she kissed him back, clumsily, so that their noses got in the way, two young people delighted with their salvation. As they drew apart, he kissed her again, hugging her, cheek against cheek once more, but then she pushed him away and he saw she was blushing furiously.

  ‘That’ll be enough of that,’ she said firmly.

  Slowly, faintly awkward with each other, they gathered up their belongings.

  ‘They’re south of us,’ Willie announced, staring towards the river. ‘If we go due west, we’re bound to appear at the river just ahead of them. They’ll look after us. Come on, Ab.’

  They set off in a rush, almost in a run, but after they had covered about a mile they realised they were pushing themselves too hard. The breath was rasping in their throats and their chests and lungs ached.

  ‘It’s no good, Willie,’ Abigail said. ‘I can’t keep up with you.’

  Willie gasped. ‘I can’t keep up – with me – either.’ He gathered his breath. ‘We’ve got to be sensible. It’ll take all day to get to the river, but, if I know anything about that lot, it’ll take them longer than that to reach the same point. Let’s make sure we get there ’stead of rushin’ it.’

  The heat was at its unbearable worst. Perspiration blinded them as they stumbled ahead, shimmering heat waves lending an unreal air to their struggle as their pace slowed.

  ‘From a frantic scramble to a mad rush,’ Willie said.

  They hardly dared stop to get their breath in case they were too late, struggling into the valleys and out of the other side, one eye always on the sun, terrified they would be lost. The didn’t stop until evening, by which time they were close to the river, just behind the rolling hills that edged it.

  ‘We’ve got to eat, Willie,’ Abigail pointed out. ‘Nobody can go on without eating.’

  ‘We haven’t much left,’ Willie said. ‘It’s nearly all gone.’

  ‘Then we’d better enjoy what’s left so we’ve strength to go on through tomorrow.’

  They ate what they had and settled down for the night. As usual they started back-to-back to keep each other warm, but when they woke, they were clutched in each other’s arms. Scrambling to their feet, they swallowed the last crust of stale bread, and dumped as much of their equipment as they could, retaining only the sergeant’s revolver and binoculars. Then they set off again, their progress still frighteningly slow. The roads were little more than gorges cut over the years by hooves and wheels, and turned by a sudden unexpected rainstorm into a morass through which they had to drag their feet.

  They reached the river the following morning, but its winding course was empty. There was no sign of the junks they had expected, none of the mules, the waggons, the guns, the marching men.

  ‘We’re too late,’ Abigail wailed.

  Even as the tears of frustration, disappointment and fear came, however, they saw the first junk nose its way round the hill that marked the bend of the river. It was awkward-looking and angular with its square slatted sail, and, following it, came another, then another. Then they saw the first of the mules plodding along the road that topped the bank. They stared in silence, then turned to each other, Abigail in tears, Willie speechless with joy, and put their arms round each other silently.

  To their surprise, the troops turned out to be Russian, not American, and neither group could understand anything the other said. The Russians were startled to see two Europeans and they were bustled along to see an officer who spoke a little English but was able to extract from them little more than the knowledge that Willie had come from Peking, and that when he had left it days before it had still been holding out. They seemed to think he was a deserter, but Abigail indignantly set them right on that score, when an interpreter was found at last, with the story of the rescue from Shantu and the ensuing massacre on the road.

  They were given food and tea in glasses, Russian fashion, and they began to learn a little of what was happening. The relief they had expected weeks before, overwhelmed by the numbers of Boxers they were facing and a shortage of ammunition, had got not much further than Tientsin when it had had to retreat and, to secure its rear, had been obliged to set up an attack to capture the Taku Forts at the mouth of the Peiho. After that, it had taken time to get a second relief force organised, but eventually, with troops rushed from Europe, a force of 20,000 men of eight nationalities had been mustered. It appeared that the Russians were in the van of the force and behind them came British, Americans, Japanese and French. The advance had turned into a race, in fact, as each nationality strove for the glory of being first to the rescue, and out of the four hundred pack animals that had started the march north only a few were left, as they broke legs, died or fell into gorges. The US 6th Cavalry had not been able even to start because their horses were unfit after the long sea voyage and only a handful of Cossacks and Bengal Lancers were available for scouting purposes, while, plagued by supply problems, the Italians, Austrians and Germans had had to return to Tientsin and the French had been reduced to nothing more than a few sailors.

  Though falling over themselves in their attempt to be gallant in front of Abigail, the Russians still seemed unable to decide what to do with her. And when the interpreter was sent off to contact the Americans and the British they were left without anyone to translate.

  They were not sorry when the column reached the town of Fansan, where the Russians suggested they should wait for the Americans or the British. At first sight it seemed a good idea, because Fansan seemed an imposing place which had fallen to the Russian vanguard without a shot being fired, but on closer acquaintance the city walls turned out to be crumbling and gaping with holes, and along the river side they were festooned with washing. More flapped under the arches of the great iron-studded gates.

  The Chinese regarded them with curiosity but without enmity as they pushed between the bustling coolies and water carriers, and the women carrying chickens in wicker baskets. Camel trains and shaggy sore-backed mules moved among the pedestrians picking their way round the heaps of dirt, where babies and scavenging pigs wallowed together. Chinese men, slouching and slovenly, watched impassively as a bunch of lunatics and criminals, tied together by their pigtails, struggled past, followed by nomad horsemen clutching toffee apples as they jogged past old ivoried men with fans and black-garbed peasants carrying aged relatives on their shoulders. The smell was one of sweat, fatigue, cooking oil and rice wine.

  The streets were steep and moved down to the river in a flight of enormous stone steps, where the women sat to pick the lice from their children’s hair, and there were no wheeled vehicles, only sedan chairs carried by coolies with callouses on their shoulders as big as oranges. There were no foreign business premises, but no sign of hostility to Willie and Abigail as they looked for somewhere safe to spend the night.

  Eventually in a cellar they found what looked like an eating house. It had spidery antique tables of black wood that had been worn and polished for centuries, and was full of girls, bright as butterflies and chirruping like a flock of gaily coloured birds. At the entrance was a middle-aged woman in black, a pair of European satin bloomers with frills worn over her trousers. She seemed surprised to see Abigail, but made no comment.

  The waiter’s fingernails were long and his hands none too clean, but he was cheerful and, though it looked like th
e contents of a paint box, the food was good and no one seemed to mind. Through the clatter of crockery, men moved in and out of back rooms, nodding courteously to the couple as they passed, then a small orchestra of horns, gongs and one-stringed fiddles started. A man approached Abigail and whispered something to her she didn’t understand, so he went to the woman in the satin bloomers, who marched across to them and tried to explain that the man wanted to take her upstairs, and it finally dawned on Willie where they were.

  ‘Ab,’ he gasped. ‘We’re in a – a – well, you know.’

  ‘A brothel?’

  He was surprised she knew the word, but he nodded speechlessly. ‘You know about these things?’

  ‘Sure I do. We once had to rescue a girl from one. But this one’s different.’ She looked at Willie in bewilderment. ‘Everybody seems happy.’

  With gestures, a lot of shouting and a few blushes, they explained their mistake to the Madame, who burst out in a high-pitched giggle that sounded like a macaw’s chattering. One of the girls joined her, asking what the joke was, then she started laughing, too. Then the others joined them, together with one or two of the men, until the whole restaurant was laughing. The Chinese had a puckish sense of fun and the laughter was infectious, rippling round the room. Even Abigail joined in. Then Madame clapped her hands and wine and samshui appeared and she insisted they drink.

  Abigail looked at Willie. ‘I’ve never drunk intoxicating liquor, Willie,’ she said nervously. ‘I told you. I took the oath.’

  ‘It might he a good idea just this once to break it,’ Willie said. ‘They’re in a good mood. It might be as well to keep ’em in it.’

  She nodded, frowning, and, picking up her glass, drained it at a gulp. Shuddering, her eyes beginning to water, she put it down on the table.

  ‘Not like that,’ Willie warned. ‘Sip it. Make it last a long time.’

  Before they knew what had happened, the glass had been refilled and Madame was gesturing to them to drink again. Abigail looked at Willie uncertainly, then she took another sip. The orchestra was going like mad now, all clangs and whistles and whines, but everybody was still laughing, and one of the girls, her face enamelled chalk-white, her lips henna-red, began to sing. Willie kept looking for a chance to make an exit, but it was impossible, and everybody seemed to want to go on enjoying the joke. Every time they took a sip from their glasses, Madame filled them up again. One of the men began to dance with one of the girls and gestured that Willie and Abigail should do the same.