by John Harris
As the ship worked alongside next day, he stared across the water to the line of the bund, and saw that Shanghai was growing fast, a strange mixture of East, West and America, with here and there new electric signs, glaring advertisements and big hotels. Mule-pulled trams ground round ever corner, edging past the pony carts and rickshaws, and there were already people of all nationalities there, British, French, Japanese, Croats, Balkan Slavs and Russian anarchists who had fled from the secret police of the Tsar’s autocratic empire to the north.
Hawking and spitting as they moved, blue-clad coolies swarmed along the shore, trudging backwards and forwards across the moored junks that made a heaving catamaran, selling food, hoisting bales, pulling carts or pushing barrows with huge single wheels that screeched like chalk dragged across a slate. The noise was staggering, the honking of launches and the roaring of klaxons dulled by the high yelling of the Chinese labourers, brassware sellers, sweet vendors, goldfish hawkers, cooked-noodle merchants and recipe designers, as they struggled for right of way among the rickshaw boys, chair carriers and wheelbarrow porters.
A gang of coolies were unloading sacks of rice from Rangoon from a steamer, the sun glowing like a golden orange through the hanging cloud of dust they stirred up. From the coolies, their ribs showing like bony fans as they laboured, came a song like the humming of a swarm of bees, a few notes that rose and fell, never stopping as the men jogged up and down the gangplank under their loads. Beyond them, the whole line of the shore heaved with humanity, a blue and brown ants’ nest of people shoving and pushing in a constant struggle to find space to work, to live, to raise a family, to eat, to sleep, to breathe, even to die.
The ship north from Shanghai was an old steamer with a funnel like a cigarette that poured soot over the huddled Chinese who travelled on the deck, eating and sleeping there, preparing their own food on little charcoal stoves, squatting patiently among the deck cargo, apparently indifferent to what happened. The first class area was better but still shabby and well worn, and the officers wore revolvers as a protection against the pirates who from time to time appeared in fast boats from the cheeks or inlets along the shore.
They liked to pounce on becalmed sailing ships, appearing in swift sail-and-oar prahus, driving in on all sides, so that even a ship with guns couldn’t stop them. Showering their victim with stink balls to blind the crew with smoke and fumes, they swarmed over the sides, shooting, stabbing and totally merciless. Steamers were more difficult to tackle, but occasionally, when they broke down and had to make repairs, even they became victims.
This time it wasn’t pirates but an unexpected gale opposite the old mouth of the Hwang, lumpy head seas that set the ship shuddering under the blows, and sent water pouring over the bulwark to wash out the galley and smash plates and bottles. It piled junks and sampans ashore and left a mat of drowned Chinese floating in the shallows. It didn’t worry Willie, who was a good sailor, and as the wind dropped, he enjoyed the voyage past Tsingtao, the promontory of Shantung and Weihaiwei, to Tientsin, from where he could take a train to Peking. He was longing for Abigail. Would she be there? There were no real ties between them and if she had used her brains as he had – and he felt sure she would have done – she would have as much money in her possession or nestling in the bank making interest as he had. But there was really nothing to bring her back. She had been disillusioned with China and, despite her enthusiasm for what they were doing, she might well have decided to stay where she belonged in America.
He swallowed quickly, his eyes bright with anticipation but a worried frown between his eyes. Dozens of people, both Chinese and European, were waiting for the ship. As he searched among them, his heart sank because there was no sign of Abigail’s blue coat. Coming from the Mission, she had never possessed much but Chinese garments, cotton for the heat, quilted for the winter, and almost the first thing he had done for her as she had thrown in her lot with him was to buy her two or three European dresses and the blue coat in Peking. They had thought it smart, but he realised now it was no smarter than the suit he’d had made by a Chinese tailor who had worked overnight to deliver it the following day, so he could appear presentable in front of the people who bought what they had to sell.
Then he saw a woman in a long pink coat over a cream dress, and a wide straw hat with cherries and a feather on it that was pinned to her hair with hatpins decorated with butterflies. She was jumping up and down excitedly and waving a parasol.
His heart missed a beat as he realised it was Abigail, and as he stepped on the quay from the gangplank she fell into his arms.
‘Oh, Lor’, Ab,’ he said with heartfelt thankfulness and relief. ‘I’m so glad to see you.’
‘And I’m glad to see you!’
‘New coat,’ he pointed out between kisses. ‘You look smart.’
‘Bought it in New York,’ she said. ‘People stared at me in the blue one. It was so out of fashion.’ She ran her hand down the garment, enjoying the feel of the material. ‘Right up to date. Even the brocade on the front. I thought I ought to look the part.’
‘Me, too,’ Willie admitted. ‘Good for business. Put it down to expenses.’ He grinned at her, surprised how pleased he was to see her, how excited by the feel of her alongside. ‘We need a hotel.’
‘We could catch the train straightaway.’
‘We need a hotel first. Good meal. I did all right.’
‘Me, too.’
‘We need to celebrate then. And we need a bed.’
‘Are you tired?’
‘No.’ He grinned.
She smiled back at him. ‘We’ll have to be careful now, Willie,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘I’m going to have a baby. That’s why I was so glad to see you back. And we ought to get married, too, if you want your son and heir to be legitimate.’
‘I was surprised by the enthusiasm,’ Willie said as they sat on the edge of the bed drinking warm champagne with a lump of ice for a cooler. ‘We can sell more, lots more. I fixed up an agent in London to handle things. Chap called Julian Brassard. He’s honest all right. Bit of a flower but he’s straight. How did you do?’
‘The same. People in San Francisco went crazy for what I had. I went first to someone I knew from the Bible Society – the people who paid for me to go to China. They didn’t think much of what I showed them. Said they were pagan. But then I decided to try one of the big antique stores. They didn’t argue. They took everything I offered. Then I thought perhaps San Francisco was too close to China and that bits and pieces must always find their way there across the Pacific, because it’s the nearest point in the States. So I took a train to New York. Took days, Willie. But they fell over themselves. It was worth every cent I paid for the ticket. I sold everything.’
‘How much?’
‘You’d be surprised. I was. I have the accounts in my case for you to see.’
He grinned, delighted with their success. ‘Ab,’ he said, ‘we ought to go to Sian again. There must be tons of stuff there. We can keep going on it for ever.’
‘Perhaps not forever, Willie.’ Her face clouded. ‘In the States things go in fashions and we ought not to put all our money into it in case the prices fall. We should try other things.’
It made sense.
‘Such as what?’ Willie asked.
‘Silk. Things like that. Shantung silk’s very popular.’
‘All right. Let’s do that. I thought also we might do a bit of importing to pay for the exports, so I brought back a few candles and bales of Lancashire cotton, a few tin foods, and dishes and pots that I picked up in Birmingham from a firm that went bust, and a few Sheffield knives and machetes. Crude things, just a blade and a wooden handle. But they’re solid. They sell in Africa. Perhaps they’ll sell here.’
His excitement caught her and she laughed. ‘We can get things from the States, too, Willie. It’s the best place in the world for mass-produced goods. We could make a fortune. I brought a few things back, t
oo.’
‘Peking’s not a good centre, though,’ he warned. ‘Too far inland. Too many transport costs. Too expensive. Too much under the eyes of everybody. But the Chinese have had to grant more concessions and there’ll be more treaty ports along the Yangtze now, where we can set up and expect help. Chinese merchants’ll come to us. What about going to Yangpo? It’s in Hupeh, just before you get to Hankow and if we get in first we could get the best position.’
Abigail’s eyes were eager. ‘There’s a Scottish Presbyterian pastor I know who went to Yangpo,’ she said. ‘He could marry us. It’d be nice to have someone we know.’
Convinced that, after the Boxers, the Chinese had got their hatred for the foreign devils out of their system, they returned to Shanghai by the next ferry and started upriver the following day in a brand-new red-funnelled three-decked ship called the Fan Ling. Someone had already realised that quick travel was going to become essential and that travellers would demand more comfort than they received aboard the passenger junks, and had started a new service, aiming eventually to provide one ship upriver every day. In the hold were crates of pots and pans, machetes and candles.
The channel was marked by buoys and the shore on either side was lost in a heat haze that made the land quiver and dance. Later, the haze began to lift and it was possible to see ditches and landscapes like the ancient Chinese paintings they sold. What had seemed like blank terraces of earth came alive and the land seethed with cotton-clad ants. Every now and then, roofs lifted over the banks, some of tiles, others of tattered rush matting, but all with curving eaves; then, as the banks fell away again, they looked into paddy fields where women were transplanting the green shoots.
Strings of mules and horses headed along the banks, ears and tails flicking at the flies, then a wheelbarrow loaded with giggling girls holding sunshades. A canvas sheet had even been spread above it like a sail and the coolie pushing it was being driven along in giant strides. Then, as the ship’s wash swilled through the open door of a hut, a woman hurtled out, with the swarm of pigs and dogs that shared it, to scream curses at them.
Eventually, the river became a cinnamon ribbon fringed with reeds, its rocks and banks hidden under swirling waters, and the heat became enervating. As they fought to keep cool, the people on the foredeck among the cargo rigged up shelters to provide shade. Mosquitoes were everywhere and that night they were savaged by them. But this was a part of China they had never seen before and they were too excited by their prospects to care. The shore was a dark enchanted shadow, backed by the shapes of the hills and pinpricked with yellow lights.
By the following morning, they were among tree-clad mountains, blue in the mist, and small hills sloping down to the river, where the banks were topped by ancient fortifications or crumbling temples. Junks, a huge raft of floating logs filled with people, dogs and huts and steered by sea anchors, passed them. Great flocks of ducks filled the sky as they passed through a series of lakes, then, round the bend, they saw Yangpo. A Union Jack flew from a flagstaff and huts were spread along the banks near the town walls. As they swung round to go alongside, they passed a sunken river boat lying on its side, the water sluicing in and out of its ports.
‘Someone moved a buoy a few nights back,’ the mate of the Fan Ling told them. ‘She was holed and turned on her side. Because of the heat, all the ports were open and everybody was drowned.’
‘Who’d shift a buoy like that?’ Willie asked.
‘They’re always at it.’ The mate shrugged. ‘Bandits. Revolutionaries. This time it was a feller called Fu Su-Lee. General Fu Su-Lee. He was one of the Empress’ generals and when the Boxers disappeared he found he was left with an army and no one to fight. Then it occurred to him that, because he had soldiers, he was running the show here, not the government in Peking. So he bought arms with the money he gets from the merchants for not burning their houses down and used it to buy guns and ammunition.’
‘Sounds a nice chap. Has it spoiled business?’
‘Oh, no! Business is thriving. They never touch Europeans. They’ve already built a club. Always comes first, a club and a bit of a park, so you can have a walk or a drink without the Chinks butting in. They’ve built godowns and even one or two houses. Chinese style, of course, but they’ll do until they really get established. You thinking of setting up here?’
‘Might be. Any space going begging?’
‘There’s a Portuguese chap called Luis Da Braga who’s got half a warehouse spare. Third one along from the landing stage upriver. Red doors.’
That afternoon, before they had even properly established themselves in the only hotel in Yangpo, a two-storey wooden building with a tin roof that was still only half-built, they went to see Da Braga, a young sallow-faced Goanese only recently out from India, who was busy exporting wood oil.
He was friendly, fat, easy-going and quick to smile. ‘Sure,’ he said, producing a bottle. ‘You have one half of the warehouse. I have the other. We do business.’
He promised to store their crates of goods and look after them when they were away, and told them where to find the pastor Abigail knew. The pastor was a slight, grey-haired man called McEwan in grubby white trousers, sandals and an alpaca jacket, a battered straw hat on his head. He said a prayer for them and told them to come back the following afternoon.
They turned up in their best clothes, both a little nervous but confident it would work. Luis Da Braga appeared to give the bride away and the mate from the Fan Ling agreeing to be best man, and they stood solemnly in front of Pastor McEwan as he intoned the marriage service over them. When he’d finished, Willie solemnly kissed Abigail on the cheek.
‘It’s all right after this,’ he whispered. ‘We can do it legitimately now.’
Her giggle brought a frown from McEwan, then he reached forward to congratulate them and lead them away to sign the register. As he did so, the mate’s head cocked and they heard a high-pitched whistle that seemed to hang in the air over them.
‘What’s that?’ Abigail asked, then the mate grabbed the lot of them and pushed them up against the wall just as a tremendous explosion brought the windows in on them in a shower of glass.
‘Christ!’ Willie roared indignantly. ‘What’s that?’
The mate brushed the glass off of his uniform. ‘It’ll be General Fu,’ he said. ‘He’ll be coming back into the town. I hope you’ve got money for squeeze.’
‘Squeeze?’
Da Braga explained. ‘He demands taxes from everybody intending to trade here.’
‘I thought this was a treaty port and nothing to do with the Chinese.’
‘It is, but he has soldiers. It doesn’t pay to argue.’
That afternoon, after a little sporadic shelling, General Fu’s troops marched into Yangpo. They were a sorry-looking lot strung about with pots and pans and teapots. One or two of them had dead chickens hanging from their belts, one even a dead dog. One dragged a girl along with a rope round her neck. Still in their best clothes and wondering what had hit them, Willie and Abigail stared at the straggle of grubby soldiers as they stumbled past.
‘I reckon,’ Willie said, ‘that it might be as well to postpone setting up here for a year or two. This idea of considering you, not the government, have the power because you’ve got the soldiers is one that could grow.’
Part Two
1904–1913
One
Willie’s prophecy proved wrong. The Yangtze had always been an area of unrest, and the government in Peking, seeing the danger as quickly as Willie had, ordered troops there at once. They never managed to bring General Fu to battle because, whenever their troops appeared, Fu disappeared, and in the end his reign of terror was ended by the simple Chinese method of poison. A government agent was infiltrated into his yamen to doctor his tea. The agent was discovered and beheaded, but Fu was dead and, since his officers could not produce anyone of a similar stature, they lost control, his army melted away, and there was a degree of peace along the r
iver, so that, to their surprise, the Sarths managed after all to start their business.
Concessions had been granted to European powers along the Yangtze and already they were busy setting up their consulates, and their businessmen and merchants were building their godowns and offices along the bund. Da Braga stuck by his agreement and, sharing his warehouse, the Sarths found themselves in a new venture hundreds of miles from Peking where they had originally started. Because it needed his presence occasionally, from time to time Willie had to leave Abigail in the care of the Sumters, but, by this time they had an established home with an ayah to look after the baby, a son who was christened Edward Caddy Sarth. To their surprise, the child’s birth did not go unnoticed and a small jade elephant arrived, brought by a man in a yellow chair. They had known immediately who had sent it.
‘We could get a fortune for it,’ Willie said.
Abigail’s eyes blazed. ‘We don’t sell that!’ she snapped. ‘It belongs to Teddy. It’ll always be his, and eventually his children’s and his children’s children. You’re looking at a little piece of history.’
There was also a gift for Abigail, a picnic set of drawers only ten inches high in vermilion lacquer, the trays carved with birds of felicity and bats of happiness, the top with lotus flowers in cream, red and purple surrounded by green leaves floating on blue water.
‘Willie,’ Abigail gasped. ‘It’s real Tiao Ch’i. There’s a lot of fake stuff about, wood carvings lacquered over, but this is real, a quarter of an inch of solid lacquer on top, applied in coats and polished on a whetstone. A man’s whole working life has probably gone into that.’