China Seas

by John Harris

  ‘This is worth a lot of money,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘It is.’

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘No. Someone I know.’

  ‘Why didn’t you buy it?’

  ‘My interest is not in these things. Though–’ she paused ‘–there may come a time when it will be.’

  ‘I can’t pay you for them. Not now. Not immediately.’

  ‘I don’t expect you to.’

  ‘You trust me to take them away?’

  ‘I know you’ll send me the money.’

  ‘Of course I will. My wife will sell these easily. Where did they come from?’

  ‘In Russia there are always people who live beyond their means. It’s a Russian habit. Then they have to sell the family treasures. Many of them come to Vladivostok to avoid their debts and I know their problems because I belonged to their class. Knowing my contacts outside Russia, they approach me. You could say I’m acting as their agent. I sell for them and I suspect that in your wife I’ve found a splendid outlet. I can send you whatever I pick up. But of course they’re too valuable to send by casual arrangement.’

  ‘There’s no need. My ships will be coming here regularly now.’

  ‘You’re a shipowner, too?’

  ‘Yes,’ Willie said proudly. Then he grinned. ‘Three. Soon four. All little ones.’

  She laughed with him and gestured with the Fabergé egg. ‘There’ll be more of these before long,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Can’t you feel it coming?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Isn’t it clear to you what’s happening?’

  ‘Not in Shanghai, it isn’t.’

  ‘Russia’s tired of the monarchy. It wants a change. It wants to run its own affairs. There are constant plots. It will get rid of Tsar Nicholas before long. And when that happens and people flee from St Petersburg, some will certainly come to Vladivostok.’

  ‘You’re certain of this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Very certain.’

  ‘Are you sure it won’t affect Nadya Alexsandrovna Kourganova.’

  ‘Of course it will.’

  ‘Doesn’t it worry you?’

  She laughed. ‘Being part of the aristocracy has never done much for me – except bore me.’

  ‘Revolutions can be dangerous.’

  ‘I shall be all right. My father’s dead now and my sisters are in the south. Me–’ she shrugged ‘–they won’t touch me. My father spoke too often against the Tsar and was exiled for his words. And, in effect, I went with him. It will stand me in good stead when the time comes to be judged.’

  The talk of revolution worried Willie. He’d seen enough of that sort of thing in China.

  ‘Are you on the side of the revolutionaries?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m on the side of whoever wins,’ she smiled.

  ‘If you ever need me, contact me. I might be able to help.’

  She gave him a gentle smile. ‘What a pity you are already married, William Sarth,’ she said quietly. ‘I could almost feel you are the man I’ve been looking for. In other circumstances I might have asked you to stay. I might even have attempted to seduce you. But I think I would have been unsuccessful.’

  He nodded gravely. ‘Yes. I think you would.’

  ‘You love your wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m glad. We shall just be good friends.’

  Abigail crowed over the treasures he had brought back with him.

  ‘Willie,’ she said, ‘they’re worth a fortune! What did you pay for them?’

  ‘Nothing. She let me bring them without paying.’

  Abigail frowned. ‘Then, if she trusts us, we must give her a good price. What’s she like, Willie?’

  ‘Beautiful, Ab. Very beautiful. And you’ll never guess who she’s married to. That bloody Russian, Zychov! The cowardly sod who left us in the lurch at Shantu and tried to stop me getting the Lady Roberts away from Port Arthur.’

  She didn’t seem as impressed by the discovery as he’d expected and seemed more concerned with the woman who had been Zychov’s wife. ‘Are you attracted to her, Willie?’

  ‘Who wouldn’t be? You would be too, Ab. Next time I come to Vladivostok, why don’t you come with me and meet her?’

  She gave him a thoughtful look. ‘Perhaps I will,’ she agreed.

  She had news for him, too. China was going through another of its revolutionary throes. A series of assassinations had removed everybody opposed to Yuan Shih-K’Ai and when the revolutionary, Sun Yat-Sen, had decided it was safer to bolt back to Japan, Yuan had dissolved the Kuomintang, the Nationalist party Sun had formed.

  ‘It’ll be the usual chaos,’ Willie said. ‘They can’t even agree which is to be the capital, Peking or Nanking. They’ve been fighting over it for years. Who’s for him?’

  ‘It’s more a case of who’s against him. General Chang, for one.’

  Willie frowned. Whether as emperor or as president, Yuan in control might well be useful, because China had always been an unwholesome stew of nationalities, hostilities, ambitions and quarrelling commerce, and a strong hand on the wheel might make it more stable. As for Chang, the whole of China had heard of him for his cruelties and power and, sitting in Kiangsu province, smack across the land trading routes and beyond the reach of Peking and anything Yuan chose to send against him, such a warlord was always important to people like Willie Sarth.

  ‘Chang was a follower of the Manchus, of course,’ Abigail went on. ‘He’d support anyone who had a hand in deposing them.’

  ‘God help China if Chang gets control,’ Willie said. ‘When he got into Nanking in September he lost control of his men. They commandeered all the rickshaws to cart away the loot, and what they did to the women and girls was appalling. They were pulling them out of the river for days afterwards.’

  Photographs of Edward had turned up from England, blurred and out of focus but showing him smiling and happy, while ill-spelled letters told them of his best friend, son of a captain in the Royal Navy, and of his wish to become a sailor when he left school.

  ‘Isn’t it dangerous, Willie?’ Abigail asked.

  ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Willie said. ‘The Royal Navy’s the biggest in the world.’

  ‘What about the German Navy? The papers say they’re building like they’re crazy.’

  ‘They’ll never be bigger than the British Navy.’ Willie had all the in-built British admiration of the senior service and the same faith in its powers. Hadn’t the British Navy brought peace all round the world? ‘He’ll be all right. He might end up an admiral. What about that then? An admiral in the family.’ He gestured at his second son, Thomas, who sat with his nose in a book. ‘What about you, lad? What do you want to become?’

  ‘Chinese.’

  ‘Chinese?’ Willie roared with laughter. ‘Why Chinese?’

  ‘Because we live in China. I’ll be a white Chinese.’

  ‘You don’t speak Chinese.’

  ‘I’ll learn.’

  ‘What about your little sister, Polly? What do you think she’ll do?’

  ‘Grow up and get married.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  ‘That’s what girls do, isn’t it?’

  Willie looked at Abigail. ‘Some of them do more than that, son. Whatever she does, though, you see you look after Polly. Remember, family first, second and all the way.’

  He looked up to see that Abigail was frowning.

  ‘I’m glad our children are young, Willie,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  She gestured at the sheets of The North China Daily News scattered about the floor. The headlines were about China, but the leaders were showing concern for events in Europe. Quite clearly, they didn’t feel they would affect China, but were important enough not to be ignored.

  ‘The German Kaiser’s talking big again,’ she said. ‘They seem to think there’s going to be a war.’

  Willie was re
minded of the cargo of leaking kettles, flameless matches, flawed cotton, and left-foot shoes he had brought back from Vladivostok. He slapped his knees. ‘Yes, by God,’ he said. ‘There is. Here. In Shanghai.’

  As Willie entered his office the following day the clerks bent their heads to their ledgers. He was not often in a temper, but when he was it was best to keep out of his way.

  ‘Kee!’ The shout made them all jump and tuck their heads even lower.

  As Kee appeared, Willie slapped down the invoices for the faulty goods in front of him.

  ‘Dud, George,’ he said. ‘The crates had the Wishart name on them. Someone had tried to blank it out, but it was visible. Who’s doing it? Do you know?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Sarth. I know.’

  ‘It’s not you, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s not me?’

  ‘One of the other clerks?’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘Lun Foo?’

  Kee was silent and Willie glared at him. ‘I pay you to keep an eye on things. Spit it out.’

  Kee shrugged. ‘Yes, Mr Sarth. It’s Lun Foo.’

  ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I wasn’t certain. Now I am. You’ve just made me certain. He’s been taking bribes. He lives beyond his income. He’s in debt. He’s in touch all the time with Wishart’s man, Wang Li-Jen.’

  Willie sat staring at his desk for a while, then he stood up and gestured. ‘You know where I keep my revolver, George?’

  ‘Yes, sir. In the desk, there.’

  ‘Hand it to me.’

  ‘Sir–’ Kee’s eyes became alarmed. ‘–You’re not going to–’

  ‘Shoot myself?’ Willie grinned, a quick grin that vanished at once. ‘Not bloody likely, lad.’

  Kee placed the big weapon in his hand and he stuffed it into his trouser top and let his jacket fall over it. Then he looked at it again.

  ‘Better make sure I’ve got it on safe,’ he said, ‘or I might shoot myself in the balls.’

  Kee gave him a nervous grin.

  ‘Right, George, let’s have Lun in. And stick around.’

  Lun Foo appeared, smiling. Kee shut the door behind him and took up a position in the corner of the room.

  ‘Sit down,’ Willie snapped.

  As Lun Foo sat, Willie slapped the invoices in front of him.

  ‘Dud,’ he snapped. ‘Kettles that leak. Left-hand footwear. Faulty cotton. Matches that have been soaked. Where did they come from, Lun? They’re not mine. There was also a consignment of opium. That wasn’t mine either, because I’ve never touched the stuff. Where did that come from?’

  Lun put on a big show of innocence. ‘I cannot tell, Master. This very bad. Somebody cheat.’

  ‘You?’

  Lun rocked back as the word was spat at him. He recovered quickly. ‘Not me, Master. Perhaps Kee.’

  ‘I don’t believe it. Why were the crates marked “Wishart”?’

  ‘Perhaps he had dealings with their chief clerk, Master. He is a Korean called Kwok. He is not to be trusted.’

  ‘Neither are you. Come on, Lun. Let’s have it. Did you do this on your own?’

  ‘I have no responsibility for it, Master.’

  Willie crossed to the compradore and stood alongside him. Dragging the revolver from his belt, he stuck the muzzle in Lun’s ear. ‘Let’s have the truth.’

  ‘I tell the truth, Master!’ Lun’s voice rose to a shriek.

  Willie’s thumb heaved back on the hammer. The click was clear.

  ‘I tell truth, Master!’

  ‘All I have to do now is pull the trigger.’

  ‘I tell, Master, I tell.’ His eyes wide, Lun pushed Willie aside and dropped on his knees. ‘I fix it with Kwok.’

  ‘Opium, too.’

  ‘Yes, Master!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I owe much money, Master.’

  ‘Who to? Yip Hsao-Li?’

  ‘Yes, Master!’

  ‘So why did Kwok pick on me? Why did Wishart’s push their goods in with mine? Why not someone else? Did someone put Kwok up to it?’

  ‘I think so, Master.’

  ‘Who? Missee Wishart? Or was it Yip?’

  ‘Missee Wishart, Master. Kwok tell me so. He say she tell him.’

  ‘George!’ Willie turned round to the young man behind him. ‘Give him his salary up to date. Then see him off the premises.’

  As Lun Foo vanished, Willie laid the revolver on the desk and drew a deep breath. His heart was thumping. So Emmeline hadn’t forgiven him, was never likely to forgive him! He found he was shaking with rage.

  The door opened and Kee returned. Willie lifted his head, recovering his control. ‘You’re pretty smart, George,’ he said. ‘Could you run this place?’

  Kee smiled. ‘I have studied how things are done.’

  ‘You could be very useful to me, speaking Chinese, English and French. I have to go away a lot. I need someone I can trust. Could you do Lun’s job?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘You’re not very old.’

  ‘I’m old enough.’

  Willie considered for a moment, remembering he hadn’t been much older when he’d started the business, then he slapped the boy’s shoulder. ‘You’ve got the job, George,’ he said. ‘With the appropriate salary. If you’re ever short of money, don’t try to make it out of me. Tell me. Ask me for it. I’ll try to give it to you either as salary, a loan or an outright gift. But tell me. For Christ’s sake, tell me. I want someone I can trust. Now I’m going to see Wishart’s.’

  Emmeline was not in her office when Willie arrived and the place was being run by her latest husband, a smooth, narrow-faced man called Henry Moberley, who wore a large moustache that made him look like a ferret peering through a hedge. Where in Christ’s name did Emmeline pick ’em, Willie wondered. They all seemed the same – too small, too big, too smooth.

  ‘Where’s the Missis?’ Willie snapped.

  ‘Come in, Sarth,’ Moberley said. ‘Sit down. Fancy a drop of Squareface.’

  ‘Bugger the Squareface,’ Willie said, shoving aside the gin bottle that was held out to him. ‘Where’s Emmeline?’

  ‘She didn’t come today. We’re having people in for dinner.’

  Without a further word, Willie turned on his heel and left Moberley staring after him. When he arrived at Emmeline’s home, a fanciful affair near his own close to the Bubbling Well Road, he didn’t wait to be announced but pushed past the Chinese servant and went looking for her. She was just putting down the telephone and he guessed Moberley had been sending a warning.

  Her face changed as she saw him in the doorway. ‘Willie Sarth,’ she said.

  She hadn’t grown any smaller. She was still a handsome woman – if you liked them big – but there was a tight line about her mouth now.

  Willie slapped the invoices for the faulty goods down in front of her. ‘Yours, I think, Emmeline,’ he said. ‘I’m having them delivered at your warehouse today and I’ll expect a cheque for their value by hand – today! If it doesn’t come, I’ll inform everybody in Shanghai, including the police and a few of your friends. There was also opium.’

  ‘I don’t touch opium.’

  ‘Your compradore does. He arranged for it to be included with your lousy goods. It’s up to you what you do with him, but in future keep your rotten goods out of my affairs.’

  ‘My goods aren’t in your affairs!’

  ‘They were shipped in among my last consignment to A N Kourganov of Vladivostok.’

  ‘I don’t know A N Kourganov. I’ve never been to Vladivostok and never done business with them.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. She wouldn’t touch your stuff with a barge pole.’

  ‘She?’ Emmeline’s eyebrows rose, and she gave him a sly smile. ‘Is she pretty, Willie? I bet she is. You always had an eye for a pretty face.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ Willie’s explosio
n of anger was caused as much by the fact that Emmeline had touched on a raw spot as it was by the sneer on her face. He knew he had been attracted to Nadya Kourganova and it was nagging guiltily at him. ‘I’m doing business with them, not chasing her round the bedroom. They’re not all like you, Emmeline.’

  She glared at him. ‘I didn’t send the goods!’

  ‘Lun Foo says you did. He told me everything. It was arranged between him and your man – with your consent. What are you up to, Emmeline? Wanting to ruin me?’

  She didn’t deny it. She simply stared at him for a long time, then spat her hatred out. ‘I’ll break you, Willie Sarth!’

  ‘Not this way, you won’t!’ he snapped back. ‘The only people you’ll break will be Wishart’s. I’ll keep my mouth shut about it this time, but if I hear of anything more like it, it’ll go round Shanghai like a forest fire.’

  ‘I’ll break you,’ she spat again.

  ‘Keep your threats, Emmeline. They don’t interest me.’

  ‘I’ll break you. I will.’

  ‘You’re not powerful enough.’

  ‘There are ways. There will be ways. Have no doubt about it, Willie Sarth. I shan’t forget.’

  As Willie climbed back into the cab that had brought him, he was shivering again with suppressed anger. Emmeline in a fury wasn’t a pleasant sight to see.

  Part Three

  1914–1920

  One

  The Sarth Line delighted Willie. Having tasted the sea, he had never really settled on land again and he had to keep reminding himself that running a shipping line meant office work, attention to reports, railway timetables, weather forecasts, costs, dates of arrivals, cancellations, contracts, and watching the shipping news for the position of his ships.

  It was hard to keep away from his vessels and he came to know the forecastles as well as any of his officers, the bunches of vegetables and bits of dried fish and herbs the Chinese crews hung from the bulkheads, the joss sticks burning in a tin of sand – and always the smell of opium. Knowing his crews used it, perhaps even smuggled it, he always watched for it, eyeing his men as they mustered for signing on or paying, their belongings wrapped in Macassar mats of variegated straw, boxes with elaborate locks, or simple plaited baskets, but all wearing the elastic-sided boots that gave them ‘face’ and carrying the umbrellas they loved to buy and the cages of canaries with which they filled the ship. They bought them wherever they could get them – even the white officers, so that the mate had one and the Chief Engineer had two – and brought them out on deck whenever the weather was good so that they sang against each other in a shrill chorus all day in the sunshine.