by John Harris
Willie managed to convince the police officer that the visit had been for nothing more than business and because with China in its present state of chaos, there had been no one else to approach until the Communists could take over. He made no mention of the permission he had received to take away his ship.
The policeman wasn’t entirely reassured but he had had dealings with Willie in the past and knew him well, so that he did no more than give him a warning. But the incident led Willie to make enquiries and Kee soon found out that the re-emergence of the Balalaika was due entirely to Zychov, who was back in charge, though these days, Kee pointed out, he was always surrounded by bodyguards. Willie could only admire the man’s nerve.
‘He’s taking a chance,’ he said. ‘Yip’s friends haven’t forgotten him, I bet.’
‘I heard he intended to leave with the Nationalists,’ Kee explained. ‘But he was occupied with getting his personal possessions to the coast and the Nationalists were too concerned with their own skins and he left it too late.’
Zychov’s chances of leaving were now nil, so he was doing his best to make what he could of the new regime, confident that as a Russian – and the Russians had always backed the Chinese Communists – he was safe. For a long time that night Willie considered making arrangements to pay a visit to an old if not revered acquaintance of his in Chapei, a colleague of the late lamented Yip Hsao-Li. But in the end he couldn’t bring himself to embark on the sort of treachery he knew Zychov would have countenanced without turning a hair and he let the matter slide.
It was clear the long and painful civil war that had torn China apart for generations was coming to an end at last, but no move to recognise the new regime was made in London. As the Communist newspapers renewed their crowing against the ‘capitalist and imperialist brigands’, it became clear that the Amethyst, still immured upriver, was merely a pawn in the struggle to retain British interests in China. She had dropped entirely out of the headlines by this time and the plight of the naval men marooned at Kiang Yin was forgotten; and, as the press became occupied with the problem of not offending the new regime, Willie began to lose patience. The Europeans didn’t give a damn about the Amethyst, he realised, so long as they were allowed to continue to make money. The only hope for the ship now was that something would come out of the talks that had been started upriver by her new commanding officer and the local Communist leader. The crux of them, it appeared, was that the Navy had to admit to being guilty of infringing Chinese sovereignty, accept the blame for the incident and guarantee compensation for damage and loss of life. Since the Navy showed no sign of doing so, it looked like being a long siege.
Three
There had been no chance of the Lady Roberts leaving until the battle for Shanghai was over and, with the Communists suspicious of everyone, it seemed a good idea to wait a few days more until they had settled in.
Their victory parade used the same trucks and buses which not long before had trundled Nationalist supporters through the streets. The same people shouted slogans, waved flags, raised clenched fists, all trying to show how Communist they had always been. Everybody who had admired Chiang for years was now busy admiring Mao Tse-Tung.
The transfer of power had taken place without trouble. Though there were long delays, it was possible to send cables and make telephone calls, and food was beginning to come into the city again. Executions still took place on the racecourse, but this time the victims were Nationalist sympathisers who had worked against the Communists and foreigners weren’t invited to watch. The obligatory photographs of Mao appeared, and for a moment the Europeans were left in peace, though European apartment blocks had been taken over as barracks for Mao’s young peasant soldiers who spent their time riding up and down in the lifts and using the lavatory bowls to wash their rice.
Because of the absence of hostility, the Europeans were quickly recovering their former self-assurance and optimism and, because there had been no expulsions, and bribes were no longer de rigueur and ‘squeeze’ had disappeared, they were even beginning to believe things might be better in the end. Though they considered it a little cynical to do business with the people who had shot up British naval vessels, the tremendous amount of capital involved somehow made it possible.
‘After all,’ Willie was told, ‘if they don’t do business with us, they’ll do it with the Russians.’
The new regime had certainly made a difference. The black market had disappeared abruptly after a few operators had been taken away. Unfortunately, servants had also disappeared. The Communists had issued no orders; they had simply made it difficult for anyone to be employed by foreigners, and slowly, inexorably, Shanghai began to come to a stop. The night life had terminated abruptly under the rigid Communist idea of morality, and their commissars, without the experience to administer a vast city, were careful to do nothing without asking for a decision from higher authority.
Gradually Willie began to notice the difference. New taxes were imposed on the houses of foreigners and the tax inspectors thought nothing of appearing during private parties to make checks and slap on extra tolls on the spot. The servants at the Club became hostile and, well indoctrinated by the Communists, began to hint that the imperialist aggressors should hand over the furniture and effects, while people found their godowns filled with refugees or even with their employees’ wives and children. Then, in retaliation for the American government freezing all Chinese accounts, the Communists retaliated by taking over all American businesses, plus a few others for good measure, and once again it seemed imperative to persuade George Kee to leave.
His mind full of his problems, all working at once and all interrelated, Willie decided to see Kee the following day, but, even as he woke, the telephone went. It was Kee’s wife, and she was in tears.
‘They’ve got George,’ she wailed.
‘Who have?’
‘The Communists.’
‘Hold tight. I’ll see to it at once. It can’t be important.’
But it was, and his attempt to bring about Kee’s freedom was met with a blank stare from the officer in charge of the jail.
‘That will not be possible,’ he insisted. ‘He is to be accused of co-operating with the Kuomintang bandits.’
‘Rubbish,’ Willie snorted. ‘George Kee’s a loyal Chinese who’s never done anything for Chiang. He’s also a good businessman of the sort your new China’s going to need. You’d be silly to despatch George Kee and you might even find yourself in trouble.’
The angle of approach seemed to strike the right note and the Chinese officer agreed to consider Kee’s case carefully.
‘You must return in a week’s time,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, he must remain in prison.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘Of course. We are not barbarians.’
Kee looked drawn and worried. Standing up as Willie entered his cell, he gave a wry smile. ‘It seems you were probably right,’ he observed.
‘What’s happened to Shanghai Traders, George?’
‘It’s been taken over.’
‘Everything?’
‘Everything. God knows, I’ve never been pro-Chiang and I have certainly believed in China for the Chinese, but they claim I’ve forfeited the right to trade.’
‘Can the decision be changed?’
Kee gave a sad smile. ‘It might. But will it ever be really possible after this? It’ll happen again – and again – until everything comes to a stop.’
Willie slapped his shoulder. ‘Keep your chin up, George,’ he said. ‘I’ll sort it out. I’ll get you out of here. I’ve made ’em think a bit already.’ He paused. ‘If I do, will you come with us?’
Kee smiled. ‘Perhaps I should have taken your advice when it was first offered.’
‘Right, then. I’ll get your family aboard the Lady Roberts with as many of your possessions as possible. Just keep smiling–’
As he left the jail, Willie was frowning and preoccupied. Kee’s imprisonment had given him a new
problem. Da Braga was already aboard the Lady Roberts. Which left only his own son, Tom.
Not for a minute could he believe that Tom would be immune to Communist attacks. No matter what he’d done for them during the war, no matter how he had sympathised with them, he couldn’t imagine them allowing him to remain, because their whole concept of China for the Chinese was obviously that foreigners should hold no positions of trust or importance. It might take time because the Communists, with their curiously moral codes, would not throw him out but would simply make it so difficult he would choose to go of his own accord. And go he would. In time. As part of their great scheme to tear out, root and branch, all foreign influence or interference with their affairs. Eventually, they would doubtless realise they needed foreigners – at least in small numbers – and foreign know-how, but for the moment, their idea was to show the world that, contrary to the beliefs held for a hundred years, China knew how to handle her own business.
Somehow, however, he felt his son would not be easy to persuade. He had many friends among the Chinese because he had been among the first to sympathise with them in their struggle, and he would find it hard to accept that they would turn against him. Age and experience told Willie otherwise and he knew he must try.
He had permission to move his ship and Kee and Da Braga had agreed to go. With Tom and his family aboard, too, it would have cleared his decks for a new start in Australia for them all.
He had just decided to see his son the following day when the telephone rang. It was Fan-Su begging him to come at once because Tom wished to see him.
‘Sweet Suffering J,’ he thought. ‘What now?’
He could tell from Fan-Su’s voice that she was upset and he set off at once. He found her in tears and Tom, his face sombre, packing a small bag with clothing.
‘What the hell are you up to?’ Willie demanded.
‘I’m going up to Chinkiang, Father.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve been asked. Everybody knows I was with the Communist army during the war and it’s been suggested by the Navy that I might be able to help.’
‘Will you?’
Tom shrugged. ‘Discussions are still going on up there. They’ve been going on for weeks, as you know, but things are desperate now. The ship’s short of vegetables, they no longer have sufficient fuel to run the ventilation, it’s growing hot, and one or two of the men are beginning to fall ill. I might be able to do something.’
Willie wasn’t taken in by his son’s casual tones. He knew him too well. Tom wasn’t like Edward, who was extrovert, outgoing and enjoying the flair the Navy gave him. Tom had been quiet, introvert, studious and concerned.
‘Where do I come into it?’ he asked. ‘I’m sure I do or you wouldn’t have asked me to see you.’
‘No. That’s correct.’ Thomas lowered his voice. ‘I think Father, that we have to accept that the Communists are determined that the Chinese are going to run China and that they’ll stop at nothing to make sure they do. But they’ll probably listen to me because I fought with them and know them. On the other hand, I know what you’re going to say, that they’ll never forget I’m a foreign devil – like you, a Chinese White.’ He smiled. ‘That’s true, of course. They might well prove difficult.’
‘So?’
‘So I want you to look after Fan-Su and the boys. You did once before. I’d like you to do it again.’
‘Of course I will. When do you leave?’
‘At once. By train. After that, I don’t know.’
It seemed a good idea to Willie to get Fan-Su and her family with the others aboard the Lady Roberts and he drove them to the docks, where he hired a tug to take them and everything they possessed which could be moved out to the ship. When he told Yeh that the sailing orders were cancelled for the time being, Yeh shrugged, his face as expressionless as ever.
‘You’re taking a chance,’ was all he said. ‘We should leave while we can. There’s a typhoon moving this way from the Philippines.’
‘I know, John,’ Willie agreed. ‘But I’ve got to wait. If we’re getting out everybody who wants to go, we might as well include my own son.’
Yeh nodded and handed him a radio message which had just arrived for him. It had come by a roundabout route and contained several errors of transmission. But its message was clear. Nadya was begging him to return while it was still safe. But now, with Tom upriver somewhere, he knew it wasn’t possible.
As the weather grew hotter there was still no hard news of the Amethyst and the newspapers had completely lost interest, while Tom seemed to have disappeared behind a blank wall. Kept in touch with what was happening by Edward, Willie continued with his negotiations on behalf of George Kee. He was still in prison, but another visit to the jail brought the information that he would be allowed to go free, provided he undertook not to leave Shanghai. Signing the necessary document, he left with Willie, who drove him home.
‘Your family’s aboard the Lady Roberts, George,’ Willie informed him quietly. ‘I shall want you aboard, too, as soon as Tom returns. So stay put. Nowhere but your home. Have a bag packed with everything you’ll need and keep it light. It might happen any time and it’s got to be quick. I want Tom away as soon as he reappears.’
Time was running out. The two months Willie had been given to get the Lady Roberts away was almost up and he was having to think of ways of extending the permit.
With Chiang on the point of leaving the mainland of China, the commander of the Kuomintang Navy had been changed. New orders had been issued and the new man was reported to have expressed very forcibly his dislike of the way the British merchant ships, assisted by the Royal Navy, constantly tried to break the blockade. To Willie’s certain knowledge, his own ships had been guilty on more than one occasion, and he knew that Yeh had often slipped into Tientsin, Nanking and other places along the coast to pick up or deliver a cargo.
Then he heard that Chou En-Lai, second only now in importance to Mao in the hierarchy of the Chinese Communist Party, had turned up in Shanghai as if to keep an eye on things. As became a man educated at the Sorbonne, he had quietly taken up residence in an apartment in Frenchtown. Though he disliked the Russians and favoured the West, he was still a Communist and had clearly arrived to make sure that Shanghai became Chinese. Already the Communists were refusing to acknowledge the existence of the British Consulate and were returning all letters from there marked ‘Address unknown.’ Their refusal to speak anything but Chinese to British businessmen was all part of the policy of making the Westerners lose face, of showing them that, with Chiang about to leave, China was now a nation dependent on nobody but herself, and he was worried that in their blank-faced attitude to foreigners, they might refuse to recognise British ownership of the Lady Roberts and counter the Nationalist permission for her to leave with a refusal of their own.
He worried over it for a long time, then he realised that in Da Braga, already aboard the Lady Roberts, he had the very man he needed. Taking a cab to where the ship was berthed near the old French Concession, he bearded the Portuguese in his cabin.
‘Luis,’ he said, ‘You’ve just become a ship-owner.’
Da Braga looked alarmed. ‘I know nothing about the sea,’ he said.
‘You don’t have to. But, as a national of a neutral country that’s never had any interests in China, you’ve become the owner of the Lady Roberts.’ Willie smiled. ‘Not for good, of course. I want her back eventually. I find I’ve grown attached to the old lady. But I don’t want the Communists to seize her and non-British ownership will help. I have the papers here, Luis. All you have to do is sign them.’ He paused. ‘There’s just one snag.’
Da Braga frowned. ‘I guessed there would be.’
‘You’ll need to see the commander of the Kuomintang squadron lying offshore. The permit to leave’s running out and you’ll need, as the owner, to negotiate a new one.’
A tug was chartered for the journey downriver and a telegraphist from the po
st office was hired to do the signalling. Heading down the Whangpoo, between the thronging junks and sampans, it seemed to Willie that Shanghai was starting to die already. There were few ships in the river now, where once it had been full of them, and it was clear that foreign businesses were shrivelling.
There was a mist over the water as they turned into the Yangtze and came in sight of Chiang’s small squadron. It consisted of gunboats and large motor launches, with one small destroyer lying in the background. A light started to flash and the tug captain stopped engines.
‘Get the telegraphist.’
An Aldis light flashed back. ‘We have message from Generalissimo Chiang for commander-in-chief.’
There was a long silence then a message came back. ‘Send.’
‘Documents to be handed over. Request permission to come aboard.’
There was another long delay then the light flashed again. ‘Proceed to port side of flagship and anchor.’
Telegraphs clanging, the tug got under way again and, swinging round to face upstream, dropped anchor near the destroyer. They were about to put a boat in the water when a launch left the destroyer’s side. As it came alongside, Willie and Da Braga dropped into it.
Nothing was said as they returned to the gangway of the destroyer. At the top they were met by an officer who led the way through an iron door and down a short corridor.
The Chiang commander-in-chief, a small man wearing a captain’s stripes, rose to meet them. ‘State your request,’ he said.
Da Braga, never a bold man, swallowed quickly. ‘My ship,’ he said, ‘the Lady Roberts, has permission from Generalissimo Chiang to proceed to sea.’
The captain blinked, but his expression didn’t change as he held out his hand. Da Braga handed over the letter Chiang had given Willie, and the captain scanned it before looking up again.
‘According to this, the ship is British-owned.’
‘It was,’ Da Braga agreed. ‘Australian, in fact. But it has recently been sold to my company, Shanghai Traders.’