Four-Part Setting

by Ann Bridge

  “Let’s have a look,” said Hillier, seeing what he was at—he swam out from the rock, and treading water, surveyed it carefully; then he swam in to the right of the ledge, felt about under water for footholds, found them, and making ingenious use of a crack made his way up to the pulpit ledge. “How deep is it below here?” he called down to Hargreaves. Henry did a water dive, swam down and came up gasping. “Can’t touch bottom—and it’s hellish cold,” he called out. Hillier dived in. Then he climbed up again, and showing Mrs. Pelham and Henry where to put their hands and feet, he helped them up after him. Anastasia refused his offer to get her up—she wasn’t much of a diver, she said; and very soon she left the others, dressed, and went over to join her brother. Lydiard had not bathed—he had remained, as he often did, sitting by the side of the track and entering into conversation with the passing peasants—they had seen him from the water, so occupied, on this occasion. Anastasia went cheerfully up to him, saying, as she dropped onto the ground at his side—“He’s really better when he’s bathing than at any other time, you know.”

  “Is he?” said Lydiard absently—his voice showed that he was paying no attention whatever. She glanced quickly at him, wondering if he was still in his mood of concern about Rose.

  “Something rather tiresome has happened,” he said then. “That old boy I was talking to says that Ch’ang T’sao was beaten up by t’ao-pings last night—they killed ten men and lifted eight hundred dollars off the villagers.”

  “Gosh,” said Anastasia in dismay. “How many t’ao-pings?”

  “Fifty, he said. He lives in the next village this side. I think there’s no doubt about it—that chap”—he indicated a youngish peasant who with several small boys was hanging about on the bank, watching the bathers with interest as they dried and dressed—“confirms it.”

  “How loathsome!” said Anastasia with energy. “Poor brutes! Are the t’ao-pings still there, did he say?”

  “No, they shifted off up a side valley this morning. But he says the main valley beyond is swarming with them, right away up to Por Hua.”

  “What a curse. Damn Losely!” she said. “We’d have been nearly back again by now, but for him and his worm.”

  “Damn him indeed,” said Antony, in hearty agreement.

  “Did he say whose they are?”

  “Kuominchün, he thought. But they call all soldiers the Kuominchün up here. Anyhow it makes no odds—t’ao-pings are t’ao-pings.”

  “Ye-es,” said Anastasia, slowly and consideringly. “Well, now what?”

  “For tonight, I’m inclined to go on to Ch’ang T’sao, as planned,” her brother said. “It’s latish—it’s after four now. And that’s about the one place they’re pretty safe not to revisit, tonight at any rate.”

  “Yes—I think that’s best too. Has Hillier got a revolver?” she asked.

  “No. A rather futile light shot-gun—a twenty-bore.”

  “Oh dear! Did he think he was going ferreting?” Anastasia asked impatiently. “You know really, Antony, there’s something nearly funny about his wrong-ness.”

  “Well, I’m glad you enjoy it,” said Antony glumly. “I don’t. Here comes the mokes. Tell them to wait, will you? I’ll collect those three. We must all keep together, now.”

  With an unexplanatory “Chan-choh!” (stop) Anastasia halted the pack-train, while her brother walked over to explain the situation to the bathers, who were sitting now on the stones at the water’s edge, the two men smoking, while Mrs. Pelham combed out her damp curls. Anastasia heard Hargreaves whistle, and laughed a little—he always behaved exactly like a Wren hero. They rose and came back towards her, the four of them, talking as they came. “Eight hundred dollars,” she heard Hillier say on a rising inflection—“But how did they get it out of them?”

  “Torture,” said Antony briefly. Rose looked sick.

  “So what do we do?” Hillier asked.

  “Go on to Ch’ang T’sao. It’s too late to go anywhere else.”

  “Oh ah—and the till’s empty there, anyway. Sound idea, Ant, old man,” said Captain Hargreaves with approbation. “You got a gun?” he asked, turning to Hillier.

  “Yes,” said Hillier.

  “Stout feller. Let’s see it.”

  “It’s in my bedding,” said Hillier. “What do you want to see it for?”

  “Oh, interest—besides, it’s not a bad plan to have it handy. What is it? Colt? Webley?”

  “It’s a twenty-bore, H.H.” said Antony.

  “A twenty-bore! Good God! I thought you said a gun,” said Hargreaves, turning to Hillier.

  “I did—it is,” said Hillier coldly.

  “If Shanghai hadn’t made you so painfully sub-American in your speech, H.H., you’d say what you meant and call a revolver a revolver,” said Anastasia.

  “My dear Asta, if I were really American in my speech I should call the damned thing a scent-spray!” replied Hargreaves vigorously.

  “Henry, we shall have to escort the donkeys now,” Lydiard said, interrupting this fruitless argument—“and I think we’d better ride. I’ll go in front—will you take the tail? We’d better each have one of the girls with us. Where’s Rose?” he said, looking round.

  From the middle of the little crowd of donkeys and baggage-packs Mrs. Pelham’s voice came in reply—“Moment!”—in the German pronunciation. Hargreaves pushed his way through to her. She was fumbling in her tchilumtchi—as he came up she slipped something into the pocket of her shorts, re-fastened the tchilumtchi straps, and slung the leather-covered basin onto the pack-saddle again. “What are you up to?” Hargreaves asked her, with affectionate authority.

  “Paul Pry!” responded Mrs. Pelham, tilting her nose at him, and edging her way back through the donkeys towards the others. Oh, the lovely saucy darling, he thought, following her—she wasn’t going to lose her nerve for a few t’ao-pings. Coming up to Antony, she pulled a small but efficient-looking revolver from her pocket and held it out to him.

  “I thought this might do for Mr. Hillier,” she said.

  Antony examined it—it was a good one. “Is it loaded?” he asked.

  “No—but it can be.” She took it from his hand, pulled half-a-dozen cartridges out of her pocket, opened the magazine and clicked them in. “There,” she said, handing it back.

  Anastasia, who had been watching Hillier’s face, here put in quickly—“That’s perfect! Now, Mr. Hillier, if you will take me in the middle of the train, we shall be armed all along the line!” She saw that Hillier was about to refuse the revolver on some tiresome pretext or other, and was determined to forestall him. She took the little weapon from her brother, and moved over towards her riding-donkey. “Start them off, Ant—we’ll fall in,” she called. While the baggage-train slowly got itself in motion, like a snake uncoiling, she stood looking on, still holding the revolver. She saw Antony glance round for a brief second in Rose’s direction, but Hargreaves was helping her to mount, and without a word he got onto his donkey and rode off.

  “Wouldn’t you rather go with your brother?”

  Hillier’s voice, rather drawling as usual, but very cold, brought her attention back to him—she looked quickly at his face. Certainly he was still irritated—was he also slightly hurt?

  “No—I should like to go with you,” she said, looking up at him with her warm charming smile. “We may even manage to do a little illicit flower-snatching. Where will you put this horrid little thing—in your pocket?”

  He stood for a moment, looking from the revolver in her outstretched hand to her face. Then he gave a little dry laugh. “You are very efficient, aren’t you?” he said, taking the weapon and slipping it into his hip pocket.

  Anastasia was taken by surprise by this démarche, but she was also glad of it.

  “I hope so. Why do you mind carrying it?” she said, moving off towards Big Wang and her donkey as she spoke.

  “I hate fuss and elaboration and pre-arrangements,” he said. “Englishmen are always so i
ntolerably fore-warned and forearmed—they turn a country walk in Buckinghamshire into a campaign, with maps and strategy and lines of communication and commissariat arrangements.”

  “Very nice too,” said Anastasia blithely, hopping actively if a little clumsily into her saddle, and gathering up the reins. “Anyhow this isn’t Buckinghamshire. Are you up? Come on then. Frenchmen carry revolvers,” she added inconsequently.

  “They wear their scent-spray with a difference,” said Hillier, also bestriding his minute mount, and endeavouring to follow her as she moved forward to take her place in the line of pack-animals. “Here, what do I say to this brute? It won’t budge.”

  “Zah!” said Anastasia over her shoulder—she spoke to Ta Wang, and Hillier’s donkey-boy, who had been enjoying one of Antony’s cigarette-ends in a small ivory pipe among his fellows, was summoned and took charge of the beast. When they were well under way—“What does this tow-bing business amount to?” Hillier enquired.

  Anastasia explained that t’ao-pings (literally masterless soldiers) were bands of men without officers, wandering through the country. “If there are too many about, we may have to turn back. If they sort of fade away, or it turns out that there are only a few, I daresay we can go on. We shall hear more when we get to Ch’ang T’sao, I expect.”

  “Three revolvers wouldn’t be much use against fifty, would they?” said Hillier rather truculently.

  “Well, there again, one doesn’t know,” said she. “It depends on the mood they’re in. Sometimes the mere sight of a firearm is enough to put them off—sometimes it’s the most dangerous thing you can do to show one. You just have to judge. Oh, look,” she said, pointing to a patch of tillage, where two women in red and green clothes were hoeing the soil—“there they are.”

  “What?”

  “Serfs.” She explained that in the remoter districts a sort of system of serfdom still prevailed, and that the serfs wore red and green clothes, differentiating them from the blue-clad freemen. “Their feet are unbound, too.”

  “I thought all feet had to be unbound in China nowadays.”

  “Oh no—that’s in the towns. Out here they go on as they choose. Look at her,” she said, pointing to a woman in a blue tunic and trousers, who came hastening down a side-path to gaze at the travellers—Hillier observed indeed that she tittuped along on tiny pointed club-like extremities.

  The hills grew higher and steeper about them now—rapids and deep pools in the river more frequent. They were rising fast. At last, at about 5 P.M., after a stiff pull up a steep path, they came into a village sheltered by groves of tall poplars, and found themselves at Ch’ang T’sao.

  To an experienced eye it would have been clear at once, without any previous information, that there was something wrong with Ch’ang T’sao. The noisy cheerful dawdling activity of the normal Chinese village was wholly absent; the narrow cobbled streets were half empty, the houses and little shops shut. Even the crowd which assembled to watch the tents of the travellers being put up was scanty, listless and silent—the greatest possible contrast to the laughing chattering throng which had watched the same process at Ho T’ei only twenty-four hours before, and been ejected from the school yard. Lydiard proceeded at once to interview the priest of the temple, while the rest stood about uncomfortably in a small courtyard where four long narrow objects covered in rush matting lay on the ground, each with a little pile of incense burning at its feet—the corpses of the murdered villagers, as Henry Hargreaves explained to Rose. Hillier stood looking about him with a peculiar sense, at once of strangeness and of elation. Through a door in one wall he could see Lydiard’s tall lean figure, in khaki shorts and white shirt, talking to the priest in his grey robe and white boots; through a door in the other he could see the servants diligently erecting tents in the open space beyond—Englishwomen stood beside him, smoking; dead men lay at his feet. The contrasts were so acute as to give him a sensation that had almost the quality of pleasure—and they were added to when Wu, his face greener than usual, came through the second floor and announced that tea was served. They followed him out towards the tents; just beyond the door, on the right, was a small building with a raised roofed platform in front of it, open on three sides, the roof supported on pillars—here their table and chairs were set out, and tea stood ready. It was the t’ai, the small outdoor stage used for semi-religious performances which nearly every Chinese country temple boasts—their tents stood in the space before it, normally occupied by the audience. They hoisted themselves up onto the platform and sat down to tea, rather silently. Down the valley great white clouds were massing in the sky, brilliantly lit by the westering sun—Anastasia observed that it looked like thunder later. No one paid much attention; Hillier and Hargreaves were secretly occupied in taking stock of their situation. The space where their tents stood was separated from the village street only by a low wall three or four feet high; at the further end was a higher wall and a small empty building. Opposite the street there was nothing but a patch of kaoliang. The place was not enclosed in any real sense and could not be shut up or defended in any way. It was not, in the circumstances, by any means ideal as sleeping quarters.

  Lydiard came out and joined them. Sipping his tea, he gave them the result of his enquiries. Four, not ten men had been killed the night before, and a woman bayoneted; the 800 dollars, however, was right enough. (There were other horrors which he communicated subsequently to the two men, for which this record is no place.) The priest further averred that though the main body of t’ao-pings had left Ch’ang T’sao at daybreak, there were five or six more in a small village some seven li up the valley, and another thirty or forty on the top of Por Hua Shan itself, holding a couple of villagers to ransom.

  His hearers received these tidings gloomily. To Miss Lydiard and Captain Hargreaves, at any rate, their meaning was clear enough. The hills were obviously swarming with soldiers, the remains of the vanished front, who had been abandoned by their officers and were struggling back to civilisation, “living on their rifles”, as Hargreaves put it. While the lives of the English were probably in no danger, nothing is certain in China, and the inconvenience and loss of face if they should be dévalisés, as might easily happen, and the extra unpleasantness of any trouble with women in the party—Hargreaves, it need hardly be said, used this expression—made both him and Lydiard rather doubtful as to the wisdom of going on. Mrs. Pelham and Mr. Hillier, too unfamiliar with the circumstances to have any useful views, listened to the discussion in silent dismay—Rose indeed looked positively woebegone. But before any conclusion had been reached the decision was taken out of their hands. Wu came with a request to be allowed to speak to the laoveh, his master; he reported that the donkey-boys had struck, and refused to go any further—indeed, there was every reason to fear that they would decamp with their beasts in the night, leaving the party and their effects stranded. Lydiard pointed out to Wu that if this happened, no wages or keep for men or animals would be paid, but he gave a definite order for a return first thing the next morning. Wu retired, and could be heard in the street outside delivering a harangue in Chinese; meanwhile the party set out to explore Ch’ang T’sao, at least, while they had time.

  Just at this spot the Liuli-Ho makes a big loop to the south-west, and Ch’ang T’sao lies on high ground in the tip of the loop. The party made their way down through field paths bordered with poplars to the river; they found it flowing in deep pools, clear and blue, under cliffs at least eight hundred feet high, with a beach of white stones on the hither side, and caves at the foot of the cliffs across the stream. It was a miraculous place for a bathe, and Rose and Henry, who had thoughtfully provided themselves with bathing-suits, said that they should return there and swim after their walk. They all wandered on downstream, but Lydiard was soon brought to a halt by the presence of a small boy, who presided over the destinies of a couple of nanny-goats and their kids that grazed on the river-bank, and diverted himself the while by playing on a little pipe of
four reeds bound together—a regular Pan’s pipe. Lydiard at once sat down, note-book in hand, to take down the little plaintive air that rose and fell, rose and fell, repeating itself in a delicate monotony; the others strolled on. When they had made the circuit of the loop, Hillier and Miss Lydiard decided to go up to the village by the path which they had climbed on their arrival, fetch their bathing-suits, and join the other two for a swim before supper.

  Rose and Hargreaves walked back upstream—in the shelter of a thicket of willows they paused to exchange the first kisses for forty-eight hours, as Henry rather resentfully pointed out. At first Rose was glad to be alone with him—the events of the afternoon had been something of a nervous strain, and the confident intimacy and complete freedom of expression were comforting to her. But gradually she became a little less content—Henry’s busy protectiveness, his enquiries into the state of her feelings fretted her. When they reached the bathing-place there was no sign of Hillier and Anastasia, so they sat and waited, each smoking a cigarette. Antony and his goat-herd had alike disappeared. Presently Hargreaves, looking at his watch, said that if they were going to bathe at all they had better get on with it—it was no good waiting for the others. So they separated and bathed, meeting in the water for the exchange of cold wet kisses, swimming upstream against the current, and floating down below those tremendous cliffs. They came out in good spirits, and when they had dressed Mrs. Pelham suggested that they should walk on upstream and enter the village from the upper end; it had clouded over and a chilly wind had sprung up—a walk would warm her, she said. Some half a mile above the pool they struck a small path leading back to the village, and Henry insisted on taking it—a few scattered drops of rain were beginning to fall. A little further upstream still there was a ford across the river, and as they climbed their path they saw numbers of men, women and children, all laden with large bundles, crossing the ford and hurrying up a mountain path on the further side.