The Blue Dress Girl

by E. V. Thompson

  ‘It was all done through the influence of Su-san, the wounded girl you spoke to on your ship. Her sister is captain of the palace guard. When She-she came with a message for her, telling her of Su-san’s wounds, she was allowed to visit me. She was still with me when word came that you wanted to speak to me. What’s it all about?’

  Dropping his voice so that any unseen listener would be hard put to hear, Kernow said, ‘I come with a message for you from Lord Elgin. He received a long, rambling letter from the Tien Wang. It’s alarmed him greatly. He feels that Hung’s palace here in Nanking is no place for a British woman and would like you to leave. He offers you a passage with us to return to Shanghai. I agree with him, Esme. I think you should leave Nanking – and I want you to bring She-she with you.’

  There was a considerable pause before Esme said, ‘Is it me you’re concerned for or She-she?’

  ‘Both of you, and that’s the truth. Lord Elgin has agreed a treaty with the Imperial Chinese authorities that is meant to bring about freer trade between our two countries. The Taipings in the Yangtze basin stand in the way of trade here. You saw what happened when our ships passed upriver. Sooner or later Britain will move in to help the Imperial Chinese forces in the war against Hung and his armies. When this happens our country, mine and yours, will be at war with the Taipings. You’ll find yourself in an impossible position.’

  ‘I didn’t come to China for an easy life. I could have had that in England had I cared to stay there. I came to bring God to the people of this country.’

  ‘And how much success have you had with the Taipings?’

  ‘You can’t put success on a set of scales, Kernow. I am sowing the seeds of Christianity among these people. I may not be here to reap the crop, but I hope to be able to remove many of the weeds that might otherwise choke the infant plants.’

  ‘Presuming the Tien Wang is the gardener, is he going to be happy to have you decide how he should manage his garden?’

  The immediate silence said far more than Esme’s next words. ‘I wish I could be certain of that. I only know I have to try.’

  ‘Your life will certainly be at risk if you stay here, Esme.’

  ‘My life on this earth doesn’t matter to me. I came here to serve God. I shall remain in Nanking for as long as I feel there is purpose in my staying.’

  Very much aware of She-she’s hand held within his, Kernow tried again to make Esme change her mind, but she was implacable and he eventually had to concede that the missionary was not going to leave Nanking.

  ‘I was hoping for more from you, Esme. Much more. But do you promise you’ll return to Shanghai if you feel there is nothing more you can do here?’

  ‘Of course! I haven’t come all the way to China to waste my time. But there is still hope. I sometimes despair of the Tien Wang, but when Chang returns I hope he might use his influence on my behalf.’

  ‘I think Chang has more worldly ambitions, Esme – and it brings me to my second concern. I can’t hope to persuade Lord Elgin to take She-she on board without you, but I want you somehow to arrange to have her stay with you in the palace. She’ll be safer there with you than anywhere else.’

  ‘Safe from what – or from whom?’

  ‘You know Chang wants her to marry him?’

  ‘I do, and I think it would be a good marriage for her. For both of them.’

  ‘It’s not what She-she wants, Esme, and it’s not what I want. I intend marrying her as soon as I’m able. Before you say anything, we both realise the difficulties involved and that it can’t happen right away, but it will, I promise you.’

  ‘You’re a fool, Kernow Keats. You’ll be abandoning a very promising career in the services – not that I believe there’s anything particularly commendable in achieving the ability to fight better than another. I saw this situation arising when we were in Hong Kong together. So did Hannah Jefferies. She would be appalled if she could hear you now. Are you both quite certain you know what you’re doing?’

  ‘We are.’ The reply came in unison.

  ‘Then I offer you the blessing of a romantic old woman. One who should know better. What can I do to help?’

  ‘Take She-she into the palace with you. Keep her away from Chang as much as you can. She wants to become a Christian. She’ll be a great help to you, if you let her.’

  Behind Esme, the Taiping official whispered, ‘We must go now. To stay longer will be dangerous.’

  Kernow wondered whether the man understood English. So far he had spoken only Chinese, but this could have been a trick to make them speak more freely. He dismissed his suspicions. Most of what had been said between Esme and himself had been in little more than a whisper.

  ‘Please, Esme. Do this for me. For both of us.’

  ‘How long do you expect it to be before you can have She-she with you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He squeezed She-she’s hand painfully. ‘It may be a very long time. Will you look after her until something can be arranged?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We must go now.’ There was urgency in the voice of the Taiping official.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I will wait for you, however long it is. I have promised.’

  She-she came to Kernow in the darkness and he held her close until the voice of the Taiping official called again.

  Kissing him, she said softly, ‘I love you, First Lieutenant Kernow Keats.’

  ‘And I love you too, She-she.’

  A moment later she was gone.

  Chapter 11

  LORD ELGIN LEFT the Far East in March 1859 on a steamer bound for London. The treaty he had negotiated with the Chinese still had to be ratified, but the delay was put down to the customary inefficiency and indecisiveness of the Imperial authorities.

  Lord Elgin should have known better. Even while he was enjoying his celebratory voyage on the Yangtze river, Kiying, the aged Tartar prince who had negotiated the treaty on behalf of the Chinese, was dying by his own hand.

  The Emperor had been violently displeased by the terms of the treaty. He considered that the elderly negotiator had conceded far too much to the Fan Qui diplomats. The thought of British warships steaming the waters of the Yangtze river, China’s jugular vein, filled him and his advisors with alarm and anger.

  As for allowing foreign ambassadors to reside in Peking! Such a situation was unthinkable. It would bring a breath of the West to the capital and imply that the Fan Qui and the Chinese were equals, undermining the assertion that the emperor was the sovereign of the world. The maps which showed great China at the centre of the world and the Western nations as mere dots in a faraway sea would need to be redrawn.

  Such a treaty could bring down the whole Manchu dynasty.

  Kiying was sent a silken cord by the emperor. It was a token of the sovereign’s displeasure and a command that his subject take his own life by way of atonement. The Emperor would also have hurled the treaty back at the Fan Qui negotiators had his advisors not preached patience. The treaty needed the approval of the Emperor before it meant anything at all. Numerous excuses for not adding a seal to make it a binding document would be thought up by his courtiers. The Fan Qui were babies when it came to such diplomatic prevarication.

  The task of ratifying the treaty on behalf of the British government was left in the hands of Frederick Bruce, Lord Elgin’s brother. An able diplomat, Bruce was a sound man but did not have the negotiating skill or status of his brother. He also lacked the knack that Elgin had of surrounding himself with the right men whenever a crisis loomed.

  Of more immediate concern to Kernow was the departure, at the same time as Lord Elgin, of Admiral Sir Michael Seymour. The admiral had singled Kernow out as a young man worthy of special attention and Kernow had never let him down.

  Seymour’s evaluation of Kernow was passed on to his successor, but Admiral Sir James Hope was a very different man to Seymour. A stern but capable sailor, he possessed entrenched and not always logical beliefs. Among the
se was the conviction that the Royal Navy was the only service worthy of recognition. So strongly did he hold this view that he would not deign to respond to a salute from a soldier – and he classed Royal Marines with soldiers.

  Kernow’s first meeting with the new commander-in-chief was not auspicious.

  Parading with others of the Headquarters’ staff for inspection by their new chief, Kernow was singled out for special attention. Halting before him, Admiral Hope looked Kernow up and down from head to toe, as though he had never seen a Royal Marine before.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Lieutenant Keats, sir. I was an aide and interpreter to Sir Michael Seymour.’

  ‘Were you, be damned! Well, I’ll have no soldiers on my staff.’

  ‘I’m a Royal Marine, sir.’

  ‘You can call a pig a parrot, sir, but it won’t help it to fly. You’re not a sailor, so you must be a soldier.’

  ‘Lieutenant Keats is an exceptional linguist, Sir James.’ The admiral’s secretary intervened in Kernow’s defence. ‘He’s the only one on your staff who speaks fluent Chinese. He also has a proven service record. He was second-in-command of the police force we put ashore to keep order in Canton. He did a magnificent job and was commended in despatches for his bravery when the first commanding officer was killed.’

  ‘In the police at Canton? I said the lad was a soldier. Have we no naval officers who speak Chinese?’

  ‘None, Sir James.’

  ‘Then I suppose we’ll have to keep him on the Headquarters’ strength – but I’ll have no soldier as my aide-de-camp. Put him in charge of something or other. It doesn’t matter what it is just so long as it keeps him out of my way.’

  The admiral passed along the line leaving Kernow quietly fuming. Hope had spoken about him as though he considered Kernow incapable of expressing an opinion about his own future.

  Kernow said as much to the admiral’s secretary later that same day, but the naval officer could only shrug apologetically. ‘I wish there was something I could do about it, Kernow, but Sir James Hope is a law unto himself. I dread to think what will happen if war breaks out again. He’s likely to have the army performing the duties of a coolie corps for a Royal Naval brigade. But enough of that. We need to find an official post for you. Something that makes full use of your talents, yet at the same time keeps you out of the way of our new commander-in-chief.’

  By the end of that day Lieutenant Keats, R.M., was the commanding officer of the interpreters’ section at the Royal Navy headquarters, Hong Kong. He had a staff of five Chinese interpreters and a suite of two tiny offices. The latter had been commandeered from a protesting sailmaker who refused to accept that his skills had declined in importance since the introduction of steam into the Royal Navy.

  With Elgin absent from Hong Kong, Chinese prevarication became increasingly irritating. Whenever the Western ambassadors put forward a date for their entry into Peking, the Chinese countered with a new reason why it would not be possible.

  Eventually, the patience of the Hon. Frederick Bruce ran out. He ordered Sir James Hope to assemble a fleet. It was his intention to steam up the Peiho river, gateway to Peking, and bring matters to a head.

  Admiral Sir James Hope wasted no time. By June, he had gathered together a battleship, two frigates and thirteen gunboats. The French demonstrated support for the venture by contributing a frigate and a gunboat to the small fleet. The Americans had been asked to commit ships too, but they declined. They had their own problems at home with the increasing tension between North and South. However, an American warship accompanied the fleet as an observer on behalf of the American government.

  On board the United States vessel was a special ambassador sent to ensure that his own country’s treaty would be ratified over the sights of the British and French guns.

  The Chinese had anticipated such a move against them and had been busily preparing their defences. Reports reached Hong Kong that the Chinese had amassed an army of fifty thousand troops in the vicinity of the four Taku forts which guarded the entrance to the Pei-ho river. They had also placed chains across the mouth of the river and driven spikes into the river bed.

  To counter this threat Admiral Sir James Hope placed his reliance upon his sailors. It was only with great reluctance that he agreed they should be supplemented by four hundred Royal Marines. Half of the marines were from a Provisional regiment newly arrived on the China station from service in India. The remainder were drawn from the ships of his fleet.

  At the mouth of the Pei-ho a close examination through telescopes wielded by the officers on board the flagship revealed that the river mouth was indeed well and truly blocked. In addition to the stakes and a stout chain there were rafts linking shore to shore, joined together with heavy booms. The impression given was one of total impregnability.

  The Taku forts guarding both banks of the river looked equally forbidding, and were well fortified. The long, threatening snouts of large-bore cannon protruded through gun ports, many of the weapons being preaimed at the line of obstacles stretching across the river.

  A crowd of scruffily dressed men on the shore were taking a great interest in the Anglo-French fleet and Kernow was sent off to speak with them. His orders were to ask them to take a message to the forts. Admiral Hope demanded that an official delegation be sent to parley with himself and the ambassadors who travelled with him.

  When the boat carrying Kernow was still some distance from shore the Chinese began shouting for the sailors to return to their ship. They explained they were militiamen, sent to prevent a landing by the combined English and French fleet.

  ‘Hold off!’

  Kernow passed the order to the coxswain of the boat who passed on the order to his men with some relief. The men on the shore were ragged and tough-looking – and yet Kernow thought there was something about them that was wrong. Very wrong.

  From the boat, rocking gently on the water about thirty yards offshore, Kernow carried on a lengthy conversation with the Chinese. They repeated their story that they were low-ranking militiamen. Their duties were to prevent any Fan Qui landing, no more and no less. They had no authority to request the attendance of regular soldiers. Anyway, they assured him, there were no Imperial forces within miles of the Pei-ho river.

  Kernow did not believe them. Indeed, his suspicions were growing with every passing minute. These men were dressed as poor, illiterate peasants, yet they spoke with the authority and accent of Imperial army officers.

  Suddenly, Kernow caught a glimpse of a figure in the midst of the group and knew immediately that his suspicions were justified. More than this, he realised that the report of a force of fifty thousand Tartar troops in the vicinity was not idle rumour.

  The man he had recognised was the young Tartar leader who had saved his life when he went ashore seeking survivors from the typhoon that had struck Hong Kong, two years before.

  He was looking at Shalonga, son of Tingamao, the great war lord from the borders of Vietnam. If his father was here too then Admiral Hope and his small army were outnumbered by fifty to one. The men opposing them were battle-hardened Tartars, not the rabble of bannermen that passed for an army in many of China’s provinces.

  Chapter 12

  THE FIRST MAN to meet Kernow when he stepped back on board the flagship was Colonel Lemon of the Royal Marines Light Infantry brigade. It would be his task to command any assault on the Taku forts. His questioning showed the concern he felt over an assault he believed was being contemplated without adequate reconnaissance or planning.

  ‘What’s your opinion of the mud in front of the forts? Is it firm enough to support a man in the event of a frontal attack?’

  ‘No.’ Kernow had no hesitation in replying to the question. ‘One of the men on shore had a pony and he tried to take it across the mud to the water’s edge for a drink. It sank almost to belly level. Not only that, from closer inland you can see the forts are surrounded by ditches filled with a whole forest of pointe
d wooden stakes. A frontal attack would be suicidal.’

  ‘That’s my opinion too. Let’s go and speak to the admiral, Mister Keats. Perhaps your information will make him see some sense. He won’t listen to me.’

  Kernow might as well have saved his breath. His observations fell upon deaf ears, as did those of the colonel.

  ‘I thank you, gentlemen, but it makes no difference. I intend sending a force ashore tomorrow to clear the obstructions to the river. Then I’ll take the forts. I’ll not allow a handful of scruffy Chinese to challenge the might of the British navy. If you’re nervous of mounting an attack, Colonel Lemon, you can be in charge of dismantling the river barrier. I’ll put a naval commander in charge of the assault on the forts.’

  ‘I’ll take my place at the head of my men, Sir James. I merely want it placed on record that I consider the conditions here totally unsuitable for a frontal attack.’

  The colonel had been stung beyond discretion by the admiral’s words, and Kernow stepped in hurriedly. ‘You’re not facing a Chinese rabble, Sir James. One of the men on the shore is Shalonga, son of the great war-lord General Tingamao. They came here from the Vietnamese border with fifty thousand troops. Most are cavalrymen and all are seasoned fighters.’

  Such information could not be ignored, even by a man such as Admiral Sir James Hope. ‘How do you know all this, Keats? By listening to coolies? I swear half of them are being paid by the Chinese government.’

  When the laughter of some of the admiral’s junior naval staff died down, Kernow said, ‘I learned of the war-lord’s army from Shalonga himself, when I was taken prisoner by the Chinese on the Canton river. He was the man who secured my release. He had nothing to gain by lying to me. At that time there was no threat to us from this particular army. It was on its way to fight the Taipings.’

  Admiral Sir James Hope had not heard the story of Kernow’s exploits on the Canton river. For a moment it seemed he might question him further. Then his arrogant confidence returned once more.