Killigrew and the Golden Dragon

by Jonathan Lunn

  ‘Your steward’s fetching her some hot water and towels now, sir, so she can have a scrub up before tea,’ reported the seaman.

  ‘Very good, Molineaux.’ Robertson turned to Hartcliffe. ‘I want you to pick a dozen men from the port watch and take command of the junk, First. Search it from top to bottom, make sure there aren’t any more pilongs hiding below decks. Then wait here while we go back to pick up the whaler. The other junk seems to be long gone, and I don’t propose we waste any time looking for it. When we get back we’ll take you in tow. At least we’ll get some prize money out of this.’ He gave the junk a disparaging glance. ‘Perhaps even enough to buy a round of drinks at the Hong Kong Club.’

  The Tisiphone sailed back to where the whaler waited.

  ‘No survivors, sir,’ the mate reported grimly as soon as he was back on deck. He reported to Killigrew; he was terrified of the gruff commander, and flinched every time Robertson addressed him. ‘The pilongs did a dashed thorough job.’

  ‘What are those crates?’ Killigrew gestured to the chests which bobbed in the water all around.

  ‘Tea, sir,’ said the mate. ‘The clipper must’ve had a full hold.’

  ‘That’s queer.’

  ‘I don’t see what’s queer about it, Second,’ Robertson said pettishly. ‘The clippers bring opium from Calcutta to exchange for tea in China, and then sail back to England with their cargoes. No point in sailing home with a hold that’s only half full.’

  ‘I’m aware of that, sir,’ said Killigrew. ‘What I don’t understand is, why did the pilongs attack the clipper when she was obviously on the return voyage? Isn’t that rather like Esquimaux stealing snow?’

  * * *

  Peri Dadabhoy was her father’s daughter. She knew many women her own age, both European and Indian, who would have had a fit of the conniptions on being captured by pirates. She did not despise such women – it was not in her nature – and she understood that they were merely products of the culture in which they had been raised. But her father believed in the rights of woman and had raised his daughter the same as her brothers, making sure she was given the education he had never had, and that she was fit for something more in life than embroidery and music. When Queen Victoria had married Prince Albert, Framjee had held a ball to celebrate the momentous occasion, inviting not only his Parsi friends but also Muslim, Hindu and Christian business associates. Although the Parsis did not believe in keeping their women in purdah, nevertheless it was unheard of for Parsi women to be present at such a heterogeneous gathering; yet Framjee had insisted that all his daughters attend alongside their brothers, to the astonishment of his Parsi friends and to Peri’s secret mortification. She was proud of her heritage and she clung fiercely to her Zarathustrian beliefs, yet in spite of herself, once she had overcome her initial shyness, she had enjoyed the ball immensely.

  She had not yet been born when her father had lost everything in the Great Fire of Bombay, but she had often heard the stories. Once she had asked where her father had found the courage to go on and continue in business. ‘If Zarathustrianism teaches us nothing else, my child, it teaches us that life goes on and one must learn to smile in the face of adversity and have faith in the undying benevolence of God.’

  A knock on the day-room door startled her out of her reverie. ‘Come in,’ she called.

  Lord Hartcliffe entered and bowed. She returned his bow, which seemed to confuse him; he was probably more used to women curtsying, she reflected. ‘My lord,’ she said, smiling in a vain attempt to put him at his ease.

  ‘Miss Dadabhoy… um… I was wondering whether you wished to join myself and the other senior officers for supper in the wardroom tonight, or if you preferred to dine alone in here.’ Hartcliffe clasped his hands together, then seemed to realise he was unconsciously aping her and thrust them in the pockets of his pantaloons. ‘Of course, if you don’t feel up to a formal supper we shall all quite understand…’

  ‘I shall be delighted, my lord.’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’ Hartcliffe remembered that a gentleman did not put his hands in his pockets in front of a lady and took them out again, patting them together before him. ‘Don’t think that we’ll be put out if you decline. After the ordeal you’ve been through…’

  She was careful to keep a straight face as he clasped his hands behind his back. ‘No, it will be my pleasure. Unless there is some reason you feel it would be unfitting…?’

  ‘Good Lord, no!’ He wrung his hands. ‘No, no, no! We should be delighted. Ah… supper at five?’

  ‘I shall look forward to it.’ She held out a hand, and after some hesitation he shook it.

  ‘If there’s anything you need before then…?’

  She shook her head. He bowed awkwardly and went out.

  The wardroom was an elegantly furnished compartment seventeen feet by twelve, a mahogany table dominating the room. There were three upright upholstered chairs down either side of the table and one at either end. There were no windows: by day the light came from a skylight in the deck head, but now the blinds were drawn under the skylight, and illumination was provided by two oil lamps which swung from the deck head, and the silver-plated candelabra which formed the centrepiece on the table. Crystal decanters stood on a sideboard with the crockery. There were three doors in the bulkhead on the far side of the room, marked ‘First Lieutenant’, ‘Second Lieutenant’ and ‘Surgeon’.

  There were six men in the room when Peri entered at five, plus the white-coated wardroom steward. A white linen cloth had been laid on the table, and seven places set. The steward pulled out the chair at the far end, opposite Hartcliffe, who sat at the head of the table.

  ‘Miss Dadabhoy,’ said Hartcliffe, ‘you’ve met Killigrew and Mr Westlake, our surgeon. May I introduce Mr Yelverton, the ship’s master; Mr Vellacott, our purser and paymaster; and Mr Muir, our chief engineer? Gentlemen, this is Miss Dadabhoy.’

  They murmured greetings and waited for her to be seated before resuming their places.

  ‘Is Commander Robertson not joining us?’ asked Peri.

  ‘The captain usually dines alone,’ explained Hartcliffe. ‘As it happens, this evening he’s been good enough to stand in for me as officer of the watch.’

  ‘Have I done something to offend him?’ asked Peri. ‘I am sure I am mistaken, but I cannot help but get the impression he is avoiding me.’

  ‘The captain of a vessel usually has to adopt a somewhat aloof attitude to those under his command,’ said Killigrew.

  ‘Am I under his command?’ asked Peri, amused.

  ‘Only in so far as the ultimate responsibility for the lives of all on board rests with him,’ Killigrew replied, offhand.

  Peri had known plenty of British officers, soldiers of the Honourable East India Company’s army in Bombay and naval men in Hong Kong. Broadly speaking, they seemed to fit into two categories: corpulent, red-faced men who drank too much and ate too much and damned the servants and the weather continually; and quieter, more intense men, usually either on their way to or returning from the latest troubles on the North-West Frontier and determined not to discuss their experiences. Killigrew seemed to belong to the latter category, but it was an uneasy fit: the presence of a young woman did not make him uncomfortable and he seemed to accept her being there as casually as did his fellow officers. Encounters with English gentlemen in Bombay and Hong Kong had taught her they were just as frightened of her as she had been of them; she had learned to make the most of this, although tonight, out of gratitude, she was more concerned to put them at ease.

  Not that Killigrew needed to be put at ease, she guessed. Here was a man who would have been as much at home at a royal garden party as he evidently was throwing himself over the bulwarks of a hostile vessel.

  Hartcliffe said a brief grace and the steward started to serve the first course: crimped salmon en matelot Normandie. ‘We tend to avoid soup at sea, for obvious reasons,’ said Hartcliffe.

  ‘Really?’ Peri could no
t resist asking impishly. ‘What are those?’

  ‘Well, if the weather gets rough it tends to…’ began Hartcliffe, and then realised that she was teasing him. He grinned good-naturedly, and the others chuckled. ‘On a larger ship we’d each have a personal servant to serve our food – one of the marines – but in a wardroom this size, it’s cramped enough with just the six of us, without having half a dozen marines clumping about the place. Mr McBride manages to do us very nicely, though,’ he added as the steward made his way round the table with a bottle of Chablis. ‘You, er… you do partake, don’t you?’

  ‘In moderation,’ she replied, holding down the neck of the bottle when it looked as though the steward might only half fill the glass. She had enjoyed drinking competitions with her brothers, and usually won.

  ‘Ah. I wasn’t sure if… you know…’

  ‘I believe you are thinking of Muslims, my lord.’

  ‘To be sure, to be sure.’ Hartcliffe stared at his plate, bit his lip for a moment, and then picked up his fish knife and fork, his tureen of small talk exhausted.

  ‘You are on your way to Hong Kong?’ asked Peri.

  Hartcliffe nodded eagerly. ‘Your father lives there?’

  ‘Sometimes in Hong Kong, sometimes in Bombay,’ said Peri. ‘Wherever his business takes him.’

  ‘What line of work is your father in, Miss Dadabhoy?’ piped up Vellacott.

  ‘Shipping,’ Hartcliffe said quickly.

  Peri smiled thinly. ‘You’ve no need to be embarrassed on my account, my lord,’ she said, and turned back to the purser and paymaster. ‘My father deals in opium, Mr Vellacott. Oh, he trades all manner of things, to be fair. But the bulk of his wealth is made from shipping opium from the Honourable East India Company’s estates in Bengal to China, in exchange for tea, which he ships to England. Please believe me, gentlemen. I am not proud of how my father has earned his fortune.’

  ‘There’s no law against shipping opium,’ said Killigrew. ‘No British law, at any rate. Speaking for myself, I’ve always been a believer in free trade.’

  ‘Except where slaves are concerned,’ said Hartcliffe.

  ‘Slaves, my lord?’ asked Peri.

  ‘Killigrew distinguished himself against the slavers on the Guinea Coast a couple of years ago.’

  She turned back to the second lieutenant with renewed interest. ‘How was that, Mr Killigrew?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’ Killigrew gestured dismissively, and Hartcliffe started in his chair, as if someone had kicked him in the shin. ‘I wouldn’t want to bore you. Besides, we have a strict rule in the wardroom: no talking shop.’

  ‘Well,’ said Peri, a little disappointed. ‘Your free-trade principles extend to opium, but stop short of slavery. May I ask why there should be any difference?’

  ‘People aren’t goods. Opium is.’

  ‘Yet both trades ruin lives.’

  ‘True. But the principle is different. It’s a question of liberty.’

  ‘I am not sure I follow you.’

  ‘The slaves are taken against their will, deprived of their liberty. That’s wrong, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, opium users aren’t forced to take opium…’

  ‘Perhaps not to begin with,’ said Peri. ‘But there is new evidence to suggest that drugs such as opium are addictive.’ Her father had encouraged her to learn about the family business along with her brothers; but he had not expected her to study the debilitating effects of opium quite so enthusiastically. ‘Once a person starts using opiates, he finds it very difficult to live without them. Is this not so, Mr Westlake?’

  ‘Humbug,’ snorted the surgeon.

  ‘Mr Westlake…’ Hartcliffe said chidingly.

  ‘I beg your pardon, miss,’ said Westlake. ‘But there’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever to suggest that opium is addictive.’

  ‘Mr Strachan – our assistant surgeon,’ Killigrew added in an aside for Peri’s benefit – ‘says he refuses to prescribe any opiates on the grounds that he finds his patients become dependent on them.’

  ‘Mr Strachan,’ Westlake said scathingly, ‘has a theory that malaria is somehow transmitted by mosquito bites!’

  ‘Mr Strachan – and Miss Dadabhoy here – may be right about opium, though,’ said Hartcliffe. ‘Remember Lieutenant Jardine? He went down with pneumonia and the quack prescribed Godfrey’s Cordial. Well, he recovered from his pneumonia, but when he tried to stop taking his medicine, he fell prey to a range of new symptoms.’

  ‘An entirely different illness, doubtless brought about by his weakened condition after his bout of pneumonia,’ insisted Westlake.

  ‘Yes, that’s what his quack told him,’ said Hartcliffe. ‘No prizes for guessing what was prescribed as a cure.’

  ‘An opiate?’ asked Peri.

  Hartcliffe nodded. ‘Godfrey’s Cordial. The problem was, every time he stopped taking the cordial, the symptoms returned.’

  ‘Must have been something chronic,’ said Westlake.

  Hartcliffe ignored the interruption. ‘And the more cordial he took, the less effect it seemed to have in ameliorating his symptoms, so he had to take larger and larger doses. In the end it quite debilitated him, until he was unable to carry out his duties and dismissed the service. A terrible shame: he was a promising young officer.’

  ‘People should be informed of the dangers of taking opiates before it’s prescribed,’ said Killigrew. ‘If they still want to wreck their lives, that’s their look-out. The freedom to ruin oneself is merely the other side of the coin which is the freedom to get on in life. You can’t have one without the other.’

  ‘That’s all very well for educated people like us, Mr Killigrew,’ said Westlake. ‘But the Chinese are ignorant—’

  ‘If that is so, then we should educate them. Those who sneer at the people of China for smoking opium might do well to take a glance inside the gin palaces of Britain.’

  ‘Then perhaps we should stop the gin trade, too.’

  ‘Why stop the gin trade and not the wine trade? Because the people who drink gin are poor and therefore too ignorant to know any better? I find that a rather patronising attitude, Westlake. Just because a man was born into a poor family that does not make him a fool, no more than a man born into the gentry can be assumed to be a genius.’

  ‘Then why do the poor ruin their lives through drink?’

  ‘Their lives were already ruined the day they were born in poverty. They drink gin to help themselves forget that fact. Perhaps if you found yourself living with that kind of despair you too might take to drinking gin. That would be your choice. Take port, for instance. No one likes a glass of port or two after supper more than I. Perhaps I’m condemning myself to the misery of gout in later life, but that is my decision. Do you think it would be right for the government to forbid people to drink port?’

  The surgeon shrugged. ‘If it were for their own good.’

  Killigrew shook his head. He turned to Peri, as if he had higher hopes of making her understand his principles than he did of Westlake. ‘I believe in a little thing called liberty, Miss Dadabhoy, the freedom to make my own choices in life. I do not believe it is the duty of the government to tell me what I may and may not do, so long as my actions harm none but myself. And if I have the right to make such decisions for myself, then so should the labouring classes be permitted their gin and the Chinese their opium. Instead of worrying about the fact that these people indulge in such vices, perhaps we should concern ourselves with the conditions that drive them to seek oblivion. If your father did not smuggle opium into China, there are plenty of others who would be keen to get their hands on his client list. At least Sir Dadabhoy spends much of his profits on philanthropic works in Gujerat, putting money back into the community. I suspect there are plenty of other China traders who are less charitable.’

  ‘It is kind of you to say so.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s only the truth. And at least your father didn’t
put pressure on the British government to go to war with China. Selling opium to a willing client is one thing. Forcing him to buy it at the point of a gun is another.’

  ‘Steady on, Killigrew,’ said Vellacott. ‘The China War was fought in defence of the rights of British merchants trying to trade with the Chinese. What they buy once that trade is established is their own affair. There’s a demand for tea in Britain. We’ve offered the Chinese our manufactures and they’ve turned their noses up at them. So it has to be opium.’

  ‘Why should they buy British cotton, when they manufacture their own perfectly good silk? And it doesn’t have to be opium: there’s a massive deficit of silver bullion in China. But I don’t see the China traders rushing to offer it in place of opium.’

  ‘A bullion deficit brought about because the Chinese have spent so much of it on opium.’

  ‘Forgive me for saying so, Vellacott, but you’re missing the point. Let’s look at it from the point of view of the Chinese, shall we? Suppose our positions were reversed. Now let’s say the British government made the selling of gin illegal. I wouldn’t approve, for the reasons I’ve already stated: it would be an infringement of the civil liberties of British subjects. But there are many other laws in Britain which I consider infringements of the liberties of British subjects; yet I respect them, because they are the law.’

  ‘Such as?’ asked Peri, intrigued.

  ‘Well, for one thing, the political franchise needs to be widened.’

  ‘Here he goes again,’ said Yelverton, rolling his eyes, and turned to Peri. ‘Killigrew thinks everyone in Britain should have a vote, instead of just those who occupy a house of ten pounds’ annual rental.’

  ‘Even that’s too radical, if you ask me,’ grunted Westlake. ‘They should never have done away with the forty-shilling freehold rule. Only the people with a property stake in the country can be judged fit to make such momentous decisions.’