‘The rich look after the poor, you mean?’ Killigrew asked with amusement. ‘You should take a walk through Bluegate Fields some time, Mr Westlake. They’re not doing a very good job of it.’
‘Ha! This from a man who’d let women have the vote!’
‘And why should they not, Mr Westlake?’ Peri asked sweetly.
‘Women’s brains are smaller than men’s—’ began the surgeon.
‘Not in proportion to their body weight,’ she countered.
‘That’s neither here nor there. They have a lower mental capacity. Stands to reason. Give women the vote, next thing you know, they’ll be running the country.’
‘With a lower mental capacity?’ Peri asked, with a straight face. Glancing at Killigrew, she saw him stifle a smile, although her irony was wasted on Westlake.
‘If you ask me, the country’s already run by an old woman,’ said Hartcliffe.
‘That’s no way to talk about Lord Russell!’ protested Vellacott.
‘Lord Russell doesn’t have a mind of his own,’ said Hartcliffe. ‘That’s why he needs Trevelyan and Grafton to do all his thinking for him.’
‘Who’s Trevelyan?’ Peri asked Killigrew in a whisper.
‘Permanent Head of the Treasury,’ he murmured back. ‘Not a nice man.’
‘Trevelyan and Grafton say it’s the Paddies’ own fault they’re starving – when any fool can see it’s the fault of their landlords – and lo, the dead are lying in heaps in the country lanes of Ireland,’ continued Hartcliffe.
‘That’s your free trade for you, Killigrew,’ Westlake said triumphantly.
‘Not free trade, Mr Westlake,’ Killigrew responded tightly. ‘Callous inhumanity. Where was I?’
‘You were asking us to suppose the government outlawed the sale of gin in Britain, Mr Killigrew,’ said Peri.
‘Thank you,’ he said with a smile. ‘Now, suppose the Chinese started smuggling gin into Britain, ignoring our laws. Naturally our government protests. So the Chinese go to war with us – and win.’
‘Not likely,’ said Vellacott.
‘It’s merely a hypothetical supposition,’ said Killigrew. ‘The Chinese going to war with us to force us to accept their breaking of our laws. Hardly what you’d call a moral crusade, is it, gentlemen? Well, I put it to you that’s exactly what we did to the Chinese back in thirty-nine.’
‘What exactly happened in the Opium War?’ asked Peri. ‘I tried to follow the reports in the newspapers, but I’m afraid I could not make much sense of what was going on.’
Killigrew smiled thinly. ‘Neither could I – and I was right in the thick of it.’
‘Hark at him!’ Hartcliffe jibed good-naturedly. ‘His ship didn’t arrive until the last few months. Some of us who were there from the outset, however—’
‘And a proper hash you’d been making of it until then,’ Killigrew retorted. ‘God knows, that war should never have been started – a ridiculous, patchy affair between two arrogant empires which had failed to understand one another and failed to appreciate the merits of one another – but if it had been done when ’twas done, then ’twere well it had been done quickly.’
Hartcliffe nodded in agreement. ‘We failed to prosecute the war thoroughly – I think even Rear-Admiral Elliot sensed the ignobility of our crusade – but a decisive blow early on might have convinced the Chinese they weren’t dealing with barbarians but with an industrially more advanced opponent whom their junks could not match. It might even have preserved lives by bringing the war to a swift conclusion instead of allowing it to drag on for as long as it did.
‘The problem was the Emperor refused to deal directly with us. When his troops suffered reverses, his subordinates were too afraid to report their failure; our reluctance to press home victories only made it easier for the mandarins to conceal their defeats from the Emperor. After nearly three years of blockades, punitive attacks, muddled negotiations, the expeditionary force finally arrived from home waters, including HMS Dido with a certain Midshipman Killigrew on board. We seized the city of Chingkiang-fu – on the vital crossroads of the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal – and threatened the great city of Nanking. That forced the Chinese to come to terms. You probably know the rest.’
Peri nodded. The Treaty of Nanking had opened five ports – Amoy, Canton, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai – to Western trade, demanded that the Chinese pay an indemnity of twenty-one million dollars, and decreed that Hong Kong be ceded to the British. As a British possession separate from the mainland, the island of Hong Kong was a safer place for Western merchants to conduct their trade, free from interference from the Chinese authorities.
An awkward silence ensued and once again it was left to Peri to break it. ‘What are your politics, my lord?’ she asked Hartcliffe. She recalled that the Duke of Hartcliffe was a mainstay of the Tory Party. ‘Are you a Tory, like your father?’
‘Good Lord, no!’ Hartcliffe replied with a grin, more relaxed now he had a couple of glasses of wine inside him. ‘I’m a communist. “Working men of all countries unite,” what?’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Killigrew, raising his glass.
‘Before or after the loyal toast?’ Yelverton asked sardonically.
‘In place of,’ Killigrew asserted with mock gravity.
‘Aux barricades!’ declared Hartcliffe. ‘Les aristocrates à la lanteme!’
Westlake turned to Peri. ‘Of course, you realise they’re both stark, raving mad?’
She smiled. ‘Yes. I noticed that this afternoon.’
* * *
‘Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin – his control
Stops with the shore.’
Able Seaman Wes Molineaux was rarely happier than when he took a trick at the Tisiphone’s helm, and the lines of verse came almost unconsciously to his lips. As a kinchin, barely more than a toddler, he had helped to supplement his mother’s meagre wages as a charlady by ‘mudlarking’: searching the mudflats of the Thames at low tide for salvage – a copper nail here, a lump of coal there, it all added up. On cold winter mornings he and the other river urchins had warmed their feet in the run-off from the steam-powered manufactories on the south bank, and as the sensation had slowly returned to his numbed dew-beaters he had watched the tall ships come and go from the Pool of London, bearing cargoes from exotic lands, never once imagining that one day he would make a living as a sailor and get to see such lands for himself.
In those days he had known only cold and hunger. He had been the youngest of three siblings and the harsh life of the slums around Seven Dials had inevitably forced him into a life of crime. For twelve years he had prospered, becoming the toast of the flash mob, until one day a job had turned sour and he had been forced to flee to Ireland, hiding up in Cork and eventually taking ship on HMS Powerful as the cook’s mate.
The voice of the officer of the watch startled Molineaux out of his reverie. ‘Poetry, Mr Molineaux?’ asked Killigrew, lighting his first cheroot of the day.
‘Byron, sir. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.’
‘I keep forgetting your intellectual taste in poetry. I thought you said you never went to school? Who taught you to read?’
‘An old pal of mine, sir.’ Molineaux had often wondered what had happened to the man who, amongst other things, had taught him everything he had ever needed to know about breaking and entering, and thought about going to Australia to see if he could find him. But from what he had heard, some who were transported to the colonies did well for themselves once they became ticket-of-leave men; besides, knowing his old mentor, he had probably made leg-bail years ago and was in lavender somewhere. ‘He taught me how to read, using The Police Gazette as a primer.’
‘The Police Gazette?’
‘Where they print the notices of stolen goods,’ Ågård said drily.
‘Ah!’ Killigrew was well aware of Molineaux�
��s felonious past, and discreetly left it at that.
‘Sail ho!’ cried the look-out at the masthead.
‘Where away?’ demanded the boatswain.
‘Two points on the port quarter!’
Killigrew took the telescope from the binnacle to see for himself. ‘Opium clipper coming up fast astern,’ he reported to no one in particular a few moments later. ‘One point to starboard, Mr Ågård. We’ll exchange flags of courtesy as she passes.’
‘Aye, aye, sir. One point to starboard, Molineaux.’
‘One point to starboard it is Mr Ågård.’ On the crowded mess-deck, Molineaux and Ågård knew one another as Wes and Oily; but here on the quarter-deck, it was ‘Molineaux’ and ‘Mister’; just one of the navy’s little foibles which Molineaux had had to get used to.
Staying in the service had never been part of the plan. He had only joined the Powerful for one commission, until the hue and cry in London had died down. But one commission had lasted three hard years in the Mediterranean. Molineaux had chafed under navy discipline, earned himself a flogging through insubordination, and had promised himself he would jump ship at the first opportunity, when the commodore had been knocked overboard by a careless hand. Jumping after him to save his life had just seemed like the natural thing to do. The commodore had rewarded Molineaux with a singularly inappropriate gift, a volume of poetry by some cove called Andy Marvell. Molineaux had been seated on the head one day, on the verge of using the pages for a purpose for which they had never been intended, when he had chanced to read some of the lines.
He had been hooked at once. Afterwards he had sometimes wondered if the gift had been so inappropriate after all. From then on he had devoured poetry hungrily. He did not always comprehend the classical allusions, but that did not matter: what was important was the beauty of the language. A seaman on a man-o’-war did not get much time to himself, but even a few hours snatched here and there added up over voyages which lasted for months. His new shipmates aboard the Tisiphone had mocked him when they had first caught him reading poetry, so he had started reading aloud The Rime of the Ancient Mariner from a Coleridge anthology: after the first five stanzas the barracking had stopped; at the end of Part the Third he had closed the book, climbed into his hammock and bid them goodnight, turning a deaf ear to their entreaties to learn what happened next. Before the week had ended every rating on board had begged him to read them the rest, and he had finally relented.
Sailing close-hauled under full canvas, it was not long before the merchantman effortlessly overhauled the paddle-sloop. With favourable winds, a fast clipper could sail from Calcutta to Canton in about three weeks. A handsome East Indiaman with a low, sleek, double-decked hull, three raking masts and delicate rigging, the clipper’s sides were painted in a chequered black-and-white pattern, perhaps to fool pilongs into thinking she was a man-o’-war. The sun was just below the horizon, yet its rays struck the clipper’s upper masts and made her gleaming white royals and topgallant sails glow like spun gold. The men scrubbing the Tisiphone’s deck before breakfast paused in their work to admire the clipper’s fine lines.
Miss Dadabhoy emerged from the after hatch, looking refreshed and lovely in her emerald-green sari. Molineaux could not help thinking that she had a few lines worthy of admiration herself. Not that he entertained any ambitions in that direction; he had once been the fancy of the hour for a well-to-do lady who was curious about the negro anatomy, and he had been happy to satisfy her curiosity. Both of them had been pleasantly surprised by the experience, while it lasted: some of these well-bred ladies could be no better than they ought to be. In those days Molineaux had been young and foolish enough to fall in love, but the lady in question had had no hesitation in reminding him of his place when he had told her of his undying devotion. Now he was an older and wiser man: it was not that he was not good enough for the likes of them; his mother had raised him to believe he was just as good a man as any gentry cove. But a black raised on the back streets of Seven Dials could have little in common with a lady more used to the genteel salons of Mayfair.
‘Now that’s what I call a beautiful sight,’ said Killigrew.
Miss Dadabhoy turned. ‘Mr Killigrew!’
He met her gaze with innocent brown eyes and indicated the clipper with a nod, although Molineaux was not convinced that was the direction the young officer had been looking in when he had spoken. The seaman grinned. Some of these officers were no better than they ought to be, either.
Chapter 3
Hong Kong
Peri Dadabhoy climbed the rest of the way on to the quarterdeck and gave the passing clipper a cursory glance. ‘I must confess I have never been able to understand why some men are so enthusiastic about sailing ships.’
‘When I was a boy, I used to spend hours sitting on the quayside at Falmouth,’ said Killigrew. ‘I used to watch the ships come and go, and listened to the old salts spinning yarns about the wonderful things they’d seen and the exotic lands they’d visited. I think that even if my family hadn’t been naval officers for generations, I’d still have gone to sea.’
‘It is a dangerous way of life, though, is it not?’ she asked.
‘That depends how one looks at it. Only landlubbers think of the oceans as a barrier to be crossed. I’ve always seen the sea as a path to faraway places.’
She shook her head. ‘Why do you do it, Mr Killigrew? Risk your life to save people you have never met from pirates and slavers?’
‘Someone has to.’
‘Why you?’
He sighed, and moved away from the two seamen who stood at the helm. ‘If you must know… I suppose it all goes back to when I was in my first ship: HMS Dreadful, a frigate on the Mediterranean station. I was twelve when I joined the navy. One grows up swiftly in the service. Hardly a day went by in the Dreadful without someone getting a flogging. The captain was a good man, but weak; the first lieutenant manipulated him. He ran everything, and he was a fiend.’
‘Were you ever flogged?’
‘No. They don’t flog the young gentlemen; although I was caned a few times,’ he added with a rueful grin. ‘But that doesn’t mean that the snotties have a soft life. I suppose one expects a little rough and tumble to go on in the cockpit: youthful high-spirits, skylarking – it all helps to toughen up the character. But sometimes it goes too far. The oldsters in the cockpit – the older midshipmen and the mates – used to bully us remorselessly.’
‘Somehow I cannot imagine you allowing anyone to bully you.’
‘Don’t think of me as Lieutenant Kit Killigrew. Think of First-Class Volunteer Christopher Killigrew, twelve years old and away from home for the first time, with no one to turn to and no one to trust.’ He grimaced. ‘It builds character, all right. The first lesson I learned was never to cry. The more you cried, the more they picked on you. So you kept your mouth shut and knuckled down. There was one boy who never learned that lesson, so the bullies picked on him especially. I used to listen to them tormenting him as I lay in my hammock and pretended to be asleep, and do you know what I was thinking?’
‘“Thank heavens it’s not me”?’
He looked at her in surprise. This was the first time he had ever told anyone this story, because he had been afraid they would laugh at him or despise him. But she seemed to understand. ‘Exactly.’
She reached out to him tenderly and put one of her hands on his. ‘It was a natural reaction; certainly not anything to be ashamed of.’
‘Oh, but you haven’t heard the best of it yet. I hated those oldsters for bullying my friend. I used to lie awake and dream about how one day I would teach them a lesson. But I never did because I was afraid that I would only bring trouble on myself. So I did nothing, while each day his spirit became more and more crushed. He was coming apart at the seams, right before my eyes, but I did nothing because I was simply glad it wasn’t me.’
‘Did the bullies get their comeuppance?’
‘Eventually. But by then it was too l
ate. One day as I was coming off duty, I stepped into the cockpit and there he was, swinging from a beam on the deck head. He’d decided he couldn’t take it any more, so he’d hanged himself.’
‘And you blamed yourself.’
‘I still do. Wouldn’t you?’
‘I cannot say. I have never been in such a situation.’
He nodded. ‘I was so upset, for a while I thought about leaving the navy at the first opportunity.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
It was a question Killigrew had asked himself many times in those dark days on board HMS Dreadful. ‘Two reasons, I suppose. First, I didn’t want to prove my grandfather right. He’d always said I was spineless, useless – a white-livered bookworm – and that I wouldn’t last five minutes in the service.’
‘Your grandfather said that?’ she asked in astonishment. She had already learned from Hartcliffe that Killigrew had been raised by his grandfather after the death of his parents. Peri had never known her grandfather, but her father had never shown her anything but love and support.
‘In a way I’m glad he did,’ said Killigrew. ‘If he hadn’t, I’d never have had anything to prove.’
‘Perhaps that was what he intended all along,’ she suggested shrewdly.
Killigrew glanced at her, his eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘Perhaps.’
‘And the other reason?’
‘About a fortnight after my friend hanged himself, I went into battle for the first time. I say “battle” – more of a skirmish, really – but it was terrifying enough at the time. We were patrolling off the Barbary Coast when we cornered a corsair galley in a bay. We chased them back to their fortress, there was a fight and… well, to cut a long story short, we won. In the dungeons of the fortress we found prisoners captured from merchant vessels. The corsairs had been planning to sell them into slavery. When we released them… In the days after my friend’s death, I’d been asking myself what it was all for, what purpose the navy served. I had my answer in the faces of those people when they were freed. I saw a way to atone for having stood by while a friend of mine was driven to suicide.’
Killigrew and the Golden Dragon Page 5