‘Do about it, sir? I’m not sure that we need to do anything about it. I’ve read Killigrew’s report, questioned him closely and found that he behaved perfectly satisfactorily.’
‘Perfectly satisfactorily! For pity’s sake, Robertson! He blew up a clipper! Right in the middle of Cap-sing mun anchorage!’
‘I’m sure Sir Dadabhoy is fully insured.’
‘Against acts of God, Commander. I believe that acts of Lieutenant Killigrew are something of a grey area as far as insurance companies are concerned.’
Robertson chuckled. ‘Yes, I’d been warned that he had a callous disregard for the safety of property. I’m amazed that no enterprising marine insurance company has yet offered a policy with our indomitable lieutenant in mind.’
‘This is no time for levity, Robertson. Aside from the destruction of the Akhandata, there’s also the question of loss of life to be taken into account.’
‘I’m fully aware of that, sir. My people spent most of last Sunday afternoon pulling bodies out of the anchorage. We can hardly blame Killigrew for the slaughter of the crew of the Akhandata; and as for the pilongs, he was only doing his job.’
‘And Miss Dadabhoy? The daughter of Sir Dadabhoy Framjee, an extremely influential man in these parts?’
‘How much influence Sir Dadabhoy has is hardly the point, a fact which I’m sure – if he was here to speak for himself – he would be the first to point out.’
‘Au contraire, Commander Robertson, that is precisely the point. How am I to explain to the other traders that the daughter of one of their associates was killed because Lieutenant Killigrew thought he could play games with the girl’s life?’
Molineaux, Ågård, O’Connor and the boatswain’s mate jumped as something slammed in the cabin below: Robertson’s glass against the table, by the sound of it. ‘With all due respect, sir, bearing in mind the particular regard in which Killigrew held Miss Dadabhoy, I would imagine he did everything in his power to save that poor girl.’
‘And I put it to you, Commander, that he allowed his personal feelings to cloud his judgement.’
‘We’ve all made mistakes in our youth, sir. Killigrew’s a damned fine officer and I believe he did everything he could. The sad fact of the matter is that sometimes everything simply isn’t enough. It’s a tragedy, but there it is. You didn’t see him after Mr Endicott pulled him out of the harbour. I did. I know that young man, and believe me, if he could turn the clock back and exchange his life for hers, I truly think he would do just that.’
‘Hmph. Well, he can’t turn the clock back. Where is he? I think it’s high time I had a word with him myself. I’m sure he’s had plenty of time to recover from his injuries.’
‘Ah. I’m afraid he isn’t on board at the moment, sir. I told him to take a fortnight off to rest and make sure he was fully recovered.’
‘Is that so, Commander? I was informed you’d given him a week. That was twelve days ago.’
‘Who told you that, sir? No, don’t tell me, let me guess: that priggish little squit Norris.’
Norris was one of the Tisiphone’s mates, a devout, self-righteous Christian, and thoroughly disliked by the hands. It was news to Molineaux that Robertson shared their dislike.
‘Well, it hardly matters, does it?’ continued Robertson. ‘Lieutenant Killigrew is my officer. If I choose to extend his leave indefinitely, that’s between him and me.’
‘Her Majesty’s government does not pay its officers to keep their feet up in Hong Kong, Commander. I expect to see Lieutenant Killigrew back on duty by Monday morning, is that understood?’ Chair legs scraped against the deck.
‘You have to make allowances. Killigrew was deeply upset by what happened to Miss Dadabhoy. I may not blame him for what happened to her. That does not mean he doesn’t blame himself. I think under the circumstances—’
‘Monday morning, Commander. I shall expect to see him in my cabin in Hastings at nine a.m. on Monday. If he does not appear, I shall have no option but to recommend that Lieutenant Killigrew be court-martialled for gross dereliction of duty and desertion. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Abundantly so, sir.’
The door slammed. Molineaux and the others stood up and quickly tiptoed away from the skylight so that when Morgan emerged on deck they were back at their duties. The boatswain’s mate piped the captain over the side.
As soon as Morgan’s gig was on its way back to the Hastings, O’Connor turned to Molineaux and Ågård. ‘Hear that, lads? Tom Tidley’s gone adrift!’
‘Don’t you believe it!’ snorted Ågård. ‘If I know him, he’s probably off doing secret work somewhere, tracking down the rest of them yellow-belly pilongs. You mark my words, lads, he’ll turn up just as the ship’s bell’s chiming the end of the middle watch on Monday morning, ready to present his compliments to Cap’n Morgan, along with the exact whereabouts of a pirate lair!’
One of the marines emerged from the after-hatch and faced the boatswain’s mate.
‘Mr Fanning? The Cap’n wants to see you in his day room. Along with Mr Ågård and Able Seamen Molineaux and O’Connor?’
The four seamen presented themselves in Robertson’s day room and stood to attention in a line. The commander paced up and down in front of them. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to remind you four that eavesdropping at skylights is an extremely nasty habit, and I won’t tolerate it on board this vessel. I hope I don’t ever catch any of you at it.’
The boatswain’s mate exchanged glances with the others. ‘No, sir.’
‘Glad to hear it. Dismissed, gentlemen.’
As soon as the afternoon watch was over, Molineaux made his way forward to the sick berth and knocked on the door.
‘Come in,’ called Mr Strachan.
Molineaux entered and closed the door behind him. The surgeon, Westlake, avoided the sick berth if at all possible as a consequence of which it had become the domain of Mr Strachan. The young assistant surgeon kept everything in neat and pristine condition, if only so he could use the place as a developing room for his photographic plates. He had stretched lines across the deck head and pictures of the local flora and fauna hung side by side with surgical appliances.
‘Drop your breeks,’ said Strachan, his nose buried in Knox’s Anatomy.
‘Sir ?’
‘You want me to inspect you for social diseases, don’t you?’ Strachan turned a page with a sigh. ‘It’s always the same with you fellows. When are you going to leam that prevention is far better than cure? Wash your parts with coal-tar soap and I’ll put you down for a course of mercury treatment—’
‘This isn’t about my parts, sir,’ interrupted Molineaux. ‘It’s about Mr Killigrew.’
Strachan looked up. ‘Killigrew’s contracted a social disease? I’d’ve thought he’d know better.’
This was a possibility which had not occurred to Molineaux. ‘I don’t know about that, sir. He’s gone missing.’
‘Well? What do you want me to do about it?’
‘You’re his friend, aren’t you?’
‘I’d like to think so. Not that it’s any of your business, Molineaux.’
‘Aren’t you worried about him, sir?’
‘Damn your impertinence! Killigrew can look after himself.’
‘What if he can’t?’
‘You think he might be in trouble?’
‘He already is. He’s gone adrift, hasn’t he?’
‘Killigrew wouldn’t go absent without the captain’s permission unless he had a good reason.’
‘Wouldn’t he, sir?’
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘He was sticking it away prettily heavily the other Sunday evening, wasn’t he?’
‘Damn your eyes, Molineaux! How much Mr Killigrew chooses to drink is no concern of yours!’
‘Sir, I’d like to think that Mr Killigrew is a friend of mine, too. Now if he has got a good reason for being adrift, then it probably means he’s in danger and needs our help, if he is
n’t already dead. If he hasn’t got a reason, then don’t you think it would be better if his friends found him drunk in a tavern before his superiors did?’
Strachan stared at him for a moment. ‘Be so good as to have the dinghy lowered, Molineaux,’ he said, closing his book. ‘I’m going ashore.’
‘It would be more discreet if we got one of the yolos to take us ashore.’
‘Us?’
‘A gentry cove like yourself can’t be seen frequenting the waterfront gatherings, any more than I could get into the saloon of the Hong Kong Club or the Victoria Hotel.’
‘All right.’ Strachan reached for his hat and coat.
On deck, Molineaux crossed to the entry port and looked about. He recognised Mei-rong’s yolo amongst the bumboats and waved her across. She started to scull towards the foot of the side ladder.
A voice in Molineaux’s ear almost made him jump out of his skin. ‘Going somewhere?’ asked the boatswain.
Strachan intervened. ‘Ah, Bosun. I’m just going ashore to pick up some medical supplies from the naval stores. I’ve asked Able Seaman Molineaux to assist me.’
‘Very good, sir,’ the boatswain said obsequiously, and turned to Molineaux with a snarl. ‘Now you behave yourself ashore, Molineaux. I don’t want to hear from Mr Strachan here you’ve been giving him any trouble.’ He turned back to Strachan. ‘If he gives you any jaw, sir, you just let me know. I’ll sort him out.’
Strachan smiled nervously. Molineaux had noticed that the assistant surgeon was as frightened of the boatswain as any of the ratings. ‘I shall, Bosun. Don’t worry, I’m sure Molineaux will be on his best behaviour.’
‘That ain’t saying much,’ sniffed the boatswain. ‘Er… would you like me to have the dinghy lowered, sir?’
‘That’s all right, Bosun. We’ll take a yolo.’
‘As you will, sir.’
Molineaux and Strachan climbed into the yolo and Mei-rong sculled them across to the wharf. ‘Give her a dollar, sir,’ Molineaux told Strachan when they reached the quayside.
‘A dollar!’ protested Strachan, horrified. ‘Just for rowing us across the harbour?’
‘Got to keep the natives friendly,’ said Molineaux, deadpan. Strachan sighed and reached into his pocket while Molineaux kissed Mei-rong goodbye and told her not to wait for them.
‘Won’t we need a boat to take us back?’ asked Strachan as they watched her row back out to the Tisiphone.
‘No shortage of boats round here, sir,’ he said, gesturing at the sampans and yolos which crowded the waterfront. He cast his eyes over the town: it was still not that large, but there were plenty of nooks and crannies into which a drunken sailor might crawl, and the setting sun was spinning a web of darkness over the rooftops. ‘Hadn’t we better start searching?’
Strachan nodded. ‘You try the waterfront taverns, I’ll check the Hong Kong Club and places like that.’ He checked his watch. ‘We’ll meet outside the post office on Queen’s Road in three hours, at half-past nine.’
While Strachan glanced under newspapers draped over sleeping gentlemen in the rooms of the Hong Kong Club, Molineaux lifted sailor’s faces out of puddles of their own vomit in the gutters of alleys behind taverns. When the seaman reached the post office shortly before nine, Strachan already awaited him. ‘Any luck, sir?’
Strachan shook his head. ‘You?’
‘I spoke to a Portuguese sailor who things he saw someone answering Killigrew’s description heading off towards Tai-ping-shan.’
They both glanced down Queen’s Street to westward. ‘Why would he go down there?’
Molineaux shrugged. ‘You tell me, sir.’
‘Maybe he picked up a trail that might lead him to the pirates,’ said Strachan. ‘How long ago did this fellow see Killigrew going towards Tai-ping-shan?’
‘Sunday evening, sir.’
‘Five days ago?’ spluttered Strachan.
Molineaux coughed. ‘A week ago on Sunday evening, I mean.’
‘Twelve days! And no one’s seen him since?’
‘Doesn’t sound too good, does it? You want me to go in after him?’
‘On your own? By jings, no! Naturally I’ll come with you.’
Molineaux gave him a funny look. ‘You ever been into Tai-ping-shan, sir?’
‘Have you?’ countered Strachan.
‘No, sir. But from what I hear, it’s not all that different from a rookery. You ever been in a rookery?’
Strachan looked bewildered. ‘What, you mean like, where rooks live?’ Molineaux took a deep breath. Strachan might know all there was to know about scurvy and yellowjack – although sometimes Molineaux had his doubts – but when it came to the flash world Strachan was greener than an Irish pasture in spring. ‘Not rooks, sir. Crooks. The kind of places where the crushers daren’t go because they know what the locals will do to them.’
‘Oh! I see. Well, I can’t very well let you go into a place like that alone,’ Strachan said staunchly.
Molineaux was not convinced that Strachan would be more of a help than a hindrance, but he decided to say nothing. His main objection was that Strachan would stick out in a rookery anywhere in the world like a man wearing a sandwich board with the slogan: ‘prime plant’; but Molineaux had to acknowledge that he himself was not likely to pass unnoticed through the streets of a Chinese shantytown.
‘Stick close to me, sir. And try to look as though you’ve got every right to go where you’re going.’
‘Well, haven’t I?’
Molineaux sighed. ‘Yes, that’s right, sir. You just remember that.’
Tai-ping-shan was less than a mile down Queen’s Road, but it was a thousand leagues from the broad, elegant streets of Victoria. It was every bit as filthy and poverty-stricken as the back streets of Seven Dials parish in London, but while the tumbledown shacks were even more precarious than the ancient tenements of the slums back home, at least here one could see one’s hand in front of one’s face in a town where there were no factory chimneys to enhance the fog. An Oriental band played music somewhere in the distance, while Chinese voices jabbered excitedly inside a gaming den the two Britons passed. Children peered out of the gloom at them, eyes a thousand years old set in faces that were barely past puberty.
‘You wantchee suckee-fuckee?’ asked one girl who looked young enough to be Strachan’s daughter. ‘My givee good suckee-fuckee, only twenty cash!’
‘What’s suckee-fuckee?’ Strachan asked Molineaux.
‘It’s a local delicacy. Come on, sir, let’s keep moving. And for God’s sake keep your watch chain covered and one hand on your pocket book.’
It was too late: three shadows moved out of the gloom to block their path. Molineaux glanced instinctively over his shoulder and saw two more men behind him. He was glad he had brought his ‘persuader’ – a brass belaying pin – tucked up his sleeve.
‘You givee money!’ hissed one.
‘What’s the cause?’ asked Molineaux, allowing his persuader to slide down into his hand.
The first robber looked puzzled. ‘Cause?’
‘Sure. I can’t give away money unless it’s in a good cause.’
The robbers looked bewildered, and Molineaux took advantage of it to strike the first across the face with the belaying pin. Even as the first went down, he whirled and struck one of the men behind him across the cheek. The second man whirled with blood on his face, and the remaining two in front of them hesitated uncertainly.
Molineaux reached behind him, pulled his Bowie knife from its sheath and showed it to the ruffians. ‘You want some of this? Come on and get it, you sons of bitches!’
They shook their heads, still hesitating. The first man Molineaux had hit groaned, but made no attempt to get up.
Molineaux glanced sideways at Strachan. The assistant surgeon had adopted the traditional boxing stance, his guard high. Molineaux suppressed another sigh. ‘Come on, sir.’ He led the way forward, and Strachan followed him. One of the robbers tried to block t
heir path, but Molineaux brandished the Bowie knife and the robber melted aside. The two Britons hurried on down the street.
Thirty yards further on, Strachan glanced over his shoulder. ‘Are they coming after us?’ asked Molineaux. His heart was pounding in his chest.
‘Doesn’t look like it.’
‘Don’t worry. They will.’
As soon as they were around the next corner they both broke into a run. Molineaux took care to make sure Strachan did not get away from him; the assistant surgeon would not last five minutes on his own in Tai-ping-shan. Molineaux was not even convinced that he himself could last ten.
Around another corner they paused to catch their breath. ‘Oh-kay, I think we lost them.’
‘It’s a damnable disgrace!’ said Strachan. ‘Someone ought to call a constable.’
‘Whatever you say, sir.’ Molineaux looked around. There was no one in sight, but that did not reassure him. ‘This was a chuckle-headed idea. We’re wasting our time. If Mr Killigrew is around here – and if he ain’t already dead – we’re never going to find him.’
‘All right.’ Strachan hesitated. ‘Which way is back?’
Molineaux looked around him again. He was not sure.
‘Are we lost?’ asked Strachan.
‘Of course not. All we have to do is go downhill until we get to the shore, and then turn right and keep going.’
‘What’s that reek? I can’t quite place it…’
Molineaux recognised the odour, like rotting vegetables and yet somehow sickly sweet at the same time. ‘Opium, sir.’ He nodded to the door of a mat-shed. ‘Seems to be coming from in there. Must be an opium den. No point looking for Killigrew in there. Even he’s not that much of a booby…’
The two of them stared at one another.
‘I suppose it’s worth taking a look,’ said Strachan.
Molineaux nodded.
The interior of the mat-shed was a noisome, poky place, the scent of opium almost overpowering. A few paper lanterns which hung from overhead beams provided enough light for Molineaux to be able to make out the trestle tables arranged all around the walls. On some of them men reclined in a state of unconsciousness, so still they might have been dead. Perhaps they were.
Killigrew and the Golden Dragon Page 20