‘My go now. You wantchee bones or no?’
‘No… er… look, here’s a shilling for your trouble…’
‘Ahem!’ said Molineaux.
‘Half a crown, I mean.’
‘Ahem!’
‘All right, a crown.’ Strachan paid up and Mei-rong hurried up out of the boat and back up the side ladder. ‘I don’t mind you driving a hard bargain, Molineaux, but do you have to do it on behalf of others? At my expense?’
‘Have a heart, sir. I’ll bet she spent hours collecting all those bones.’
‘She probably just rifled through a rubbish heap outside a butcher’s shop.’
‘And how much would I have to pay you to get you to rifle through a rubbish heap outside a butcher’s shop, sir?’
‘When you put it like that…’
From the deck of the Tisiphone, Strachan could see what had excited so much interest amongst the bumboats: the Golden Dragon had rounded Belcher Point and was entering Victoria Harbour. She anchored a short distance away and the bumboats swarmed round her like beaux abandoning the prettiest belle at the ball when an even prettier one arrived. ‘Looks like Mr Killigrew’s back,’ said Molineaux, and grinned. ‘What do you think, sir? Reckon he’s got Zhai Jing-mu chained up in the hold?’
‘News of that hempie’s death will be more than sufficient for me,’ said Strachan. He gazed across at the steamer and had the unaccountable feeling that something was not right. Perhaps it was the sails and rigging: he did not know about such things to be able to say when they were not shipshape and Bristol-fashioned. Perhaps there was something else. If he had not been a scientific man, he might have said he was feeling fey.
The Golden Dragon lowered its jolly boat and the crew rowed it across to the Tisiphone. As it approached, Strachan saw Killigrew’s friend Captain Verran in the stern, but there was no sign of Killigrew himself, or of Dando, Firebrace, Gadsby, or O’Connor.
Molineaux had noticed that too. ‘Maybe he’s asleep in his cabin,’ he said dubiously. There was no need for him to say who ‘he’ was. ‘Tiring work, fighting pilongs all day long.’
‘Maybe,’ allowed Strachan.
By the time the Golden Dragon’s jolly boat bumped against the Tisiphone’s side, Robertson had come up on deck. ‘Permission to come on board, Commander?’ Verran, grim-faced, called up from the jolly boat. ‘Permission granted, Mr Verran. Where’s Killigrew?’
‘We need to talk, sir. In private.’ Verran climbed up the side ladder and went below with Robertson without another word.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Molineaux said with certainty.
Verran and Robertson were closeted in the commander’s day room for an hour, during which speculation ran rife on the decks of the Tisiphone. Voices were raised in the day room, but this time Robertson had made sure that the skylight was closed, in spite of the heat of the day, and it was impossible for anyone on deck to make out what was said. After a while, Robertson and Verran emerged on deck. ‘Prepare my gig, Bosun,’ ordered the commander. ‘We’re going across to the Hastings.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
While the gig was being lowered, Verran climbed down the side ladder to where his men waited in the Golden Dragon’s jolly boat and had a quiet word with the coxswain. The coxswain nodded, and as Verran climbed back on the Tisiphone’s deck the jolly boat rowed for the wharf. When the gig was lowered, Robertson and Verran descended the side ladder and were rowed across to the Hastings.
All this only intensified the speculation. ‘What the deuce is going on, do you think, Mr Strachan?’ asked Hartcliffe.
‘I don’t know, my lord. But I don’t like this one little bit. Why hasn’t Killigrew shown himself yet?’
‘Maybe he’s not on the Golden Dragon,’ said Molineaux. ‘Maybe he’s in trouble.’
‘Then why hasn’t the cap’n given orders for us to get under way?’ asked Ågård.
‘Maybe Tom Tidley’s dead,’ said Fanning.
‘Killigrew dead?’ scoffed Molineaux. ‘He’ll out-live us all, that one. What about the others? That’s what I want to know. Dando and O’Connor, and those two fat-heads Gadsby and Firebrace?’
Robertson and Verran had been on board the Hastings for nearly half an hour when Strachan saw one of the petty officers on deck call instructions down to the coxswain of the gig. It rowed back to the Tisiphone. ‘Captain Morgan presents his compliments and requests that Mr Strachan attend him on board the Hastings,’ the coxswain called up.
Strachan crossed to the entry port. ‘Me?’ he asked in astonishment. ‘What does he want with me?’
‘He didn’t say, sir, but if I’m any judge it wouldn’t do to keep him waiting.’
It did not do to keep Morgan waiting at the best of times, and Strachan had the feeling that this was not the best of times. He climbed down the side ladder and was rowed across to the Hastings, where a marine showed him below decks and knocked on the door of Morgan’s day room. ‘Mr Strachan to see you, sir.’
‘Then send him in at once!’ snapped Morgan.
The marine opened the door for Strachan and closed it behind him. Morgan, Robertson and Verran all sat around the table in the middle of the room, their faces bleak. The assistant surgeon was not invited to sit.
‘Mr Strachan, when Mr Killigrew was ill and you attended him at Mr Bannatyne’s home, what was it you said he was suffering from?’ asked Robertson. He checked some notes he had made at the time. ‘ “Temporomandibular amenorrhoea”?’
‘That was it, sir.’
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to revise that statement, Mr Strachan?’
‘May I ask what all this is about, sir?’
‘Answer the question, damn your eyes!’ snapped Morgan.
Robertson, maintaining a tight grip on himself, held up a hand for calm. ‘According to Captain Verran here, Mr Killigrew went insane and ordered his men to open fire on a fleet of fishing junks. When Verran and his crew tried to stop him, there was a scuffle in which Seamen Dando and O’Connor, and Landsmen Firebrace and Gadsby, were killed. Mr Killigrew then jumped overboard and swam ashore, where he evaded the attempts of Captain Verran and his men to recapture him.’
Stunned, Strachan stared at Verran. ‘I don’t believe it, sir.’
‘I’m afraid it’s true,’ said the merchant captain. ‘Any member of my crew will confirm it. As will the three men I have on board the Golden Dragon whom I pulled out of the water after their junk had been sunk. They were amongst the lucky ones. I think some of the junks got away; I expect we’ll be hearing from the Chinese authorities soon enough. They’ll confirm everything I’ve said.’
‘What’s your man Killigrew trying to do, Robertson?’ snarled Morgan. ‘Start another war with the Celestials?’
‘But why would he do such a thing?’
‘We thought you might be able to enlighten us on that score, Mr Strachan,’ said Robertson. ‘Perhaps he had not fully recovered from his bout of…’ he checked the log again, ‘…temporomandibular amenorrhoea.’ He said the term in a tone of voice which implied that at some point he had gone ashore, consulted a medical dictionary in a bookseller’s and discovered that amenorrhoea – temporomandibular or otherwise – was an ailment which troubled only the fair sex. ‘Perhaps it had affected his state of mind in some way?’
‘Mr Killigrew was as sane as you or I when he boarded the Golden Dragon, sir,’ Strachan said stoutly.
‘I’m afraid that’s not entirely true, sir.’
Strachan turned to see Blase Bannatyne enter behind him.
Everyone rose to their feet as the tai-pan doffed his top hat. ‘I came as soon as I heard, gentlemen. No, please, don’t stand.’
Morgan pulled out a chair for Bannatyne. ‘Please be seated, sir. Can I get you a drink?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘You were saying, Mr Bannatyne?’ Robertson demanded impatiently. ‘I’m afraid I’m partly to blame for this. You see, it was my idea to try to conceal the truth of Kill
igrew’s illness. Mr Strachan here wanted to report it to you, but I was the one who pointed out that by doing so he would be in danger of ruining Mr Killigrew’s career. Gentlemen, it grieves me to have to inform you that Lieutenant Killigrew had become an opium user.’ Morgan rounded on Strachan. ‘Well, sir? What do you have to say for yourself?’
Strachan knew when he was beaten. ‘All right, it’s true up to a point. He started smoking opium after Miss Dadabhoy was killed. But we’d weaned him off before he went aboard the Golden Dragon. I would never have permitted him to return to active duty if I hadn’t thought he was fit enough.’
‘I’m afraid he must have had a relapse, Dr Strachan,’ said Verran.
‘Mr Strachan, actually,’ the assistant surgeon corrected him tersely. Bannatyne regarded him in surprise. ‘Oh, so you’re not a fully qualified doctor, then?’ he said, as if this were the first he had heard of it.
Strachan blushed. ‘I’m a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries.’
‘But not an MD.’
‘Neither is Mr Westlake, my surgeon,’ pointed out Robertson. ‘Calm down, Mr Strachan. No one is calling your medical competence into question.’
‘To the contrary, Robertson,’ said Morgan. ‘I think Strachan’s medical competence is exactly the question here. He certified Killigrew as fit for duty when clearly the lieutenant was not.’
‘He had a relapse,’ said Verran. ‘It wasn’t until we’d gone to sea that I noticed he was swilling back the laudanum pretty heavily. I didn’t like to say anything. I suppose I should have realised; in some ways it was my fault…’
Strachan could not believe any of this. ‘Oh, but this is utter gammon! Opiates calm people down, they don’t overstimulate them. The behaviour which Mr Verran here has described is hardly symptomatic of a man taking laudanum.’
‘How about a man undergoing withdrawal symptoms after his laudanum ran out?’ suggested Verran. ‘He was fine for the first couple of days, but after that he grew increasingly irritable.’
‘Irritable perhaps,’ said Strachan. ‘I get irritable if I have too many cups of coffee in the morning. But I don’t go murdering dozens of innocent Chinese fishermen!’
‘But if he mistook them for pilongs,’ said Verran. ‘If he was thirsting for vengeance after the murder of the woman he loved…’
‘I always said that Killigrew’s buccaneering ways would lead him to a bad end,’ said Morgan. ‘I’m afraid none of this comes as a surprise to me. Knowing Killigrew, I think something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. Forgive me, Mr Bannatyne, but you cannot say I did not warn you.’ Bannatyne shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I know, Captain. You’re perfectly right, I fear. I should have listened to you.’
‘I think we should hear what Killigrew has to say for himself before we condemn him,’ Robertson said mildly.
‘If we see him again,’ said Morgan. ‘Oh, he’ll be given a chance to explain himself, all right. At his court martial. And as for this scoundrel,’ he indicated Strachan, ‘it’s my recommendation that you dismiss him at once. And I shall be writing a very strongly worded letter to the medical director-general regarding his conduct. As far as I can see there is nothing further to be said. Commander Robertson, Mr Strachan, you may consider yourselves dismissed.’
Robertson and Strachan took their leave and made their way up on deck. They were followed a moment later by Bannatyne and Verran.
The tai-pan gestured helplessly. ‘I cannot tell you how much I deeply regret all this, Commander Robertson. I blame myself…’
‘I’m sure you did what you thought was right, sir.’
Bannatyne and Verran climbed into the flory boat that had brought the tai-pan out from the quayside, as soon as they were heading out of earshot, Strachan turned to Robertson. ‘If you want my letter of resignation from the service, sir…’
‘…I shall ask for it,’ Robertson concluded for him gruffly, and gestured for him to follow him down to the gig. ‘What do you make of all that, Mr Strachan?’ he asked as they were being rowed back to the Tisiphone.
‘I don’t know, sir. It seems awful suspicious to me. But I do know one thing: Killigrew wouldn’t have attacked an innocent fishing fleet, not without good reason.’
‘I’m inclined to agree with you there. I must say, I’d feel a good deal happier if Dando or O’Connor were alive to confirm or deny these accusations. Deuced rum that all four of the sailors we put on board the Golden Dragon with Killigrew should have died in that scuffle. You’d think that Verran and his men would have been able to subdue at least one of them without killing the poor devil.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And another thing. You as good as accused Verran of lying.’
‘I did?’
‘Yes indeed, Mr Strachan. And a man like that would not normally allow his honour to be impugned. He’d’ve called you out.’
‘Perhaps he was frightened I might be a better pistol shot than he, sir?’ Strachan had never fired a pistol in his life, but Verran did not know that.
‘As the injured party he’d’ve had choice of weapons. He’d’ve chosen swords. And from what I’ve heard of Verran, he’s got nothing to fear from anyone in that field. No, Mr Strachan. Verran was lying. What I don’t understand is: why?’
‘I’ve a feeling only Killigrew will be able to tell us that, sir.’
‘Then we’d better hope that Morgan gets to him before the Celestials do. Because at least that way he’ll get a chance to defend himself.’
* * *
It took Killigrew the best part of a week to cross the south side of Hainan Island to Hoi-how, the main settlement of the island, on the north. From there he hoped to cross to the mainland and continue his journey overland, or better still to get passage on a ship to Hong Kong, nearly three hundred miles away.
Food was no problem. Killigrew always carried a couple of gold sovereigns on him in case of situations like this. Queen Victoria’s head might not be known in a humble tavern on the south side of Hainan – one of the few places where it was not – but gold was recognised everywhere. Unable to provide Killigrew with enough copper cash to cover the change for a bed for a night, a hot meal of fish stew and rice, and several cups of rice wine, the innkeeper had gone through the rigmarole of refusing to accept a bargain so profitable to himself, like a priest refusing a bishopric three times before accepting. Killigrew reckoned that he paid the equivalent of ten shillings for that warm but hard, louse-infected bed, but when he woke up his clothes had been dried over a smoky fire and he had enough copper cash in change to take him to Hoi-how. The next day he was offered a ride on an ox cart to the next village on the road, but climbed down and walked when he realised he would make better time on foot.
Wherever he went, the people were a little afraid of him. They had heard of barbarians, but he suspected that most had never seen one in these remote parts, and he was aware – not of stares, the Chinese thought it rude to stare – but of a distinct absence of stares, as everyone pointedly averted their gazes. But they were hospitable enough, and polite, and grateful when he paid them. When they saw that for all that he was a barbarian, he was still a human being like them, they were warm and friendly.
The journey reminded him how much he loved China. Nothing was ever too much trouble for the people. Most of the time they seemed to be able to anticipate everything he wanted, and when they could not provide it their apologies were excruciating. When he thought of the treatment a shipwrecked Chinese would have received in Europe, he cringed inwardly with shame for his own race, and he cringed even more when he thought of the ghastly war he had taken part in against these people, when he had been young enough to believe the nonsense he had been fed about the Chinese being an evil race with no sense of morality. The years had taught Killigrew that a different system of values was not necessarily a worse one; he only wished he could make other people see that.
He did not blame the ignorant people of Great Britain, who clamoured for war agai
nst the Chinese when they heard of the atrocities which had been committed against the China traders. They could only believe what they heard, and all that they heard was told to them by men who should have known better, but found it in their own interests to whip up such hatred against an alien race. Men like Sir George Grafton and Blase Bannatyne, who manipulated public opinion for their own ends.
Chinese hospitality came to an abrupt end when Killigrew reached Hoi-how, however. He could not blame the people, of course; they seemed to have enough problems of their own. Everyone was dressed in white – the funereal colour in China – and in the harbour he saw dozens of coffins being brought ashore. Some terrible disaster at sea, it seemed.
‘What happened?’ he asked one mourner, amidst the wailing and sobbing that was going on all around them.
The man merely turned, scowled, and spat in his face. ‘Barbarian devil! Go back to your own country!’
A Chinese constable, dressed in blue robes and a red cap, and armed with a rattan cane and a whip, stood nearby. He also scowled when he saw Killigrew, who bowed in the Chinese manner to mollify him. ‘Can you direct me to the yamen, please?’ The yamen was the centre of local administration, where Killigrew hoped to find a mandarin who would arrange to ship him back to Hong Kong in return for a generous promise of cumshaw.
‘The yamen?’ The constable looked Killigrew up and down. ‘I’ll escort you there myself.’
‘That is very kind of you, but it isn’t necessary—’
The constable ignored him and signalled for three of his colleagues to assist him by holding up a hand, palm-down, and beckoning with his fingers. From the grim looks on their faces, Killigrew had the feeling that a rejection of their assistance might create trouble, and that was the last thing he needed. ‘Since you insist…’
They escorted him to the imposing gate of the yamen where half a dozen guards were on duty. ‘A barbarian!’ exclaimed one of them. ‘Where did you find him?’
Killigrew and the Golden Dragon Page 29